Blake's 1965 Mustang Project

[digitalsolo]

Hi I'm Blake and I am working on too many projects at once.

Put in a new plug, then entombed it in some epoxy for extra oomph.   Leak now, you SOB.

Tune in tomorrow when I report that it's still leaking!

[digitalsolo]

Engine oil leak looks good.   Did a bunch of driving today, no oil leaking at all.

Shifter on trans IS leaking, but that's an easy fix.

But, more importantly, I figured out why the car falls on its face under higher load.  My fuel pressure goes away.  As soon as power starts to come up, fuel pressure goes bye bye.   Trying to figure out what's going on, current theory is PWM config is inverted on the brushless pump driver.   I'm just glad I figured out WTF is happening, been beating my head on the wall here.

[Exidous]

Hi I'm Blake and I am working on too many projects at once.

The first step to curing an addiction is the introduction.

[digitalsolo]

Trans leak is fixed.  It was the shifter.   Some idiot didn’t torque it down correctly…

Fueling issue is also solved, the PWM behavior was indeed inverted.  Instructions for half bridge outputs on the Haltech seem to be backwards from reality.   Flipped the setting and it works as expected.

I’d go test, but it’s raining.

[digitalsolo]

No more visible leaks after ~30 miles of driving.

Put some E85 back in it, up to ~55% ethanol now.   Will creep it back up towards E85, but really anything over E60 or so is fine.

I reworked the fuel map a bit around the areas I'd messed with previously when I was trying to sort out why it was falling on its face, and then took it for a drive.  I eased it into boost a couple times (just ~4 psi) to make sure fueling seemed sane.  It looks great, and was staying right on target.   I ran it up to about 5600 RPM and ~6 psi in 2-3 gear and then took a look at logs.   Fueling is about 2-3% rich, but holding steady.   Fuel pressure now responds properly and pump is scaling with demand. 

I also checked out cam targets and my duty cycle is slightly high, but only ~6-8% by my estimate.  I didn't go beyond ~60% throttle on those pulls so I don't have a completely clear picture of boost control solenoid/gate behavior under full load, but I'm running light springs and a 4 port and I don't see any reason to expect my config from the old ECU won't run it all properly on the Nexus.

I spent some time tonight massaging the VE fuel map a bit, as well as adjusting the cam solenoid duty cycle.  I also have some noise in the RPM in the logs, so I'm going to look at the signal on the scope and see if I need to adjust the filters or trigger point a bit to clean that up.  It doesn't seem to cause issues, but I'd rather it be as clean/smooth as possible without losing resolution.   I'll get some more logs on the car now that it's actually responding to changes properly and start seeing if I can get to WOT pulls and back up to the 10-12 psi range that I'm targeting for the combination.

Progress!

edit:  Oh and my dash freaked me out, alerting for "over RPM alarm" and flashing lots of red lights at me.   Checked config and it was set do that at 5000 RPM.  Whoops.   Turned it up to 6800.

[digitalsolo]

So, it still leaks transmission fluid.   I'm going to put some dye in that next and see WTF is going on.   This transmission has -always- had a small leak, but this seems to be a little larger leak.   At least the engine isn't leaking anymore, LOL.

I ran the engine up to 6800 RPM and WOT.  Unfortunately I'd bumped my data logger to off before the pull, so I didn't get to see boost/numbers, but I can tell you that rolling gently into the throttle in 2nd gear  was exciting.  The boost came in about 3800 RPM and it hazed the tires all the way to redline.   It did drive straight, which is good.   I need some drag radials out back, these 5 year old Federals aren't up to it, hah.

Fueling and cam control is looking really good overall, going to keep dialing the tune in.  Next up is getting the HVAC ducts back in, add labels for my trim pots and HVAC controls and hopefully get the AC working so that the car is more fun when the weather gets hotter.

[digitalsolo]

Completely ignoring the stuff that needs finished on this car for now, and just driving it around when the weather is nice.    Getting AC working is gaining in priority though.

Winter projects:
Finish HVAC ducting
Finish HVAC control labels
Fix AC
New strut tower brace
Replace rear axle housing seals (one side has a slow leak)
Design new door pulls/arm rests
Take to the alignment shop to validate my string alignment

That's a pretty short list, honestly.  I'm just about out of things to upgrade/fix on this car.  LOL

[AKINA FC]

I really want some current pictures  I went back like 60 pages and nothing 

[digitalsolo]

LOL, I'm going to an event this weekend.  Assuming the car doesn't launch a rod or burn down, I should get some decent pics there.

It doesn't look any different than 2 years ago, minus the suspension stuff up front. 

