The Project Pad

Woohoo! This thing will be a hoot!

Thanks, I'm having lots of trouble getting it to run right. Total crash course in VEMS and standalone as a whole.

Hoping to get it to at least idle in the next few days

My day took a turn for the better yesterday.

I figured a bunch of stuff out and made progress!

Firstly, I got a set of 3 seat motors for my dead passenger's seat and now it moves as it should. I was able to finally install it into the car. Much nicer to have a seat for the vems laptop.

Then I managed to figure out a few other things. My CLT sensor was not calibrated right. I had seen the temps between the IAT and CLT were different but I figured I must have had a bad sensor. I found the CLT Sensor Curve settings and changed it from default to Bosch and it looks right now.

Also, with the switched power coming from the "15" lead on the ignition switch I was getting a weird voltage leak into the door chime - which resulted in a pathetic sounding whine and a light barely glowing in the dash. After some more reading I moved my switched power from "15" to "86s" also on the ignition switch. This solved that problem.

So now, with an actually calibrated O2 sensor and proper voltage in all the right places I started the car - and it really tried to idle. I could actually hear the ISV working rather than being open all the time (which was actually a result of the output being improperly designated in my VEMS output screen - whoops!)

I messed with the Idle reference curve and voila! it idles.
I even drove it to the end of my street and back but this is a car that hasn't moved of its own power since 2007 so I'm taking it VERY slowly.

Here's a video of a bit of idle and revving. Ignore the 2,000 rpm beep - I need to figure out where the oil pressure sensor wiring is for autocheck. Some good sounds of the exhaust
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIPMvea8qlk[/youtube]

Now I need to really hone in the VE table and go through the brakes and such. The very short drive I took makes it clear the struts are totally blown. Anyone have a set of coilovers they are looking to get rid of?

A little more progress today.

Got the engine up to temp again and tested my radiator fans. The fans drop the temp about 10 degrees 60 seconds. Pretty cool!

I'm trying to calibrate my fan controller. How hot should I let the engine temp get before fans kick on? The VEMS sensor read 105 before the fan jumped on.

Also, I was tuning the VE table to keep things at about lambda and at 80 degrees it went way rich. Like 0.8. Should I be tuning the VE warm or cool? And then where do I make the adjustment for the cool/hot engine?

Do your VE tuning with a warm engine and then fine tune the cold stuff with the enrichment table (Starting/Idle->Warmup Enrichment curve) and all those other tools to get it where it should be at different temps.

Perfect. That's what I thought

Hey all, a couple questions

I have new rotors and pads on the way so that before I drive any real distance I go through the brake system to make sure it car sat 8 years so I have little faith in th existing setup.

While I wait for the stuff to show up, I mean to tackle a few things that don't work yet.

Any trick to the tachometer? I have it wired from the VEMS output but it doesn't work
Where is the oil pressure sensor connectors on the coupe harness? Part of the 7a harness or no? I knew I shouldn't have sold my 7a harness until I was done.

Also have 2 oil leaks from the PS head - one on the front, one just over the exhaust manifold at the distributor. Hopefully just a valve cover gasket or something else simple.

I got the temp sensor figured out. Strangely, it get to the double dot "oh shit" point before the thermostat even opens up and the VEMS temp sensor will read 85 degrees.
Not sure how to handle that

The Tachometer I have going from the VEMS box via EC36-4 to the T10A connector pin 6. I was missing the ground at pin 7 of T10A but that didn't really do anything.

Found the source of what I suspected was a misfire today. the car hasn't run super smoothly ever so I didn't know if it was a tune issue or a misfire somewhere. After noticing a pulsing in the exhaust, I dug into what I expected was a non-firing injector or coil.

Pulled the plugs on the 1-4 side and voila! obviously not firing on #3



So I moved coils, spark plugs, injectors etc. until I proved that all the pieces worked in different places. Then I swapped the POS units and the misfire moved to coil #4 - I have an extra ABZ harness downstairs so I swapped the POS out and all is better!

Here's a video of the car's exhaust now that it is running better...

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ScOYwV8WwI[/youtube]

Nice.

without a burnout video we can only assume the car is not actually mobile.

It's not just yet. I'm replacing rotors and pads before I drive it anywhere. That's next weekend though!

Finally got to check out the videos. that sounds great!

Thanks!
here's a pic of the engine bay as it sits now.


Also, I took a super short drive today (the car has no tags or insurance still so I drove to the end of my street and back) and the clutch engagement is all the way at the bottom. I know that Marc had to use a longer slave rod on his Fidanza and 01A - am I right to think this would be why?

