Congratulations, nice ride. I am somewhat surprised you did not wear a helmet on the first drive around the block. :devil: I like it all buttoned up, the paint looks excellent. Don
Long day cranking on details. Installed the front bumper for real. Which required as much time hunting through boxes for hardware, as actually working on installing it. First time installing a GP bumper, had to figure out how all the trim and stuff worked. But got it done. Spent a while working on bonnet alignment. Much better, but still need to tweak it a bit. Tested windows and lights for the first time. Worked! Installed the knobs that hold the window glass to the regulators. Replaced a couple of bad bulbs in the taillights. Routed narrowband and wideband O2 and EGT sensor wiring. Have that all buttoned up under the car and in the engine bay. Need to wire the Zeitronix controller in the cabin tomorrow. Drew up plans for my custom exhaust midpipe. Dropped of exhaust stuff at the good shop across town, showed everything to the dude and explained it. He said "no problem, tomorrow, worst case Wednesday". That's what I wanted to hear! Adjusted ride height on my coilovers. Much better, may need to raise the rear a little more. Adjusted rear toe, I think I have it much closer. Need to adjust camber front and rear. Dropped the long exhaust heat shield. Fabricated and installed a little bracket to help maintain clearance under the short shifter, since there's no bottom on the shifter box. Made it out of a mounting plate I had bought for the kill switch, that I didn't need. Modified the battery bracket to fit my lightweight battery. Nice, secure, race-legal metal-to-metal mount. Much better. Disassembled my spare stereo headunit to experiment with alternate installation locations. I think I have a plan for fitting the whole thing (less the CD player) in the OEM location. That would be cool. Will work on it more tomorrow.
Working on street legal odds and ends today. Installed my Longacre rear view mirror (required fabricating some brackets). Got all four corner lights working. Installed one of my Hella Supertone horns. Bolted in my seats. Installed harnesses. The horn was one of the more challenging things, actually. my steering wheel was missing the horn wiring harness (got removed by me after the crash). After I replaced that, the horn still wouldn't work when I pressed on the airbag. But It would if I shorted the steering wheel spring plate with a screwdriver. Finally figured out that the spring plate had gotten bent when the airbag deployed. Replaced it with a spare and all was well. Car is just waiting on the exhaust now. And some legal mumbo jumbo to get the title.
Spent most of the day buttoning up stuff in the cabin, and in the boot. Wired power to my Zeitronix controller, plugged in the wideband O2 and EGT sensors and the gauge display. Plugged in my boot hatch, got the plate lights and boot release working, installed trim inside the boot area, cut and drilled new floor panel for the new meth location, cut felt cabrio rear side panels to fit. The rest of the rear will be carpeted, with custom side panels, at a later date. And the whole thing will be covered with the custom tonneau. Experimented with the stereo headunit, determined that it would work with the CD player removed, and that the faceplate is easy to reposition, one ribbon cable. Cut the "ceiling" out of the mounting slot, to free up space to angle stuff upward over the roll cage crossbar. Chopped the chassis so there would be clearance when it angles upward. Cabled it up and slid it into place. Install faceplate, and it looks totally OEM, but isn't. Cockpit is pretty much done, except for trimming the bottom edge off the door pads, so they clear the door bars. Partially unwrapped one of the armrests and trimmed the foam and plastic, then trial fitted it. Looks good. I'll finish both of them up tomorrow. I'll shave the exposed bosses on the bottom of the door handle tube, so it's smooth when you grab it, and will figure out how to affix the pad securely without the lower row of clips.
