Oct 19 - late update on Speeduino

So all of this has transpired over the last couple of months but I haven't been in here to give an update in a very long time and I thought I'd catch everyone up on where we are right now on the Speeduino install and conversion.

I have the factory ECU and wiring out of the car.  I cut the sensor leads at the back of the motor so I could tie in my Speeduino into those same sensors on the motor.  I, being a network guy, used solid CAT 5e cable to run extensions of those sensor wires to the Speeduino up in the cabin.  It was tough figuring out the pinout on the Speeduino as the guy who made it used a standard IDE 40 pin connector but called the pin numbers what he wanted instead of using the standard.  "Gotta love standards, because there are so many to choose from" -Steve Masters (who I heard it from).

So once I was connected up I ran a test to no avail and no spark, so I had to troubleshoot that.  Turns out that from the wires i had cut some of them that I needed powered and ground hadn't been connected back to those sources yet.  So once my ICM had power and ground then I got spark.  Then I guessed what to use for degrees before top dead center and got it completely wrong, I couldn't make enough power to pull my hill and not back fire and kill the motor.  Then when I adjusted, I went the wrong way and made it worse.  Got mad and quit before I tore stuff up.

Came back later after a conversation or two from some folks and found out I should be way before top dead center which is weird for guys who have really high compression ratio motors.  Set it to like 25 deg btdc and it fired right up and pulled my hill without issue.  Next up is to fire the injector with the Speeduino!

Progress is being made y'all!!!

So I have the car over to Jerry Noone's place to get all better on the body and such.  I'll have more updates about that as they come along.  I have the last post about the doors getting struts, I'm super stoked about that.  Gonna take a few days for that high to come down I think.  :-)

Take care, it's a jungle out there!  :-D

Oct 18 - Door Struts!!!

This has been such a long time coming!  I've waited 16 long years to see this day!  I've turned my car over to Jerry and his guys to work on the Diablo and in less than a week he's already got the struts figured out in the doors and making sure it clears the power windows and all.  So he's got the plan to figure all of those moving parts into that small space already done.  Now he is executing it. 

I'm so happy about it, that I had enough happy left over for the next day!  :-)

Here's some pics he sent me.  I'm going to go by his shop and have a look for myself this morning and work them doors up and down.  For some it may seem like a simple thing, but if you actually build one of these cars, you'll know what it means to get over this step.

Thank you so much Jerry! 

 

Looking forward to the rest of the amazing work that you guys do!

May 24 - late update

I have some late updates and I've been busy getting the car together for the Carlisle car show which has also now passed.  I have pictures to upload and a lot of things are going on now due to work and my new exposure onto the web with a video that has gone viral.

I will update within the next couple of days or by this weekend with pics of what all I worked on just in time to have the car running again (for the car show).

I also have a guy coming over to help out with my dragging brake I've had to listen to since I put it on the road.

Anyway, watch this space as a lot of interesting things are about to happen with the fuel management and the new arduino that got loaded into the car.  We're almost on top of the magic numbers needed to allow the computer to take over for me completely.  So no more turning of knobs will be needed!

I think I'm only a couple or three months away from putting on tag on this thing and trying it out on the road more.  Very exciting times indeed!  I'll be getting over to my buddy who will be doing the paint and interior next week.  He will help with the door windows and the regulators.  May also have him do the strut while he has it there to hold the doors open.  Would be some nice progress itself.

Anyhow, just an apology update so to speak for not posting in so long.  A lot has been going on with work too.  That's starting to blow up for me.  So maybe I can afford to pay for more work to be done instead of work that I'm having to do.  We'll see how that goes.

Take care all, and thanks for the interest in "the fumes car".  I would love to see thousands of them out there.  That would be history making for sure.  Come join me in that.

Thanks,
Coop

In case you hadn't seen it.  The video I'm referring to is where a guy who has a huge following filmed me explaining the car and firing it up for the camera.  Sounds great if I may say so myself.

Carlisle 2017 skipping mail chat

APR 2 - no April fools joke here

I'm getting it done.  :-)

I've finally got my front suspension all torqued down.  Yes.  The videos you've seen  of me driving it around before now had some bolts with nuts and some were just bolts.  :-)  Like the top of the shock was just pinned (and yes there is a ton of friction there) and I wasn't doing any highway driving so I wasn't worried about it.  The few passes I have videos of are about all of the ones I've ever done.  I think I only have one drive without it being video'd. 

