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Passenger side took a lot of massaging. Tried to align them well enough so that adding the butterfly brace later on would be possible, but I doubt I'll go for it. It would make doing lots of work under the car a tremendous pain, so I'm willing to give up a little stiffness in exchange for less hassle. I already dislike taking the under-tray off all the time but it's a necessity.
I lost some precious ground clearance, so now I'm scraping on the entrance to my garage again. Sounds horrific when I pull in.
I had set up my ride height with the Foxes so that I was just high enough to clear it without issue, but apparently I cut it a little too close. Put plywood ramps down. Now I either need to raise my ride height and get a new alignment, or just take a sledgehammer to that bit of concrete. Leaning towards the latter.
DW100 fuel pump installed, along with new OEM sock.
Mostly did this as a preventative measure, and it I've read here that it was recommended to replace the fuel pump before adding boost. Not because the stock flow rate is inadequate, but because they're mostly old and tired.
I did a quick test drive tonight and everything seemed fine. I'll take it out for a longer drive tomorrow. I think I'm going to return the DW hardwire kit. I'll run as-is for now, then maybe pick up the trackspeed hardwire kit. Need to e-mail and ask for some details on it. I'm concerned about getting a good crimped connection on the pump power wire. It's in an awkward place and there's not much slack in the harness to pull free, so there's very little wire to work with. I'm not sure if there are any of the metal pieces on the vertical wall behind the seats can be removed to expose more of that harness or what.
Took the car out for a long ride and it didn't burn to the ground. It actually felt smoother. Might just be placebo, I'll need to drive it a while longer.
Here is the plywood ramp that I'm using until I can clearance the garage entrance or raise my ride height.
In the true spirit of this build, by fixing one thing I introduced another issue -- the new relays that I added to run the cooling fans are causing noise in my amplifier. Whenever either relay clicks on, there's a moderately loud pop from both speakers. The same thing happens when the power door relay activates, but that wasn't as big a deal. With the a/c on, I'm getting these pops very frequently and it's annoying. First thing I tried was checking the ground on the amp. It's using thick cable, and the connection was good. I moved it to various places and couldn't get an improvement. Even tried grounding it to the battery using jumper cables and still had the popping. Next I tried unplugging the head unit from the input of the amp and connecting my phone. I played some music and there was no popping when the power door lock relay or the cooling fan relays activated. So the noise is coming through the RCA cables from the head unit. Ordered this:
It's been a few days and the new fuel pump is great. The car has always had a bit of hesitation that I'd just gotten used to but now it's totally gone. So much smoother. I was under the impression that these pumps either worked or didn't but clearly their performance can degrade with age while they remain functional.
It's been a few days and the new fuel pump is great. The car has always had a bit of hesitation that I'd just gotten used to but now it's totally gone. So much smoother. I was under the impression that these pumps either worked or didn't but clearly their performance can degrade with age while they remain functional.
Did you put in a new sock and fuel filter at the same time? Those could have been your issue as well.
Did you put in a new sock and fuel filter at the same time? Those could have been your issue as well.
I did replace the sock with a new OEM one, so it's possible. The old one seemed fine visually. The fuel filter was replaced last year in an attempt to fix the hesitation, but didn't have any effect.
I am really liking this build so far; the long term goal and general use is similar to what I have in mind as well.
Thanks, glad you're enjoying it.
Had to take my fuel pump out again. This past week, the car was extremely slow to start after it had been sitting for a while. Pretty sure the issue was it was losing fuel pressure. No gas smell at all, so the leak had to be in the tank. I had re-used the OEM spring clamps on the short section of hose connecting the DW100 to the pump assembly hardline. Apparently it wasn't sealing well enough. I pulled it out and swapped in the worm-drive clamps that came with the tank. Seems to have worked.
Put the MS3 in on Saturday, but I couldn't get the car to start with it. Multiple issues. Firstly, I couldn't get the CAN wideband module working with digital output from the LC-2. I bought the module used from a forum member along with the MS3. He hadn't been able to get it working and basically threw it in with the MS3 at no cost. I was hoping I could get lucky and find the issue. Connected it and opened the housing. It has 4 LEDs: green and red, which should be solid if the unit is receiving power. Then two blue ones which blink if the module is communicating with the wideband and the MS3. Solid indicates no connection. The one for the wideband was blinking, but the other was solid. Unhooked the DB37 to open it and have a look and found the issue:
Pin 9, CANH had broken off. Thought about what I wanted to do and decided to order a new DB37. I didn't feel like making one so I just bought a pigtail from DIYAutotune.
Previous owner of the MS had been using a GM 3 bar MAP sensor. I bought a 1 bar to replace it and use for barometric correction. I assumed it would be a plug-and-play swap since there was already a pigtail wired to the DB37, but annoyingly the connectors are keyed differently for the 3 bar and 1 bar GM MAP sensors even though they have the same pinout. Ordered a 1 bar connector pigtail to put on my new DB37.
Tried to just use analog wideband input, but I couldn't get a reasonable signal from the LC-2. It would read very low, around 7, when I first turned the key to on and the LC-2 was warming up. Once the LC-2 was fully heated, it would jump to 15 or so. This is with the engine off, so it should be reading full lean. I put the stock ECU back in to get the car running again. Planning to have another go at it next weekend.
The CAN wideband module will take a little bit of fiddling to configure. I haven't seen any write-ups that say exactly what settings need to be changed. I've only set up one myself, and the few explanations I did find didn't cover everything.
You may want to connect to your LC-2 with innvotate's serial cable and software, and make sure your outputs are programmed correctly. MS is assuming it's 0 volts for full rich, 5 volts for full lean, but with LM Programmer you can change that. Make sure it isn't.
