Rally Pat

The documentation on the 944v8 wiki is kind of outdated, and to be honest I haven't found much use in trying to do anything outlined in their instructions yet. The manual that came with my chinese standalone harness has been way more usefull in getting everything connected. With that said, I have done basically everything on the body side by probing things with my multimeter. Either checking resistance or hooking up the battery and probing for voltage.

I found what I believed to be the starter trigger wire and confirmed that with the multimeter, and it was time to put the starter in and hook it up. Only one problem: Somehow in the move from my old apartment to my new house, the starter was lost. Luckily Scott Cordell, continuing to be the absolutely legend that he has been this whole project, had one available and let me have it. I cannot emphasize enough how much Scott has helped on this project, and this is just another step that saved days of waiting for FedEx.

This two pin plug houses the wires for both the starter and the alternator excitor which isn't necessary in this application as my harness has provisions for the alternator. Still, I'll probably let it hang around until im sure I don't need it. It also ties in to the car's alarm box which is currently removed. I fed the stock starter Battery+ and the trigger wire down the passenger side and let them hang there.

Fun fact: If you are trying to find the correct combination of starter bolts at your local AutoZone for a C5 starter, you need to buy two different part numbers worth of Dorman bolts. One is 45633 and the other actually had the number missing when I bought it. Luckily, this means I have basically every combination of metric starter bolt should I need to replace the starter (FORESHADOWING).

 

Anyway, I got the starter in and wired it up how Prosche wired the stock one which is Battery+ to Starter, and then Starter to Alternator+.

 

Worked my ass off the last few days, been uploading pics on facebook but haven't had the time to write these short writeups before posting on CR! I decided I was going to take a go at tapping the existing engine harness to body harness plug to get the power sources I need. I peeled back the plastic covering near the plug as much as a could before it reached a part that was gross and sticky. Cut that off, and was left with a short harness that I could tap in to if needed.

 

Moar boost!

Megasquirt or its many variations, the Microsquirt variant in particular is the "entry level" one.

 

http://megasquirt.info/

https://www.diyautotune.com/

 

There is also Speeduino, which has come a really long way since I originally found it many years ago. Arduino based ECU, uses a lot of Megasquirt stuff for the actual tuning so if someone can tune MS they can do Speeduino.

 

https://speeduino.com/home/

The harness needs two 12v connections to the postive side of the battery. I was able to slip them through an existing battery compartment grommet and attached them to the exisiting connections there. The eyelets are a little too big, but its making contact so I'm going to leave it for now. I also cleaned up all the battery and ground connections with wire brushes before putting everything back together.

Next up is busting out the $5 Harbor Freight multimeter and tracing what wires go where!

 

 

 

I worked on stuffing the "underdash" half of the harness through the same hole in the firewall. The fuse/relay block was a little too big, but luckily the two halfs were just screwed together, so I undid those and was able to get it through no problem.

 

Another couple of screws and the ECU was loose, then the big connector for the harness and it was out. I pulled the ECU side of the harness through the firewall, and pulled the rest of it out of the engine bay.

Initially, I wasn't sure if I could pull the engine harness out, but after some more research I was just over thinking it, so i went full send and pulled it out. Luckily, there was a spot where it interfaces with the rest of the car and its just a big 9 pin plug, so it was easy to unplug then fish out of the car. I used a sharp carpet knife to cleanly cut the firewall grommet so I could reuse it with the new harness.

I went inside the car, and got underneath the passanger side, where the stock harness comes through and the Bosch Motronic ECU is. The carpet is held down with just velcro., so I got that pulled back, and took out the 4 screws that hold a piece of plywood over the ECU mount.

 

I decided it was time to finally tackle the wiring harness. I wasn't quite sure how I was going to tackle this, so I started by just laying the harness in the general correct areas on top of the engine. At this point, I still hadn't really even researched the interior at all, so I wasn't 100% on where I was gonna run the harness and ECU. Turns out I should have, because where the stock ECU is is pefect for putting the new one.

 

I fed the lines back up through the hole in the fender, and hooked up the Corvette filter/regulator assembly. Because I made the decision to stagger the cuts on the hard fuel lines, I needed to trim the hose now that they are no longer equidistant from the filter assembly.

 

The TPC fuel kit comes with a tubing cutter for cutting off the stock feed and return, as well as compression fitting adapters to adapt to -8 AN. After getting the fuel lines pulled down through the hole and the hard line bent gently away from the body for easier access, I used the provided tubing cutter and cut a couple of inches off of each end.

 

From there, I used the provided compression fittings from the kit to adapt the stock fuel lines to AN. The feed seemed to work really well, but the slightly smaller return still seems like its not quite right but appears to be tight. Guess we will see if it leaks! Not of a fan of compression fittings in general, but at least being used for fuel lines isn't uncommon.

 

 

Hey! I did stuff since I am on furlough! So today, after getting the car turned around the other week, I have much better at-will access to the car. I stuck a floor jack underneath and got the front passanger side up in the air where I could access the fuel lines.

