Weekend accomplishments (from last weekend)

TOUCHDOWN! She hit the ground! for the first time in more months than I really care to recall, Phoenix has all 4 tires firmly grounded. This was a HUGE moment for me, even though most people I tried explaining it to gave me funny looks. Don't mind the bottlecaps, they're just placeholders for now...



Victory is short-lived however. Now that the front is re-sexified, time to do the same business in the rear. Remember kids, a Leaky diff means real-time rust prevention!

Step One - Know your Enemy:



Step 2: completley forget about the parking brake cables, and whack at the subframe mounts with a hammer. Curse a lot.

Step 3: Success!



Step 4: take out agression on CV bolts and other siezed componentry.



Dont know whether I'm going to try to track down a nice LSD or not... I gotta see if my (nonexistent) budget can handle it by the time all this stuff goes back together. Mine, though gross looking, is in decent shape.



I totally ripped-off BLUNT's wiring-wrap. Sorry man, but this stuff just looks too nice to keep all to yourself! The fumes can get a little annoying though, when you're melting the ends together so it doesn't fray. Once the MSII wiring goes in, i'll bundle this all up.



Lastly, I picked up this oil cooler from a friend for pretty cheap. Trying to figure out where to mount it. The oil filter housing looks to have an internal thermostat on it. Does anyone have any experience with one of these?




Oil cooler cleaned up really nice with some paint stripper and a wire brush



More to come soon...

Posted by Harrison Krix at 5:04 PM | Permalink | Comments

I've just finished testing all the parameters with my Megasquirt, and its some seriously confusing stuff the first time you read through it. Part of me is a little worried about buggering it all up, since I really only know carbs - and only slightly at that!



It is a good feeling when all the little bits go together and you see all the lights blinking. I know I've got a crap-ton of programming and configuring ahead of me.



Oh, I'm also under a deadline now. I'm shooting for completion the first week of November, since I have an event to make by the end of the month... This could get interesting...

Posted by Harrison Krix at 3:42 PM | Permalink | Comments

Another Holiday weekend... Why do I always feel like I didn't get shit done when I look at my pictures? Probably because I always forget to take pics...

Not shown:
- Finished assembling my Megasquirt, Stim board, and Relay board
- Installed Heater box, and got REALLY pissed off when I immediately dropped a screw inside the damn thing no more than 5 minutes of it being in the car. Per regulations, this became lodged into the vent flaps, completley immobilizing them. Horray.
- Took out heaterbox agression on my Escort EDIS pulley. The wood-wedge and sledge-hammer did the trick, and now my 36-1 wheel is free of its Ford counterpart.
- Stripped Gastank (outside) and flushed inside with MEK. I have a re-sealant kit coming from POR-15, so that will get wrapped up this weekend.
- Ran 318i rear battery cable to trunk

And now the (few) pictures I did take:

What would you do if you found this on a car? Call it ghetto? Laugh uncontrollably? Yeah, probably me too... but my old bypass pipe was rusted beyond belief, and I didn't feel like buying a new one or play roulette with the scrapyard. Yes, thats 3/4" household copper pipe. New water bypass pipe = $4



With possible Intercooler piping as well as Oil Cooler piping in my future, I took the opportunity with the engine out to open the nose up a little bit. Of course, this means more painting.


Pedalbox/booster mounted. You can see here the flex that my steering guibo is under, which is the suspected cause of my steering box leakage...


Of course, brakes are in the car, minus new lines and brake pads. Oh, and wheels that fit. I'm still ticked about that.


TPS Adapter plate made from Aluminum plate. Works well, looks... well, decent. The TPS hides the clamp-scars fairly well... I'm using a 325i throttle body with a variable-resistance TPS I bought off Ebay.


Oh, after my genius idea with the copper pipe, I decided to try another homebrew concoction. A spray-paint cap looks like its just about the right size to fit over the heaterbox blower motos and keep out rain moisture. Sounds like a great idea, right?



Hell, that almost looks factory, doesn't it? Suuuuuure it does. Then you get the thing in the car, bolt it up, and find out it hits the hood lock-down bar right in the middle and makes turning the lever feel like an arm-wrestling competetion.

But you dont want to take the heaterbox back out, so you get an x-acto and cut away the cap while the box is still in the car. No problem. Then you go and remove that little 8mm nut there at the top... and THATs when you get to take the box out again, since its now blocking the vent flaps, because your dumb ass dropped it right into the heaterbox. Man, i felt like a winner when that happened.

Finally, an obligatory shot of my engine, since it seems to change in every single post I do.

Posted by Harrison Krix at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments

So, since my OZs won't fit (dammit) i've been looking at other alternatives.

I don't want to go the BBS route... a big hell-no to bottlecaps (no offense to those that have them)... Can't go back to 13" stocks because of the Volvo brakes.

I found these while wandering around online:


15x7, et 35. I'm going to be running some pretty short springs, but nothing like bent struts or coil-overs. If I went with a 195 tire and possibly a 5mm spacer, I'm thinking these could fit pretty well. They're available in Gold, Red and Silver (above) which is what I'll probaly go with.

Not to mention they're only $150/wheel!

Posted by Harrison Krix at 9:23 AM | Permalink | Comments