But I'm so glad that this is finally done.  Was a real bear trying to find all the right metric hardware to put my stuff together with.  3 out of 4 (as it turns out) of my bottom A-arm bolts are M12x1.75x90mm long. One of them was a 1/2-13x4!  Whatever.  It's all smooth and as it should be now.  I have some extra 1/2-13x4 bolts and nylon lock nuts lying about now.  I guess I'll take them back tot eh store and get my money back.  Don't think I'll be needing them in the rest of the build.

But the big deal (drum roll please) is that I can now get an alignment.  YAY!  :-)  I've been looking forward to that day for some time now.  My crap toe job and non-center steering wheel days are about to be over (until it needs another alignment).  hee hee

I've got a guy I've used for my regular cars, he does a bang up job and has a nice laser setup.  I'll be talking to them first about the settings.  I have the Diablo manual that has been floating around out here forever and will see what he thinks about mostly following that.  I don't know that every number will be the same or not.  As these things (even though mine is coil over) are not the same as factory.  Plus it has to look right in the wheel arch.  :-)  I noticed when screwing around with my caster and camber that it can move the wheel to the point that it interferes with the body.

Mar 25 - more on the doors pt 2

In continuing to document my progress on building out my doors, I have the following update.  I've not made any more progress on the passenger side, but have moved to the drivers side.  I had help with me on Friday that could help with getting the latch going.  Once I did that I just kept on going with what I already knew from the passenger side on how to get started on the window and regulator on the driver's side.  So once I was over there on the driver's side, I decided to take that regulator to the next step that I had yet to do on the pass side.  I cut the vertical track out of the fiberglass mount and made a new one directly onto my Lambo door.  I was able to get much closer to the tolerance of what room I have to work within and was able to make the regulator removable.

Here are some pics of the work that was done Friday afternoon and Saturday.

Was able to make one cut for the striker to come through. Drilled either end and hit the two lines with the vibration cutter.

Got these two holes on the money for the striker.

Striker is on.

Latch is on. This stuff goes so much faster once you've done it before. ;-)

Rivet time. Keeps everything in place while I work other things out.

Door lines up pretty nice.

Cut away some steel to let the vertical get some clearance. All of this with the glass is very close. Can also see where I welded my small piece back to the horizontal bit.

Made a small angle bracket for the lower to bolt to. Bent it as well.

Both doors turned out the same on the angle of the bottom of the glass to the horizontal rail.  I think I'll work with that.

On to trying to mount the glass to the rail next!

Thanks for your time and hopefully these tips will help someone else.
-Coop

Mar 18 - More on the doors

This update follows on from the previous one about how to get the doors done.

In the previous episode I was talking about getting the latch in, then hanging the window + regulator then moving on the strut that holds the door open.

This one I'm talking about the window and the regulator.  I'm also discussing the door skin being removable but only cutting it, not the later steps about how to add it back.

Using a variable speed saw I'm using this cutter that has a 1 3/8th wide end on it.  It was very nice for plunging into some interesting shapes to get the cut right.

I was keeping the tool at about a 45 degree angle as I was cutting the front and back areas of the door.

I was showing how you can also just use the corner of this tool to make nice radius cuts.

This was one of the rivets that I had placed around the whole of the skin.  This will make it easier to relocate the lower skin back to where it was when it was all lined up.

Lower skin removed.

In these images you can see how wavy the edge of the glass is. Not a very good manufacturing process.

Further down the length you can see it isn't straight at all.  Does this along the whole of the top from front to back edges.  Roller coaster.

You can see that I have drilled and some rivets in to hold this piece up in place, along the front edge you can see more drill hole locations. The D&R came template'd with them into the body.

Looking back the other way.

Regulator sitting in near the right location. Glass being held up with tape so everything can be checked out.

Getting dark but was trying to provide another angle for zooming in and looking at it.

Both of these images need zoomed in to see more and rotated.

Here's a youtube video going over what has been done.  More details there than what I have typed.

Mar 12 - got a visit and almost a ride

Adrian came by for a visit today.

We got out the driveway a good bit too.  Even was pulling up the hill.  But then the heat was too high and it went POP!  Of course then I went and screwed with too many variables and we didn't get to drive out my road and back.  I will be making more progress on the fuel control now though.

