Let me know what you come up with for a strut brace. I'm going need one also. I wish I still had my tubing bender.

 

Yeah that's one tool I don't have and would really like to get. Always wanted to make my own roll bar...

Anyway, my tentative plan is to chop up the CP racing (which is kinda crappy anyway) strut tower brace I had on the car and use pieces of it - at the very least i'll use the "base" parts that go onto the towers themselves, then maybe make a tab off of that and attach some tubing. I'd also like to triangulate it to the firewall somehow, so I'll have to give it some thought.

This week's project though is to install my wideband o2 sensor so I can start getting an idea of what AFR's to shoot for once I install the MS3 - which I'm hoping will be in the next week or two. I ordered the last few gaskets I need to swap the S4 front cover on there, hopefully that's it for the spending for a while lol.

 

Got a ton of work done over the long weekend, Unfortunately didn't take any pics though.

I got my S4 T2 front cover installed. You haven't lived until you've changed a front cover with the engine in the car (sarcasm lol). Thankfully I've done this job a few times before, so there weren't too many snags, just a messy annoying job. Getting a bunch of wrong gaskets from Atkins (very disappointed with that, and they overcharged me big time on shipping. I'll have to email them...) as well as a wrong and/or incomplete S4 turbo oil drain from a friend held me up a bit, but in the end it's all back together and running leak free.

I rebuilt the S4 OMP I had with new viton o-rings I got from mcmaster carr, and also removed the coolant pipe on the back of the water pump housing (the coolant return from the TB, which is all crap that's going away) drilled it out and tapped it for 1/4 NPT and plugged it (got the plug from McMaster Carr as well). Otherwise it was just a direct swap with some new gaskets etc.

I'm planning to remove the stock ECU/wiring/rat nest etc either this weekend or next week, so for the moment I just have the S5's OMP plugged in and zip tied out of harms way. Also for the moment I just have a zip tie holding the S4 omp's arm halfway open. I won't be hitting much boost or high rpm so it will be fine for now. When I have the UIM off i'll finish removing the coolant lines for the TB (since all that warmup crap goes away and is handled by the BAC valve with the megasquirt) as well as fabbing up some kind of actuation rod for the OMP. With any luck the S4's rod will be usable somehow...

I am planning on keeping the air pump, ACV and cat so hopefully I can make all that work with the megasquirt. I don't see why not.

Anyway that's where I'm at right now

 

Another picture-less update lol. I am about halfway through wiring the MS3 into the car. I'm waiting for some shielded wire for the 2nd VR circuit to come in later this week, otherwise I have all the supplies. At this point a new main relay and fuel pump relay are in, as well as an auxiliary fuse box (hidden next to the glove box) to power everything. I wanted to have all new wiring for this project, so that's why I went with a new fuse box and relays. The only wire coming from the car's harness is a switched 12v wire to tell the relays to turn on (I tapped into the FB fuel pump circuit for that, since it's not used for anything anymore)
I'll be working on removing what's not needed in the rats nest (most of it) tonight/tomorrow and hope to have the wiring mostly finished up later in the week. Then the real fun of actually making it run starts... woo

 

Updates? we need updates man! haha

 

Very nice! I remember taking off the front cover with the engine in. Never again! lol.

 

lol, no updates at the moment. Was away the last few days (scouting out wedding locations) and spent all of Saturday putting a new roof on my shop (oh so fun)

At this point I just need to finish wiring the CAS, double check everything and attempt to fire it up. I'm so damn close it's driving me nuts, but I have a bunch of crap to do tonight so I guess it'll have to wait until tomorrow...

Yeah that front cover swap kinda sucked haha. On a good note, I sent a "less than pleased" sounding email to atkins about being overcharged on shipping and getting wrong parts. I never heard back from them, but 2 weeks later an envelope arrived with the correct gaskets. Would have been nice to get a reply back form them (and a refund for the shipping) but I won't complain too much... **** happens as they say.

Hopefully I'll have a good update by end of week!

 

fingers are crossed that we will have an update!! the S will be even more of an amazing car once you're done!

 

Assuming I don't blow the engine to pieces trying to tune it lol.

 

Dont even say that..... u'll curse me too haha. im going to try to start mine up today, hopefully i can get it to.

 

Lol, nah we'll be fine. just keep an eye on the wideband and should be safe...

 

yeah, true. what are you going to do for knock detection? or just run super safe timing?

