woohoo, it lives!!! by the way, Tim McCreary is a genius. thank you very much Tim McCreary. i thought that the grounding for a fd3s goes to the body and that everything grounds to the body. it turns out that many of the instruments/cpu/accessories all have individual ground wires splitting off the main ground wire which is a peice of ****!!! i grounded each eletrical item to the body and got a better wire for the ground and now my fd is purring like a kitten at idle and roaring like a lion at full throttle! all hail Tim McCreary!!!!