My 1994 PGT Build Thread

[95PGTTech]

dude i am amazed. GREAT job!

so how long do you think till your car is done? you need to bring it to some meets.

with this round? I haven't even cracked the surface of the wiring yet, but basically left:

• reassemble intake manifold
• modify and install wiring harness
• finish brake lines
• finish rear suspension
• reinstall interior
• figure out headlight wiring issue
• install megasquirt/possibly coils
• install two gauges
• reinstall front bumper

After which I attribute at least a week worth of driving around my current DD and coming to the garage to go for 20 minute drives in the probe, come back solve issues, etc. I'm hoping at the pace I am going now to be done in Jan.

That's round 1. When I'm finished, I have a built motor to go in the car. A set of ZE heads I went way further with my porting, forged rods and pistons, use these turbo cams. Sheetmetal intake manifold. Put that motor in, and how I have everything painted now, powdercoat it all. Install turbo kit, which probably means more wiring gauges and hiding vacuum lines and fussy stuff like I am doing now. I'm building a trans with PAR 2 and 3 and a quaife LSD. Teins and big brake kit front and rear (bigger than my BBK now, LOL).

When that's up and running and has no issues it's remove it all, strip the car down, weld the holes in the engine bay, install body kit, install roll bar, paint the car, get some killer wheels. this is my last probe, I'm going all out.

I'll bring it to meets if NEPO still exits. doesn't seem to be too much activity lately. round 1 right now is really just to clear out unnecessary stuff and open up room/possibility to do custom, better looking turbo pipes and to simplify all that install.

[polarexpress17]

NEPO is still around, maybe not as much as before i got involved, but we're still here

[96GTZE]

NEPO is still around, maybe not as much as before i got involved, but we're still here

NEPO whats that... i think i remember something like that... maybe about 4 years back... it could of been alpo however...

[maddogpgt]

hey man that looks sweet, i helped a buddy wire tuck his civic coupe

[Slow232]

Looks really good. I was thinking about doing a wire tuck when i pull the motor to re-ring it. And I also really like the idea of the fuse block in the fender mod. Good thinking.

[95PGTTech]

If you guys could please view/respond to some threads, I would appreciate the help greatly:

My frame is bent - what to do
Help me identify these connectors

I keep looking at the car and thinking if I had not started all this tuck/strip business, I probably could be driving around the car today or tomorrow. But prior to this no start issue, three or four times I had wasted weeks chasing electrical issues and would eventually find a brittle connector or wire cracked causing an open or a short and it was really getting annoying. It's a 15 year old car now and the entire harness NEEDED to be gone through, checked, and replaced where necessary, this is just icing on the cake.

I couldn't leave alone on my day "off." I couldn't sleep last night so I got up and got in on the small detachable wiring harness I brought home last night.

This is the small disconnectable engine bay harness

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/IMG_3039.jpg

Remove all tape, convoluted tubing, brackets, nuts, bolts, clamps, clips, plastic retainers, zip ties, etc.

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/IMG_3040.jpg

As you can see, there are harnesses within the harnesses. These large alternator and battery cables - grounds, power to and from fuse box - fall out of the harness as you unwrap it.

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/IMG_3041.jpg

Using blue tape, I mark each connector. Even with my extensive knowledge of Probes, removing this recently, and holding an EVTM in my hands, it's still hard to figure out what's what. Use some deductive reasoning and make sure the wire colors match the EVTM. Speaking of which, I've been using a 1995 one to identify my 1994 harness and found a LOT of connectors are different wire colors, makes it very hard. Scored a 1994 EVTM on ebay for under $10 shipped! Using both, I should be able to better identify what connectors are what more easily, and re-pin what I need to because I will be using a 1995 ECU and megasquirt so I have to make this just like a 1995 harness.

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/IMG_3046.jpg

Remove what circuits are not necessary. Do it the clean way, take a pick and remove the lock from the connector, then undo the secondary lock and slide out the pin. Not only does this completely remove the wire and eliminate the need to cut/tape off wires and risk of shorts, but if you remove something by accident you can just pop it back in.

Out of this harness, I removed the single wire that goes to the oil pressure switch and the single wire that goes to the coolant temp sensor (the gauge supply one, NOT the two wire ECT sensor!). I broke the 1993/1994 style OPSU and the stock gauge blows anyway so I scored an Autometer Cobalt electric oil pressure gauge on eBay for $50. That's a third of the price of the replacement stock OPSU. I've only owned 1995s up to this point so I don't have any 1993/1994 stuff sitting around and I don't trust used sensors. Since I got the one gauge, I got the water temp gauge to match. I'll put them in the lower console under the radio. When I turbo the car I'll add matching boost and wideband on the pillar, I'm not a fan of too many gauges. The factory speedo/tach/voltmeter/fuel gauge work sufficiently...well, the tach sucks, but I don't drag race, so whatever.

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/IMG_3047.jpg

Since this is only removing the wire within this sub-harness, and not the entire wire circuit, I marked the two connectors that I pulled one pin out of each so that when I reconnect them I can easily continue removing the circuit.

I stopped by the house and got some info off the car I needed and quickly pulled the PCM engine bay harness out and brought it home, time to start in on that one.

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/IMG_3048.jpg

I also stopped at the welding supply and got some materials for making the battery mount, good god I was tempted to get the MIG conversion kit for my ARC welder (hobart handler).

