This blog has now moved to it's own site: www.arkauto.co.uk

.... and now includes my other projects since the Zero

The Final Chapter

Recently I've been thinking about a new project.It's been over three years now since the Zero was finished, and whilst I have had so much fun diving her, it is time for something new.


I advertised in Autotrader 1 week ago - over 1000 views and numerous buyers. The luck chap was Peter from Norfolk who drove up with the cash on Sunday and drove back with by Zero.

So sad to see her go

Now what's next.......

Winter Maintenance

With the forthcoming Scotland trip all booked up, thoughts turn to preparation and getting the car ready. Nothing major – more like tinkering really.

  Front brakes – replace pads with softer compound for more effective braking 

  Mintex MDB1175M1144 

Quite straight forward job (even with a garage temperature of 3 degrees). The old pads and the discs themselves were hardly touched after 7000 miles – can’t be driving hard enough. The pistons needed a little bit of cleaning before greasing up and re-assembling. Job done and much improved.

  Steering Wheel

I replaced my 280mm wheel last year with a 330mm deep dish and added a quick release. This purposefully moved the driving position back so I could push the seat back for a better driving position. I think I overdid it with the deep disk plus the depth of the quick release. Swapped the deep dish with the old flat wheel today – much better. Will keep an eye out of a flat 300mm wheel

  Cables -  Identify and procure spare clutch cable and accelerator cable

Kitspares £30 – throttle cable RHD Plenum

Kitspares £21 – Clutch cable RHD

  Cold starting

Two turns clockwise on the idle stop screw – done. Far too much - warm idle now 2000rpm. Wound it back to initial position and added a very slight adjustment for warm idle at c1000rpm.

  Air Filter - Change the air filter on the plenum

Was 85mm Neck Cone filter Piper Cross (KitSpares £38) – going to try K&N RC-8040.

K&N fitted without issue. Engine breathing fine and I think also improved cold starting.

Tyres - Swap around the tyres to even out tyre wear

  Fuel Filter - Replace the fuel filter and check the fuel hoses

Tried the Syntec SSF2070 fuel filter. It's s higher capacity flow that the Kitspares original but is physically bigger (60mm diameter and 80mm length). There is plenty of space back there and the mounting is easily modified via the use of a tyewrap - Done

Fuel hoses in the engine bay show signs of cracking on the outer casing. Those not exposed to the heat of the engine bay i.e. those connecting the LP pump and fuel filter at the rear, look fine.

Replace the engine bay 8mm fuel hoses with SAE J30R9 rated hoses

·         High Pressure pump to fuel rail – 680mm

·         Fuel rail to swirl pot – 880mm

·         Fuel feed to swirl pot – 370mm

So roughly 2m of hose - Done.

  Crank Breather - Replace the crank breather filter and check the overflow

This filter is often choked with oil and there is signs of oil escaping through the filter onto the block. Will try 15mm pipe in place of the 8mm perhaps that will allow better breathing.

·         Crank to catch tank – 320mm

·         Catch tank to filter – 150mm

So roughly 0.5m of 15mm

  Nose cone

A few things annoy me about the nose cone (other than being palmed off with old stock - but that's a different story):

a)      The badge position – too far forward where there is a clear position for the badge (in the sunlight)

b)      Nose cone not straight against the bonnet - move the cone up and back. It now sits straight against the bonnet front lip, although the lip now protrudes upwards slightly. I'll try some subtle bending of the bonnet.

c)      The stock indicators - I would prefer a smaller format LED, but that will need a new flasher relay fitted also. I will wait until show season and pick some indicators from one of the trade stands.

RhoCar Scotland 2015

Finally got around to finishing the video footage from the trip

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Day Four

Torque App interface to Emerald - Part 2

Finally got around to finishing off this project after the ECU firmware upgrade when I visited Emerald a while ago.

I have hidden the small loom and bluetooth ODBII interface under the dash and simply mounted the Kindle on the dash with a couple of small peices of velco so it can be easily removed and replaced.
I now have an in-car entertainment system, navigation and engine management system on the dash.

New Emerald ECU mapping

In my previous post I wrote about my recent project to build a bluetooth interface between the Torque app and the Emerald ECU. I almost succeeded but needed the firmware on the Emerald ECU upgrading. This requires the ECU to be physically at the Emerald premises in Watton just outside Norwich. As I didn't want to trust my ECU to the postman I decided to drive across and whilst there to utilise their rolling road service to properly may the engine.

Here's a short clip of the process:

Each load cell on the map is visited and the optimum parameters are selected depending on the map you want. With a catalyst and a plenum fitted I didn't have as many options as a non catalyst engine with throttle bodies, but I decided on:

• Map 1 - Road and track
• Map 2 - MOT - low emissions (not for driving on)
• Map 3 - Immobiliser

Fairly self explanatory apart from Map 3. When set to Map 3 the car will just about start but will stall the moment you touch the pedal. A simple but effective way of immobilising the car in addition to the standard Ford key. There were other appealing/novelty options like "pop & bang" but this was my selection.

The trip was c165 miles each way so I had chance to test the car on the way home - what a difference!! Far more responsive. Much much smoother to drive. Motorway cruising at anywhere between 45 and 85 can now be done in 5th. It drinks much less fuel by at least 20%.

