Project Beautiful Beast work log

[proboner]

We're getting close here folks!

I'm really regretting not keeping the crossed off items on my to do list in Evernote. I have spent so much time working on this that it all starts to just blend together!

As is often the case, much of the recent work has been clean up, organization, routing, running of new circuits and relays, figuring out issues, researching etc. So much work, so little to "show" for it.

Spent a good amount of time on the alarm. The model I bought has a couple features that I was particularly interested in and that I finally got all up and running. Specifically, an arm/disarm proximity sensor and a start button tied in to the system. When I ordered it I actually thought the functionality was a little different, but I've since gotten it to all work to my intended result.

Took a couple days trying to get the wiring of the door locks tied together with the stock lock relay... mainly set back by the horrendous instructions/wiring diagram that I've noted before. Then I had to wrestle with running a proximity sensor for the automatic lock/unlock functionality, into the drivers door. Unfortunately this is a super boring picture, but without pictures, this doesn't belong in the picture post!


But I had an issue to get around...
Things were all well and good when the battery wasn't isolated, but with the isolator in the "off" position, how would I unlock the doors? The answer, a small hidden momentary button that, when pressed, flows power to the alarm long enough to unlock the doors.




With the door locks/relay all situated, I went ahead and wrapped that sucker up!




While I was in the mood, I cut to length, organized orientation/compatibility with Molex connectors, and wrapped the Quadspark input/output wiring (you can reference the picture above to see what it looked like before).


Then moved on to taking apart the DB37 MS3 and MS3X connectors and removed all the unused wiring, cut everything down to length in preparation to be wrapped, and organized/routed the MS based harness. I've got about another hour to get that situated, at which point I'm going to throw the dash back in temporarily to actually drive the car and make sure all the gauges and relays are working correctly.

Also put the drivers door panel on


and tied down the wiring in the rear of the car, which has no picture because all there really is, is wiring that's no longer hanging and sloppy!

[GTcruiser33]

Love seeing your updates, I've been without a probe for oh, at least 10 years, but I keep coming back for threads like this!

[proboner]

So she went on her maiden voyage today! Drove 3 whole blocks and turned around and came back. Tune leaves a lot to be desired so far... especially with this 75mm TB.

Started getting her situated a few days ago. Took everything out and prepped the floor for paint




Then painted that bitch




Threw the dash and seats back in




Took her out for a drive and gave her the first bath she's had in years

[proboner]

Went about installing the hoodpins on the CF hood today

[P1P]

free bump to keep the thread going


any updates?

[proboner]

Haha thanks man! There are updates, just not much posting. I've got some stuff to do on her today and then I'll get some updates later tonight.

[proboner]

Deleted because the rewrite was too long. Posted below.

[P1P]

good work but i think some of the pics/link not working

[Greg 94 PGT]

The car looks great

[proboner]

yeah, I didn't have time to go through and make sure everything worked when I posted this yesterday. For some reason I can never post links to youtube... they just show up as the huge blank areas you see. I'm changing it now.

[proboner]

And the update...


The main worry was getting the car to run well, and there were a few steps/setbacks to making this happen including an obvious miss, no timing marks to check base timing, bogging when initially applying gas, and my laptop constantly disconnecting from the MS when the car was running.

First thing was to buy a timing cover off a guy on Facebook, which allowed me to get the base timing right, at 57*.

Next I ended up buying all new plugs/wires/coils to try to fix this miss, which did make the car run "better", but still there was an obvious issue. I pulled plug wires while the car was running and found that pulling cyl 5 resulted in no change in how the car ran... so there's the problem. At first I thought that perhaps the ignition wasnt wired correctly (because it had been a previous area of concern), but after installing, running, and pulling a brand new spark plug and having no sign of combustion, I realized it was likely a fuel problem. Checked the injector connectors and found that when I pushed it onto the injector, the wires woudl push out of the connector and not make contact. Well that certainly seems like an issue! Pushed the wires into place and the miss disappeared. Nice!

Next was to try and fix the bogging issue with initial throttle application. My first thought was it could be an acceleration enrichment issue, but the MS instructions state that I have my base VE map down before I try to tune AE. So, I set out on a couple drives with autotune on to try to get my VE table looking good. HOWEVER, my laptop would constantly lose connection while driving, essentially rendering the autotune useless. Well shit! Plus, this car is like 4 years out of registration and the exhaust was still quite loud, making it a total cop magnet. At this point I weighed priorities and decided that reducing exhaust decibels, to not get pulled over, to keep Johnny Law off my back, was probably the best course of action.

