el tortuga!
- Thread starter turtleman
- Start date
Most recent pretty much completed project: turn the ash tray into a gauge & switch holder
The gauges are self-explanatory. The two switches on the right side of the cd holder are both for the intercooler pump - one turns the pump on when ignition is on, the other turns the pump on without ignition (for track cool down and whatnot). The lower switch on the left turns on the nitrous heater. The upper left switch is a two-way momentary switch which toggles nitrous purge and the other is open for now but if I can come up with a line-lock solution, it'll be for that.
Getting this to be a nice service-friendly package took some planning, trial, planning again, trial again etc. as does many things I do haha. Here's more pics of what's goin on.
That's the first draft I came up with to hold the gauges in the ashtray spot. This replaces the retainers that come with the gauges because those don't fit well due to clearance issues on the outside and having it this way also gives me a way to retain the face without using glue, and gives me a sturdy mounting surface for stuff associated with it like the plug and relay.
Basically all finished. That was the 3rd try to get the plug situated where it won't have any clearance problems inside the dash. You can see I altered the retainer a lot from the first draft. This is something where the only way it would fit is like a glove because I don't have extra room anywhere really. The result is exactly what I shot for though. It is super easy to service anything I need to and there's only one plug to remove the whole thing except for the nitrous gauge which has it's own harness.
The gauges are self-explanatory. The two switches on the right side of the cd holder are both for the intercooler pump - one turns the pump on when ignition is on, the other turns the pump on without ignition (for track cool down and whatnot). The lower switch on the left turns on the nitrous heater. The upper left switch is a two-way momentary switch which toggles nitrous purge and the other is open for now but if I can come up with a line-lock solution, it'll be for that.
Getting this to be a nice service-friendly package took some planning, trial, planning again, trial again etc. as does many things I do haha. Here's more pics of what's goin on.
That's the first draft I came up with to hold the gauges in the ashtray spot. This replaces the retainers that come with the gauges because those don't fit well due to clearance issues on the outside and having it this way also gives me a way to retain the face without using glue, and gives me a sturdy mounting surface for stuff associated with it like the plug and relay.
Basically all finished. That was the 3rd try to get the plug situated where it won't have any clearance problems inside the dash. You can see I altered the retainer a lot from the first draft. This is something where the only way it would fit is like a glove because I don't have extra room anywhere really. The result is exactly what I shot for though. It is super easy to service anything I need to and there's only one plug to remove the whole thing except for the nitrous gauge which has it's own harness.
This is how I got the sending unit for the oil pressure gauge added. The other one is the switch for the dash light of course. That arrangement barely fit. I wasn't super comfortable with the amount of clearance between the sender body and by passenger inner CV coming out of the transaxle. There's clearance but only maybe 3/16" if that.
I've had it like this for the week and no issues but I still don't like it - went ahead and modified a new tee to install at some point.
I milled 1/4" right off one side and ran the 1/8npt tap down so now that elbow will sit a full 1/4" closer which should give me a more comfortable amount of clearance when I install it. How is everyone else doing oil pressure gauges on 38hundos?
I don't know if ya'll have seen what you get when you buy a triple aeroforce gauge setup from zzp but you get enough wiring to do the phone lines in your entire house and an extremely chunky OBD plug splitter. For a little while I used it but then I made a harness and saved probably 10 lbs. lol
mess
I generally don't like to use these connections but it made sense for this. This is one end of the dash side of the harness for the AF gauges. The other end is a molex connector that ends near the pillar.
Radioshack sells a spool that matches the colors/size of the wires used in the AF harness so this was kinda nice to use for the pillar side of my harness.
My lighter died lol...
Pillar side of the harness done. There's one plug for the 4 (3 in my 97) OBD harness and I left the turn-on lead and analog inputs separate since those could possibly change in the future if I add anything but the idea, again, was to be able to remove the pillar and whatnot without having to worry about wires.
mess
I generally don't like to use these connections but it made sense for this. This is one end of the dash side of the harness for the AF gauges. The other end is a molex connector that ends near the pillar.
Radioshack sells a spool that matches the colors/size of the wires used in the AF harness so this was kinda nice to use for the pillar side of my harness.
My lighter died lol...
Pillar side of the harness done. There's one plug for the 4 (3 in my 97) OBD harness and I left the turn-on lead and analog inputs separate since those could possibly change in the future if I add anything but the idea, again, was to be able to remove the pillar and whatnot without having to worry about wires.
I've had about 8 different exhaust setups on the car but basically I'm happy with it now so as long as it holds up, I won't change it. It's a slightly unusual setup but it actually sounds pretty ok. Not too much drone and no rasp at all which was a problem since the headers went on. I can't seem to find any pictures of it but I have a monster-sized Magnaflow XL Turbo 13749 muffler basically where the cat/resonator once were and then this straight-through muffler at the back.
Current
turtle 5/4/12 - YouTube
Current
turtle 5/4/12 - YouTube
This week, I'm trying to work on re-doing the nitrous stuff a bit. The ZEX dry kit I started with has a bunch of functionality that's hindering me. The only thing in this "NMU" I'm using is the solenoid its self so I'm cutting the fat, setting up the purge, and since it looks like I should be able to data-log my autometer nitrous pressure sending unit, I wanted to place it as near the solenoid as possible to get the most sensitive pressure information.
Ripping apart the NMU
Up to this point, I had the ZEX NMU mounted on my master cylinder with some simple brackets. My delivery hose is only long enough to reach this area and I already have a good nozzle hose made so I'm pretty constrained on placement of the revised setup.
making a bracket to hang the bare solenoid on the master cylinder
Done!