By the way the power run gave a reading of exactly 160 BHP at the flywheel. Not bad for a standard Ford engine with a simple plenum.

I must admit to having my fingers firmly crossed during the session. The car gets quite a hammering especially at high revs under full load. Cooling system and oil pressure both fine afterwards, but there was a trace of a slightly slippy clutch when everything got really hot. Nothing noticed on the way home though.

Torque App Interface to Emerald ECU

The idea here is to use a Kindle Fire HDX as a central hub for car information and mount it on the dashboard. Google maps for sat-nav, music via headphones, GoPro app for the camera and engine/vehicle information via the Torque Pro app. All of these apps are available now on the Kindle Fire, loaded and ready to go. Only the real-time engine data required for the Torque Pro app is missing.

According to the information on the Emerald web site the K6 ECU uses the following version of the CAN bus protocol: CAN v2.0b – 29-bit ID , Extended frame, 20Hz (up to 1 Mbit/sec). 21 elements of vehicle data are broadcast each second in the format defined by this protocol via the serial comms port on the K6. For the avoidance of doubt this is the same comms port that is normally used to upload the vehicle maps.

According to the various web sites for ELM 327 (and its clones) this ODB II interface should

also supports this protocol, and should interface with the Torque Pro app via Bluetooth, on my phone and android tablet. Sounds simple and also inexpensive as none of the elements required are more than a tenner.

Firstly the ELM 327 – Bluetooth version off E-bay for £5. Plugged it into my Audi and it connected straight away and pumped out vehicle data in the Torque Pro app for display. Simple 10 minute job. The Torque Pro Apps automatically tries all of the protocols it understands one after another until it gets a sensible response. It didn’t take more than a few seconds to latch on the one Audi is using. 

So how to get the data from the K6 into the Torque Pro App? RS232 would have been my first choice but Emeralds comms port is not a standard RS232 implementation so there no easy solution there that doesn’t involve wires and a soldering iron. As I now know the ELK 327 works from my Audi test my idea is to build a bespoke cable that plugs into the 9 pin Dsub of the K6 ECU comms port and the other end allows the ELM 327 to be plugged in.

I came up with the following:

ECU Dsub 9 pin number		ECU Desc	Wire Colour	ODB Desc	ODB II 16 pin number
1	CAN_H **	CAN bus interface1	Purple	CAN H	6
2	CAN_L **	CAN bus interface1	White	CAN L	14
3	-	Not used
4	-	Not used
5	earth	Signal earth	Light blue & yellow	Ground	4 & 5
6	-	Not used
7	Rx	RS232 serial interface, data receive	Black white	TxRx	7
8	Tx	RS232 serial interface, data transmit	Black	TxRx	15
9	CTS	RS232 serial interface, clear to send	Red white		8

** 120 ohm resistor between these pins. The CAN bus must be terminated with 120 Ohm resistors. The ECU’s CAN interface includes a 120 Ohm internal termination resistor.

Once the circuit was drawn up, putting the cable together didn’t take too long. I also added a power and ground connector to connect to the car as the K6 doesn’t supply these on it’s comms port.

Here’s the whole thing ready to go. Notice the deliberate mistake? I purchased a female 9 pin Dsub instead of a male. Rather than unsoldering and replacing I chose to spend £1.99 of a female to male converter which you can see sticking on the end.

Here it is in situ under the dash.

So I turned it on. 

The ELM 327 powered up and connected via Bluetooth to the Torque App as it did with the Audi. The Torque App then tried scanning the protocols it understood one at a time. Each time it tried another protocol I watched the status LEDs on the ELM 327 flash as it broadcast data to the ECU and received stuff back. But that’s as far as I could get. The Torque App obviously didn’t understand the information it was being sent if indeed it was being sent anything at all, because it continued to cycle through the protocols and not lock onto one.

Here’s a short video showing what happened.

I went back to the ECU manual and decided to change the CAN protocol to “AIM Dashboard” by updating the “ECU Configuration”. Big mistake. The engine would idle but wouldn’t rev – at all – without stalling. Panic. I had read the ECU maps first of all before uploading the “ECU Configuration” and this was the only parameter I changed. So, reverse the change and upload another “ECU Configuration”. Exactly the same. What the hell is going on. What did we do before Google. Found a manual on the Emerald web site dedicated to “ECU Configuration”. I hadn’t looked at it previously. I hadn’t needed to. But I learned that there 2 configuration files that define the set up of the K6. A *.map file that I recognise as the file that stores the 3 maps. Then there is also a *.k03 file that has the “ECU Configuration” settings. Found my old .k03 file and uploaded it. Fingers crossed. Yes that was the problem. Somehow I had lost the EC Configuration setting on the laptop and uploaded some generic parameters when I first pressed “ECU Configuration” upload. That was lucky. Could have done some very serious engine damage doing that.

That’s where I finished for the day – car back working again but the Torque App still not doing what it should. I will talk to Emerald.

21st Feb Update
Spoke to Emerald - the firmware in my ECU needs updating in order to start seeing CAN bus messages. It's a free upgrade but at the factory. Will try to find a suitable day to go across to Norwich for the upgrade and a rolling road session.