New to the forum '83 400i | FerrariChat

New to the forum '83 400i

Discussion in '365 GT4 2+2/400/412' started by 180 Out, Feb 11, 2012.

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  1. 180 Out

    180 Out Formula 3

    Jan 4, 2012
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    Bill Henley
    #1 180 Out, Feb 11, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    I have gone and done it, and brought home a sad puppy of an '83 400i automatic. I didn't get a PPI but I spoke at length to Guy Tourigny of the Sports Car Shop in Monterey. The car was towed to him in inoperable condition late last year, and in the course of bringing it back to life he gave it a fairly extensive course of examination and treatment. His advice is that the car would be worth $20,000. My price was $15,000. It has a long list of needs. A project car, really. I hope we have a happy relationship.

    Here are some pix. The first one is the seller and the car at its former Stockton home. The second and third are the car at its new home. The fourth is Mike the BMW mechanic, who was kind enough to put the car on his 5-gas sniffer machine. The driver side checks good, but the passenger side has a bad overrich problem. The upper right number in the 5-gas readout is CO. It should be less than 1.0, but this car on the passenger side is locked in at 6.0. Mike leaned the CIS all the way out and it made no difference. So this is the first order of business. I'm thinking to take it back to Guy in Monterey, because his learning curve would be the least steep. Does anyone have any alternative recommendations in the SF Bay Area?
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  2. anxpert

    anxpert Formula Junior

    Mar 4, 2008
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    Oceanside, CA
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    Enrique Mar
    #2 anxpert, Feb 12, 2012
    Congrats, we shall share in the 400i experience !
     
  3. samsaprunoff

    samsaprunoff F1 Rookie
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    Sam Saprunoff
    #3 samsaprunoff, Feb 12, 2012
    Good day Bill,

    Congratulations on your car! It certainly looks very clean and tidy!

    Enjoy your wonderful car in excellent health!

    Cheers,

    Sam
     
  4. full_garage

    full_garage Formula 3
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    Feb 15, 2010
    2,241
    Sarasota Florida
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    Jay
    #4 full_garage, Feb 12, 2012
    Congrats and thanks for saving this nice example.

    More than likely one or both fuel distributors need to be rebuilt- Not horribly expensive- search this thread for my posts about reuilding mine- I believe I put links to the place that does them. remarkable difference in power once the fuel injection is right back to factory spec.
     
  5. blkprlz

    blkprlz Formula 3

    Mar 24, 2007
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    Bruce
    #5 blkprlz, Feb 12, 2012
    Here's a guy who rebuilds K-Jet metering devices & has posted here before...

    Larry Fletcher
    CIS Flow Tech Llc.
    251-929-3771

    Here's where I recently saw some already rebuilt...
    http://www.trutlands.com/product_info.php?products_id=17119

    The CO range on these are typically between 1%-2% (factory), I'd only recommend to lean out below 1% to pass smog...then get her back up to w/in range. @ 6%, I bet those plugs are pitch black. I would also think that the right side tail lights would be full of soot.
     
  6. ArtS

    ArtS F1 Veteran
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    #6 ArtS, Feb 12, 2012
    Congratulations! I look forward to hearing your impressions once you have it sorted!

    Best wishes!

    Art S.
     
  7. 180 Out

    180 Out Formula 3

    Jan 4, 2012
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    Bill Henley
    #7 180 Out, Feb 12, 2012
    I pulled all six plugs on the passenger side and the insulators were white as snow. These plugs were installed by Guy in Monterey, on or before December 10. So they have several hundred miles on them, including from my trip from Stockton to Albany (about 80 minutes, all freeway). Although the insulators were white, the ground electrodes had black deposits at the base. My theory is that Mike the BMW mechanic actually did lean out the mixture, even if his 5-gas analyzer did not measure a reduced CO, and that it had been running rich before, which accounts for the black deposits. I have ordered a 3 mm adjustment tool, to tinker with the mixture control and see if I can get the insulators to read a proper color.
     
  8. ArtS

    ArtS F1 Veteran
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    #8 ArtS, Feb 12, 2012
    Bill,

    How smoothly is it running? What is the temperature range of the plugs? Also, are the ceramics clean or do the have a white ash on them that makes them look clean?

    Regards,

    Art S.
     
  9. Stefano1

    Stefano1 Karting

    Dec 28, 2008
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    Stefano Bini
    #9 Stefano1, Feb 13, 2012
    Try Sal Garcia at Waterfront Automobili.
    He knows 400is inside out and even owned one at one point.
    He has been working on mine and he is an excellent diagnostician.
     
