The Bean

In reply to GPz11 (Forum Supporter) :

Good suggestion, the explorer rail looks like a cool setup. For this iteration, we are too far down the road. I'll keep it in mind though as nothing stays permanent on this car very long.

Let's get the coils mounted. I picked up a set of these coil brackets after realizing that I could not mount the coils on the valve covers due to the mustang intake. This may encourage me to build a custom intake in the future, but for now I'll deal with the extra clutter in the engine bay.

Now to find space on the passenger side...

After a bit of research, I was convinced that I wanted to use an iso 280 style fuse box and components for this build. After adding all the components to my online cart... I decided to stick with oldschool cube relays and atc fuses (mostly because I already own the terminals and crimpers). After a bit more searching, I found a cheepo fusebox with 6 relays and 11 fuses for $19, perfect. Just getting started populating it:

FWIW, proper Bosch relays are pretty cheap, and might be worth using if those came with no-name stuff:
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/bch-0332209150?seid=srese1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAgqGrBhDtARIsAM5s0_nECR6qiHXQUkK0BoZGaiAroagq87A0Quz4HnDmkTc_osDpoGGlRpAaAkMSEALw_wcB

In reply to Nukem :

Good call. I'm really just using the terminals and housing from this kit. The wire, heatshrink, relays, and fuses will be from my other supplies. I ordered a few of these to use: Link

Having the diode instead of a resistor gives me a bit of peace of mind when hooked up to the stmpro.

In reply to Shavarsh :

I love digikey but I've never thought to order automotive relays from them.

ECU and fusebox found a home.

A quick bit of machining yields a right angle adapter for the firewall bulkhead:

Well, since editting posts isn't working at the moment here is another shot. I added a set screw so this wont loosen under the dash.

Sometime in a previous life, this car received a battery tray patch. Unfortunately the previous owner never removed the rotten metal, just put the patch on the underside. So while looking for a place to mount the passenger coilpacks, it was finally time to deal with the tray.

First drill the spot welds and peel off the old tray:

Next clean up the area and have a look at whats there:

Decide its not too bad of a repair, then finish the welding, grind, paint, and throw in some rivnuts for the coilpack brackets:

Little steps. I found plastic conduit nuts locally, and decided to use one on the power feedthru. First, cut off the depth stop collar:

Next a smear of flexseal glue on the flange, and install the feedthru:

So, there are a couple options for plug wires. I decided the best budget option was to buy a pack of boots and terminals, and a $10 vice crimper. This allowed me to reuse the moroso wires I was using for the distributor. The boots are the only 90° option that I found for LS style coils. The terminals themselves are stiff, likely stainless, and not the soft copper terminals I am used to. The hardest part by far was getting the boots on, as this kit is for 7-8mm wires, and these wires are a bit bigger. After lots of dielecric grease and a few redos, we have a set.

Had time to start the wire harness. First, lets clean up the gm coil harnesses:

Rinse and repeat for the other side. Then add the beginnings of the injector harness:

After more wiring work we've gotten down to 3 sections. I'm out of large size heat shrink, so no more wiring progress until after the holidays.

In place on the engine:

And with the upper intake:

The harness is in one piece, and in place in the bay. I needed a break from wiring, so I got the coolant overflow mounted up. 

The old overflow bottle was evicted when I put the air filter housing in. It was also stainless, and heavy. The new one is aluminum, and fits in a tight, but available spot. We will see if the volume is large enough.

Tidy. Did you weld the cap bung from the back side?

In reply to Nukem :

Yessir

Gooey

Back to wiring, most of it is pretty pointless to take pictures of, but here are a couple highlights finishing the sleeving through the firewall, and hooking up the positive feedthru.

Sticking the camera back where I can't get my head shows how badly I need to get a vacuum in there to remove the various mouse nest remnants.

ECU connectors are pinned and ECU has been test fit. Pinning took 2 tries. The connectors do not like to accept wires larger than 18 ga, so for the larger 16 ga injector wires I ended up stripping a bit more insulation and crimping the strain relief on bare wire. This gets the diameter down far enough to slide in.

Had time to get the power wires cleaned up and start with testing. After a few days of blowing fuses and trouble shooting, it turns out I wired all the relay coils backwards. On a normal relay, this isn't much of an issue, but with diode protected relays this means a dead short to ground. Its an impressive demonstration when you wire the relay straight to the battery in each direction. Turns out that I drew out a version of my fuse box from the front, and one from the back, and somewhere in there I flipped over the wrong axis, and ended up with 85/86 in the reverse positions. Should be an easy fix.

Photo for relevance:

In reply to Shavarsh :

this car is officially too good for astroturf.

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

Time for an upgrade

Nice!

I still LOVE the astroturf! one of my favorite aspects. Although the play mat is funny as well!