That's the exhaust overheat sensor.
I think it warns you if the cat is glowing red.

hmm thats an interesting piece. its probably not going back in then since ill be using a stand alone, stripped wiring harness and i dont have cats so theres no way they can glow red. thanks clokker :icon_tup:

Finally have a chance to update this. I've gotten a decent amount done since the last update. Both I and my car survived hurricane Sandy and I managed to get a bunch of stuff done while I was off from work and didn't have power.

Housings are painted black metallic irons and gold metallic rotor housings
Attachment 690887
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Then I got started with assembly. Things went pretty smoothly.
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And the mostly finished product.
Attachment 690890

Some fresh paint on my pulleys too. Rustoleum Cobalt Blue Metallic with Blue Metalcast over it.
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Still have to put my flywheel, clutch, trans, oil pan and front cover on the engine before I drop it in. Also going to repaint my engine bay since a lot of the paint has chipped. The bay will be matching the pulleys.

So i started repainting the engine bay last weekend. It ended up taking a shit ton of prep work because it got a little crusty from sitting outside and having the gasket/seal on my brake cylinder go bad. I had to clean a whole reservoir of brake fluid to clean off and some power steering fluid that leaked from my steering rack. Now the whole bay is stripped down primed and got its first coat of the metallic blue. Probably gunna finish it up this weekend and hopefully I'll have enough time to finish up stripping my interior and maybe even get around to painting that too.

Also I've been playing around with the idea of trimming my stripped out dash from my old vw to fit the 7 instead of mutilating my "decent" condition stock dash. The thing has been sitting around for 2 years just collecting dust in my garage so maybe I'll get some use out of it. I'll try and dig up a pic of it to post in here so i can get some opinions on it.

Attachment 689067