I ultimately switched off the malfunctioning Teensy Arduino that controls my fuel and went back to the stock ECU that came with the motor.  I will be figuring out a way to switch how many injectors worth of firing that I'm allowing my one injector to listen to.  I'm thinking I'll run 3 more NPN transistors and control them with my heat control Teensy (Arduino).  This will let me fire my one injector at the exact same rate and amount if it were the original 8 firing (for cold starts)... and I could also shut off the grounds that are trying to fire my injector (begin to ignore them) as I want to lean out more as the car comes up to temp.  Now that sounds like a plan! 

Stay tuned we'll see how that goes.  Anyhow, without any further a due here's the show. 

Oh and it's a show alright!  :-D  I had no idea what was going to happen next.  I was getting pretty excited too! 

Mar 10 - Diablo door latch

I now have my passenger door latch installed.  I made a lengthy video explaining the latch install and the plan for how to assemble the rest of the components inside the door.



I forgot that I had a couple of stills for helping to see it before the latch itself was installed.  This Laser thing worked out really well because I was able to get a single cut done and it fit perfectly without messing about trying to figure out the angle of the line to cut in the door.

Mar 8 - Marker lights are done

I've got some pics here of the finished product.  I don't have any close ups but I did measure each one to make them parallel to the body lines instead of level with the ground.  The two (lines) were fairly close together but off from one another.  So I figured people would say it was crooked just because it didn't go along with the body line, so I went with the body line.

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Got a funny here.  I posted this up to my buddies.  I told them that I have a washer and dryer to sell.  hee hee :-D

Thanks,
Coop

Mar 7 - Them marker lights tho

I've come up with a pretty quick way to make the holes for the markers lights that are seen on the sides of the car.  I used a hole saw that was the right size to match the clearance needed for my Hyundai marker lights.  I drilled two holes that over lap.  Then I trimmed the peaks down with a vibrating saw.  I then finished off the clean up with a dremel tool that has a deburring tool attached to it.

On the rear I couldn't really put mine on the rear bumper as I should have done.  It doesn't work out that way on this kit to fit those markers into that space (depth wise).  Plus I wouldn't have a way to get in behind of them to work on them easily.  but yeah, the depth doesn't work out any way so it's a moot point.  What I did do was use a torpedo level to mark a level line right above the joint where the bumper meets the quarter panel.  I measured across the width that I had and it came out to 9".  So I centered the marker light on that space and kept its centerline to where the marker would be low and near the joint. 

 

I marked the overall width I needed to fit the backing of the marker inside the hole.  I centered that and marked both edges.  Then when I lined up the drill with the hole saw on it, I could see if I was going to be far enough off of center to make the outside edge of the cutting circle come to the outer most edge of what I needed.  I started the pilot drill bit into the body and let the hole saw cut about a 1/16th of an inch deep into the body then I backed it out and started the other hole that was beside of it and overlapping the one I already started.  It really doesn't matter which one you finish first once you've got them both marked deep enough to keep the bit from wanting to wander.

On the front I measured down 2.5" from the top of the bumper and made some marks to cover the width of the marker.  I then used my width of the marker (5") to make sure I left 1" to the edge near the front tire and measure back towards the front to mark the center for this marker.  I also made marks like in the rear where I knew how wide my overall hole had to be to fit the back of the marker in it.  It was 2.25" for this overall space.  So I made a center of 1 1/8th" and marked the outside edges with the end of the tape and the 2.25" mark respectively.  Then again I would eyeball the outside edge of the hole saw to that edge and kept on the center line to drill my hole and mark each before finally cutting all the way through. 

Yeah, this one came out crooked. It still gets covered by the marker, so it's all good.  :-)

I know that sounds like a lot to describe, but once you get it (what I mean) it goes very quickly.  I bet I didn't spend 15~20 mins a pair front, or rear.  I probably didn't have an hour in it and was done with all 4 holes.  Trimmed out too.  Ok, 2 hours out in the garage but not counting my screwing around and coming up with this method before I actually did any work.  :-)

I'll post again tomorrow when I finish up by drilling the last 2 holes per marker where the screws mount the marker to the car.  I've not done that tonight as I don't have much room to work on the car in the garage and I'm really cramped for space on the drivers side now.  So I'll pull the car out and do it in the driveway and push it back in after I'm done.  I'll get the nose mounted again as well.  I need to start tightening the nose to the body so it'll retake its shape back.  It's in pretty sad shape right now.  Will take a little tightening up once a day I suspect until it fits like it used to again.

