clubhouse customs

Made a few final checks today, plugged in the injector harness, turned the key and after just a few secs of cranking it fired right up! It even idles fairly decent for spending no time fn wtih req’d fuel or tables yet.

I noticed the WB readout in MS would not follow the gauge. Apparently I never loaded the correct WB table into the MS. oops. So loading that in fixed it.

Also the dash tach wast working. I put the pullup resistor on the wrong gauge. Funny how they swap positions when you flip the gauge cluster over. oops again. So swapping that to the right gauge fixed the tach.

It looks like I just have one more MS issue to sort out. The crank signal seems a little unreliable if it dips below like 500rpm. Im not sure if its a signal issue or just the tune is goofy, causing the RPM to drop enough that MS things Im cranking, and not running.

Anyway, good end to the day. Hopefully Ill get some more garage time tomorrow. If not, Im gonna try to take a day off ths week and work on it some more.

Dan

Replaced cyl 1 coil driver tonight. It fixed the issue. I now have spark in all four holes. Yay.

It was too late to try and fire it up but I managed to get a few other things done.

• Soldered boost control and launch control wires to the MS
• bolted firewall connector back in place (forget why I even took the one off now)
• added separate groud wires for the cyl head and alternator
• made a new fuel line to replace the leaky AN fitting at the outlet of the fuel rail
• primed the fuel, no leaks!

So looks like Im ready to fire this pile up, hopefully this weekend. If not, I may take a day off next week to get it going.
Dan

10 Jun

So I now have a tach signal! Adjusting the VR pot(s) did the trick.

I then verified that all the injector outputs are operational right to each injector.

Also 3 of the 4 spark outputs look like they are working perfectly. Cylinder 1 is “odd”, it only fires occasionally. Im not exactly sure what is up yet. Its very wierd, the output can drive an LED ok, but it just wont fire the coil reliably (maybee the coil driver is iffy). Hopefully I can nail down this issue tomorrow am.

12 Jun

Finally figured out the spark issue. Cyl 1 coil driver IC is bad. I think its going into current limit when trying to drive the acutal coil. It will light an LED on the stim board ok. Also if I swap cyl 2 drive signal to cyl 1 coil everything is good.

13 Jun

Picked up a civic center console on ebay. Took a little time to get it to fit well. Basically just needed to extend the middle 1.25″ and trim the back part by the floor of the ebrake section. I also deleted the cup holder and glued the cover of it permanentl in place. I was able to use the stock civ shift boot which was nice.

14 Jun

Ordered a couple new coil driver parts, they are due in wed or thrus.

16 Jun

Covered and installed the new center console parts. Worked on some random wiring things, vacuumed the carpet etc.

Pics of console:

Looks like the coil driver parts wont be here today, def tomorrow.

Dan

I figured out the priming issue…. I had the priming pulses set to 0ms, oops.

However, the car still wont start. It doesnt seem to like the crank trigger.

Last night I upgraded to the newest MS2 extra code and got TunerStudio working. I also got the stim card built up (on monday) and went through everything over the last couple nights. Everything is working perfectly on the bench.

I tried the MS quickly in the car late last night and its still not quite reading the crank trigger correctly. Its seeing all of the teeth, but not recognizing the missing tooth.

Im hoping to get back to it tomorrow nite. Hopefully adjusting the VR trigger pots will do the trick!

Dan

I spent most of sat morning trying to verify the correct polarity for the VR crank trigger sensor. Most of which involved figuring out that my one oscilloscope wasnt working correctly and then the other one was goofy to setup (I hadnt used either of them before sat am).

Then I had to finish wiring in the VR sensor, and the boost control solenoid (this could have waited, but i wanted it done).

After all this the fn fuel pump wont prime. The fuse, relay, pump are all operational, but MS just wont run them. I need to check out the board as I did some mods for the IAC drive, which shares the same FET driver chip as the FP drive. Basically I ran out of time, and the yard and family won.

Also, the fuel return line AN fitting is leaking now too. Seems like the oring finally failed.

I should be getting back to it tonight.

Dan

Finished all of the important mods to the MS yesterday. Had to add transistors for the coolant fan, boost control, and tach output. Tomorrow morning I just need to check the crank trigger polarity, add a resistor pot to the tach output and then fire it up!

I verified that the coolant fan control is working properly after work. I also got a good USB to serial adaptor that is working very well and is much less annoying than the RS-232 card I was using before.

Im sure there will be a ton more little issues to sort out, but getting sooo close.

Dan

Monday night I finished mounting the MS, grounding the engine harness and removed the stupid window control module and relocated the window switches to the main switch panel. (no pics)

Last night I started going through everything on the MS. I quickly learned that almost none of the sensors were working. Apparently I forgot to add ground wires on the harness (not on the engine bay side thankfully) for the TPS, MAP, CTS and IAT. oops. After adding the 4 ground wires everything worked great.

The next issue is the coolant fan control. I need to add a transistor today to drive the relay. The  singal that Im using for fan control now (I was using something different before) just wont turn on a relay, or if it does the current limits are very marginal. Should have time to add that at lunch.

Next big step is to connect the VR sesnsor and make sure I have the polarity correct while cranking with a scope.

After that a quick check to see that Im getting spark, and it should be ready to turn over saturday!

Dan

HUGE progress tonight. I have the engine bay almost all buttoned up.

I think this is all thats left to do in the bay:

• Torque intake mani to head
• Adjust throttle cable
• Terminate harness for crank position sensor and boost control solenoid
• Nut / bolt / hose check
• Fluids

I really think thats about it.

I still need to finish up some wiring inside but I should be ready to start this thing next weekend!

Dan

I always hated the way the stock mustang throttle cable attached to the TB, and the way I have it mounted now it made no sense to wrap it way down, then way back up so I came up with my own pulley assembly.

I sourced a  pulley for $6 from McMaster, and some cable ends and an adjuster from Flanders. It was quite simple to do. I just had to drill a few holes in the pulley: one for the cable barrel end and two to mount it to the original TB cable flange.

Shortened the stock cavy cable by about two feet and soldered the new barrel end on. This involves flaring the end of the cable after you push it through the barrel. The solder basically just keeps the steel part of the cable from pulling through as it cant squeeze small enough.

Made a simple steel bracket to hold the adjuster…. pretty simple really. I still need to add a return spring , but I have a plan for that, shouldnt take more than a few mins.

Painted the strut bar brackets and installed them along with the bar that I painted a few nights ago.

Installed the valve cover with new hex head hardware. I realy dont like using hex heads, but with the coil mount I couldnt access the socket cap screws to remove the cover (and remvoing the coil mount from the valve cover is a pain). Its not ideal but I can probably remove the cover in two mins.

I pretty much finished everything I had planned. I wanted to mount the MS and ground the main engine harness but there just wasnt time.

Dan

Lots of little things done tonight.

• cut shock tower holes out to the size of the hole in the new brace (to allow for more adjustment, and damn it looks way better)
• removed stupid factory fender / firewall braces
•  swapped +/- wires on coils (accidentally had these backwards, thanks Brian)
•  made a blockoff plate for old f/w connector holes on pass side
• rest of the hardware installed on new f/w connectors
• last lined clamp installed on the return fuel line
• replaced washers  on camber plates and put bolts in outer holes  (so they arent directly adjacent to one another)
• primed and painted the bar part of the strut brace ( brackets tomorrow nite)