Sprocket's Competition

[clocker]

Diff is installed and solved many problems.
Most of the gear whine and clunking is gone, handling/steering greatly improved (we suspect the old diff was randomly locking/unlocking the limited slip).
It was a dirty job but unlike the electrical, very straightforward.

For a variety of reasons we decided to alter our schedule and delay the dash wiring in favor of some more fabrication, primarily a new underbelly pan and the hatch deck.

The undertray serves two functions- it prevents incoming air from spilling around/under the radiator (think of a shroud for the fans on your watercooling rad, Detale) and, almost more importantly, it added a lot of structural integrity to the scantily mounted nose of the car, particularly the lower lip.

We purchased a 4' x 8' sheet of 3/16" black ABS (only $60) to use for these projects.
This material is absolutely ideal because it's very tough but easily shaped/cut/drilled, flexible enough to conform to irregular mount points and a pleasing satin black (so, no finish work necessary).
None of my pics of this turned out, so use your imagination.

The second stage was the rear hatch area, long a nettle in my sandal due to the slipshod work already performed.
Prior to my involvement the battery had already been moved from the bay to the hatch, housed in a giant "racing" battery box.
This box was bolted to a 1/2" piece of plywood that was meant to sit in the recess for the spare (which is empty) but was so poorly cut that it wouldn't fit.
The entire install not only looked pathetic but also ate up a lot of the room in the hatch.

Future plans (very near future, like this Tuesday) called for the ECU to move into the spare tire well (it currently sits in the passenger footwell) and an entirely new engine electrical harness be fabricated to suit, so the battery needed to move.

I have to give Sigfrid full credit for the construction/modification involved in this seemingly simple (but in reality, fiendishly complex) task.
I picked the new battery location and he conceptualized and then realized the final product.

Cutting the battery box down to a useful size, making mounting brackets, cutting the rear hatch trim to fit around the box and then making a floor panel took him innumerable test fits and adjustments ( I mostly smoked cigarettes and held things when asked) but turned out exceptionally well, IMO.




Between our new ABS floor and the car's real floor is an air gap of approx 1 1/8", to be filled with a 1 1/4" piece of foam ( to be purchased tomorrow).
On top of the ABS goes the carpet.

In one fell swoop we've gained the space for the ECU, decluttered the hatch and made a significant visual improvement, so bravo, Sigfrid.

It's just icing on the cake that the battery can be accessed in about 15 seconds, using no tools.
Better than stock, really.

We have the carpet and I'll get the foam tomorrow but before final install the ECU harness must be made.
I have a nearly full set of connectors (I think I need to reuse two from the old harness) and plenty of wire ( the harness will be nearly 14' long and consist of 40 wires).
I'm hoping to have it done and installed in a day ( so it will probably take a week...).

There is a set of Tokico Illumina 5-way adjustable shocks on the way as well.
We have all new rubber spring perches/hats and a set of Racing Beat lowering springs to put on them.
Expecting the shocks either Tues. or Wed., they will be installed upon arrival (this will be our third shock swap...we can do all four in about three hours.
If we had a decent spring compressor we could do it in half that time).

At some point soon we need to drop the gas tank and find out where the pervasive smell of fuel is coming from.
When that happens, I think we'll have removed every piece of hardware on the car at one time or another.

She truly will be "Built Not Bought".

[j2k4]

Well done, Sigfrid, and you, of course.

Day-trips to car shows loom...

[clocker]

Yeah, we need to see some shows and find out how real people do their cars.

While fiddling with the intake we discovered that simply touching the MAF (Mass Air Flow sensor) spazzed out the idle, so a new one is on the way.
Decided to increase our chances of success and redo the engine harness as well.

Over the last few weeks I've been culling the required connectors from the junkyard- nearly all of ours were broken in one way or another, so I was able to construct the harness with all new hardware.