Based on where I want to mount it, I selected to use the standard Honda 8x5, 9 inch tall battery. Some of the nicer ones can put out upwards of 750CCA and I don't run big stereos or anything so I think that should suffice with some nice welding wire ground/power cables. I got some stuff in the mail today so I cut this box to the exact size of the battery to use as mock up - lighter, no fluid in it, and no risk of putting wrenches across both terminals as I toss it about.

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/IMG_3052.jpg

Well, onto this harness, probably another two hours just to get it stripped down.

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/IMG_3058.jpg

I also got some bad news at Paris Auto today, the place I was going to have make me some custom A/C lines so I could keep it in the fender - apparently, the dryer (canister looking thing upper passenger side corner of your engine bay) needs to remain the highest part of the system. I can't forsee any way of doing that keeping it in the fender, the highest place I can mount it is still about an inch or two lower than the evaporator. So I may have no choice but to ditch it.

[96GTZE]

you dont sleep do you your some kind of ROBOT

[95PGTTech]

Remember what I was saying about mark with tape the connectors that you remove wires/pins from? It's so when you connect one harness to another...like so...

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/IMG_3073.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/IMG_3074.jpg

You can take it out of the next pin. From this harness I was only able to remove the single black/blue wire from the fan switch, but I may be able to remove the distributor connectors (two) and the VAF connector. I asked shaodome to look up what I ordered with my MegaSquirt and to determine whether I can remove either/both of those. I believe I have to keep the distributor ones because I was in bulk buy 3 with the MS wired into the stock ECU and we were supposed to keep the base of the distributor.

I finished, with the exception of one, labeling the connectors. Anyone have a guess on this one?

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/IMG_3072.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/IMG_3044.jpg

[keith_ze]

wow that looks really good man keep it up

[95PGTTech]

Yet another productive day, woke up a bit late and didn't get to the garage until noon but we stayed late. The wife has been off of work for a few days so even being under the weather she lent a hand. Granted, she's no ASE-certified professional, but help, and company, is helpful, regardless of how unhelpful it really is. Gotta thank my friend Adam (96GTZE) and my dad too for helping me push through all the rough spots of this build. Adam is tinkering with his own 95 Mustang GT 'vert that's quite the project, I'll let him disclose what he wants to when he wants to about that.

We started off the day by getting the rear hubs off the car and replaced with the new ones. I had brand new ones on the car that I drilled out for ARP Corvette studs because I thought I was going to need a big spacer, but with the recent wheel selection I'm easily able to run on stock length studs. It wasn't the quick solution, but it was the easiest.

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/IMG_3107.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/IMG_3109.jpg

If anyone is interested in a cheap brand new set of rear hubs/wheel bearings with ARP Corvette studs already in them and a set of ten brand new in box ARP studs for the front, it would really help the build fund if you'd buy them from my thread. HERE

Julia did all the work in the rear, asking a question here or there. We picked up some rear wheel seals (the center metal thing) from my friend Bill at Mazda who helps me source all my hard to find Probe parts. The rear rotors don't rotate, the brakes are hung up on something so I'll have to take a look at it tomorrow. I had the driver side off to get the fuel lines out so I hope it has something to do with that. I'll try removing the emergency brake cables and then go from there.

After removing the remaining harness from the interior of the car, Adam and I began removing the HVAC assembly (the airbag wiring harness is underneath it).

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/IMG_3108.jpg

After removing the airbag harness and module, I pulled the passenger side wheel well and yanked it and the passenger side front crash sensor. Wow, looks pretty empty in here.

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/IMG_3111.jpg

Something I was very upset by, yet I think many people on PT will be happy with is I had to remove the A/C today. I did confirm with a few different sources that the dryer does need to be mounted at the highest point of the system - even if that's not the case, I have no way of going from the evaporator in the dash to the dryer, and from the evaporator to the compressor without some really custom junk - I need to keep the evaporator location and size inside the HVAC box, yet I need to seal the firewall and have outlets that run through the back of the dash and out through the fender. Simply put, there's no room. I guess I'm not going to have that fancy defrost function I like so much.

I remove components, even those destined for the trash, by selecting the appropriate specialty tools and disconnecting them.

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/IMG_3130.jpg

Adam, the caveman, grabs the cutoff wheel and beasts them.

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/IMG_3131.jpg

Typical Mustang owner.

Last but not least was that stupid vacuum canister. Why this was placed in the engine bay in the first place is beyond me.

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/IMG_3129.jpg

Tomorrow is another day - I'm going to try to mount the three transmission electrical connectors - the VSS, the park/neutral position switch, and the backup lamp switch - in a sneaky sneaky way.

For tonight, I get to snack on this:

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/IMG_3101.jpg

I really wish at this point that I hadn't cut the fuse box out...yes, you heard that right. Oh well, that's what the soldering iron is for.

[96GTZE]

im not a cave man !!! whats up with the picture of the sammich...!

[95PGTTech]

Explination Thread



Guys, I could also use any MS experts, or anyone who has installed a V2.2 or V3 MegaSquirt, to comment here.

[96GTZE]

Oh that explains it...Kirsten would like to know if you can use sausage instead on bacon on the sammich.

[95PGTTech]

I suppose. I'm not the kind of guy that likes a sausage in the mouth.
What you two do in the privacy of your own apartment when you're not helping me is NONE of my business.

[SlaveLabor]

Did you change your screen name? You have me all confused!!!!


Oh, BTW. The best choice you made about this build, was taking out the A/C. This will be a "true" beauty now!!!! Keep it up man, your doing awesome work! Your also working very fast at it!