Thanks for your time.
Coop

Mar 5 - set that temp

I've now got a working temp control for the pre-heater element.  It does switch on and heat up to well beyond where I want it to, and then it recognizes it has over shot and it turns off.  Then once under temp again, it will switch back on.  So I have some progress there. 

It was only at the end of the day when I got this far and had already switched off my computer so I'll have to start over tomorrow with the RasPi and reset it to a default install.  Then I can reload the Arduino and Teensy stuff on it and then go again with trying to adjust my program.  I was updating the program on my laptop and then trying to test, which wasn't working out.  I didn't find this out 100% until I had plugged the teensy back into the RasPi and everything worked as it should had.

I also adjusted the dip switches on the back of my tach so it'll be good to see if that has corrected my tach output now.  Would be nice to see a normal idle showing on the tach, instead of it claiming to be 250 rpm.  :-)

So maybe tomorrow I can set the temp much higher than where I have it now and add a couple of features, where it will be easier to tell what the temp is and maybe even an easy way to set the temp instead of using a computer to set it.  May be getting ahead of myself there.

I'm just glad to be over the hump to where I know have an automated means for controlling the power to the heating element and it will regulate the temp within some margin.  Now I can focus on figuring out what that temp should be and automating more of the processes that it takes to make this as easy to use as a normal fuel injected car is.

Thanks,
Coop

Mar 1 - one program away

I've got the last of the physical install stuff done for the next iteration of the fumes testing.  I've got the solid state relay installed.  It is controlling the power line to the heating element being allowed to connect or not.  It has a 5v turn on that is micro-controller switched based on the temperature it sees in the box and being mounted up against the element itself.  This will avoid the element reaching a temp high enough to have any more small explosions in the box.

Here's the solid state relay.

Control is on the bottom, the power line I spliced into is on the top.  I'm repurposing the same setup that was going to watch the larger vaporizer box with and control the vacuum to the EGR, is now being used here instead.  I think being 100% electrical I can be more accurate in the temp control.  We'll see.  

It takes a little longer to warm up, but allows me to save more fuel on cold starts than it would have in the other method.  I plan to put some sort of gauge to see the temp at all times.  I'm thinking because it is already run by the teensy, that I could run a servo that has a hand on it and make my own gauge to watch.  Easier to know the actual temp for cold starts.  That would be nice to know over having just an LED.  That was my original idea, I was going to light an LED with an icon in front of it that looks like the glow plug warming coil icon that Diesels use when they cold start.  I'd rather have the gauge and know the actual temps.

Thanks for your time.  Hopefully this will inspire others to do similar stuff.

Take care,

Coop

Feb 26 - finish up that breath

I closed up the intake tube today.  I got the slot cut out to allow the heating element to exit from inside the elbow.  I got the clamps on it.  Repositioned the air filter so it can get fresh air from outside. 

I thought I would show what the element looks like up inside the elbow once it is ready to go before I add the other bits where it blocks the view of the one tie wrap I use to hole the element in place.  I've got a hole drilled into one end of the elbow so I can run a tie wrap through that to pull the element to the one end.  That makes the back end set its location so it can't be moving around in there once set with the cap on the top.

Then I added a piece of foam rubber with electrical tape wrapped around it (to stop the flaky bits from getting sucked into the motor itself).  I have a stainless steel tie wrap on that as well.  there are multiple pictures so I can try to get enough angles to make sense of what you can see.  When you see the 2.25" pipe doing a 180 up near the camera view, you're looking down through the quarter window behind the passenger's door, to see that view.

Can also see the temp probe touching on the back of this 180 bend at the bottom.
Which appears on the left in this image.

Can see the opening in between the heat elements leads.

Feb 24 - proper breathing

So today I spent most of it trying to fab up a first run of what I want to do for my naturally aspirated hot fumes car.  I  needed to make an adapter to go from a 3" intake to a 2 1/4" pipe but offset it in such a way as to make room for the heating element to exit the 3" elbow it sits inside of.

I've got some pics here that show the process as I was trying to keep up with the various steps as I went along.  People can comment on here if they would like more details about this piece.  If this isn't all going together for you, I'm sure it will once you see what comes next.

Adapter is mounted on the bottom of the 3" elbow.

I will cut holes and slit the vertical on the adapter to allow the heating element and K-Type thermocouple to exit this piece.

Looking down from the top.

Looking Back from the Front.

Looking from right in front of the rear tire.