The Project Pad

Toph just hooked you up lol. I was going to say that most of the pain is tying into power for things like injectors, coils, fp, and ecu power. I used an AAN with AAN harness and VEMS AAN pnp ecu. So I just brought power to the wires I mentioned above and hooked everything else I had for connectors in the engine bay up. Lickety split!

He did! Thanks for taking the time to spell it out. My hope is to document this part of it as well as I can for the future and this will help out tremendously. This is still pretty daunting but it will be so worth it when completed

Is this thing done yet?

I thought you were going to work on it this weekend while I am out of town?

get this thing done tonight!

Made some headway last night. Got the transmission bolted up and then moved the motor out of the way to make room for the car. It's back in the garage! My bother Jay came over after work and helped out a lot getting things re-organzied (again), getting the tranny bolted up and most of all, pushing the car up the driveway. I seriously was only steering as he pushed the car. Pretty impressive even without the motor weight in the car.

Got the 7a harness out! There were a few wires that I had to snip but I took pics and grouped them together. Now it's putting the 3b through and then...

then...

I beg peoples to come over and help me figure this out

My plan at this point is to get the harness through and then put the motor back in. Since I'm going through the driver's side this should work out fairly well. We'll see though. If I can get the motor back in it will be a huge motivator to keep going!

Question: Do I put the tranny mounts on the frame before putting the motor back in?

Onto the pics:

Fuse panel, left side looking down from the hood. I pulled the black clip off to get the harness out:



Fuse panel, center & right side looking down from the hood:


One of the plugs in the cab:


Couple more plugs in the cab:


This green/red wire goes up into the fuse panel. Not sure what it does:


This wire goes into the bay and comes into the cab and goes across from driver to pass side. Not sure what it does either:



Two brown/white wires. One goes up to the fuse panel and the other across to the pass side:


Current status of the bay. It's not going to get much cleaner than that unless the Engine Bay Cleaning Fairies come:


7a harness that I pulled out. Pretty awesome I got this thing out I won't lie

Spent the better part of the evening putting the motor in the bay and inviting the mosquitoes to come and watch. After some IM'ng with Dave had the confidence to move forward after the flywheel pin sensor thingy was hitting the flywheel. Ended up turning the motor over and trying again and it fit fine. I put some of that white metal marker paint on it, mounted it and turned the motor over a few times. Took it off and no rubbing. So moving on I went and struggled to get the motor aligned on the picker. This wasn't very fun but eventually got it sitting on the mounts and ready to bolt on. I left it sitting for the time being as there may be a chance it has to come out again. Who knows why but there's a chance.

Stared at the success for a while, got bit by some more mosquitoes then put the car back in the garage.

The Evo 8 intercooler I have isn't going to fit very well behind the bumper so I'll be looking for a stock 3b setup, namely the core support with the return line as I have a lead on the 3b intercooler. Anyone have one they'd sell?

Also had a mishap with the brake booster lines :( It's not leaking now but it will be flushed and watched carefully once things are running.

As I sit here writing and looking back at the car with the motor finally sitting properly in the bay it is has helped the motivation level. There's still a ton poop to do but it feels good to be this far.

Onto some pics...

not much time tonight to work on things. Did get the replacement prop shaft installed though so we'll see if that takes care of the annoying off-throttle rattle.

Off throttle rattle? Was it perhaps just the distributor? How's the wiring going - you figure out what the wires were that you mentioned above?

It's more of a shimmy. It may have been the worn out engine/trans mounts but not sure.

The wiring...oh the wiring...I'm soliciting some help on that one and in the mean time getting everything else ready that I can. I think those wires will be easy to figure out especially with the help coming

Got my hybrid downpipe today via direct drop off Looks amazing!

Had a good fab evening with my dad yesterday evening. I've been waiting to work on my car with my dad for a long time now. Little background: growing up my dad had a wood working business he ran out of our garage in Washington. I would help him after school run custom molding, arches, trim work. Not much talking because of the noise but it was good father/son time. More recently my parents have lived pretty far from us kids so my mom could finish her doctorate. Just last week they were able to move here to Utah and be close to us so of course the first order of business was a little father/son work session.

Back to the update:

With the intercooler situation coming up fast, I've been stewing over what solution to go with. In classic Nick fashion, I'm making this more difficult than necessary and at first wanted to make a stock 3b s2 intercooler work with a modified core support. I have an intercooler from an EVO 8 as well and after some convincing, decided to try and make it work. First order of business is the core support. We ended up with a simple angle iron and square tubing solution which should work nicely. The EVO intercooler is going to require some bumper rebar massaging to get a good fit but should work out nicely and support my temporary power goals. The stock turbo to intercooler piece will be replaced with a couple 90's and an aluminum piece with bung for the diverter valve.

My brother also came over and I put him to work on the axle joint cleaning it up to be repacked Is that mean to do?

Onto the pics:













Look how clean that is! Didn't have to touch any grease

Worked on the intercooler mounting this last weekend. Ended up flipping the thing upside down(which is really the way it's mounted on the EVO) and running some square tubing down to the mounts. Had to run them at a slight angle to both clear the snub mount and have enough room down below for the bumper grill and eventually a belly pan.

Pics:

Too bad our fabricator/welder is no longer close by.....

Keep at it Nick, time is ticking.

True, I've been doing ok with my little 110amp flux welder. Once I have all the hard lines for the IC done in exhaust tubing I'll exchange them for aluminum sometime. Next big hurdle is still the wiring harness. I've got both Bentley manuals and a lot of notes so should be an evening or two of tracing, testing and connecting and then it's putting stuff back in!

Btw, did you say you had some oil lines that might work?

...still the wiring harness...

You have the 7a harness out, the 200 20v harness out, both Bentleys, help here , and you're procrastinating on it still?

I'm still here to help when you really start to get into it.

I'm actually in the thick of it right now... I'll send you my info if you have a few minutes. It's starting to make sense but still very foreign.

well looks like i screwed something up pretty bad with the clutch. went to depress the pedal and it was a brick. pushed a little harder and it gave in. a few depresses and releases and it seemed weird on the release. look underneatht the car and big ol puddle of brake fluid. :frustrated: :frustrated: :frustrated:

Where is the brake fluid coming from? Inside the bell housing? If so, pull the MC and see if it went "bye-bye".

It did go bye bye, and fell apart into the bell housing. Looks like I'm getting good practice pulling this thing out. Soon I'll be as fast as Hank!

I gave in. bunched up wires and connectors en route from across the pond...

Bought S2 wiring harness from England. Main plug in question - snipped. Go to re-tape loose wiring to ECU plug - loose wire. Other plugs non-existant. This wiring business has got me about ready to throw in the towel.

Wow Nick! I hope you were able to get something back from the seller. That's ridiculous. Keep your head up. You're close!

Haven't talked with him yet. If I could just get a pic of the plug he cut off that would be all I need. I think what may have happened is he pulled the harness through backwards thus the messes up interior side.