More powerful DeLoreans

[Rottbott]

Carrying on the discussion from the other thread since it was way off topic. Dan if this is in the wrong section feel free to move it.

Daniel Shane Wrote:Oh Dear,

Marc Levi's car has a Nissan Engine the last time I drove it.

The Renault Vel Satis has a Nissan-sourced 24-valve, 3.5-liter V6 VQ35DE Engine. Marc is using a Nissan Maxima VQ35DE. It has fixed cam timing not the Variable Valve Timing system used in the 350Z. So it's not a Renault engine, thank god :wink:

I have driven this car afar few times so I do know what it's like to drive. It's well balanced in the dry but in the wet it's a handful. You have to pull off in second otherwise i spins up the rear :D

There are loads of cars that you can get for under £7000 that are going to be fast and fun. If you want to stay with PRV's then the Renault Alpine GTA Turbo can be had for as little as £3k. A BMW M5 E39 for £7k. A Porsche 948 is around £5k. A Nissian Skyline for £6k. This was just a quick look around on Ebay. All of these cars are properly quick, Comfortable and easy to Obtain parts for and loads of owners that can help you out with problems and advice.

There is no hybrid/custom/one-off parts used apart from the Alpine that has some ridiculously priced and hard to get hold of headlights :D , but then thats Renault for you. So 2,3 or 10 years down the line you can still get the bits you need and someone to work on it.

And you dont need a MCSE or a PHD to get them to go. You wont need to constantly muck around with fuel mappings, knock readings etc as the manufacture has spent Millions on getting it right for you rather than leaving it down to you to randomly punching numbers into a laptop hoping that you will find something that will make the car go rather than go bang !

Again this is all IMHO.

Dan

P.S. Claire, dont worry dear this is my last word on this in the area, I promise. If the discussion wants to carry on I'll move it to the correct area of the Forum :D

I'm very happy with the speed, comfort and everything about my car in its new form. I'd rather have a single car with everything than one DeLorean and one seperate fast car!

Doubt I'm in any danger of spinning the wheels from a standing start, even in the wet. The turbo doesn't spool up fully until about 2500-3000 rpm which makes it nice and progressive. It never feels twitchy or anything. This engine really does suit the car perfectly.

I actually really enjoy mucking around with fuel maps and knock readings, but that's a personal preference. I expect if Martin puts together any more of these he'll be putting my map on it so it will work very nicely 'out of the box'.

Next meet I get to I'll be happy to take anyone who is curious out in the car to see what it's really like.

[Rottbott]

Daniel Shane Wrote:Yes Im sure the Chassis can take more power. The rest of the drivetrain is not up to it. The front Lower wishbone on the Delorean is very prone to movement as it's not triangulated enough. Lotus saw this and on the S3 Esprit boxed in the Lower wishbone and Triangulated it to the chassis.

I missed this - what would be the actual effect on the car of this happening? Is there any way to improve things (adjusting ride height maybe) to make the best of the DeLorean suspension setup?

[Daniel Shane]

Rob,

I have moved this to the correct section.

Im glad that your happy with your car. It's the main thing about owning anything.

I understand that your a computer programer and enjoy programming your ecu. But what if joe bloggs pays £7k for an engine ? They just want it to go.

Not everyone wants to play about with ECU settings that can damage an engine ? Are you, the customer, doing the R&D and mapping so someone else can make money off of it ? Also what warranty is being offered on this upgrade and are details givin about the engine parts used so that in years to come you can still get the parts when Delorean.co.uk has gone ?

Anyway enough of my questioning.

If you watch BTTF when Marty brakes outside the lions estate you can see the front right wheel trying to dive in under the car. This is because the lower wishbone is moving and almost folding under the car.




This is an esprit front lower wishbone. Yes It's rusty to hell just like a deloreans . As you can see it's all boxed in and has an extra arm that goes to a mounting point on the chassis to triangulate it. Unless you want to add a mounting point and then make custom lower wishbones there is not much that can be done.

I did see a prototype mod made that adds extra arms to the existing wishbone via mounting holes that are already in it. The mastermind behind these are Ed Uding.

Dan

[Rottbott]

Anyone else buying it will have the benefit of starting off from my sorted map and it will indeed 'just go'.