Wrong question. I'll fix it for ya: When is the E85 line going to come in so it can be installed, so the TVS can be run? In other words I'm guessing Paul's will wait until they get mine running, which is dependent on getting the lines in, once that's done it should be good to go, and hopefully save Paul some work. It should be close. Like we've been saying since 2012...:cornut:
My TVS FMIC shipped today. Spent the whole day grinding toward a drivable car. Finished up the door armrest pad mods, and epoxied the broken driver's door handle tube. Realized that, if I want the key remotes to work, I needed the receiver from the OEM rearview mirror. So I worked on that for an hour. Removed this, carefully pushed the small white plugs through the base of the mirror. Plugged it in and tested it. Yep, works. Wrapped in tape and reinstalled. Done! I haz remote locking. Disabled daytime running lights, reviewed other coding with NCSexpert. Reviewed and cleared all codes. Wished I had printed it all out... all the codes from the crash and the aftermath were there... it was A LOT of stuff, on almost every module. Did the ABS air bleed procedure. Added some front camber. Dropped the struts and maxed out camber on the BC plates, reinstalled the struts. Since I haven't cut the strut towers for camber adjustment access (at least not yet). Went to the exhaust shop, supervised having my hangers installed. Brought the exhaust mid pipe assembly home. Decided that now's the time to move my oil pressure sensor onto a remote line, to protect it from engine vibration. Fittings to do that came yesterday. Determined that I was going to have to drop the header partially to reach it. So had to disconnect 2 O2 sensors and the EGT sensor. Made a AN line and routed it into the right cowl. Installed exhaust! It fits! And sounds great! [ame=""]Locutus Mk2 haz exhaust! And runs! - YouTube[/ame] Still need to get the rear section repaired, I'll take the car to the exhaust shop for that. Lots of rubbing and rattling in the rear where it's been bent. I have a plan to make this even more special when rebuilt. But this is a terrific sight, idling in the garage. I'll drive it tomorrow, if the rain lets up.
Looking great Paul! Your EGT readings are pretty similar to mine... Did the whole TVS ship, or just the I/C?
Paul--I don't remember--is your Vipec in yet (I'm hoping yes) Reason I ask is I know nothing about auto ecu's (and have less desire to learn), I'm just wondering if the autoenginuity tool will work through the OBDII once the Vipec is in.
Vibrant 1141 2.5" Ultra Quiet Resonator Pretty much a perfect fit for that location. I do need to clearance the heat shields a bit more , it's definitely tight. But it will work.
Vipec is not in yet, I'm still running on the GP ECU. Which, FWIW, also doesn't like AutoEnginuity. I haven't been able to access the extended powertrain stuff on the ECU since I swapped to the GP ECU. But AutoEnginuity is still able to talk to and manage all the other computers on the system. I'm hoping the behavior with the Vipec installed will be the same, but really don't know. My understanding is that the ECU bridges the OBD2 connection to the CAN bus, and the cluster bridges all the other busses / modules to the CAN bus. I've read that the Vipec i-Series CPU nominally supports CAN and OBD2, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Worse case, I can always pop the GP ECU back in when I need to manage other modules. Not ideal, but workable. Hopefully, I'll know via experience in a month or so.
See what Paul says, but after spending a considerable amount of time debating Rotrex, TVS, and turbo this is how it played out. Rotrex=High RPM monster. Great for someone who is a track god, faster overall, and can make more power depending on how you set it up. More expensive. But you're going to be living in the high RPM band to wring the most out of it. TVS=more response down low for us mere mortals, who love third gear and rather stay in it then shift into second on the track; in other words, easier to drive fast for us underlings. Gonna be a bit more friendly if you drive the car on the street. 300 WHP is where I've always wanted to land. This setup will probably make a little more than that, but 300 is where (for me) the car will be balanced across the board. Call me crazy, I really don't want a ton more than that. Turbo--great power, more potential than the TVS, but it's a turbo. Turbo's are bad. Just ask Shanne. Seriously though, at the end of the day, I wanted to stick with a SC; it's easier for me to troubleshoot, I like the linear power, although Jan's turbo setup I'm sure is going to be fine with lag, where it kicks in so you don't get a nasty shove accelerating coming out of a turn, etc.
I know the TVS is low - midrange and the Rotrex is hi-mid through redline power. I've spoken with Jan at length on it. Turbo's are definitely all out power, but I've never driven a turbo with a power delivery I truly loved, I really like linear power.
What Chris said. My favorite thing to do is insane twisties in the mountains. I'll also do lots of track days... But they're just training for the mountains. And up there, I want a really wide effective RPM band with linear torque delivery. Think third gear on the Dragon. That's what the TVS is all about.