Well, busy day. You can see the pictures. The Megasquirt in the floor, the relay board all hooked up, and the original fuel feed line on the ground. The hardest part? Getting that damn fuel line out. I still have to extract the old vapor return line. That's not going to be fun, either. I did manage to clean up some rusty stuff and hit it with Rustoleum. Hopefully that'll arrest it for at least a little while.

The battery is back in the car, and all the sensors except the TPS are hooked up. I still need to find a TPS connector. I'll be in D.C. next weekend. Hopefully I can hit a scrap yard after I get back and pick up a TPS plug. I've also made my hose list. Lots of fuel line and some vacuum line. I've already picked up a flaring tool and a tube bender, and a fuel filter. Two weekends from now should be a fun one. I'll mount the pump and filter, and run the fuel and return lines.

After that? Charge the battery while I'm putting the gas tank back in, put some gas in it, and try to start it. I loaded all the default settings for the Megasquirt into the computer today. The guy that designed the unit has a TPI Chevy, so all the default stuff is for that engine. It should be painfully close on the tune.

I also need to figure out how to mount my fast idle thingy. May have to drill and tap the throttle body. Stay tuned.

It's alive!

Lookie here. A live screen from Megatunix, the Unix based Megasquirt software. The computer is alive and works. It's reading live data from the MAP, coolant, and air temp sensors.

I travelled to a junk yard this morning and grabbed an electric fan... which didn't work when I got home. I did get a fuel block-off plate, and the fan looks in good condition, I may be able to fix it.

I then spent the afternoon getting the upper plenum and throttle body instealled, and then wiring up the injectors, coolant sensor, and intake air sensor. I also soldered power and ground leads to the relay board and ran the cable into the passenger compartment to hook up the Megasquirt. I'm very happy to report that it'll easily fit in the passenger footwell compartment vacated by the factory computer.

Anyway, off to the S.O.'s for some much needed grub.

Mockup fun...

Here you see a "something." This something is a very elusive something, so I'm going to type every descriptive term I can about it so that the next me that comes along can find the answer:

A vacuum advance HEI distributor will fit behind a TPI (Tuned Port Injection) setup.

I mocked up the tubes and upper plenum, and slapped the distributor in. It looks like I may even have more room to swing the distributor around than I had with the carb and old throttle brackets in the way.

I also started making a list of things I need. The way I have to route the upper coolant hose interferes with the mechanical fan, so I'm going to have to get an electric one. I need an EGR gasket and block off plate. I need a fuel pump block off plate. I'm hoping to take a trip to the junkyard tomorrow and see how much I can find cheap there.

I also have some other challenges.

Here you can see the front of the intake manifold, the top of the water pump, and the fuel line inputs. It's very crowded. I'm going to have to get clever in order to route the heater hoses and get the coolant temperature sensor wired.

More as I get further along...

Gawddamn!

 
 
This car really gets my goat sometimes. The first picture is the computer harness. One would think that getting it out would be a simple matter of cutting the plugs off and yanking it out through the passenger footwell.

Ahhh, not so much. I had to remove all the bolts holding in the fenderwell in order to get enough room to undo the two 8mm bolts holding in the grommet. Got those out and pulled it through. The leaves and shit? Mouse nest. It was sitting on top of the harness. A lot of that landed on my face before continuing on to the ground.

The second is the intake manifold. Bolted in and torqued down. I think have at least 10 hours wrapped up in making the middle four bolt holes work. But they work now. Its on. Now I can stab the distributor back in and mock the upper plenum in to see if it'll clear.

Beyond that, the hard work begins. Dropping the gas tank and finding out why the tank overflows onto the ground before the pump at the gas station automatically shuts off. Then I get to rip out the old fuel lines and run new ones, and mount my new fuel pump.

And so it begins again...

 
Finally moving forward towards getting my Chevrolet TPI system installed on the Pontiac. Here you see the case for the engine compartment relay board mounted where the electronics that ran something or other was mounted.

 
The relay board installed.

 

Here's some nasty dremel work. The intake manifold is for a 1987 and later Chevrolet. The engine in the car is a pre-'87, so I have to make some changes to the four inner manifold bolt holes.

Squirt!

Here it is:



Yes, my MegaSquirt Fuel Computer. I will be using this wonderful device, a whole lot of wire, and a Tuned Port Injection setup from a 1987 Camaro on the Bucket. The GP will get fuel injection. Goodby carb, hello decent gas mileage.

Painful Zs....

So, the Z broke two weeks ago today. I drove it to work that day. Coming off the highway on the way home, there was a violent bang and then some awful clanging and banging. I managed to limp it two blocks to the house, craw under it, and I see:



Yup, U-joint failure. Bad stuff. Not happy. Of course, I knew something like this was going to happen. The early Z cars had problems with this very thing. I actually already had the parts to prevent this in the bed of my truck.

So, I rebuilt the axles, and moved the diff back 30mm. This gives the halfshafts a straight shot from the diff to the hubs and eliminates this type of failure.

Purty pics:


Sanblasted parts


Powdercoating stuff



newly assembled axle.

The car is back on the road. It actually rides much nicer. Apparently straightening out the U-joint angles in the back also eliminates some vibration. I also had to get my driveshaft lengthened, and it was rebalanced as a part of that.