87 CSX #175 project log

[Turbo Joe]

Managed to get the engine bay harness finished with the missing spots with no wire loom, now it's safer and neater and started on the next project and realized I never ordered the parts.. doah!! Then my heat ran out of propane so I called it a night early. The to do list is really small now so I will pick back up tomorrow.

[Turbo Joe]

After a year of being jammed with non-stop job after job I finally managed to have some time to work on my own car for a change and pulled the power steering pump out of it and check out the pressure relief valve in the pump and compare it to another pump i recently picked up. Oddly everything looked ok besides being a little dirty inside, so I cleaned it up and re-assembled it and put it back in and it seems ok but wasn't able to fully test it. I started to play with the tune a bit to get it adjusted to the bigger injectors I put in it, and it nearly drove me nuts. I am grateful for the work people put in to having an original ecu type system be able to be re-tuned via laptop, but for me being used to newer systems and not used to D-cal or Chem and such, it's a deal breaker not to mention the fact I am limited to what I can do and a few other personal issues, so I bit the bullet and ordered a MegaSquirt3 Pro Ultimate system. This will allow me to do everything I want to do in a much neater package and give me the freedom of using other types of coils and sensors that are getting very hard to find. Also it would make it easier to swap to 2.4srt if I ever go down that road, but so far I'm sticking with the T3. Hopefully everything arrives by the end of the week so I can get started asap. I am sick and tired of fighting with stupid ---- and not driving the car, I tried the more affordable route and while it does work, it's just not for me. I will keep a log of how it goes and post pics and details as i go. I'm honestly upset that i never get to enjoy my car and things need to change.

[85glht]

Subscribed for the progress on the mega squirt

[Wastelands Warrior]

Sounds like a solid plan, Turbo Joe. As a fellow TIII guy I'm definitely interested.

[Turbo Joe]

Well, my order arrived today, so I started Project Megasquirt. First things first since tomorrow is Friday is figure out the insert I need for the crank pully so i can mount the 36-1 wheel to it, but that needs to be done on a lathe so I tackled that first and rough cut some 1/4" aluminum so the machine shop can just chuck it up in the lathe and get it done quickly. Hopefully I can get that back tomorrow, if not, I will have to wait until Monday to get it back. I mounted the main bracket for the crank trigger since that was easy to do. BIG THANKS to BSlowe Racing for that part !!! Brian's bracket is a way better design than what I had previously come up with by far. Next I started with removing what I won't need anymore like the injector harness, the BB Sbec, coil, and started digging into the harness. Split the MSD DIS-2 harness from the factory coil harness and tomorrow I will work on removing that entire set up since I'm going digital smart coils now. I'm not really concerned with how fast I can get thru this, I'm just focused on getting it done problem free. I did also buy a huge weathertite plugs kit too so everything will have plugs like factory, that need it. It should make for a cleaner install, also kinda the right thing to do. Not really much pic worthy wise except for Brian's crank trigger bracket.. enjoy.. and sorry for the dirty engine pics.

[wheming]

Joe, where did you get your underdrive pulley?
And I sent you a IM.

[Turbo Joe]

I got the pully from FWD Performance.

[Turbo Joe]

So today i focused on getting the T3 harness separated from the harness. While I was at it I removed a couple plugs I didn't need like the cruise control plug that runs under the battery location, and stuff like that, to clean up the harness as much as possible. Spent some time deciding where I want to mount the ecu and decided to mount it inside the car to help keep the heat away from it. Started to lay out a mounting bracket but didn't get far before I called it a night.

[Turbo Joe]

Well progress continues. Today I cleaned up some loose wiring and started taping the car harness back together to neaten it up so I can start running the MS3 harness. I fabbed up a mounting plate for the ecu under the dash in front of the shifter where the fake trans tunnel is and started separating the power and grounds so I can keep that on the drivers side, as the rest of the harness that goes into the engine bay can run up thru the firewall on the passengers side, where I have plenty of room. I lost a bit of time today since I had to run out and search parts stores for a 6 circuit fuse box, some relays, fuses, and yea lots more tape. I ended up buying a new battery so I'm going to have to make a new tray and hold down for that too. I found one thats still small but lots more reserve that the braille batt I was running, so now I won't have to worry about draining the battery in 10 min..lol... I should have some new pics tomorrow with hopefully an ecu that's powered up and get the laptop hooked up to it so I can start working on a dashboard project file.