[digitalsolo]

So, took the whole family in the car to a big event today.   Well, tried to.

Stopped at the gas station to top off the tank.  First pump didn't work, went to go to the next, both E85 pumps have someone getting regular gas, just parked, not at their cars.   Annoying.  They finally move, I go put a few gallons in the car, go to start it... no start.  Put my jump pack on and it fired right up.  Fine, not a big deal, it'll have time to charge up on the way out.  Went to put the car in 1st and it "clunked" in a bit, weird.  Felt like the shifter wasn't quite right;  remember this has an S1 Sequential on it.   Start moving and the car dies.  Ok then.  Fired right back up, idled down and seemed fine, back in first, another clunk, shift linkage feels a little weird, but car ran fine.  On to the meet-up before the show.

This is a big event for the driving club I'm in, and we parked 160+ cars prepping to go to the big festival event.  I pulled in, car seemed fine, so I parked in my assigned spot, and we walked around for a bit.   Get back in the car and checked the shifter.... no reverse.   The S1 has a secondary lever you push forward to get reverse and it won't go forward AT ALL.  Zero movement.  It also still doesn't feel right for forward gears.  I yanked on the reverse lever and boom, I have forward gears but no reverse.  Great.   The cruise to the event goes right by my house, so I figured I'd split off from the pack and try and fix it quick.

Got home and, yeah, not going to be quick.  30 minutes later I had the console and shifter out and I could see the issue.  The reverse lockout/enable lever connects to a little triangle on the shifter assembly on the transmission, which it rocks back and forth (think over-centering lock) to put you in or out of the reverse gate on the transmission.  Instead of rocking back and forth it had kicked around 180* and was inverted from where it should be.   Well no wonder it felt weird and wasn't shifting right.  I don't know what turning that 180* does in the sequential assembly, but apparently it makes it mad.

So, I hit it with a hammer, as one does.   Sounds bad, but it was just to knock it back into it's proper track, at which point the shifter felt normal.  Cool, so it's fixed, but I don't want it do to that again.

Solution!  I drilled and tapped a hole for a 1/4-20 bolt and a locking nut, then ground an button head bolt to be a positive stop for the reverse selector lever (the other direction can't over-rotate so only one positive stop is needed).

Shifter assembly:



Reverse gate selected:



Forward gates selected:



Didn't get to go park with the club since it took me the better part of an hour and a half to tear the car apart, fix the first problem, and re-engineer the system to prevent it happening again.  We just took the Tesla to the show as spectators since the Mustang was determined to be a dick tonight.

Oh well, at least I fixed the problem I didn't know I had.

[Exidous]

Funny, I had done something similar with my pro5.0 on the T-56 to reduce wear on the fork pads and make it feel more like a gated shifter.

[digitalsolo]

Yeah, I've run MGWs in a bunch of stuff over the years and they have positive stops, which I'm a big fan of.   The silly little reverse lever actually feels WAY nicer to use with the stop in place.

Going to another car event on Monday, we'll see if the car chooses to behave this time.  I suspect it will be fine, my cars only ever act up when my wife is with me, haha.

[MPbdy]

It's amazing how the strangest failures save themselves for the most inopportune times.

I'd also be pretty pissed for how expensive that S1 shifter is.  Sucks you didn't get to take the stang, but at least its fixed and you made it to the show.

[digitalsolo]

Took the car to cars and coffee this morning.  No issues.   Did a quick roll in 2nd and it laid about 100-150' of rubber at 40 MPH as soon as boost came in.  I honestly expected it to hook a little better.  It is an effective burn out machine currently. 

[digitalsolo]

In the "Blake can't make up his mind" game, I'm swapping out the S1 Sequential shifter for an MGW H pattern.... which is what I had in it before.  I mean, technically they made a newer version, so I'm getting VERY SLIGHTLY different MGW, but...

Why?

Well, I think if I was tracking the car and especially if I put a dog ring box in it, I'd really like the S1. But for cruising around town, which I do 95% of the time, it's entertaining, but annoying, particularly in traffic.  I have to rev match the downshifts coming to a stop in traffic if my speed differential is wide, or it'll clunk (due to the shaft speed difference being hard for the trans to take up quickly) and I can't just pop it in a gear after a pull, etc.   The main reason is that my wife is NOT going to do those things and she wants to drive the car now and then.

Basically, I knew it was a gimmick for my uses when I got it, and I think the novelty has worn off.   So I ordered up a new MGW and I'll swap it back in.   I do have to get a reverse lockout back in place;  at least I left a spare connector with a DPO and 12V IGN in the center console that I can grab to run it.