So it's been over a week now since I drove the 240Z for the first time. What have I gotten done in that timeframe? Not much! I basically didn't touch the car until Thursday, and all I did then was take a few minutes to inaccurately measure the requirements for the flange on the downpipe. Friday I picked up a header collector flange from my buddy Russ' place. Sunday morning I went to work on that flange, it needed some help to make it fit. Sunday afternoon I spent some time in the sauna, I mean garage. I managed to get the coil pack and EDIS module mounted to the fender. I then started trying to clean up some of the wiring in the engine bay. I got some plastic loom a while back so I started running that to cover up the mess of wiring in the engine bay. I also ran the loom in the passenger compartment around some of the wiring in there. It's not finished, but it's definitely starting to look better. Dad helped me to put a switch inline for the main relay. Luckily with the car not idling yet I haven't had problems turning the car off, but with the way things were wired if the car was idling properly you'd have to pull a fuse or disconnect the battery to shut off the car. Now that I have a switch it's easy to do! After that Dad and I put the hood and hinges on the car, the first time since I've owned the 240 that it has had a hood attached! From there we loaded the car up onto the trailer later in the evening. This morning I got up early (a rarity for me) and took the car/trailer over to the Carx on St. Charles Rock Road in Bridgeton. Rick was extremely helpful over there and by 12pm today I was back up there loading the car up on the trailer with Eric's help. Carx put a 3" pipe from the downpipe back to the rear axle, with a turndown on the end. It's still quite loud, but if I do say so myself, it sounds pretty damn sweet! Eric and I brought the car home, and before trying to push it off the trailer I finally got it started. I'm having starter issues and will probably try to replace the starter Thursday or Friday of this week. I drove the car off the trailer and into the garage, it's a beautiful sound! I'm still aiming to compete drive the car at the Autocross on Sunday. Before I can do that I have quite a bit left to do. 1. Fix the idle (longer idle screw) 2. See if there's any fluid in the transmission (can't get the fill plug out so I've not pulled the drain plug yet) 3. Build a bulkhead/firewall for the fuel cell 4. Finish up wiring for the O2 sensor 5. Get a harness squared away 6. More stuff I'm sure I've...

That's right, it runs!!!! More info tomorrow, I've gotta get up in 5.5 hours for the autocross tomorrow! Here's the video page, crappy video and sound, but it does...

First off, let me say that today was a good day! It didn't start off that way however. After last night's fuel rail issues I needed to get the rail tapped and get myself a new fitting. At lunch I headed over to SoloPerformance World Headquarters to have Dave assist with tapping the rail. He didn't have a 3/8 NPT tap so I had to head over to Grainger down the street from the SPS offices and pick up a tap. $33 later I was in business and heading back to Dave's. He assisted with tapping the rail again and then I headed south. I needed to go to SCPRacingparts.com to pickup another fitting, they had just what I needed and then I was headed back to the office. When I got home this evening the first thing I did was check to see if the new fitting would be what I needed. I put the fitting into the rail with some teflon and hooked everything up. I pressurized the fuel system, and sure enough, it was leaking fuel again! Not a happy camper was I. With a leaking fuel rail I couldn't do much else so I called up Speed Sports to see if they could help me out by tapping the rail and selling me a new fitting. They were running a little late and not open yet so I decided to work on the power issue we were having with the Megasquirt. On Tuesday we had problems because the MS signal to the laptop was highly unsteady. We weren't sure if it was a power problem, or if it was related to a bad ground. Tonight I replaced the wire we were running to the main relay with a direct line from the battery. Once I did this the relay kicks in immediately when plugged to the battery, powering up the megasquirt without the ignition being on. This corrected the fluctuation issue, which was great news! Now that the gauges and sensors seem to work fuel was the last major hurdle before I could attempt to start the car. I headed up to Speed Sports and had Lou tap the rail and install a new fitting for me. He showed me that I wasn't using enough teflon on the fitting, and he also managed to run the fitting nearly all the way in, where we were only able to get it in a few threads before. Once I had the new fitting installed I was starting to get excited, perhaps it would hold and I'd be able to see what happens when I cranked the car. Installation of the rail was easy, I've installed and removed it so much in the past two nights that it is easy to do now. Eric showed up and we pressurized the fuel system a few times. All tests appeared good, no fuel leaking out anywhere! Now it was time, the power was good, the fuel was good, it was time to try and start the car. Eric and I tied up a few last minute things, hooked up the battery, computer to the Megasquirt and watched all the gauges on the PC light up. Eric stood by the front of the car with a fire extinguisher and I reached into the driver's door to turn the key. I turned the key, she cranked over, a beautiful sound I must say. After a few cranks I realized the fuel pump wasn't running, which meant that the squirt wasn't getting an RPM signal as it should be. I looked over at the display and sure enough, no RPMs registering on the PC. Without RPMs the Megasquirt won't allow the fuel pump to run for more than 2 seconds, that was my giveaway. I called Whittle up and he suggested a few things. First thing was to pull a spark plug and see if we were getting any spark. Nothing. Then I checked to make sure the EDIS was getting power, it was. So that's where I'm at right now. I've got a bit to do tomorrow, I need to diagnose why I'm not getting spark. I'll check a few things first, see if perhaps the VR sensor is wired backwards, which would cause this. I'll also check to make sure I have the VR sensor in the correct location. I'm taking off from work tomorrow to try and finish things up on the car this weekend so I can race on Sunday. We'll see if I reach my goal! Overall I was very pleased with the progress tonight, even if the car didn't start I gave it a shot,...