The CAN wideband module will take a little bit of fiddling to configure. I haven't seen any write-ups that say exactly what settings need to be changed. I've only set up one myself, and the few explanations I did find didn't cover everything.
You may want to connect to your LC-2 with innvotate's serial cable and software, and make sure your outputs are programmed correctly. MS is assuming it's 0 volts for full rich, 5 volts for full lean, but with LM Programmer you can change that. Make sure it isn't.
Thanks curly. I read your thread on setting up the wideband module as well a few others and found some instructions that Reverant posted and was able to piece together most of the process, but couldn't get too far because of the connector issue. I'll plan on messing with it a bit once I have the new db37. Hopefully once it's configured it's a set-it-and-forget-it type deal.
I will take a look at LM Programmer. That's a great suggestion. I was thinking the error in the AFR was too high to be due to a voltage offset caused by a ground or something like that, so it's probably a calibration issue.
Wired up this abomination. Wideband CAN module, GM 1 bar MAP sensor for real-time barometric correction, and serial to wifi converter. It ain't pretty, but it works. Installed it and I was able to communicate with the LC-2 over CAN.
Still can't get it to start. The car never seems to catch. Adding throttle didn't seem to help. I could smell gas after the first few attempts, so I used flood clear and then tried again. Attached a datalog for that attempt as it was the closest the car got to starting. After cranking, the CEL began to flash and I heard some misfiring, then it died. Have to do some research and troubleshoot in the morning.
Still no luck getting it to start. Attempting to adjust the cranking pulsewidth but I'm not sure if I'm adding too much fuel at a time or what because it doesn't seem to get any closer to catching. Composite log attached.
Took it out for a couple hours while running VEAL. Overall the car feels great. Reverant's base VE table is great starting point. Interestingly, I noticed that the pinging I was getting before with the stock ECU is gone. Before, if I applied more than 30% or so throttle in 2nd at around 2k RPM, it would hesitate and ping like hell. To get around it I just waited longer to shift into 2nd, then was very ginger with the throttle right after getting into that gear. Now the car just accelerates without any pinging.
Still needs some work of course. It was very apparent when changing between some cells in the VE table, so I'll have to smooth it out.
Having a little bit of an issue with hot restarts. The car will start, but idle will dip very low for a few seconds so I have to give it some throttle to keep it alive. The other issue I noticed is that when stopping at a light and beginning to idle, the engine will go up to 2k rpms for a couple seconds before dropping down to its normal idle rpm at 850 - 1100. Tune attached.
Another week of commuting with the MS3. Zero major issues so far, this thing is amazing. I took it out this weekend to remount it and do a little cable management. The replacement DB37 I got from DIYautotune is super beefy so I added a spacer at the lower stud that the singular bracket mounts to. This way the wires can make a little gentler bend.
Set up adaptive timing at idle for more stability. I'm running 10 degrees by default, then -5 to +5 depending on RPM delta from my target of 850. Car starts perfectly, both cold (as cold as LA gets) and warm now after tuning afterstart enrichment and warmup enrichment a bit. Next I need to switch the idle duty cycle from "last good value" to the CLT/duty cycle table. I think that will sort out the last little quirk of sometimes getting a little surge when I come to a stop and start idling in traffic.
ID 725s came back from cleaning. They're still very well matched:
Going to Laguna Seca next weekend so hopefully won't be doing any work on the car. I think I'll put the ID725s in the following weekend.
Just to recap, status on the journey to boost:
Fix car
Fix car again
Stronger clutch MS3
Injectors
Turbo
Next to no drama from the car, except when it refused to start as we were rolling out for the parade laps. Panicked for a moment, I was shocked and hurt that it would do me dirty like that after all we've been through together. Then I realized it wasn't even cranking so it might be the clutch interlock. Took a look and it turns out the vacuum hose to the MS wasn't routed far enough away and had flopped over enough to stop the clutch switch from engaging. Pushed it out of the way and it started right up and we got to do a few laps. Journey home was uneventful.
Our first weekend at MLS. It was a really great weekend overall. Arrived/registered a bit too late to catch many of the events, like the bbq and Saturday night party. But we got to check out the vendor garages in the paddocks and I did a ride along. Got enough of a taste to want to go back next year. We stayed at Asilomar over in Pacific Grove, about 30 mins away from the track. Really beautiful conference grounds right near the beach. Made for a nice little trip.
Alternator whine got really bad. Swapped out my pioneer head unit for a JVC and now it's totally gone. Cleaned up the wiring back there a bit, and ran an additional ground to the chassis just in case. Happy with it so far.
Finally got the serial to wifi adapter working. The spec sheet says it can be powered from pin 9 of the serial connector, but it wasn't working. Picked up a dashcam hardwire kit with a 12V to 5V mini usb converter and that did the trick. No more serial cable draped across the center console.
Still working on speeding up the starting times. I have cranking idle pwm duty dialed in much better now, just playing with cranking pwm now. I also set priming pulse to a flat 4 ms instead of the 1 ms it was before. Hot restarts are great now. Cold starts have a lot of room for improvement. It still starts on the first try every time, but I'd like to get it as fast as or better than stock
Changed the oil and checked the brake pads. First autocross next weekend.
I've been looking at roll bars since coming back from Laguna Seca. Leaning towards Blackbird Fabworx single diagonal.
I just bought frame rails and I'm hoping to get them installed in the next couple of weeks. Thanks for your help with my headlight issue btw. It turned out to be a relay that had decided to corrode pretty much right after it was installed.
08-07-2018, 12:26 AM
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