I spent 15 hours yesterday on the wiring, the engine side of the harness is done (mostly) and after a test fit, all that remains is terminating at the new ECU location- approximately 45 connections.
After the harness is done ( around noon today, I figure), any problems we experience will have to be due to bad sensors or a bad ECU, because the wiring will be perfect.

With the engine harness finished, the only remaining electrical will be the finish work on the dash, a one/two day project and our car will be 100% new, wiring-wise.

I will be a happy boy when this stage is done.

With the electrical finally out of the way the next step will be finalizing the intake, which mostly consists of finding the "perfect" air filter.
The area in front of the newly laid down rad and the front structure of the car is deceptively spacious...it looks far more accommodating than it really is and we need a very specifically shaped filter to fit perfectly.
It's unlikely such a filter exists, so we'll just have to come as close as possible and make adjustments.

With the intake done, wiring done and the new suspension installed (fingers crossed it arrives today), the main build will be substantially complete.
Our platform will be solid and reliable ( hell, pretty much everything will be brand new) and our days of chasing down gremlins, over.

This will leave us with two more avenues to explore...cosmetics- both interior and exterior- and power.

The cosmetics will be straightforward, on the exterior I'd like to have it professionally buffed out/polished and see what we have.
She's a looker at 20 paces, if we can get that down to 10 paces, we'll call it good.

The interior is mostly a matter of replacing some of the crispiest panels and some recovering on some others.

As for power...well, that's just a matter of cash.
At the very minimum we'll do heads/cam/valvetrain (around $1500) and see where we get.
After that, forced induction- either super or turbo charged- is the next step.

The ultimate goal is 450 HP at the rear wheels, sufficient for fun, yet not so extreme to be finicky.

We're dreaming big.

[clocker]

Engine harness finished, installed and functional (finally).

Although not as extensive as my previous chassis wiring project, the engine harness presented its own unique set of challenges...one of which tripped us up overnight and nearly had us confounded.

From it's furthest outpost in the bay (the ignition control module, mounted in cool airflow in front of the radiator) to it's last connection in the hatch (the ECU trigger to the fuel pump relay), the harness is 21' long...which makes it awkward to deal with physically.

Here's a shot from day 2, the engine side is complete and we're preparing to terminate at the ECU end...


On the left is the main trunk of the harness and you can (barely) see the grommet where the wiring transitions through the firewall into the bay proper.

Coming forward is the wiring for the engine proper, injectors, sensors and ignition.
Facing back are the O2 sensor leads, the sensors from the transmission (Vehicle Speed Sensor and Reverse Lockout Solenoid) and the reverse light connection.


And one showing the entire harness...


During construction we ohmed out every single connection and double checked the ECU entry point.
Like most modern cars, the GM ECU operates/controls a huge number of non-engine related components and we had to weed out what we didn't need and make sure what we did need was included.
This is where we screwed up...

After installing the harness, we bowled up and hopefully tried to start the car.
And got...nothing.

We could hear the fuel pump priming and flowing gas through the fuel rails and the starter functioned (which it should since it's not a part of the engine harness), but she wouldn't start.

A quick check proved we had no spark.
For several hours that night and a good part of Day 3, I went back over the harness with the multimeter, trying to find the problem but every single thing was exactly like the diagrams said they should be.

Long story short, we had made an error of omission rather than commission- much more difficult to track down.
One of the relays found on the stock GM car, a relay we cavalierly dismissed as useless to us (the AC Request Relay, in fact) also provides ignition power to the control module.
Because of the way the wiring diagrams are laid out (the AC section is a totally different page than the ignition), our ignition setup looked complete as we wired it up and neither Sigfrid nor I even questioned where- or if- the ignition was to get power...the assumption was that the ECU fed what was required.
Not so.

Once we stumbled on this- and to be fair, t'was Sigfrid who tumbled to the solution- a minor wiring change and viola!, we had lift off.

During the troubleshooting process I realized that I had made a few boneheaded decisions about the power feed arrangement and after the car started, I removed the harness and spent a few hours redoing my mistakes (well, not really "mistakes", more like "dumb decisions") and we finally had everything buttoned up around 9 PM on Day 3.

