CptTripps' Restoration 2 - The Grey Matter Build, Back in Doug’s garage Options

[CptTripps]

Yes. He should nuke it so the car is worthless and I can buy it back for $1.

Man, I remember programming the heat-shrink printer with all of those wraps. Then making sure I had the right one with the right wire. Then crimping all the wires. What a royal pain in the ass. I hope it made it easier for you, though!

[Amenson]

Yes. He should nuke it so the car is worthless and I can buy it back for $1.

Man, I remember programming the heat-shrink printer with all of those wraps. Then making sure I had the right one with the right wire. Then crimping all the wires. What a royal pain in the ass. I hope it made it easier for you, though!

Labels make the world go round!

With the ECU wired and the engine completely terminated it was time for the bulkhead connectors. I was really struggling to figure out how to wire the connectors neatly without bring stuck in the engine bay for hours. Now that I did it the solution seems super obvious but it took a lot of mental energy to get here. I made a bracket off of the trans mount to the chassis side of the connectors. Pulled it out and bolted it to the cradle.

[Amenson]

Much cutting, stripping, labeling, crimping later and the engine is fully terminated.



Dime bag of adulthood.



Those go over a small section of the braided shield and are heat shrunk.



The ring of solder melts connecting the lead to the shield. Life was so much simpler when proper wiring included the use of bullet connectors "crimped" onto the wire with channel lock pliers.



Next the harness comes out and get wrapped.



Also painted this guy.



And powered up the ecu. It was a little cranky when I first powered up and freaked me out a bit. Turned out that the firmware on the ECU didn't like the updated version of the tuning SW. All better now.

[CptTripps]

That all looks SO outstanding. Great job, as ALWAYS, Scott.

[jd74914]

Dime bag of adulthood.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/lol-2.gif)

Those shield terminators are awesome. So much easier than soldering directly to the shield or forcing it into a pin.

Just out or curiosity, why did you decide on the WeatherPack bulkhead vs. say a Deutsch HDP20?

[Amenson]

Dime bag of adulthood.

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Those shield terminators are awesome. So much easier than soldering directly to the shield or forcing it into a pin.

Just out or curiosity, why did you decide on the WeatherPack bulkhead vs. say a Deutsch HDP20?

Why did we go with WeatherPack...back when I was discussing the bulkhead idea with Doug I just didn't know that it existed. I was familiar with WeatherPack and the higher end motorsport stuff. We went with WeatherPack due to cost and general availability. I have since fallen in love with the DT series and use it exclusively whenever I can't use an OEM connector. If I were to start over, HDP20 would be used.

[jd74914]

Why did we go with WeatherPack...back when I was discussing the bulkhead idea with Doug I just didn't know that it existed. I was familiar with WeatherPack and the higher end motorsport stuff. We went with WeatherPack due to cost and general availability. I have since fallen in love with the DT series and use it exclusively whenever I can't use an OEM connector. If I were to start over, HDP20 would be used.

Gotcha. That's why was curious-I used to use WeatherPack stuff (vs. the mil spec we use at work) and once discovering the DT series never went back. I'm also a huge fan of the solid pins vs. the open contacts. Somewhat expensive, but assembly is so much faster with the indent crimping tool.

[Amenson]

Why did we go with WeatherPack...back when I was discussing the bulkhead idea with Doug I just didn't know that it existed. I was familiar with WeatherPack and the higher end motorsport stuff. We went with WeatherPack due to cost and general availability. I have since fallen in love with the DT series and use it exclusively whenever I can't use an OEM connector. If I were to start over, HDP20 would be used.

Gotcha. That's why was curious-I used to use WeatherPack stuff (vs. the mil spec we use at work) and once discovering the DT series never went back. I'm also a huge fan of the solid pins vs. the open contacts. Somewhat expensive, but assembly is so much faster with the indent crimping tool.

The best thing about the solid pins is that you can put the heat shrink label over them when you forget to put it on before crimping. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cheer.gif)

The wrap ferry showed up tonight!

I left the transition into the bulkhead connectors free just in case I need to swap some locations.


Karmann the garage hound says that it is time to go inside.

[914forme]

Great to hear! thats really soon. Thanks for invite i will look you up when we come up.
I heard from a local thst the cars and coffee scene is changed due to the coffee joint Fuel Cincinnati closed, did they find a new place to meet? There were a lot of really nice cars last time i was there.

@DRPHIL914 The Porsche crowd is now hanging out at the Liberty Center Parking lot across from Starbucks for the cars and coffee. I understand the coffee part is subject to taste.

[DRPHIL914]

Great to hear! thats really soon. Thanks for invite i will look you up when we come up.
I heard from a local thst the cars and coffee scene is changed due to the coffee joint Fuel Cincinnati closed, did they find a new place to meet? There were a lot of really nice cars last time i was there.

@DRPHIL914 The Porsche crowd is now hanging out at the Liberty Center Parking lot across from Starbucks for the cars and coffee. I understand the coffee part is subject to taste.