With this goal in mind I calculated that the cheapest, lightest, and easiest way to reduce the sound level, was another exhaust insert. And to ensure that it would definitely reduce the volume enough, I even included some fiberglass muffler wrap for good measure.

Unfortunately I never got a sound clip of the car with this setup, but I can assure you it was quiet, yet terrible.

I still had the issue of Tunerstudio losing connection with MS, however... and without a solid connection there would be no tuning, and without tuning, what's the point!? I Did some research, went back to an older version of tuner studio (which didn't fix it), considered reinstalling the firmware on my MS, and then happened upon a read that suggested the USB cable I was using may be affected by the "noise" of the other electronics when the car is running. I'd read a lot about this over the years, and certainly believed it in regard to the crank signal, but had been had always felt like this was a ploy to convince you to buy Tunerstudio's cables, instead of those from a local electronics store. In my desperation however, and because I had my old cable sitting in a box, I switched back to the old DB9 cable I had run pre-MS3X and BAM, no more cut outs! Dang, I guess they were right!

Anyways, time to get this bitch tuned! Upon going out on a few tuning sessions, however, the car still ran like total shit. The engine would want to die on every initial throttle input, before jumping back up and increasing in rpm like normal. And then as I would attempt to rev higher, it was bog down and refuse to rev above 4000 rpm. As I spent nights pondering what the possible issue was, I came to 2 epiphanies...

1) The 75mm TB was surely causing the bog on initial pedal input- opening the plate 10% at low rpm was letting in enough air to push baro up into the 90's, causing things to go massively lean until the fuel would catch up.
2) In my quest to make the car quiet to avoid the law, I had surely plugged it up to the equivalent of like a 1" pipe.

[proboner]

As an experiment I removed the fiberglass, and sure enough it ran much better. Obviously exhaust needed to be addressed.

As I've surely mentioned in previous posts, I am a glutton for punishment when it comes to exhaust. I've had at least 10 different variations on my PGT's over the years. With this iteration my initial intent had just been to keep it short, light, and quiet. I especially didn't want to spend money on it because I have an idea for something ridiculous in the future, but it requires an amount of fabrication that I'm not ready to delve into just yet. I'd been hoping to get by with something cheap and easy, but I'd now come to the conclusion that I'd have to come up with reasonable system.

I got on the interweb and started researching mufflers, when I came across this little clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DypH2CNWlsw 

I've gotta admit, I liked it! So with a new found interest in Flowmaster mufflers, I started looking at their website to see what my options were. That's when I came across the HP-2 laminar flow mufflers and once again my hope of having a short, light, quiet exhaust was rekindled! With the HP-2's body width and height at 4", it was small enough to fit in the exhaust tunnel. And with the laminar flow interior design, it wasn't straight through and would hopefully provide better muffling. So at that point I made the choice, I'd get the HP-2 and put it inline with the current Magnaflow resonator, and if it didn't get the decibels down enough I'd go whole hog and run a full exhaust.

Made a quick order on Amazon and soon had this


As well as this


I Started off with the fenders. I had rolled them once upon a time with a rented roller, but opted to buy one this time so I wouldnt feel rushed and could do the e30 as well... plus it was like $58 on amazon, which is basically as expensive as they are to rent around here. Jacked her up, rolled the front and also modified the little fender to chassis bar to hold the fender out further.




Before


(Fender after picture to go here)

Then put the car on jack stands all around to address the exhaust. It currently consisted of Ebay headers->custom 2" downpipe->2.5" piping->exhaust insert->Magnaflow resonator->exhaust insert->turn down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odVc9IRcCY4&feature=youtu.be 

I pulled it off at the y-pipe, cut off the length containing the exhaust inserts/resonator/turn down, and welded the laminar flow muffler into place


Then I started her up to see how quiet the HP-2 was by itself

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZCAQucjrv0&feature=youtu.be 

Had a very nice smooth sound, but still too loud. So I put the Magnaflow and turn down on the end and tried that setup out. Possibly even louder this time! (Pretty sure due to the turndown... with the car on the ground the volume is significantly amplified)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBvNBayW2KU&feature=youtu.be 

Whatever, time for a test drive. Drove her around for about 30 minutes with autotune on, and while it was certainly too loud, it ran SO much better! So as I had promised myself, since the car wasn't quiet enough a full system will be fabricated.