We've made a few minor cosmetic changes since this pic was taken, but here's what the engine harness looks like in situ...


The new shocks arrive this morning and if Sigfrid can escape work early enough we plan on installing them today.
His wife and kids return tonight and he has the usual clean/laundry, etc. jobs to perform before they arrive, so we may not make it.

At any rate, once the shocks are in, we'll have finally reached the end of Stage 1...essentially we'll have created the car that Sigfrid thought he was buying two years ago.
Pretty much everything is either brand new or reconditioned and every single component works reliably.
From this point forward, we should be able to work without redoing previous mistakes/omissions first...a major step for us.

Our next phase will be cosmetics, primarily in the interior.
This is due to two considerations...first, because the car will now be daily driven, the interior will actually matter (for most of the last two years we've been more concerned with just getting this bitch to run, not how pretty/comfortable she is) and second, this work will be relatively cheap.

During this phase the 7 will transition into her role as a daily driver, which means that Sigfrid's RX-8 becomes redundant and can be sold.
The sale of the 8 will fund Stage 3...the motor.

If you recall (and I'm sure most of you don't), the car originally came with a fully built 383 stroker motor, which was a total blast till it ate itself.
Our current engine is new but basically bone-stock.

We have discussed various options, my preference has always been to remain naturally aspirated ( meaning no turbos or superchargers) and so avoid the complexity and problems of forced induction.
Sigfrid just wants more power.

We've begin discussions with a specialist company in Texas that seem quite promising but that's all too far in the future to get into (since, up till now, our plans have changed almost daily...).

My next project will be the intake and the dash, and I'll detail that as it happens.

[clocker]

Fucking FedEx.
The tracking site had our suspension "out for delivery" but it never showed up.

This means that either I do the job alone sometime next week or we wait till next weekend and do it together.

The second pressing job is finalizing the intake, I still haven't found the "perfect" air filter to fit our space so we've temporarily reverted to the Camaro 90° intake elbow setup.

The intake became "pressing" after we installed the new MAF sensor and the car ran like crap.
The original MAF must have been so nearly dead that the tuners had to work around it somehow, the new part is so sensitive (because it's working as it should) that the idle goes crazy- hunting up and down.
The tuners owe us another session and I'd like the intake and MAF to be in place so they can do it right this time.

Life goes on.

[j2k4]

Hey-

Look what I found - the 3SI group just had their 10th annual "National Gathering" in Indianapolis - one of the members whose Mitsu-Dodge wasn't running drove this:



[/QUOTE]

The whole thread was pretty cool, actually.

[clocker]

Ah, an LSx conversion.
I so lust after an LS instead of the LT engine.
Much easier intake to deal with, note his uncut hood.

This particular swap is pretty "bread-n-butter", no exotic parts in evidence, a very pedestrian Granny's rad setup but still and all, probably a blast to drive.

Wonder how he'd compare the RX to his Stealth/3000 GT in terms of handling and performance.

[j2k4]

Good question.

I will endeavor to find out.

[clocker]

Please do, it'd be interesting to know.

[clocker]

The shocks finally arrived on Wednesday- a mere FIVE DAMN DAYS after FedEx said they were "Out for delivery".

These were Sigfrid's first (and possibly, last) eBay purchase and basically, I think we got screwed.
I don't know about Sigfrid, but I was certainly unaware that the shocks had been modified.
The rear's mounting saddles had been slotted and washers welded on- raising the holes and effectively lowering the ride height.


I was concerned that this mod in combination with the Racing Beat lowering springs would drop the rear too far but that turned out not to be the case.
The front on the other hand, is a whole 'nother story.
Which is weird because the front shocks were unmolested.


Looks like a bloody Funny Car.

Surprisingly, the ride isn't bad at all but the front end is just unfeasibly low, she drags the lip and scrubs the tires even on nice pavement.
This morning I'll pull the fronts and put the stock springs back on, see what happens.