Still need to re-wire everything but that's no biggy.
Let me know if something doesn't seem good. I'm just playing with fittings in a way that makes sense to me here.
Ripping apart the NMU
Up to this point, I had the ZEX NMU mounted on my master cylinder with some simple brackets. My delivery hose is only long enough to reach this area and I already have a good nozzle hose made so I'm pretty constrained on placement of the revised setup.
making a bracket to hang the bare solenoid on the master cylinder
Done!
Still need to re-wire everything but that's no biggy.
Let me know if something doesn't seem good. I'm just playing with fittings in a way that makes sense to me here.
Don't fuck with ZEXBOT!
Oh and that's what happens when you press your hand against a trunk carpet that just got sprayed at with 500psi of nitrous for a several seconds. I was tightening the line to the tank and was resting my hand on the carpet and didn't even notice right away i was freeze-burning my finger... gay
Do you really need one? I don't think you're that far along any of your projects. lol I do still have your w-body engine mount bracket I gotta do but yeah I kinda forgot exactly what all needs doing to it. I'm gonna bring it back over so we can take a marker and mark off everything you want gone and go from there k?
Thanks Euro!
I loooove when GM designs relay/sensor brackets with mods in mind!
That relay all the way to the left in the pic wasn't there before-just an empty on the bracket. I got a spare and now it's the nitrous solenoid relay. I didn't use the fancy plug like the originals but as I discovered when doing the gauge wiring, .110 quick-disconnect terminals fit those GM relay pins pretty nice. The cruise control module and everything goes over that area so it's totally covered up too. I love finding stuff like that.
I have all the new under-hood wiring done and now just gotta connect some stuff inside which will be fairly quick. I tested the solenoids and I do notice it responds quicker to the spray switch now. I'm guessing that's mostly due to eliminating the tps sensing circuit that was in my ZEX dry kit.
No I have a 100% manual/no safety shit button on the steering wheel F&F style!
I haven't posted those pics yet. I will soon
Run 1 - YouTube
Spun really bad the first run and still blew away my previous PB by over a second haha
Run 2 - YouTube
2nd run was pretty trouble-free other than the KR and scary weird stuff right after the 2-3 shift but that was in basically every run for the most part. This is the fastest that had zero nitrous involvement btw and interestingly, my highest trap speed.
Run 3 - YouTube
3rd run was pretty much a total flop. Pretty funny though that I matched my previous personal best coasting the back half haha! This one is also gonna be famous for the only time I've ever heard an eaton-powered car make a blow off valve noise!
Run 4 or 5 (I'm not sure because I missed filming one run) - YouTube
I'm actually not sure if this is the 4th or 5th run because somehow I missed one of them. I'll check my scans and see if I can positively figure it out.
Run 6 - YouTube
I dedicate pass number 6 to Eric's late whippled track-humping riv. I might have humped it too on this one! Yeah I started spraying on this run and then realized I forgot to arm the nitrous so I was just dumping a bunch of extra fuel into the engine without the nitrous spraying, then i realized, armed it and sprayed and yeah... Imagine what that scan looks like lol
Run 7 - YouTube
All I can say is it's probably good they were finishing up for the day 'cause things were getting pretty stupid now. Hptuner sorta locked up on me as I was pulling up to stage so I just threw the aeroforces on last minute, then the track guy closed my hood for me... forgot to disable TCS, yeah...
at: I was done.
This car really took some weird shit today like a champ - that's all I can say
New PB
Spun really bad the first run and still blew away my previous PB by over a second haha
Run 2 - YouTube
2nd run was pretty trouble-free other than the KR and scary weird stuff right after the 2-3 shift but that was in basically every run for the most part. This is the fastest that had zero nitrous involvement btw and interestingly, my highest trap speed.
Run 3 - YouTube
3rd run was pretty much a total flop. Pretty funny though that I matched my previous personal best coasting the back half haha! This one is also gonna be famous for the only time I've ever heard an eaton-powered car make a blow off valve noise!
Run 4 or 5 (I'm not sure because I missed filming one run) - YouTube
I'm actually not sure if this is the 4th or 5th run because somehow I missed one of them. I'll check my scans and see if I can positively figure it out.
Run 6 - YouTube
I dedicate pass number 6 to Eric's late whippled track-humping riv. I might have humped it too on this one! Yeah I started spraying on this run and then realized I forgot to arm the nitrous so I was just dumping a bunch of extra fuel into the engine without the nitrous spraying, then i realized, armed it and sprayed and yeah... Imagine what that scan looks like lol
Run 7 - YouTube
All I can say is it's probably good they were finishing up for the day 'cause things were getting pretty stupid now. Hptuner sorta locked up on me as I was pulling up to stage so I just threw the aeroforces on last minute, then the track guy closed my hood for me... forgot to disable TCS, yeah...
at: I was done.This car really took some weird shit today like a champ - that's all I can say
New PB
That's me on the time slip , 59. lol . One of my slow runs . That was my 3rd pass of the day . I wasn't getting any traction till my 4th run . After I switched to my other drag radials I was in the 13's . I got my pb today too .
I actually thought it was going to be a good race cause I thought you raced a Camaro and got a low 14 sec on the radio . Then you killed me . haha
I actually thought it was going to be a good race cause I thought you raced a Camaro and got a low 14 sec on the radio . Then you killed me . haha
Thaaah hell!?! I had no idea any other TCG people were there besides Aj much less running next to me lol!
Thread Info
-
Created -
54Replies
-
3KViews
-
Participants list