Looking good, very clean bay. Well done!

I spent the last couple weeks getting the last couple things finalized.
Since the car hadn't moved on its own for so long, I decided that I should replace the entire braking system.
Eventually I'll switch to a big brake kit, but for now I bought a set of Stop-tech slotted rotors and some decent pads. When I do the BBK I'll move the setup over to the cabriolet but for now I know that everything is new and working. Good thing too, one of the front caliper carriers had one of the bolts missing. Conveniently a VW dealer nearby had one.

Same goes for the suspension. I will eventually look at coilover options but for now I just bought replacement struts since I suspected they were blown. I was right. totally blown.
Today, I got all the lights working. had to sand the connections on the driver's side tail-light panel to get it to work. Many years of water leaking through that tail light corroded the whole thing.

So today, with a repaired suspension and newly refreshed brakes, I took a real drive. I am planning to go to the DMV tomorrow morning and get plates so I wanted to make sure I'd make it.

I was still really gentle for the most part, I want to make sure I can stop and that nothing is going to fall off the car
Overall, I'm still trying to get used to it. The power is pretty intense but I'm being extra careful, especially while the car isn't licensed.

I'm attaching a log that I made of that drive. Overall the car runs reasonably well but I have a bunch of stuff to iron out...

I go really rich when I take my foot off the gas. What's the best way to deal with this?
I have no tachometer on the cluster - however the cluster could be the culprit here. I'm not sure.
I need to figure out all the sensors for the autocheck. I get beeps and lights for a bunch of things. Anyone with a cq want to point me in the direction of the oil pressure sensors on the harness?
I get the beep from the oil pressure on the autocheck when I reach 2500 rpm or so - which would lead me to believe that I DO have a tach signal and maybe the cluster is bad. Isn't that that beep tied to a certain RPM?

Lastly, I still have the issue with the clutch pedal being so low. I don't feel like this is a real problem since I'm not grinding gears or moving when the pedal is all the way down, just drives different than I'm used to.

I'd LOVE some feedback on the log file. Once I get the plates tomorrow, I'l try to put a video together!

Hi Ben,

your accell enrich is too high, which is why when you touch the throttle it goes really rich. I've also enabled closed loop feedback on the o2 sensor in this config. Otherwise general fueling looks fine.

Awesome! Thanks

Isn't that 2500 rpm beep from the white one-pin oil sensor, on the driver's side? The two pin is for low pressure and if you have it reversed will go off immediately.

there should be an adjustment you can make at the clevis, at the clutch arm. unless you maxed that out already. A little goes a long way here.

I think the single pin is the one I want. I know where it is and probably just need to run the wire back to the cluster.

the two pin is the high pressure that reads out at the aux gauges too I think.

Yeah, that's about right. The single pin is at the check valve, as I recall.

Got it tagged and titled finally last monday. Drove it to work and back that day.

a few things:

When I start the car up and drive at first, It seems like the power isn't being transferred to the wheels right. I get up to 3rd gear before I'm at 20 MPH. It did this again today as I took a ride and then about a mile away something happened and I instantly had power and the car ran totally differently. Any ideas on what this could be? I thought maybe the clutch was slipping very slightly but I can't imagine that happening only when cold.

Also, I have some more data on the hot running. I drove over to my dads house today to give him a ride since he's been my sidekick on this project at times. I was running at 97* and not really cooling all that well. Its not a far drive - maybe 10 minutes tops. So when I got there I checked the two coolant hoses. The return hose and that whole half of the radiator was still very cool. Clearly there isn't a lot of flow through the system. I have verified that sitting still at idle the thermostat opens (though a little hotter than I'd like). So I think that the radiator - being so damn big - is providing enough very cool coolant that it just about instantly closes the thermostat.

I have a couple ideas on how to fix this. One is to get a cooler thermostat. Mine is an 87* so maybe I could go with a 80*?
Or what about no thermostat at all? Obviously I'd be adding time to getting the engine warm but with how damn hot these v8's run it wouldn't take long. I could control the temperature of the coolant in the system with the fan controller. I'm leaning toward going this route at least to see what happens and to see just how much the radiator and fans can cool this car.

Lastly, I finally got the bumper cover back on. with the size of the radiator and how far forward I put it, I had to to some hacking to get the cover on...



I need to come up with a solution for the under headlight trims. The width of the radiator meant cutting the inside tabs off the headlights so I need to find another way to secure the trims.

After watching your exhaust clip, I'm more motivated than ever to get my 5-speed conversion done and build a loudass exhaust for the v8q. Nicely done

Thanks! It's definitely loud!