Cam Sensor

[Badbugtwo]

Well, just to be different, this weekend I decided to install a GM cam sensor in my engine case and use an 8mm pin to trigger it off of the cam gear. Here is a link to a page I just made on my site this morning...

http://www.badbugracing.com/cam_sensor.htm

Here are a few pictures off of that page....







I spent a few hours on Rocky's mill!

Also, here is a link to the whole project....

http://www.badbugracing.com/pantera_efi.htm

[Steve Arndt]

Looking good Jeff!

Did you try any testing of sequential/direct fire before pulling it down for the cam sensor?
I have with the 882C I have, just for testing. 10 out of 10 times it fired up on the "right" phase. I normally run wasted spark firing a pair of coil drivers at once. To test direct fire w/ the 2C I just unchecked the extra check mark boxes to set to direct vs waste spark. I can't feel or detect a difference in how the engine behaves. I haven't played with the start of injection event settings, or individual cylinder tuning. The differences should be more apparent then. I did include the wiring for the cam sensor in the harness I built, but for now I have them tucked out of the way.

Steve

[Badbugtwo]

Looking good Jeff!

Thanks!

Did you try any testing of sequential/direct fire before pulling it down for the cam sensor?

No I didn't.

I am looking forward to re-assembling the engine, hopefully in a couple of weeks and then I will see how it does.

[Steve Arndt]

The 2C has the ability to detect individual cylinder acceleration and knows during cranking and initial firing if it is on compression or exhaust phase. Like I said, I have had 100% success with direct fire and sequential without a sensor.

Lance mentioned that that it will run a bit rough if the injection is 180 out. However, it will NOT run with the ignition 180 out. I thought it was pretty awesome to observe the system detecting and functioning perfectly without a cam sensor. I suspect that as the number of cylinders gos up, that the correct detection becomes more difficult.

I am on the fence if it is worth it for me to add the sensor since I don't seem to "need" it.

[Badbugtwo]

Engine is finally reassembled! Here is a couple of recent shots of the sensor (I updated this page of the entire process)...



Hopefully I will get the sensor wired up this week and on the dyno for some re-tuning by this weekend!

On another related note, after much debate and research, I decided that we should balance the cam gear. Rather than make a fixture for it, we balanced the gear on the cam, so that effectively the gear also helps to compensate for the lobes that tend to be more predominate on one side than the other. The "balancing bolts" don't extend far enough on the other side to cause a false trigger.

I also created this page of the engine reassembly process.

Hopefully I can get it on the track for our opening day in three weeks.

[Steve Arndt]

Nice looking progress. Your cylinder heads are impressive. You mentioned switching to new heads. Are you going to go with CB's new big castings?

I like your idea of using a rubber band to hold the two upper facing rods as you lower the case half down. Helps with needing three hands at once!

Steve

[Badbugtwo]

Nice looking progress. Your cylinder heads are impressive. You mentioned switching to new heads. Are you going to go with CB's new big castings?

Thanks! I would like to, however, I am just going to build a fresh set of heads out of the same basic castings.... Rocky has several raw castings from years ago. Basically I am going to go with the same size intake, but a larger exhaust. If/when I run more nitrous, I can't expect the engine to eat like an elephant and poop like a bird! So, I will improve the entire exhaust side, including cam profile.

I like your idea of using a rubber band to hold the two upper facing rods as you lower the case half down. Helps with needing three hands at once!

Steve

Thanks, I learned that one from Rocky years ago!