When I collected mine it was running, but we went out and I drove about 100 miles while Martin sorted out a decent ignition map and let the ECU map its own fuel. After that it was already 95% of the way to being perfected. Since then I've improved the map, which I'm happy to share with Martin since he lent me the lambda sensor and knock sensor to do it with.

There's actually not too much you can do to damage the engine by fiddling - probably all you could do would be let it massively overboost (no way you'd do that by accident - there are multiple mechanical and electronic safeguards), or advance it as far as the distributor will let it go and then ignore the knocking.

I've done about 2000 miles on this engine and it still runs as well as it did (or better) when I first got it. Martin will fix anything which goes wrong with his work. I know him well enough that I have no worries about that. Actually he generally even fixes unrelated things for me when I take my car down there.


Anyway, back to suspension. I'm sure I saw a while ago some new front control arms of a different design, I didn't think they were Ed's though. It was a whole new piece rather than bolt on parts. If anyone has tried improved arms and thinks they're worth it I'd like to know, mine are pretty rusty anyway (you know how it is) and could do with replacing.

It may be this one: http://deloreannewparts.com/store/page12.html

[Daniel Shane]

Rottbott Wrote:There's actually not too much you can do to damage the engine by fiddling - probably all you could do would be let it massively overboost (no way you'd do that by accident - there are multiple mechanical and electronic safeguards), or advance it as far as the distributor will let it go and then ignore the knocking.

Rob,

If you run too lean, either by timing or incorrect fueling, then you can burn a massive big hole in the top of the piston. Not fun as it's a total strip down and rebuild

With the Adaptronic ECU you can play with EVERY setting, dont forget I had one on mine so I know what can go wrong with it, it's easy to mistakenly adjust the wrong thing or put the ECU into the wrong mode and for the ECU itself to wipe it's own map settings and leave you on the side of the M25 looking like a pratt, ask Martin about that, in the end it needed a AA truck to get it back :wink:

Anyway the new wishbones look good. Just wanna know how much they move as it's still only the ARB holding it in place

Dan

[Dan6457]

I have a photo that was taken of me driving across a field at a car show, it must have been taken as the front was just going into a dip and it really shows up how the suspension arm moves back! I'll dig it out later. This movement is also what causes an occasional clunk from the front springs when reversing the car I imagine. New poly arb bushes should stiffen things up though.

[NickT]

Best thing I did on mine was to change the lower arm and front anti roll bar bushes to silicon from DeLorean Parts North West. It is the anti roll bar bushes that take the brunt when braking as the lower arm is forced rearwards.

NickT

[Dan6457]

I'm doing those bushes on mine over the winter. I was going to do the wishbone bushes in polyurethene too. I can't find polly bushes for the upper wishbones though, are they not available?

[Rottbott]

NickT Wrote:Best thing I did on mine was to change the lower arm and front anti roll bar bushes to silicon from DeLorean Parts North West. It is the anti roll bar bushes that take the brunt when braking as the lower arm is forced rearwards.

NickT

I have that same kit and it did make a huge difference. The front end feels much more solid.

I think you can get poly bushes for the upper arms from Ed?

[Daniel Shane]

Dan have you tried Powerflex ? I though hey did a complete Delorean kit ?

[Dan6457]

Do they? I can't see it on their website. I just checked Ed's site too, he does everything exept the front upper wishbones as far as I can see.

[Guinney1971]

This is really interesting reading about the front end *big thumbs up Dan
for explaining it all so well and so clearly*

When I eventually get around to sorting Flopsy out, this is one item I will
be paying attention to.

PJ Grady did a great job on sorting the car out mechanically when they
had it as well as making the car look amazing, and that 'clanging' noise
I used to have when turning the wheels has totally gone

[Dan6457]

Did they fix the clanging by fitting the new ARB bushes?

[Bandit]

On my re-build I used the ARB Bushes Nick mentions & also the bottom arm ones from Ed. Its difficult to pin it down to any particular item on mine, cos' I renewed virtually every part, but as already stated, the car drives much better & feels more responsive & 'tight'.

[Chris Williams]

Dan1986 Wrote:Did they fix the clanging by fitting the new ARB bushes?

I did put new lower arm Poly Bushes Supaflex (part No; is SPF2019) and DPNW anti roll bar bush kit on over the winter (amongst lots of other things) and it has made a big difference to the handling. I could not find poly bushes for the upper arms though. The above part number also does the rear suspension arms as well. Hope this helps.
Chris