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[braidmeister]

Well...It's been about a year now since I bought my '76 Standard with stock (not working) fuel injection. I ran thru the Bentley manual & did the LJet tests, and it showed that the mass air meter was bad, the thermo time switch and rather than replace these things, I chose to upgrade the electronics to MegaSquirt EFI, so that I could tune it with a laptop. The LJet diagnostics suck. I bought this car from a guy in PA who used to drive it to the train every day. It was at a repair shop when I bought it, not running. Fuel pump was bad. Plus the other stuff I mentioned.

I carefully removed the LJet components only cutting 2 power wires from the infamous double relay, for my new fuel pump relay. I removed everything except the throttle body, factory airbox, and rubber boot. I made a new harness for the engine compartment for the new system. I had to weld over the flat on the throttle body shaft & re-grind the flat in a different spot to get the clocking correct for the new fully variable (reostat) TPS sensor. I used the factory mounting holes. The original TPS just has a switch for flood clear. I removed the mass air & fabbed up a round to square section of tubing with flange to bolt up to the original boot & airbox. I added an intake air charge temp sensor to the airbox. I also welded in a bung for the Innovative LC1 wide band O2 and wired that up as well. I still have to tidy up the computer in the package tray area.

I decided to play hookey today from work & get some stuff done on the Bug. I've been having a heck of a time getting MegaSquirt to do what everyone says is 'so easy'...It's taken me a good solid year of off & on work to get this far, but it has been worth it! Today I relocated my coolant temp sensor to underneath cyl 1 & 2, so that circulated air blows on the sensor. MS is setup to work with GM sensors out of the box, but I originally tried using the cylinder head temp sensor - which SEEMED like it was OK, but in reality it wasn't cutting it. I opted for an '87 Buick Grand National IAT sensor since it is mostly brass, open element (quick acting) and will screw into a standard O2 bung.

Earlier this afternoon, I was installing a power inverter so that I could plug the laptop into it for tuning purposes. I drove (running like crap...but running) out of the garage to get some better light. It started raining, so I drove it back in. I was going to road-test & tune the car, but figured I'd do a 'pre-road' inspection to make sure everything was working. I checked the usual stuff like the horn (working but sick), speedo cable is broken (ordered up from CIP1), turn signals worked about 3 times and then nothing  s#r So I pulled the relays & reseated them. Nothing. Did it again, now it flashed 3 or 4 times and stopped - thinking that the relay was overheating/bad. I let it cool. Still nothing. So for the heck of it I wiggled the fuses around. Low & behold, it was working for a few clicks...then stopped. I found the culprit. The BG-style plastic fuse for the instrument cluster & signals was mechanically worn on one side, barely making contact. A quick trip to NAPA and it's all good.

SO now that I worked out some of the road-worthy stuff, the rain stopped, the sun was out, I'm thinking to myself, this is going to be great. I already drove the car a few times around the block last Sunday, so I know it runs. Well...went to start it, nothing. Darn near killed the batt-tree. Put the charger on it & looked at the tuning software - no RPM signal, so I'm thinking either bad ground, poor connection @ tach input or something. Everything checked out fine...  m-d2 At this point visions of carburation via crappy Solexes are dancing in my head (like the new set I sold for less than I paid for them last winter) I took a break and went inside to research.

Being a software developer in a previous life, I figured that there was an outside chance that the firmware (software that runs internally in the MegaSquirt) somehow got corrupted. So I downloaded the latest & greatest and ran it over my sneaker network (Doc Marten network actually) - and loaded everything up. I configured a few things for this specific engine & what do you know...The BLINKIN THING IS RUNNING GREAT!  BO** BO** BO** I manually edited some of the fuel map cells to get the idle in the ballpark. My buddy stopped down & we went for a ride. I had him edit the fuel cells as I was driving to enrich or lean out specific areas of the fuel map. I drove it about 30 minutes, stopped @ a friend's house, shut it off for 20 min & it started right back up! I've been waiting for this day for over a year!