Alright, this is getting long winded, even for me. Other things to quickly mention while we're here:
1) Installed bumper quick releases to try to prevent rubbing of the stock bumper to fender mount on front tires... hated them and promptly removed them and screwed the bumper straight into the fender.
2) Experimented with the headlight but realized that no matter what I do, it's going to look awkward due to the side-to-side slope of the hood. So I've just decided that at this point of the game it wont be driven at night, which I'm totally fine with.
3) Made some custom mounts for the headlight covers and put them back in place.
4) Switched to my old bumper, as the current one was just too low with the Corksport lip.

And then today I went ahead and ordered some 2.5" piping, a v-band, and a 2.5" Flowmaster Super 44 Delta flow to finish up the system. Should have that all welded up by the end of the weekend, along with more tuning and certainly some clips of the sound.

[mac1]

Wow great work and new ideas I like be that push button. The possibilities.....

[proboner]

I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again; this project is a true test of my patience and perseverance! On to this weeks trials and tribulations! Per my last post, I ordered a Flowmaster Super 44 muffler earlier this week to run a full exhaust. (apologies in advance, as there are currently no pictures in this update and it's basically just a long rambling story)

The Super 44 muffler arrived mid week and I built a couple mounts to put it in place; in the stock muffler location but not visible from any position other than under the car. While I was under there I took at look at the bends I would need, and while I likely could have cobbled something together with existing piping I had from old setups, I wanted it to be somewhat decent. So that night I ordered 4' of straight 2.5" piping, a mandrel U-bend, and an exhaust hanger from Amazon... all 2 day prime shipping.

Saturday rolled around and I got to work getting this thing put together. Unfortunately however, the bends didn't show up on Saturday and werent slated to arrive until Monday! I was too stir crazy to stop though, and ended up piecing the thing together with the afore mentioned scraps. Not even running out of welding gas on Saturday night, nor today's 100* temps could stop me! I wanted this thing running.

This morning I took a before video to be able to compare with the after and was VERY excited to have a full/quiet exhaust in place. I finished her up, set her on the ground, and started the car with the new Flowmaster HP-2->Super 44 muffler in place. THIS BITCH IS EXACTLY AS LOUD AS SHE WAS BEFORE! WTF! I mean, not even the tone had changed! Ugh. Whatever. Lets do some tuning... but first a bit of context.

The first few times I drove this thing it was a total dog; this was assuredly due to the exhaust. The last time I drove this thing it was quicker, albeit not fast; assuredly due to tuning. After driving it the last time, I did some research to make sure I had my timing set correctly, and sure enough I discovered that the golden figure at WOT seems to be around 28*-29*, while I was sitting around 22*. Perhaps this was my issue.

So today, after my let down of an exhaust install, I went for an autotune drive and newly administered ignition settings. It ran better. There was MUCH more mid range and certainly a bit more up top, but still, it wasn't fast! This pissed me off. I have my new (to me) 3.0 Z4 in the driveway with 225hp and 3000lbs and it would blow the pants off this thing. Perhaps a part-out was in order? Perhaps this Probe thing had finally fizzled itself out?

At this point it was 100* out and I was perturbed... time for a swim. After my swim I was a bit drunker but also a bit more strategic and logical. I had set my base timing months ago, but for some reason there was this voice in the back of my head telling me to do it again. I hopped into the garage, started her up, and upon putting the timing into "fixed"mode she stumbled hard on her face. I hooked up the timing light and searched for the marks but nothing was showing up. Weird.

The base timing was at 57* now, so I pushed it back up to 60* and it ran even worse! As the engine was about to die I put it back into "use table" mode and the engine jumped back to life. **** it. I dropped the base timing down to 50* and put the ignition back into "fixed" and she ran better! I pointed the timing light down at the markings, and sure enough I could see that little sucker down there hovering around 3*. Alright, well let's drop the base to 43* and that should put us at 10, which is right where it should be. Once again the car ran better but it still wasn't quite at 10*. Around this time things started getting hot in the garage so I had to turn the car off and wait for it to cool down, but this is BIG!

If my timing was really that far off, it's like I was running closer to 7* of advance at WOT, instead of 29! That's HUGE difference. So now I've got some new found hope! I've since come up here to let her cool off and write this post, but am also left questioning this stroke of luck. Has anyone else with a 36-1 wheel seen such a discrepancy? 20ish degrees of offset seems pretty ridiculous!

[mac1]

Is there not boost in your future?
All this effort to put a tastefully modded PGT back on the road and still abide to Californias ownage under your hood????
Your already breaking the law man, fyi what's stopping you?