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Radiator coolant hoses sorted. Top is a Gates 25257 and lower is a Gates 22418 and Dayco 81051 with an AL coupler. Clearance around the steering rack is a little tight since the honda radiator has the outlet at an angle so I added a P clip to keep things in place. Also need to run a hard line for the recovery tank from the radiator to the recovery tank. I'm finishing up mounting the heater box and fan on the firewall. What used to be a perfectly good piece of AL sheet now looks like swiss cheese.

Received a number of electrical parts in the mail like a shut off switch, ignition switch and connectors for the fuel pump etc. Starting to feel like a start up in the future.

More work on detail items like where to put the air filter and under hood organization. Nothing too exciting but it all needs to be organized in the end. Currently waiting on fedex to un-loose a package with some coolant lines for the heater core.

Air box, ended up using a '90 Integra Si filter. Not the best choice for obsolescence but it fits well. Originally I had made a j-bend looking piece but it didn't fit under the hood so I made a box that lives under the scuttle. There should be room for a wiper assembly... hopefully.


Heater box with mixer. Core is from a early 90's 323, basically the smallest and cheapest I could find that had simple in/out pipes. Fan is a large computer fan. I had put it together in CAD
to test a while back and it seemed just fine. Mixer is setup for full heat or closed and you can see the control lever in the under dash pict.


Under dash shows how much space is lost to the air and heater box and my anti theft / storage shutoff switch.


Under hood organization. Positive leads are made and run where they need to go. Shut off switch is tucked under the coolant bottle and the wiring loom has been cut apart for general lay out and to remove unneeded stuff. Next up is wiring the ignition switch, GM SARVC alternator controller and fuel pump. That's a VW coolant recovery tank from a 2012 GTI. The empty spot is where the Ford Racing fuse box is going to live.

Nice job on the heater
The heater outlets are going out the bottom into the tunnel? Does Delaware require defroster?
Davew

The heater doesn't have any outlets atm. I am waiting for the windscreen to go on and then I'll cut some openings. Have my eye on this kit as it uses smaller hoses: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-991104-2 The box should come out and leave the heater core in place so I can avoid draining the coolant. I'm sure it will instead come out 90% of the way and then fowl on something.

Delaware only requires defrost on school buses but I've driven a miata on enough cool, foggy mornings and think having one is useful. It is likely to be installed but not functional for a while.

STOP! Do not collect $200, go directly to defroster jail
If Delaware, doesn't require defrosters, do not waste your time and money. I spent 30 hrs making and glasses in defroster duct-work. Even with a 5 speed fan, and doors on, my system will only defrost but about a 1/3 of the way up the windshield because of the low pressure area behind that flat windshield. It just sucks the hot air away from the glass. [My system only works with a fully enclosed cabin] There is a reason why Caterham uses electrically heated glass for the windshield. Plus the defroster ducting takes up to much space under the scuttle. Room you need for wiper system and it would nice to have glove box. But the heater, you'll love it Plus it extends the driving season. Great for those cool early morning Sunday drives. Davew

is there any way to clear the screen or are you just left with whatever it feels like doing? I was going to use it as a heater without any real ducts just a couple flaps pointed in the general direction of driver and passenger. Should heat be pointed anywhere in particular? Thanks for the input.

I only drove in the winter the first couple of years, dry road conditions. If you start from the garage with a clear windshield it pretty much stays clear. [You can always use the washer fluid to clear the glass] With a fully enclose cabin you can keep the windshield clear, but driving enclosed is like you are inside a shaking tin can of ball bearings. You would need 40lbs of sound damping matl. to enjoy driving. I now put the car up for 3 months each year.
For the heater ducting I just use two 3" Dia. plastic flex type tubing, and run it into both foot wells. You will not need any dash panel outlets. The hot air is pull right towards you. I really never use more then the first or 2nd speed fan setting. I'm using the donor heater fan [see photo]. My air inlet for the heater, is in the passenger foot well. I wanted to reduce engine fumes in the cabin area. Even with temps in the low 40's using a bikini top, half doors, and rear glass, its very livable. The engine loves the cool air, but cold tires suck! You will not regret installing a heater, living in Delaware, even with milder weather then Michigan. Davew

You're doing a great job putting a lot of stuff in a small space. It's impressive.

