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 reqād 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 wasnt 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.
Amazing fabrication. Definitely what you would call the road less traveled. Thatās about the cleanest install of MS Iāve ever seen. When I did it in my escort, it looked like I dumped out a bucket of wire scraps into my engine bay.
I got a couple hours of street tuning in today, a few pulls at 8psi. Things are moving along pretty nicely. Its FAR from good, but at least its driveable.
Things I need to fix/check:
speedo - its wacked out, either just flips around all over the place, or pegs at 160
oil pressure - its correct at idle, but very low elsewhere, Im hoping its just the sending unit, gauge, or wiring. It seems to get āstuckā at 25psi or so.
steering - the turn signals dont cancel in one direction, unless you go past straight. I must have the column or the wheel on wrong
I think thats it really. Otherwise things have been just fine.
Im going to change the oil and check out the oil pressure gauge tomorrow. Maybee back out for some more tuning. If so, Ill get Becky to take a little video.
When I reassembled the rack I didnt clock the pinion shaft correctly. So I took about an hour tonight, pulled the rack, reclocked the pinion correctly and reinstalled everything. It works perfect. Yay.
Tomorrow Im going to try to figure out my oil pressure issue. Maybee tinker on the speedo.
Speedo is fixed. Just like I thought rerouting the cable did the trick. I went out for my two mile drive and calibrated it. By feel it seems like its right on or at least close enough. Ill have to check it out against another car to be sure.
However, that was short lived. On the way back my alternator stopped charging. I have no clue whats up with that yet. It is damn hot near the charge pipe like it is. Maybee it got too hot and shut down. It doesnt make sense b/c the position of the charge pipe and the alternator havent changed since I started this project years ago. :shrug:
Ok so my alternator is total junk. The shaft just flops around in the case now. The bearing on the back end hardly looks like its even sitting in the right spot.
Guess its time to start making a new bracekt to move it behind the head.
So the alternator is fixed although there is a large cloud of WTF going on.
Apparently there is normally a sleeve around the bearing in the rear case. It was either never installed when they rebuilt it in 2004, which means the alnternator was automagically spinning straight with only one bearing. The dude that took it apart ālostā it when he did so. Or it vaporized into thin air. Mind you, this is a metal seeveā¦
Anyway, its all back together with a new sleeve, tested, and working great. I pick it up today. Total cost $20.
So I dont think heat was an issue. Im still going to make a little heat shield for now, and this winter Im going to relocate it to the back of the motor away from the exhaust. At least now I can get it back together and get back to the tuning.