They are held in place with a couple of brake lines by what appears to be a nylon fastener with a hex in the middle of it. I could not find my damn hex keys anywhere after lending them out to a family member, so I just used my finest set of Harbor Freight channel locks to work the fastener off.

 

I gently bent the feed and return away from the car and pulled the crimped on hoses through the hole leading to the engine bay so that I could begin cutting the tubing and putting on the AN compression fittings that came in the kit.

Which dollies are those?

 

HaulMaster ones from Harbor Freight, they are sold in sets of 2

 

https://www.harborfreight.com/material-handling/hand-trucks-carts-dollies/vehicle-dollies/1000-lb-capacity-vehicle-dollies-2-pc-61283.html

Rally Pat, just checking in. How's she coming along?

 

I had to have a bunch of stuff happen like extensive dental surgery which kind of slowed me down, my wife had a minor surgery but a long recovery, I was dealing with Wendy's layoffs (I was a contractor at Wendys and we all got laid off out of nowhere), we got a new puppy, and switching jobs, and I can't lie on top of all that I've been dragging ass a little in there too. I haven't had a lot of downtime during the quarantine, being an IT professional. I am working pretty much constantly right now helping keep everyone else working from home running, and I have been spending the rest of my free time studying for my Amazon Web Services certifications.

 

Good news is that I have two weeks of furlough coming up, one next week and one at the end of May. I plan to try and balance those weeks with spending most of the time doing AWS classes and maybe even taking one of the exams, as well as working on the Porsche. I have to also fit time in there to be a decent husband and spend time with my wife as well lol.

 

I did start working on the garage again last weekend. I bought 2 sets of wheel dollies a few months back and just now got around to assembling them and putting them under the Porsche. When Sean and I moved the Porsche to my house, it was backed in, which really sucked because most of the light in my garage is on the opposite side where my tool boxes are. I got it turned around and took a picture. Sorry about the crap on top of it, but there was no where else for it in the garage. Its actually all cleaned up now but I haven't taken another picture since then.

 

TLDR- I'm gonna make progress again soon, I swear

 

New Unemployment Claims:

- 6.6 MILLION this week

- 10MM 2-week total

- 695k prior 1-week record.

 

The unemployment rate in Feb-19 was 3.5% with 5 million people looking for work and counted as unemployed. The 10MM new jobless claims implies the unemployment rate has tripled to 10.5%. 10MM likely understates magnitude of the slowdown for a number of reasons. During the Great Recession the unemployment rate peaked at 10%.

 

We got there in less than a month. #winning

 

My wife is on furlough until further notice, potentially never going back since she works in retail corporate and her company was doing bad to begin with. My company is forcing everyone to take 2 furlough weeks, one in April and one in May, and the execs all took a pay cut to keep from having to reduce work force. Its pretty bad. Its like 2008 except seemingly overnight.

It’s crazy to think back. But my friend and his wife were sure that they got this coronavirus back in late January at a birthday party. They were sick for two weeks, their son 11 years old sick for two days. The wife is a nurse at OSU and they said it wasn’t flu. Another friend also had the same thing and also recovered. Crazy, but this shit been in the US earlier than we know.

 

I actually had something around the first week of Feb that was so bad I actually went to the doctor to get checked out, and I never go to the doctor for colds or flus. I got tested for two strains of the flu and was negative for both. Doctor prescribed me some stuff to help manage the symptoms, but man it was a rough couple of weeks. Many of the same symptoms as Covid-19 - dry cough, shortness of breath, weakness, pain. I have heard similar stories from other people I know as well.

I have the same letter. I'll keep it in whatever car I'm driving to work in my crazy fast Corona Commute.

 

However, what other restrictions can there be? Other than Marshall Law, this is it. All nonessential businesses have closed. Other than police / military patrolling the streets, I believe we've hit the max of what we can do.

 

I run Amazon Basics Oil on my 2017 Civic. It comes from a reputable refinery.

This is a great idea! My company is sending everyone home starting Monday, my wife's too. I work in IT, so I am on call and will have to go in every so often to address problems on site.

They sell drill battery adapters online, start with that.

Looks like it could be alright. I tend to prefer the much faster paced play of Apex, but I will probably dabble in this.

Interested. Question- with the camera writing over the same info over and over, is there a decrease in quality after while? I am old enough to remember VCR tapes which is not a fair comparison but I am still curious. Thanks

 

Its digital, it either works or it doesn't. Yes, write cells can degrade over time but I doubt the vehicle would last long enough for the card to need replacing.

My wife and I were weighing Texas as a place to move at some point. Heck, we still are. She has family down there, and I had never been so we visited for me to get a feel. My main observation aside from the heat was the horrible condition of the roads. Like actually scary. The George Bush turnpike or whatever it’s called was a mess of basically concrete mini ramps and it’s pretty common to catch air for a second at freeway speeds. I was actually pretty terrified driving places.

I absolutely love it, and I want one for sure! Incredible value for what it is!

Get the 944 running and driving, make sure its gonna survive, and enjoy it until I probably need to sell it to help fund the mountain of dental work I need.

 

If there is time and money left after the 944, start my next project. Might finally build a straight line car.