Jérôme with HE4

[Henning]

Hi fellows,

some time ago I asked about homemade 4-throttles. Seemed to be not that easy, but in the meantime I collected quite much very useful and important info.

Let's begin at the beginning: for many years now I've been looking for a A4 system, but all the time too expensive, bad condition, not complete and so on. I've never been interested in this double-weber-action because everybody has got it and indeed, I hate carbs. Then in 2004 I held a aluminium tube in hands with 40/50mm diameter and put in a shaft with 40mm-throttle from a normal single carburetor. Hm, this could be a base for my own creation. Its later-found name: HE4.

Some things had to be cleared: including the injectors or not? If yes, the entire system could be located closer to the head what shall be better for the output, but of course this would mean more work and so more time. I compared and found out that the throttles had to be located just 20mm more away from the head- this was ok for me. I wasn't looking for the most HP but for something individual to combine with the Kugelfischer what I am a big fan of and that fascinates me day by day.

How to give the cold engine additional air and fuel? The Alpia-system has got a kind of tube connection over the four channels where the fat-jet (=cold start valve) is located and the air-hose from the warm-up unit. I decided to do the same because it could be done with a square tube.

So I cut four tubes with -not sure- 30° angle, machined a groove at the filter ends, flatted them on top for the square tube and at the sides for the shaft guides.

Then the guides were machined and four 10mm-blocks for the air-tube. The blocks were needed to lift the tube a bit higher to have some space for the throttle levers and to have more material for the threads for the tube brackets. Guides and blocks I let weld to the main tubes.

Two aluminium plates have been made with holes fitting to the bolts in the tii-port. Here is the installation for the welding:

The thread-bar in the middle is to give the shaft guides its straight position and reqired distance between the channels. The angle below is to fix the two plates in correct distance. What can not be seen: four hooks are grabbing the bar in-line with the channels to draw it and with it the main tubes strongly to the plates. The hooks are screwed to four steel plates located at the head-side.

While welding, I cut eight 20x20x8mm spacers and steel brackets to fix the air-tube to the thread blocks. I was very keen on the first installation, so here it is:

To get the throttles, I parted out six (!) Solex PHH. They all had different diameters of 1 to 4/100mm- gosh, but I hoped to find the right ones to fit to my HE4 and got a lot of levers, too. The adjustments between cylinder 1/2 and ¾ are taken from the PHHs, in the middle there are custom modified levers. Shafts 1 and 4 are from PDSI single carbs, 2 and 3 also from PHH.

I took some pictures of the leverage of the A4 to copy it and installed it to a test engine to get all the correct angles, lengths and positions. The test engine was given back to its owner and my HE4 disappeared into a box. This was in 2005.

Years went by. I changed my job and changed the town. I founded my own workshop, had a lot of clients with interesting cars an quite a good to do. Not so much time to care about the 02...

In 2007 I had to take out the engine for the repair of the car's nose:

I took this opportunity to prepare the engine for the tii-system (chain cover, pump oil drain, lower alternator etc.), but continued to drive with carb. After and after all the rest of the required tii-parts as fuel pump, fuel line and so on were installed.

2008 I was completely fed up with the carb. It has never made any problems, but I was keen on having the tii-injection in the car what I had been planning now for years. So I put it in (the stock version) and drove- a really good feeling!

And in 2010 I remembered me of the HE4. I told a friend that it exists and he told me to install it. So I tried it out:

It was able to drive, but without airbox much too loud. The fat-jet is useless at that position, most of the fuel condenses in the tube, I always had to use cleaner-spray to start. The linkage springs were too strong and hard to accelerate. The air-fuel ratio was not ok. Pump and throttles had idle and full load at one time, but the ways of increasing were too different from another. As I wrote in the forum, the idle was too high, at lower range too much soot, middle ok power and not enough to drink at high RPM. No chance to pass TUV and smog. I threw all the stuff out again and returned to the stock tii intake manifold.

In early 2011 the building with my workshop was sold and the new owner had some weird plans of the future. I left it, stored all the equipment and started to work in the workshop of a friend of mine who offered me to make teamwork. His shop is a little bit too small for the two of us, but I have much more time to care about my BMW and, what is more: the opportunity!

I got the HE4 out of the cellar, let the channels machine to exact circles and flat the sealing surface to the tii-port. Now the channels are at 40,55mm bigger than before, so I had to make custom throttles of 40,50mm.

Cutting brass plates:

Cutting an aluminium bar:

Here we have them:

They fit much better than in 2010.

Now, in 2012, Jérôme -my 02- passed the TUV and the way is free to have some experiments. I prepared a lot of smaller things as the linkage with exact angles and lenghts, fuel lines, air hoses, fat-jet relocation, better location of return springs, idle valve etc. And I did not want to drive without airbox again, so I made one:

Looks a bit like an US mailbox, doesn't it?

Ok. Time to throw all of it in again. It started immediately and after synchronisation the idle was quite good also.

After some more fine work it can now absolutely be used as a daily driver as before. Much better than in 2010. Some more pics of the engine bay:

What I still don't have are rubber lines between airbox and intake. 2“ x 5“ is required. Any idea?

And already now I'm very curious what the TUV-checker will say in 2014 when he opens the hood...!

Thanks for looking!

[deziac]

Great work, looking awesome!

[deziac]

Great work, looking awesome!

[ClayW]

That looks great!

Maybe you can machine some Kugelfisher cones for tuning the fuel.

[Conserv]

Henning,

You are a talented guy! Very impressive.

Regards,

Steve

[ptbadboy]

Henning,

There's a co. in UK that sells Ultra-Flex fuel rated hose by the foot. 2" is one of their standard sizes. A little pricey, but they are the only distributors that I know of. Will actually bend to 180 in about 6-8". Called "Car Builder Solutions".

You do beautiful work.

don

[Henning]

Hi Don,

thanks for the hint. At the moment there are spiral hoses installed, but I'm not so happy with them. The clamps are not spiral, and so the wires inside are pressed into the aluminium and let tracks.

I think I'm going to google about Ultra-Flex.

Thank you!

Henning

[justinevert]

Henning,

Very impressed, good things come to those who wait!!

Have you considered silicone tubing, very heat resistant and flexible.

Any thought about production?

Prosit!!

Justin