Fuel leaks, coolant leaks and blown fuses. That about sums up the evening... First off, a HUGE thanks to everyone who came over tonight. Henry, Ronnie, Terec, Ian, Eric, Scott and Andy, without you guys helping out I wouldn't have gotten anything done tonight! Here's a basic summary of how things went tonight. Henry and Ronnie showed up first and got to work on finishing the wiring in the engine bay. They by far did the most, if not all of the work on the wiring on the car, I had put together three wires, but they as a team crank though some things, far faster that I could ever hope to. While they spent time working on the wiring in the engine bay I did a little work in the passenger compartment trying to get some wires run, finding parts for them, and trying to close up some ports on the intake before the turbo but after the MAF. Before heading to the interior to do wiring Henry, Ronnie and I attempted to crank the starter, to see if it would fire. Because this car is now a manual, but originally was an auto Ronnie wired up a relay to bypass the neutral safety switch that keeps the starter from firing if the car isn't in park. We were unable to locate the stock relay but found some of the wiring so we just ended up bypassing the whole thing. When they were working on the interior wiring I finished up some of the engine mount bolts that needed tightening and started cleaning up the Ford plug wires that I had picked up from the junk yard a while back. The rest of the guys started showing up, when Whittle called me I told him we were about half an hour from trying to start the car, he's the megasquirt Guru so I asked him to come over and assist us with things while we tried. By the time he arrived we weren't quite ready, but we thought we were close. Once the Whittle's showed up we ran some fuel through the fuel system into a jug (rather than the fuel rail) to try and clean out the hoses and pump, to keep any buildup from getting into the rail and injectors. That testing went fine, but as soon as we hooked the fuel lines back up and sent some pressure through the system we found a few leaks. The fittings at the fuel filter in the engine bay had been put together without teflon, lesson learned, 10 minutes later it was all back together again and pressure testing started up. Then we found a bigger issue, but one that didn't dump near as much fuel out. We can't seem to get the injector for the number 1 cylinder sealed into the fuel rail, it looks like the 2 and 3 injectors are also leaking a bit. So, tomorrow, the fuel rail will come off and we'll try to make adjustments. On the electrical side of things: At first we couldn't get the MS to fire up at all with the power from the car. After about 15 minutes, and Whittle about to give up I started looking for wires and remembered, we ran the TPS and TPS Signal wires, but don't currently have a TPS to hook up to, well sure enough, they were sitting right on the intake manifold. As soon as I removed them the Squirt fired up in Megatune. Then there were a few other gremlins. The MS seemed to be getting power spikes, though not completely resetting itself and firing the fuel pump again. At first we thought this was a grounding issue, but I believe I've now tracked it down just to be a source issue. While trying to track that down we started blowing fuses in the stock wiring. We couldn't figure out what that was happening until I looked at what we had wired into for the switched power line. I found that we were jumped into a line for the AC, well two days ago I pulled the AC system from under the dash and the wiring was still there, half hanging out of the car, which of course was touching the chassis, and causing out problem. Once I figured that out I removed the AC wire from the equation. That corrected the fuse issue, but we're still getting the power fluctuations, so I'll be tracking those down by checking...

