When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
For the loosening studs. I had a similar issue when I switched to a stainless internal waste gate assembly for my old t3 setup. I had to get similar stainless studs to match the thermal expansion rate of the waste gate assembly. Perhaps you already tried matching the expansion rate for the studs and flange, but figured I would mention it because it's important.
Of course I imagine that you have a flex section of some sort.
I do have a flex section in the down pipe. I hadn't thought about the expansion rate of the studs. Getting new hardware in there wouldn't be a bad idea either honestly as the stuff I'm using is cobbled together from a few different setups I've had over the years.
Ripped the turbo off this morning to figure out the stud situation. The threads didn't look terrible at a glance, so I think I'm going to be able to run a wire pipe cleaner in there on a drill, get the mating surfaces cleaned up on everything and throw the studs back in there with some of that threadlocker.
Getting the oil drain line off is a major PITA. I swear it melts to the barb fitting every time. Otherwise it's a fairly straightforward job.
I added Lamba and MAP readings to the gauge and redid how it sends the requests for data. Now the displayed sensor updates around 50 HZ and the background sensors update at 10 HZ (IE 20 MS and 100 MS). Not perfect, but the display is much smoother now for quicker moving things like RPM. There's something causing Lambda to not run the LEDs right, pretty sure it's converting everything from ints to doubles, but the value displays properly at least.
It was around 27 C (80 F) this weekend so I tested out the AC when my buddy and I were putting around town. On the upside, the car didn't seem to have any trouble maintaining temps around town. On the downside, it did struggle to maintain voltage. The battery light blinked on and off a few times and then proceeded to stay on until I turned off AC. I looked in the tune and the G4x triggers that if the voltage is lower than 13 V. I've never replaced the alternator in the car, so maybe it's just a bit weak, but more realistically the fan load could be a problem at idle. I can still play with the duty cycle, but I'll probably need to upgrade the alternator at some point. IIRC the stock fans draw ~10-13 amps combined and these new ones at full tilt would be closer to 40 amps combined, so roughly 3-4x. 40 Amps on what I assume is a stock 70 amp alternator doesn't leave a ton of headroom.
There's something causing Lambda to not run the LEDs right, pretty sure it's converting everything from ints to doubles, but the value displays properly at least.
Int to double should just pad the left with 0's if both are unsigned, signed should put sign bit then pad.
you sure it's not from float to int/double? i've seen those casts have a lot more problems usually.
Int to double should just pad the left with 0's if both are unsigned, signed should put sign bit then pad.
you sure it's not from float to int/double? i've seen those casts have a lot more problems usually.
That could be it. TBF I had Copilot help me with a few sections of the code, one of which was ramping the LED color from green to red. I did see one of the functions it used was using floats but I figured double to float would be fine. I'll have to revisit that.
Originally I set the sensors up to use int's but when Lambda came into play I swapped that over to double's, which was most of the changes I made.
I do have some stainless studs laying around. IIRC a couple of them were too long to fit the elbow despite having come with the Kraken kit. Could be user error.
I've got some Hot Lock to try out. Say's it's good to 2000F, so we'll see.
That could be it. TBF I had Copilot help me with a few sections of the code, one of which was ramping the LED color from green to red. I did see one of the functions it used was using floats but I figured double to float would be fine. I'll have to revisit that.
Originally I set the sensors up to use int's but when Lambda came into play I swapped that over to double's, which was most of the changes I made.
I do have some stainless studs laying around. IIRC a couple of them were too long to fit the elbow despite having come with the Kraken kit. Could be user error.
I've got some Hot Lock to try out. Say's it's good to 2000F, so we'll see.
just installed a psr2860 and kraken elbow on a friends car with him, the studs he got were also too long, ended up cutting 2 down a bit and threading the nut down as the elbow went down the stud.
I went and cleaned up some threads at lunch. I think I skipped those studs because it didn't seem like the nuts would tighten down properly due to the unthreaded section being too long. I did consider cutting some down, but the 2 locations that need to be shortened are still attached pretty well, so I think I'm going to leave them. They're on the bottom of the 5 bolts, so I think they get less forces pulling on them from the exhaust.