  10. 180 Out

    180 Out Formula 3

    Jan 4, 2012
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    Bill Henley
    #10 180 Out, Feb 13, 2012
    Hi Art. Not running smoothly at idle. Low speed cruise seems OK. But I went on the freeway yesterday for the first time since Mike the BMW mechanic tweaked the CO mixture screw and I got some scary misses under moderate top gear acceleration. This did not happen on my trip from Stockton to Albany.

    The plug insulators are clean and white, not ashy. I can't tell you the heat range. I can pull a plug and find out, but not until late today.

    I am thinking about installing a fuel-air monitoring system. I should probably start a new thread, but I wonder if anyone done this?
     
  11. 180 Out

    180 Out Formula 3

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    #11 180 Out, Feb 13, 2012
    The plugs are Champion BP6ES.

    About the lambda sensor and onboard monitoring idea, I decided first to try to adjust my CO screw with the Colortune method described in this post. The best bang for buck I found, in a quickie search for a proper sensor and gauge system, was the Zeitronix Zt-3 Wideband System + ZR-1 AFR/Lambda gauge for $269. But you'd need two of these kits for the 400i-412's, thanks to the apartheid setup used in their injection systems. The $76 price, delivered, of the Colortune has me going in that direction, just to see what happens.

    You know, the more I read about how K-Jetronic works, the more I am reminded of the description of the Hallibrand mechanical FI so common on '60's era racecars, as a controlled leak.
     
  12. blkprlz

    blkprlz Formula 3

    Mar 24, 2007
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    #12 blkprlz, Feb 14, 2012
  13. 180 Out

    180 Out Formula 3

    Jan 4, 2012
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    Bill Henley
    #13 180 Out, Feb 14, 2012
    Hi blkprz. It turns out the plugs in my car are NGK, not Champion. According to this NGK part number decoding chart, BP6ES translates as 14 mm thread diameter, projected insulator, heat range 6 on a scale of 2 (hottest) to 11 (coldest), 19 mm (3/4") reach, and standard 2.5 mm center electrode.

    What I get from your link is that shipping for the Colortune would be $6, making a total of $66 delivered. $10 less than my price.
     
  14. blkprlz

    blkprlz Formula 3

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    #14 blkprlz, Feb 14, 2012
    Good deal!


    I switched my Champs out for NGK Iridium IX's but at a cooler range--BR8EIX, the Champs were a little on the white side...thought I'd cool things down a bit. Bruce
     
  15. ArtS

    ArtS F1 Veteran
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    Nov 11, 2003
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    #15 ArtS, Feb 14, 2012
    Bill,

    I don't know the rest of the emissions numbers, but I have a gut feeling that one bank may be much too lean. If the combustion is lean enough, your combustion will become unstable and may not completely burn, causing a counterintuitive rise in CO.

    Regards,

    Art S.

    PS. This is just my initial gut feeling.
     
  16. 180 Out

    180 Out Formula 3

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    #16 180 Out, Feb 14, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    Art, that theory certainly fits the known facts: six snow white plugs, no visible black carbon deposits at the exhaust tip or rear panel of the car, and that scary high speed miss under acceleration. The mystery is the lack of any response to the adjustments to the CO screw on the K-Jet.

    Here is a closeup, my camera at full zoom, of BMW Mike's 5-gas readout with the sniffer in the passenger side tailpipe:
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  17. Ashman

    Ashman Three Time F1 World Champ
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    #17 Ashman, Feb 14, 2012
    In my experience, NGK plugs are the best for these engines, and the BP6ES is pretty much the standard plug for normal driving.

    You might want to move one plug colder to a BP7ES if you spend a lot of time at 100MPH plus! :D
     
  18. vespasian

    vespasian Karting

    Nov 28, 2011
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    Germany
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    Alex
    #18 vespasian, Feb 15, 2012
    The BP7ES are also recommended by Eurospares.com as successor to the originally fitted Champion N6Y / N7Y, so going cooler here might help.

    Just bought the colortune because of this discussion, thanks. Didn't know the product 'til now.
    By the way, for european followers of the discussion, price was at € 32.50 = $ 43 at http://www.korrosionsschutz-depot.de/shop_xtc/product_info.php?info=p789_Colortune-Testzuendkerze.html (not associated with them in any way!)
     
  19. ArtS

    ArtS F1 Veteran
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    #19 ArtS, Feb 15, 2012
    Bill,

    Something is odd, the lambda (stoichiometry) reading doesn't make sense considering how much O^2 is in the exhaust. Are you sure his analyzer is properly calibrated? Maybe I'm missing something, what are the units for each gas %, PPM or something else?

    Also, what is the CO screw? Is it like a mixture screw or is it something else?