So...hopefully tomorrow I will get some more seat time in the car. I know I need a running light bulb & a back up light bulb. Also my Wideband O2 needs to come out, get cleaned and recalibrated so that I can tune it to stoich. I'm hoping that I can make it to the next cruise in this puppy!  drive&&

Tired & Loo0py, but happy!!!  @3@ dancbanana hiphop

Thanks for listening to my long-winded saga!

sjvwcrocks


-Brady

[lovebus (jack)]

Great story Brady, don't you just love it when everything comes together. I would have liked to seen your face when she kicked off and ran good.

[scarecrow]

It's a great feeling when it finally runs. Admire your persistance :icon_thumleft:

[braidmeister]

Thanks guys. I'll prolly do some tuning today on the road...It's beauty-ful out this morning!

[bugs2much]

Just wanted to let you know it is great that you are still with us :icon_cheers:

[braidmeister]

Thanks! Good to be here  stoned#

I've been driving around without a speedo. I knew that the cable was bad, but didn't know WHY it was bad. I removed the speedo yesterday because I could not get the speedo to turn at all. I pulled the speedo apart and there is a cookie-sized magnet that is attached to the speedo input shaft which was locked solid with petrified grease. I also noted that someone had this apart before since some of the screws showed pry marks on them, as well as the bezel. It took me a good hour to clean the magnet/shaft and it's complimentary bore. After cleaning everything with WD40 & a scotch pad (polished shaft), I noticed that the shaft had a tight spot in the bore. There was pitting & galling of the shaft and the bore was scored as well. I had to buzz down the high spot in the bore (after I found it...) with a dremel. A few trial fits and it's spinning smooth now. Everything got a shot of white lithium grease before it went back together. The infamous gear on the odometer is brass & looked OK. Hopefully I'll get the speedo cable from CIP1 on Mon or Tues, do a little more tuning and take this puppy in to get inspected.

I might put in my pop-out 1/4 windows today , after I get the speedo back in the car & wired up. Before I removed it, I took lots of pics noting wire color & where it goes. I bet there are as many wires attached to the back of the speedo as there are going into the engine compartment to run the engine!

Anybody see the Autometer 'Quad' gauges yet? Pretty neat...

-B

[TRAVELER]

I have a few questions about what you have done, now that you can custom tune it would this set up work on a larger displacment engine with larger injectors? say for example a 1776 and still retain a stock appearance? by the  way congrats on figuring it all out! P#3 BO** :icon_thumleft:

[braidmeister]

I have a few questions about what you have done, now that you can custom tune it would this set up work on a larger displacment engine with larger injectors? say for example a 1776 and still retain a stock appearance? by the  way congrats on figuring it all out! P#3 BO** :icon_thumleft:

Thanks, I'm glad it is working out too! :)

Yes, the system is easily scalable to a larger engine and larger injectors, normally aspirated or turbocharged. I am currently running Bosch 19# injectors out of a 5.0 Mustang, which I had to modify slightly to work with the stock fuel rails. They are high impedance and work well with MS. The VW LJet injectors were low impedance and rated at about 17.6 lbs/hr (185cc/min). The stock Ljet throttle body is good up to about 200hp, so you could run a non-turbo 2332cc motor and still have enough flow with the stock components.

[braidmeister]

I got the speedo back in yesterday...for some strange reason, I could not get the instrument illumination bulbs to light up. Turns out that the dimmer switch portion (rheostat) portion of the headlight switch is on it's way out. A test light from the fuse to the switch (checking power) confirms this. Plus, the magic smoke came out of it when I went to adjust the dimmer thinking there was a dead spot. I gotta see if I can find another one.

I started on the rear quarter windows yesterday. I picked up the complete set at Punch Buggy last year for $75. Everything was there, but they looked like they were laying in a mud puddle. I stripped off the old rubber and cleaned everything really well. I think I spent about $100 with West Coast Metric for all new seals, screws, hinges etc. A new set of pop outs are like $400 these days. It took me a good hour and a half to get the new rubber seals back into the T-channels on the window frames. It wasn't hard, just tedious. My thumb is worn out today! It started getting dark so I knocked off. Next step will be to remove the non-pop out windows, clean the frame and install the pop-outs - which should be a welcomed addition on these hot days! All of the holes for the pop-out hinges & latch are already drilled in the body from the factory - which is nice.

-B