 

I wasn't planning to stray too far from Aaron's settings for timing, so I should be safe. I'm only running like 6psi of boost anyway.
My main goal with the MS3 was to learn about electronics and FI programming, and to simplify my engine bay. Getting more power would be nice, but it's not what I'm really after at this point... Although some more throttle response would be a good thing

 

This thread seems to have turned into the "baby step updates" thread lol. Guess that how things like this go. I gotta say, I expected the MS build/install to take a good bit of time, but man this is taking forever lol.
At this point all sensors are hooked up and responding, including the often troublesome CAS. I still have to run a wire to my fuel pump, put the UIM back on and hook up a few vacuum lines etc and it'll be ready to fire up. I'm hoping to get all that done tonight but we'll see...

 

sweet man, i hope you get her to run tonight. im not gunna leave my shop til my runs so we might both have running ms3 13b's by days end.

 

With any luck we will!

 

did u get it to run/idle a little better? whats your timing at idle?

 

I had my CAS off by about 10 degrees, once that was corrected it got a little better but It's still a bitch to start, lots of popping and sputtering, once it finally does catch it's hard to keep from stalling again. I can get it to "idle' at 1100rpm or so, but it's not super smooth and if you rev it a little and let off the gas pedal it just cuts out. I've messed around with the VE table quite a bit (I assume larger numbers mean richer??) but everyone that comments on Aaron's table (himself included) say they are already very rich and that you should work to lean them out...
I have the timing table setup with what I got from him, and did not change it...

I have no problem admitting that i'm way over my head at this point and about ready to say **** it...

 

how are you aligning your cps? to the factory second gen location. you tune file seemed to work better for me than mine.

 

Yeah I set timing to "fixed" rather than "use table" and set the fixed amount to "-5" then set the cas to line up with the leading tick mark on the pully.
Really my tune worked on your car? That's good news lol. I've done some tweaking and it idles ok but cuts out if you rev and let off. Might be a dashpot issue though...

 

So quick update after receiving replies from a few people (Matt at DIY auto tune, Ken/muythaibxr on the forum here, and a guy named Steve on the UK FB forum) All seem to indicate that the timing is too far advanced for it to idle correctly. Also all indicate that if I'm having to push the throttle to start it, it's set too rich. Guess I'll drop the timing way down in the lower left of the table, and pull some fuel on the Startup pulsewidth fields. Hopefully that will get me somewhere...

 

After several more frustrating hours last night I've decided that now is not the time for this project. I have too many other projects (of both variety - the kind I want to do, and others I have to do) clouding my mind and I can't focus on this thing enough to get it working correctly. This car has been apart more than it's been together this year and I really just want to drive it for a while.

So tonight/tomorrow I'll be putting the stock ECU back in and shelving the MS3 for a while. Maybe in a few months when I can put more time into this thing I'll go back to it. Certainly not giving up on the MS, just taking a break from it

 

sad to see you go the way of the stock ecu. but i can totally understand. sometimes you just gotta drive.

 

It won't be for too long hopefully. I've come too far to give up at this point, just need a break from it for a while so I can take care of other things

Keep me updated on how you make out with yours, sounds like you're making much progress than I was.

 

I've been busy lately restoring my other 83 (the pandafb, expect a thread soon) but have also done a few things on this one as well so I figured I would post an update.

Last Friday I put a new set of tires (Sumitomo HTR A/S 01 in 195/55-15) on the 91 base model wheels I had laying around and I like the look of them on my car more than I thought I would. Having new tires is always a good thing, the Falkens I have on the vert rims were shot...

Everything was going great until Friday night when a deer decided she wanted to get up close and personal with me... The pic is from a cell phone (obviously) and doesn't show much, but the header panel, and passenger side headlight (the lid, assembly, arm, etc all of it) was completed demolished, chipped some paint on the bumper and put a minor warp in the hood and pushed it back a bit... It could have been a lot worse so I'm thankful for that, but still... I was less than pleased lol.

Thankfully I had some leftover paint, as well as a spare header panel, and headlight assembly. Spent most of last saturday painting and installing those parts. The hood was able to be pushed back out (was a minor bow in the front basically) and no paint was needed, just gave it a real good policy to get the hoof marks off of it.... I haven't done anything with teh bumper yet, but I will at some point. I also need to wait for the light lid and header panel to fully cure so I can polish them out... Overall though I'm quite happy with the repairs.

There are some other updates on this car as well but these are the main ones. I'll post more soon when I polish the rest of the front end.