Today was a good day! Progress was made! First things first, at lunch myself, Henry, and Eric headed down to High Ridge to SCPRacingparts.com again to get a cap for my Fuel cell, I realized yesterday that I was only 3 of the 4 fitting points for the fuel cell, and I had better get something to cover the fourth one up. After work my Henry (one of my bosses) and his mechanic buddy Ronnie came over to the house, after we made a quick pitstop at Gateway Electronics again to get more wiring items (I also spotted the Rally Bug builders on their way home from work). Ronny runs a shop down south near where he and Henry both live, so he was an EXCELLENT resource to have working on the car tonight. He and Henry got nearly every wire in the engine bay connected and placed in the appropriate areas, leaving just a few things for me to do in the bay. Eric also came over after making a trip to Autozone to get the battery for his 3rd gen RX-7 recharged. He finished up the fuel cell items that needed done. Adding the inline filter before the pump and then attached the vent line with the bulkhead fitting and check valve. I spent the evening doing minor things, mainly being in awe of all the work that Henry and Ronnie were getting done. I did track down some keys to the car, though I swear the keys I grabbed were the keys to the parts car I got rid of, one of them fit into the ignition for the 240z. I also figured out that the ignition has been turned on this whole time, which would explain why we never needed a key to turn the steering wheel when rolling the car around, though I'm not sure how it was turned on and the key removed. I do have the ignition out of the 78, as well as the turn signal and headlight switches from that car to try and use on the 73. Ronnie was able to get the power from the new battery hooked up to the starter, and alternator, which in turn got power to quite a bit of the car. One of the hazards work, the parking lights looked to work as when the headlights were turned on the rear lights lit up. I'll ahve to figure out how to wire up the headlights in the future, but I'm guessing the wiring for them should be somewhat intact based on testing tonight. So I've got more work to do tomorrow night. I'll try to finish up the wiring that is left in the engine bay, as well as wire up the fuse panel and try to mount the Megasquirt tomorrow night. Right now my goal is to try and start the car either Wednesday, or Thursday night! Though, I'm seriously thinking I won't be going to Topeka, though I'm still hoping to at take the car to the local autox this...

Eric and I got a bit done today. Mostly learning with the help of Andy Whittle who stopped by to assist with some Megasquirt questions. I also did some soldering on the Megasquirt wiring, LOTS more soldering to do tomorrow! The fuel cell is mounted, Eric started on the oil cooler mounting, we ended up figuring out that I did have the correct peices for that, so all that money isn't wasted. Sunday tasks Connect Fuel Lines Run Megasquirt Wires, Fuses, Relays Install Megasquirt Install Fuse Panel Install Battery (charge battery) Install Seats Install Radiator Connect Starter Connect Alternator Add Oil to the Motor and Transmission Add Coolant I'm sure I'll have to add more to this...