[Turbo Joe]

More progress has been made, but have been busy. After removing the old set up I noticed I had a lot more room in the battery area, so I shopped around and picked up a bigger battery and put the braille on the shelf since it had the cranking power but little reserve because it was so small. So that led me to make a new battery tray. Next a place to mount an underhood fuse panel and relays, so I made a quick mounting board where most of it will go. Next I started sorting out the MS3 harness and started running stuff to the side I routed things. My focus was to try and keep as much MS3 stuff on the pass side as possible since room to route stuff is tough on the drivers side. Wired the ecu powers and grounds along with the rad fan circuit and tested it with no problem after I figured out how to wire up a solidstate relay with a neg trigger. Then I moved on to begin making the injector harness and spent some time learning how to use my new crimper for those kind of special crimps and I did great on my first one lol ... Hopefully Friday my waterproof relays show up so I can finish wiring the drivers side and get my engine harness finished up so I can start tying in the wideband and other sensors. I'm on the home stretch now, but the hard part is yet to come with cam and crank triggers still left to do. My goal doing this wasn't for the fastest install but a nice trouble free and easy serviceable one and so far it seems so. Fingers crossed for a good day tomorrow.. here's a couple pics too, feel free to ask any questions.

[Turbo Joe]

Still making progress, trying to figure out where to mount the coils took me way to long to decide and figure out but finally I made it past that hump. Also wired up the other accessory relays, only one relay left and thats the alt. solid state relay, so that will be last when I get it running to make sure it works correctly. Knock sensor should be here today, if so i'll work on that. Going to have to start working on that cam/crank trigger soon...lol.. yea been avoiding it.. So far it's still been a decent install that's mostly straight forward, and once i'm completely done I will make a list of things that could have been explained in the manual instructions wayyyy better. here's a couple pics of the progress..enjoy

[85glht]

Can’t wait for the first fire up

[Turbo Joe]

I was going to try today for the first fire up, but the hall effect sensor does not seem to be doing anything. I tried with and without a pull up resistor and nothing. Not sure if I got a bad sensor or the diagram I followed was not the right one? I ask for help on the ms3 group on FB but responses are sometimes very slow. o well....

[Turbo Joe]

And it lives again ! Started first try on full sequential ... now ti finish the little things up and get so fuel for it since its on empty so I can let it fully warm up and get it dialed in somewhat with the auto tune feature. As long as it gets it to a somewhat decent starting point, thats cool with me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usYCHZ8aJqY

[cordes]

That's pretty awesome. What's the knock detection and subsequent timing retard like with that system?

[Turbo Joe]

That's pretty awesome. What's the knock detection and subsequent timing retard like with that system?

It can use narrow or wideband knock sensors, I went with a bosch since I want wideband, but still need to get it dialed in, and it has full timing retard controls, like how much total knock timing retard and how fast and how much at a time, a max knock timing set limit, how fast and how much to add back in at what rate you set.. it has lots of features that will take me some time to get use too. It can tell me what cylinder is knocking, and with full sequential, I can pull or add timing per cylinder, same with fuel. The sensor I went with is from a 2010 mercedes S 550. the sensor and plug was about $17 plus shipping..lol.. Only thing you have to do to retro fit it for our cars is to slightly open up the center hole so a 3/8-16 bolt can fit thru it since the sensor I think is made to fit an 8MM bolt?

[cordes]

Very cool. Thanks for that info.

[Turbo Joe]

Well I had some free time today so I charged the battery since it was low because of the trunk not being closed and the doors open as I was wiring the car checking things and ran it low, went to verify base timing and forgot T3's don't have a normal timing mark, so I had to set the engine to TDC and mark it, remembered I was low on gas so I went to get gas...Finally I was able to actually work on getting it dialed in a bit better. It's a shame it got late so fast but I was able to get it to start way easier and run by itself no problem even without setting the idle control yet, which explains the high idle it has right now. Tomorrow I'm free until the afternoon so gotta get up at a decent time and do what I can tuning wise. The need to update the registration is actually here Still have some tidying up to do with all the left over harness I'm not using, yea this system has a ton of options..road test soon.

[Turbo Joe]

Progress... wrapped up the harness under the hood and made it road ready besides a couple small things like make a batt hold down bracket for the top of the batt, small stuff but i'm pretty much done under the hood. Worked on the ide settings and got that pretty good now, starts from cold to 1350 rpms and as it warms up it drops by 50 rpms untill 1000 rpms. When the fan kicks on the idle holds decent enough for now, i'll get it perfect after. Tomorrow I will start working on getting the interior back together and hopefully be able to make it to the rmv and update the registration. I should be able to road test and tune this weekend sometime. I have the w/a I/C turn on thru the ecu now when the IAT temp climbs up a little, so one less thing to forget to do. I'm looking forward to making a new video since that would involve me driving

[Wastelands Warrior]

Turbo Joe, what are you using for cam and crank sensors?