Of course when I looked at the bottle of Hot-Lock, I realized it was cloudy with sediment, almost like coconut milk. I reached out to Vibra-tite and they said it looked wrong, so they're sending me another bottle for free. I purchased it through Amazon, but they didn't seem to care. Unfortunately that means I'm not getting the car back together today. I might port the compressor housing, but I'm on the fence if I want to pull that all apart or just leave it as is. I got some cheap nordlocks on the way as well, so we'll see how those go.
FD RX7 alternator might be worth looking into. 30 more amps on tap (I think), and PNP aside from having to swap to a different belt. @Fireindc is running one
Thanks for the tag @Z_WAAAAAZ , this is true! There's a thread out there that tells you which belt to use, and most likely somewhere in my thread! It was a big upgrade for me with much better voltage stability when running accessories, my RasPI dash, cool suit pump, etc. I do recommend it.
Oh trust me, I already read that thread and saw Fire's comments. I appreciate the tip though
I think the main thing there is that the NB ECU regulates the alternator while the FD is self regulating I believe. I suppose it wouldn't really hurt though as long as I turned off that functionality in the tune.
Once the threadlocker shows up and I get the turbo back on I'll probably start playing with all of that more. I figured I could try scaling fan speed with wheel speed so it's less aggressive at idle as well. It's only getting hotter around here, so I'm sure I'll have plenty of opportunity to check that and oil temps out.
Still waiting on the HotLock to come in. If it won't be here by the weekend I might end up ordering another bottle from Amazon just to get the car back together. One upside is that I've gotten bored and taken on some side quests while the car's down.
I don't have "after" photos, but you can see above that the rivets on the heat shield were basically holding onto nothing. The 2 brackets that were riveted on were a bit floppy. Never caused any issues, but I decided to clean that up. I put some bigger rivets in a couple holes and the re-riveted a couple with the top of the rivet on the thinner side. IE, I gave the rivet more solid material to bite into. Both brackets are way more solid now.
The gauge got a refresh as well. I also got an OBD2 pigtail/connector to try and get it working with my Subaru, but that was fruitless. I'll try that again later.
Regardless, I spent some time desoldering and cleaning up the wiring which made a big difference in the overall footprint. I also threw the 5V converter in to replace the 3V converter which did fix the issue with bluetooth, so now I can use my app to configure the thing. I still need to add a way to save the settings, but I was glad to see this converter fixed my power issues.
This was my original idea to run warning lights. The protoboard was also housing the transceiver, but the Neopixels are so much better in every way. The new wiring, now without the protoboard Each LED shows the condition of one sensor. I discovered a bug here, so that's another thing to fix. The full package on the steering column shroud
I also pulled the FWLR Tuning Knock Detective and relocated the fuse block I have for my gauges. I haven't used the knock detective since I got the link set up with the knock signal so I figure I'll sell it. When I was disconnecting everything I noticed how bit of a PITA the fuse block was to get to. I haven't needed to replace any fuses in it since I set it up, but I figured I wouldn't want to have to struggle that much if I blew a fuse out on the road, especially since I don't think the ECU would be happy without AFR or oil pressure signals.
This is a bit better, at least it's just a couple Phillips head screws/clips to get to it now.
Decided to port the wastegate on the turbo as well. Sometimes parts delay's make me do the job properly. Wear marks make it pretty easy to know where to trim
Did some port matching based upon the wear marks on the mating surface No idea about this pitting. Doubt it's an issue, but though it was interesting
Ported the flapper hole and carved a groove to route air to it. Pulsar puts the AR casting right in the path to the wastegate hole, so I ground that away as well. Hopefully this'll give me a bit more control over the boost levels. I had it worked out, but my boost control maps were pretty wild.
I used a cardboard box with 1 side cut off as a makeshift booth to contain all the metal shavings when doing the job. That worked pretty well. When I was done I had a pretty decent pile of shavings so I pulled the shop vac out and proceeded to blow them all across my desk. Note to self - don't leave the vacuum hooked up to the "blow" port
I also 3d printed a little blockoff plate for the missing gauge now. I might throw my old boost gauge or something in there, but for now it'll be vacant.