If the defroster stuff isn't required by law, and you decide not to do it, carrying a clean rag to wipe the inside of the windshield may do, assuming you can reach all the way across to the passenger side.

Cheers,

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Damn! That front slip angle is way too large and the Ackerman is just a muddle.

Build Log: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=5886

Technically the second start but still exciting. Only hiccup that I ran into was having to run a wire for the clutch bottom safety interlock. I had pulled a bunch of wires out of the harness since the engine came from an automatic car and the manual and auto cars share an interlock pin so it needed to go back in with a splice. Easy enough to sort out. Program I am running is Forscan using a OBDLinkMX+ dongle.

Next up is a couple rivnuts in the bottom frame rail for the muffler rear support so I can run the car to confirm the alternator controller is working, burp the coolant and sort a tach signal for the gauge cluster. If I bleed the clutch I could probably drive it around using the ebrake which is an equally tempting and silly idea. Once the items above are sorted I'll tape the harness and tie it down.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K-hkvg8GuY&feature=youtu.be

Learned a couple more things about modern alternator control this week. If you looked at the video, it was pretty clear on the computer that the alternator was not charging. The GM SARVC was supposed to provide a pwm signal to the alt and take care of charging things. Utilizing an ancient crt oscilloscope I confirmed that there was no pwm control but also saw a bunch of communication on what I previously thought was the lamp pin. Turns out I had goofed and focused in on the "non-pcm controlled" part of the pcm pin definition and not so much on the "LIN Bus" portion, what's a "LIN Bus" anyway. Apparently Ford is now using a single wire serial bus to communicate with the on alternator regular which in turn they define as "non-pcm controlled". So SARVC control is out and Mazda 6 alternator is out.

On to the third alternator: at one point I had looked into using a Fiesta alternator as a high mount on the intake side but determined it wouldn't work. A little searching around confirmed the Fiesta unit was also LIN controlled. $50 later at the local salvage yard I had one, whipped up some brackets and managed to squeeze it in on the exhaust side... barely. I might be able to mount the alternator a little lower but the body would then start interfering with the bracket. Otherwise it is up and running properly. The Focus alternator has some large mounting ears which would have required a large bracket and the terminals where in the wrong place to clock it and use on the exhaust side.



The other issue that was obvious on the Forscan capture is the demanded fuel pressure on the high pressure pump was not above regulator pressure. After a bit of running and light throttle the pump eventually re primed and the car runs much much better.

Ford had suggested that I could pull a tach signal off the power feed for the coil packs.... nope. But it looks like the tach signal can be fed from the coil signal just need to splice another wire in somewhere. I did try using an inductive feed for the tach by wrapping it around the base of the coil but it was all over the place.

It's great that you have the competence and will to analyse and master these issues. I'm not close to there yet with my build, but it is the part most foreign to my personal experience: engine CPUs, mapping for EFI, etc, etc. It makes an old guy sentimental for generators and carburetors.

Cheers,

Happy New Year too!

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Damn! That front slip angle is way too large and the Ackerman is just a muddle.

Build Log: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=5886

Thanks. Happy new year to you as well!

95% of things on modern cars are controlled by either CAN or LIN. LIN is the lower cost bus for less critical things and is becoming more common since it only requires 50% of the wires. Once you know the frame format and the messages, they are not bad to control - need a board that can pull the signal to a 12v high and about a 7v low. Unfortunately getting the frame format and the messages is the difficult part for CAN and LIN.

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-Andrew
Build Log
Youtube

Perhaps I'll take on the challenge of making a LIN BUS to PWM Alternator controller at some point as the Mazda Alternator fits better than the Fiesta. I'm already looking into a DIY CAN bus device to feed the gauge cluster. Seems much easier to feed the cluster via the existing CAN information than adding all the wiring for water temp, oil pressure, MIL etc. Will keep the RPM feed on the coil signal for the time being.

There are scanners for observing CAN messages - wouldn't surprise me if one existed for LIN. Only issue then would be not knowing if you've actually seen all of the messages. There is often a message sent from the control module to the device which commands it to do something then a message sent from the device back to the control module confirming that it happened - if something is off it can trigger a failsafe mode or some other oddity.

If you try, I hope you succeed. We'll need to understand and be able to use CAN and LIN if we want to use the modern stuff.

_________________
-Andrew
Build Log
Youtube