After work last night I got to work on the car. Eric and Russ came over to lend their assistance as well. Russ got started on the leaking wheel cylinder, Eric started putting the Intake/exhaust/turbo back onto the motor, while I worked on fabricating a bracket to mount the VR sensor onto the side of the motor. While they were both productive, I actually never got my portion of the project finished last night, though I hope to finish it up tonight. Once the intake/exhaust and turbo was all back together we went ahead and began the task of putting the motor back in the car. I've got some High Definition video of that process here on this Video Page. With Eric and Russ' help we also managed to get the drive shaft connected up and the transmission into the cross member under the tunnel. Tonight I'm going to pick up more bolts, so we can mount the fuel cell bracket to the floor of the car and then we can hookup all the fuel lines. We'll also be installing the fuel rail and injectors tonight so we can hook up the fuel lined up front. At that point I hope to start trying to figure out the wiring for the car, that's the big project left for this weekend, get wiring going so we can try to start this bad boy up. Here are some various photos from last night ...

Monday night I didn't get crap done on the project! I started to work on the oil filter/block attachment only to realize after driving around for 2 hours that I wasn't going to find any easy way to block off the oil cooler attachments for the 83 L28ET motor. By the time I got home from that it was well after 9 and I needed to spend some time with my wife. Tuesday I ordered AN fittings to go from the metric 18mm x 1.5 oil cooler fittings to AN -10 fittings so that I can run steel braided lines to the new oil cooler I ordered. All of that should be here tomorrow. Tuesday after work I began putting things back together on the Intake Manifold. I spent far too long digging around the garage trying to find parts I haven't seen in a few weeks. Yes, I need FAR BETTER organization in the garage. I'll probably have to spend some time Thursday or Friday night cleaning up if I'm going to have anyone over to help out this weekend. After that I headed off to Speed Sports up in Bridgeton (http://www.speedsportstopfuel.com, store hours from 7-10pm M-F) to pick up some AN-4 steel braided line for my turbo oil feed. I got a 1/8" NPT to AN-4 fitting, a 90 degree hose fitting, and the fittings I needed on the turbo side, as well as 5 feet (about 1 ft too much) of AN -4 hose. I figured out when I got home that the port on the block for the oil fitting is NOT 1/8" NPT, it's actually 1/8" BSPT, which is very similiar, but different enough to make my fitting not work. With this info, I think I've now figured out why the pipe thread plugs I had purchased a few months ago wouldn't work, I probably need BSPT for those as well. I've found a few parts online that I can order to convert from BSPT to NPT, I'll see if anyone locally has those tomorrow, otherwise I'll get those ordered tomorrow. After leaving Speed Sports I headed down the street to Autozone. At AZ I picked up a lot of hoses, clamps and other random bits of things I needed to reassemble the motor. I also picked up a GM open element Air Temperature sensor to thread into the Intake manifold to be able to tell what the air temp is going into the motor, I had to get the Wells part, I think SU107 was the # but I could be wrong. AZ didn't have a pigtail so I'll try Carquest tomorrow to see if they have the pigtail so I can wire this up to the megasquirt. When I got home I threaded the temperature sensor into the Intake manifold. I also managed to get the thermostat gasket installed into the housing, the GM Water Temperature Sensor installed into the Thermo housing, and cleaned up the snail for the turbo. It was a bit dirty from sitting in a barn for who knows how many years. I'll take pics of everything later this week. After running around this evening I got to thinking about how much this project has cost me lately. Without going into specifics (because my mother will read this) I've spent more this month than I spent to purchase the car. June was the same, and possibly double what I've spent so far this month. I know I've got a few more things I'll have to purchase, but hopefully I've got all the big items out of the way, at least for this phase of the project. More coming this week, and I promise to start doing video...

Well, I got absolutely nothing done on the car today. I did manage to buy a few necessary items, but work on the car was not had. Instead I spent the day helping my buddy Eric. He mistakenly LOST his girlfriend's parrot last night. So today we went bird hunting all day. Finally around 7pm Kendra stepped up and showed she had a bigger pair than both Eric or I. She climbed a tree about 3-4 stories up and got the bird to come down to her. A more detailed blog post will be on http://chrishammond.com later this...

I spent some time this evening working on the interior of the car again. I went through one wire wheel and halfway through another on the passenger side of the car tonight. Tomorrow I'll be doing some final prep work, possibly laying some fiberglass (for the first time) and then later this week painting the floor. Photos and more later this...