Also, here's a bonus photo of one of the "wild" bunnies that likes to hang out with me in the backyard when I'm done in the garage. I'm hoping to have the car back on the road by the weekend. If the HotLock takes much more time to get here we might have to pivot to working on the Chevy for a minute or two. I've got a new turn signal switch assembly on the way for that.
Alrighty, after a few fiasco's with the Hot🔥Lock, the car is back together. I replaced 3 of the studs with fresh stainless, cleaned threads, cured the threadlocker, etc... Long story short, I got 2 different bottles from Amazon that had sediment in them, presumably from bad seals. The shipping on the replacement from the manufacturer was delayed in shipping. We'll see how it works.
I've also got some cheap Amazon Nordlock washers on there, so we'll see if those help more than they hurt.
When this stuff gets hot it foams up kinda like a marshmallow. Not sure if that's part of the threadlocking or just a side effect.
I pulled the Knock Detective finally while the car was down and drew up a quick blockoff plate. I haven't used the gauge since the G4x went in, so I figured I might as well recoupe some costs.
The wastegate porting definitely did something, but I don't have good data to figure out how much of a difference it made. I was planning on collecting some data and retuning boost control tonight, but I was out playing tennis today and the car wouldn't start after our match. Figured it was the battery at first but using the jump pack did nothing. After thinking for a second I realized it was probably the starter. I have been thinking that the car sounded like it was starting weird the past couple days, almost like the base timing was pretty far off or something. I guess that should've been a warning.
Thankfully I had a small breaker bar in my trunk toolkit so after a couple of taps the starter got the message and the car fired up. Sure enough, I went back out to the garage a few hours later and it won't start again. Rock auto shipping is slow, so I guess the car's going to be down for another week. Honestly a pretty big bummer as I've really enjoyed having it back up and running.
I need to do some research on alternators as well, but I might bang both of those out around the same time. I haven't replaced either of those since I got the car and I've already seen the alternator complain with the fans + AC. There are 130 Amp units on eBay, but I'm not sure how much I trust those ratings.
Turns out I should actually diagnose issues before buying parts. I got the car up in the air to pull the starter this weekend and realized the nut on the power wire stud was loose. I must've not done a very good job of tightening it when I installed the power wire for the fans. The thought crossed my mind earlier, but I guess I just dismissed it. Regardless, I've got a new starter showing up in the next couple days now, so I guess I'll likely throw it on the car and have one less thing to worry about going forward. It's pretty tight down there. I'm hoping it doesn't turn into too big of an ordeal to get the old one out.
With the car in working order I was able to get a run in up the local ski hill with some friends from autocross. Temps looked good although a loose wire on the can gauge was causing the gauge to stop updating. I fixed some shitty crimps and it's solid again. I did see the charge light come on at one point but after talking to Iron I think I'm going to try a few things in the tune (raise idle RPM a bit higher, add wheel speed to the duty cycle table) first before throwing an alternator at it.
I've got all the parts in the garage to make another gauge so I can do some easier testing/development/debug and try it on some other cars. I figure I'll take some photos when I get to that and start a "how to" thread.
Bonus Evo Content - One of the faster guys in our club needed some help with his Evo so I ran over to his place and sorted a few things out. Mainly we had to get a TPS signal to the diff controller now that the car is on ethrottle. I previously helped get the signals routed into the IC7 so he can see which mode the diff is in, but apparently the controller only works with limited power if it doesn't have a TPS signal. Not completely surprising, but I guess this wasn't common knowledge in the Evo community. We also changed a setting or two in his tune and enabled the onboard logging so hopefully we'll have some data in the future to revise some other aspects of the car.
Only bummer is I already ordered a new one from RockAuto that has a $70 core charge. I figure I might as well replace it if I have the part on hand and I'd probably have to pay for return shipping either way, but if I'd just diagnosed instead of throwing parts at it... Oh well.
Haltech Elite 2500 on the Evo running a Bosch TB. I was telling the driver about some of the cool things we could do with DBW which made me start thinking about it for my car, but one thing at a time. I definitely need to learn Haltech's software better though. I feel crippled on it compared to Link's software or Tuner Studio.
1