    Regards,

    Art S.
     
  20. ArtS

    ArtS F1 Veteran
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    #20 ArtS, Feb 15, 2012
    John,

    I don't think we are dealing with a plug temp problem at the moment. Plug temp would cause loss of ignition timing control at high load if the plug was too hot (the electrodes would become hot enough to ignite the charge without a spark) or plug fouling at low/moderate load if the plug was too cold. I think something more significant is going on which should be sorted before plug temps are played with (just my opinion of course).

    Regards,

    Art S.
     
  21. 180 Out

    180 Out Formula 3

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    Bill Henley
    #21 180 Out, Feb 15, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    Hi Art. I believe BMW Mike's 5-gas is an Infrared Industries FGA4000XDS. According to pages 28 and 29 of its instruction manual, the HC readout is ppm and CO, CO2 and O2 are percentages.

    The manual also says that lambda of 1.05 equals a 15:1 air-fuel ratio. Slightly rich for idle, but not off the charts.

    Was Mike's machine calibrated? I don't know, but he seemed to know what he was doing and the shop appears very clean, organized and prosperous. You can do a lot of harm to some expensive turbo BMW and blown M-B engines with a minor tuning mistake. So I expect that the setup on Mike's 5-gas is OK.

    My reference to the CO screw is to the 3 mm mixture control screw next to the fuel distributor. Here are some images. In the photo it's called CO adjustment screw. In the line drawing it's called the Idle mixture adjustment screw:
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  22. ME308

    ME308 Formula 3

    Nov 5, 2003
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    #22 ME308, Feb 15, 2012

    insufficient combustion (and too rich, at least at idle):

    HC = way too high
    CO= too high
    CO2= way too low
    O2= way too high
    NOx= way too high

    what`s happening with the data when you rev up to 3000rpm at operation temp ?


    check complete ignition system (plugs, plug extenders, wires, coils, ECUs, TDC-sensors)
    do a compression test (couple cylinders not running?)
    check valve timing


    the mixture screw is covered by a cap...the screw itself is 5 inches deep into the fd head
    with a (iirc) 3 or 6mm allen key it should definately be adjustable...cw rich...ccw lean...the screw is pretty sensitive
     
  23. blkprlz

    blkprlz Formula 3

    Mar 24, 2007
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    #23 blkprlz, Feb 15, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    I went a step cooler because the last thing I want to do is install holes through the tops of my pistons, + I like spending a lot of time @ 130+. :D
    I've had mine in for a few years, I'll pull them when I try the colortune next month & check color.

    I like the cut away views of the fuel dist., I'll have to snag those for my files.
    Like Bill & Micheal said, its the tube (left side of the pass. side dist. shown below) w/cap on it up against the intake conveyor.


    And as Mr. Stacey has recommended before...adjust it a little on the rich side, then back it off to bring it w/in tolerance. I have also found this to be the most accurate way.
    I'm thinking that the colortune approach is a great way to get it close, then bring her home via CO measurements.

    I've heard about them before but this is the 1st time I've seen the colortune in action.
    [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEZ0-uN0NA4[/ame]
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  24. 180 Out

    180 Out Formula 3

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    #24 180 Out, Feb 15, 2012
    The nitrous guys like to examine their spark plugs with a 10x magnifying glass, to check for tiny flecks of aluminum. It is said that pre-ignition can damage your pistons at levels too subtle for you to hear the characteristic rattling sound. (When exposed to the heat of combustion, NO2 gives up its oxygen molecules and, unless the fuel supply is keeping up, piston meltdown can happen in a single quarter mile run.) Those who are curious about the health of their pistons can check for these tiny flecks of aluminum under magnification. You might be surprised.
     
  25. ArtS

    ArtS F1 Veteran
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    #25 ArtS, Feb 15, 2012
    Bill,

    I don't think you said whether NOx was in percentage or ppm. I will be very surprised if it isn't in ppm. If so, you are running in a condition where the fuel is barely burning:

    NOx: 15 ppm - basicly nothing NOx forms from the air being heated and kept at temperature - no NOx = very cold comustion event = either very rich or very lean.

    High percentage of O^2 = lots of excess oxygen (lean + poor combustion)

    High HC + CO = incomplete combustion - there is O^2 available but its still not burning and the reaction is stopping before it is complete. If it was very rich, I would expect the HC to be much higher, less O^2 and more CO.

    On the other hand, dry white plugs suggests high heat as far as I recall.

    And the lambda still makes no sense...

    By the way, are cats on the car?

    I think I've been working too long - my brain hurts much to figure out the fun stuff... :D ;)

    Good night all,

    Art S.
     
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