IVA Day!

timbo · #1 17th July 2009, 16:10

Hi all
Not ideal weather for IVA but hey-ho, we left at 6am with the Sportster safely on the trailer this time, and arrived on time!

Mine was the first kit car through IVA at Taunton, it was also the quickest fail in history as he failed the VIN number on the chassis as I'd slipped an H too far up!!
He was a friendly and helpful guy and appreciated the hours spent on the car as well as offering useful advice so it wasn't as nerve-wracking as I had expected.

On to the interesting points:
1. Failed on the lambda emissions test. Not quite sure how to rectify this one yet.
2. Front brake pipes came into contact with the wishbone. Solution is to put some fuel pipe or similar round the pipes and cable-tie it on.
3. Failed on the brake ratio of the axles on three values (passed the other two). Rear brakes are a bit too powerful compared with the fronts for certain forces.
4. Couple of external projections I'd missed. He didn't like my rear reflectors, they need to be filled in. And weirdly, the spare wheel failed because of the non-radiused edges!! How the other wheels can therefore pass is a bit beyond me, but anyway, its an easy solution, take the spare off next time!!!
5. Speedo, but I knew that wasn't working anyway.
6. Maximum design weight of rear axle was 578kg, but I'd put 550kg down on the form cos I thought that was the Marlin figure. Will have to re-declare it.
7. Couple of easy-to-fix wiring issues, not heat-shielded near the exhaust, not grommeted through the glass fibre etc.
8. He passed the seat belt anchorages, despite me not having any bar in place (?!)
So, overall, there was nothing that failed IVA that wouldn't have also failed the SVA, but he did check the new regs fairly carefully, including fuel cap tethered, wheel guards, marlin in capital letters on the manufacturer's plate, etc. He didn't mention my bumper mods so I presume they were OK. I hadn't put the Sportster side-plates over the side exhausts, and he did write a question to himself about safety of hot exhaust pipes, but he didn't say any more about it. And I'd been to a lot of effort to get a certificate from someone to say they had installed the immobiliser, only to discover that they have temporarily suspended this regulation!

I'm reasonably happy with the way it went, just a few more things to sort out, but not too many! The emissions and brake ratio seems to be the most difficult, the rest should be fairly quick.

Drove it back from the trailer rental place, got absolutely soaked, but I still had a smile on my face

Tim

GreatOldOne · #2 17th July 2009, 16:19

Hope the fixes don't take too long Tim, and nice to know your IVA solutions worked. You should sail through next time.

On a related note, I mentioned the new bumper regs to Terry - She said the she'll ensure that the new ones being made will adhere to the IVA standards.

limpabit · #3 17th July 2009, 16:42

At least you have a list of things to fix. And something to aim at.

I eneded up before the first SVA test, going round and round in circles trying to find things to fix.

Good luck next time.

alackofspeed · #4 17th July 2009, 18:15

I found the SVA tester I met at Taunton to be generally a fairly sound chap. A bit hot on radius tests (especially as some things he tested didn't seem very logical), but generally very pleasant.

What engine have you got? Is it an M20, with E30 engine management? They don't have a lamdba sensor, and constantly run in open-loop? Was it rich or lean? If rich, I think I'd check the temp sender for the ECU first. If lean, I'd suspect the MAF sensor.

Patrick · #5 17th July 2009, 21:51

Well done, not too bad at all. Should be pretty straight forward to fix everything.

Have you got a pressure reduction valve going to the rear brakes? I fitted the one that was in the donor.

timbo · #6 18th July 2009, 19:10

Thanks guys
Its an M52 engine with an MS42 DME. I've got 2 lambda sensors, but I think there should be 4 altogether, 2 pre-cat and 2 post-cat, so will have to investigate further. It might be the fact that the ECU is from a 2.8 and I have a 2.5 engine, so its probably not quite mapped right, but it seems to run pretty well. The reading was supposed to be between 0.97 and 1.03 and mine was 1.048. I've replaced the MAF sensor and it has a new temp sender for the ECU as well. (I have 3 temp senders, one for the ECU, one for the gauge and one for the fan, which didn't seem to be cutting in, so water got up to about 110 which was a bit worrying, so will have to look at that as well).
I didn't get a pressure reduction valve from the donor so this is definitely something to try (I presume the E36 is the same?), thanks Patrick.

Patrick · #7 18th July 2009, 20:14

I've had a look on realoem but can't really see anything on the E36:

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/partgrp.d...47&hg=34&fg=15

Here's the part on the E30, number 5:
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts...31&hg=34&fg=15

alackofspeed · #8 18th July 2009, 20:46

I'd have thought even with a 2.8 ecu, it'd be able to use the lambda sensors to trim the fuelling enough to bring it near stoichiometric. Curiously your lambda is lean, and normally if a sensor is defunct or missing the ecu defaults to a richer mixer for safety.

Have you got the 2 pre-cat lambda sensors, but not the post-cat ones? If it's the post cat ones you're missing, I wouldn't worry about them, as they don't affect the fuelling, just cause the ecu to throw a fault code to alert the driver to a failed cat.

Does the 2.8 engine use larger injectors / different fuel rail pressure? If could be your ecu has maxed out the fuel trim?

peterux · #9 19th July 2009, 08:17

Hi Tim,

That's not a bad list of things to fix, some of which you knew about before arriving and only maybe one related to the new regs.

Did your emmisons test pass at the MOT test? If it did, your looking for a fault rather than something more fundimental.

As Patrick says, the e30 rear brake pressure limiter might be quick fix for the brake balance issue.

This is how I spaced my brake hoses off the wishbones and passed the SVA.

It's a single cable tie looped around and through a small piece of fuel hose. Finding the right place to fit it depends on the length of your hoses and a bit of trial and error.

good luck with the retest,

...peter

timbo · #10 21st July 2009, 19:23

Thanks guys
Have checked and its the post-cat sensors that are missing. I'm not sure about injector size or fuel rail pressure.
Thanks for your brake hose pic Peter. I had a fuel line connected in the same way to the rear roll bar and it came up as an advisory on the MOT. Since I've got to drain the brakes anyway, I'm going to disconnect the pipes and just slide some rubber fuel pipe over them. The IVA guy seemed to think this would be OK.
I'll try putting in an E30 brake pressure regulator and see what happens. They seem to do a lot of testing on the brakes - can most garages replicate these?

MartinClan · #11 22nd July 2009, 07:43

I just made a small bracket that altered the angle of the brake pipes in such a way that they missed the wishbones. It works fine on all positions of the wishbone and steering. It kept both the MOT and SVA men happy

I don't think that your average MOT garage can replicate the brake tests. The SVA (IVA) tester used a sensor that measures the brake pedal pressure that the MOT certainly doesn't use. I guess they use this to compare when the fronts and rears lock up? I had no problems with brake tests and I didn't fit a brake pressure regulator, but on the E30 the rear brake disks and calipers are pretty wimpy compared to the fronts.

Robin

Chris Cussen · #12 24th July 2009, 12:06

Well that wan't too bad, I'll let you know how mine goes on Monday at Taunton. Just back from holiday and trying to fit the roof so I can drive down in the rain...

timbo · #13 24th July 2009, 12:17

Good luck, Chris!
I had a waterproof cover on it for the journey down but it still got wet when we did the outside testing bits!!