Looking great! Keep up the good work. What heat exchanger did you go with?
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Looking great! Keep up the good work. What heat exchanger did you go with?
After much research on heat exchangers, I decided to get one from a 13 mustang GT500, overall size is larger than any Afco aftermarket ones. It’s like 3” deep! I believe it’s a 1 year only so they are hard to find, I found mine locally from Craigslist. Here’s what it looks like:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2013-2014-1....m46890.l49286
I don’t have much to show for it, but I’ve been tackling plumbing for the intercooler, HVAC, and started some wiring...By some wiring, I hooked up all the connections of the PSI engine harness and found a sweet place to mount the ECU and the fuse block from PSI. I was pretty happy that the harness fit so tight.
Attachment 187910
Attachment 187906Attachment 187907Attachment 187908Attachment 187909
Also I was really uncertain as to what to do with the main power cable. I read so many posts, reviews, suggestions etc which just made things more confusing. Marine cable, welding wire, tin coated copper, CCA, CFA, WTF??? Anyway, reached out to Don, and as always had amazing advise. I asked him what the OEMs use and he said he wasn’t sure but he did use the power cable from a 5th gen Camaro he said once. I quickly went to eBay and bam $50 got me a 5th gen power cable with a nice firewall grommet. It also has a built in fuse (forgot the amps). I’m running the power cable from battery to starter. Also when I purchased the engine it came with the alternator harness which routes from alternator to starter then to the engine fuse box. Since my fuse box is inside the car, I’ll use that wire to power fans, headlights, horn, etc.
I also made fresh air covers since my restomod air system didn’t come with them. I ran the power cable through the passenger side fresh air cover with a grommet of course.
Attachment 187911Attachment 187912
Attachment 187914
On the passenger side the fresh air covers are blank. This is another fresh air cover for the kick panel that I made to route the HVAC hoses. Still waiting on hose grommets to come in.
Attachment 187913
New guy here and love your project!
I'm curious how the Tesla handles are coming along? Are you going to try and set them up with the Auto Present feature the Tesla has?
That heat exchanger is huge!! You should have no problems cooling off that charge. That catch can looks really close to the position that I put mine. What mount are you using?
I know it is huge, I had to modify the RS headlight doors because when full open they would contact the intercooler. The catch can/mount is from a 5th gen Camaro. Had to rebend and shorten the mount. I saw you started yours up and drive it a little. So jealous. I’m inching really close to firing mine up. Waiting for the DCC fan controller to come in. That’s the last piece of the puzzle to me firing up the engine.
I also purchased an OBD dongle from Amazon so that I can monitor the engine virtually since I don’t have any gauges set up yet. It really sucks that the torque app isn’t available for iPads because it seems to be the best app for virtual gauges. All the iOS apps that are good arnt free and even once you pay for the app, I may need to purchase a vehicle or manufacturer specific pack so that it can read additional sensors. I’ll keep you guys posted though.
Just found your build thread. Car looks great!
Thanks Rich!
After 3 years it’s ALIVE!!!
Yesterday was the day everything came together, this is my first attempt at building a car basically from scratch. Now that I was in wiring faze, I started reading that starter is grounded to the block, alternator is grounded to the bracket then to the block. Well I painted all that how will it ground now? I tested a few of the mounting bolts and luckily I had .4ohm so miraculously everything is grounded despite the paint.
After that, I filled all the fluids, the coolant I back filled through the upper hose to hopefully get all the air out. I saw a bunch of air bubble come out as the block and radiator got filled. When the level stabilized just below the radiator cap, I filled the power steering reservoir. Turned the wheel back and forth a few times and refilled with fluid until again the level was stabile.
Then with ignition and fuel pump disconnected I gave the trigger wire 12v to rotate the engine to build oil pressure. It cranked for maybe 5 seconds before building pressure.
Next, I took out the VaporWorx instruction sheet, connected a fuel pressure gauge to the fuel rail and turned on the fuel pump manually to get all the air out (that’s why there’s a gas can in the car). The fuel pressure gauge I got has a bypass so I pressed that and mostly air came out at first then steady fuel. Checked for leaks, None! I then reconnected the fuel pump to be controlled by ECM and connected the trigger to 12V and bam just like that the engine fired right up! It was so amazing, so many things could have gone wrong. I read so many stories of no ignition, or it starts for 30 sec then dies etc. EFI is amazing! I could not have done this myself with a carb engine for sure.
As everyone can see I basically hot wired everything for now because I just couldn’t wait anymore. I also don’t have gauges so I bought an OBD adapter and used an app on my phone to monitor all the essentials. The app worked great!
I ran the engine for about 40 mins to 1. Cure the paint and 2. To test the fans. It took a really long time I’d say at least 20 mins for the whole radiator to get hot (only the upper portion was hot at first) the DCC controller is supposed to turn on at 180 but it actually turned on when coolant temp was 205. I turned the screw on the controller to decrease turn on temp but it didn’t seem to do anything. I then noticed my fans were spinning in the wrong direction so I shut everything down. Rewired the fans and put the sensor about mid way on the radiator hoping the fans will turn on sooner.
I didn’t put the whole exhaust on just the headers and cats, it’s pretty loud as expected without mufflers. But the greatest part is that there’s no gas smell!
I know the cars obviously not finished yet but this is a HUGE hurdle, so I really want to thank this forum and especially Don (dhutton) for answering all my questions so promptly I really couldn’t have done this without his input.
That’s all I had time for yesterday. Next week I’m throwing a seat in and driving this bad boy around the block! I can’t wait!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bMiEuxwu1Xo
Awesome! Congrats to you, what a great feeling!
Congrats, Im not far behind you on the same setup. Hope to fire it up by July. gauges are all on backorder until sept. what app an dongle did you use?
Thanks guys!!
App depends on if your using an android device or iOS. I have an iPhone and plan to use an iPad in the dash so far the most reliable app for iOS that I’m using is called Car Scanner. If your going to be using an Android Torque app is by far the best.
This is the obd I got:
Veepeak OBDCheck BLE OBD2 Bluetooth Scanner Auto OBD II Diagnostic Scan Tool for iOS & Android, Bluetooth 4.0 Car Check Engine Light Code Reader Supports Torque, OBD Fusion app https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073XKQQQW...ing=UTF8&psc=1
Another fun tidbit, I bought my LSA from eBay, the guy said it had less than 5k miles before the car was totaled. To my surprise because of the OBD app I was able to pull up the miles and they are actually 4,217! The engine is literally brand new, so surprising.
Congratulations Joe. Awesome job, especially for a first build.
Don
Congrats that is awesome!!!!
Since your fan temp sensor is at the radiator output and your gauge temperature sensor is in the head they will never read the same. The fan sensor should always be cooler since it is after the radiator has dropped the temperature of the coolant, and only after the thermostat has opened.
Also make sure you don’t have air trapped in the cooling system. Did you take any precautions to prevent air getting trapped when you filled the system? There is a recent thread about purging air.
Don