@914forme thanks , good to know, might have to check it out when we come up

[Amenson]

Engine is just about finished. Went through and checked/marked all of the fasteners. Gave the IC/and piping a rub down with green and white pads to even out the finish and installed all everything.



...except the fuel line. I wrestled with push lock fittings for an hour. If anyone is thinking that you are going to save money using push lock over proper AN fittings with fuel lines...don't. You will just end up buying the $300 assembly tool like I just did. Push lock is OK for the lower pressure rated hose but apparently impossible with proper fuel line.

[Amenson]

The push lock pusher arrived and while substantially easier than without it (as in possible to assemble)...it was still remarkably difficult. I can confidently conclude that this is a really bad application for the product. Anyways, it turned out really well.



Ohhh, shiny.



And more wiring. Much, much more wiring. Pretty sure that I doubled the wires in the harness, not counting the connections between the ECU/engine.

It is ready to wrap and go into the car but I want to go through it one last time to make sure that I didn't miss any wires.



Also almost doubled the fuses and relays.







There were a few areas of the harness that I extended to get to the new ECU and I wanted to keep all of the original colors, luckily I have parts of 3 harnesses to pull wires from. Also fixed quite few overly dry and modified/cut/nicked wires.

[CptTripps]

This car is going to be an absolute masterpiece. I can't even believe it.

[Amenson]

In the last post I left the harness complete but wanted to take a night to sleep on it before wrapping. Good think I did, I missed a couple of grounds and one power.

Much has happened since then, will share what I took pictures of.

Harness was completely wrapped except for a few areas to make it easier to get through the firewall grommet. Only have a picture of partial wrappage.



Removed a few random bracket leftovers and a few other unused bits of metal from this area and then repainted. Also cleaned up and painted the front of the longs that I modified.


Skip forward a 4 day weekend and the harness is in place, fuel lines made for the engine compartment and other lines/wires organized and mounted.


Everything is held in place with these ty-rap tabs rivet in place except the fuel lines which use these double clamps modified for a through bolt into a nutsert.







I added a number of things to the harness to make it easy to add features that the ecu supports that are not on the current to do list. Flex fuel connection in the engine compartment, clutch switch by the pedals, and several inputs for switches/dials by the shifter....(ecu has dial a boost capability (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif))


I measured off of a mostly complete original harness to get the positions of where the battery connections and ecu bundle would exit the harness but the area where the harness goes into the back trunk was a bit tighter than I anticipated and required quite a bit of rework to make right. I had to remove the trunk spring bracket and open up the passage into the rear trunk as well as unwrap and rework this area of the harness. Luckily I left enough extra wire.





It was surprisingly fussy getting the harness to the stock locations. A few extra wires and a fully wrapped harness limited the flexibility quite a bit. Still not completely happy with it.



I left a bit too much of a service loop to the aux fuse/relay box.

[CptTripps]

Funny seeing my "Happy 30th Birthday" steering wheel there. lol

As always, great work Scott.

[914forme]

I am shocked that it still has the original fuse block. That Jwest engineering one would add a blade fuses to the operation instead of the old round ones.

Looks great, and a lot more progress since I last saw it before the 4 day weekend. Great work.

[theer]

Well, the car is now in Massachusetts. I drove out to Scott's last week to put some finishing touches on it for final delivery. Doug came down to give his blessing and a proper send-off.

Stephen brought the refurbed gauges and stayed very late on Friday to get them all hooked up. I'll share pictures in a bit. It's going to look awesome.

Still a long list of things to do, but all the BIG stuff is done! the motor starts and runs, but needs a final tune. Interior needs to be installed along with a bunch of little things (door handles, LED lights) I'll call final assembly.

I huge thank you to Scott for his meticulous work on finishing up someone else's project. He takes great pride in his work and it really shows. At every opportunity, he made suggestions of a "better" solution if there as one. I appreciate the extra effort on all the little things, which made more work for him, but were truly the right thing to do and will make working on everything easier down the road.

And a huge Thank You to Stephen for all his work on getting the Porsche gauges to talk to the Subi ECU (including a rare 930 tach with factory boost gauge.. so cool!).

Finally to Doug, who had to let the project go, but has always been available to answer questions and provide the history & context of all the decisions made over the years .

Thanks - I couldn't have done it without you... and I'll be needing more help getting her roadworthy this summer. Stay tuned.

Tom

[Dan the body guy]

After only 4 years I must say if that car ever makes it back to Cleveland area somebody owes me a ride

[CptTripps]

When you get it up and running, I'll be on the first plane to come get a ride. It was SO nice to see the engine running. Nearly brought a tear to my eye.

I'll second what Tom said aout Scott: He's quite literally the best there is.

[CptTripps]

...and while I'm waiting patiently for the Tom to enjoy the car for a few years, I'm going to be spending some time on the "Dark Side" with my new friend.

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