Post by flylear45 on Mar 29, 2018 14:24:42 GMT -5
I intimated in a different thread about this project, so I'll update what is going on.
It's a 1987 Thunderbird Turbocoupe that I bought ages ago for it's engine and transmission. It was totally taken apart..... no dash, no engine, no interior whatsoever. It came with a good title and I just couldn't bear to part out a nice, clean example like this, even though I've had 3 stock TC's and was pretty much over having one. So it sat in my lean-to starting in about 2005 or so.
I used the drivetrain to build my TR7 resto-rod, and after that project was in the can I turned to the Tbird. I had a rebuilt 87 Mustang powerplant in my garage that came as a trade-deal on Triumph parts, so I set out to add a turbo to it, mate it to a 4R70W computer controlled transmission, EDIS spark and Megasquirt fuel injection, carpc with touchscreen and build up a unique car.
Unfortunately even though I did a good job on the build, it has given me constant problems (most of which were caused by improperly sizing the turbo!) and after fighting with it for several years I decided last year to remove the turbo system and convert it back to a N/A V8 car.
That has so far been a good decision. Now that the car can breathe properly I am not getting ANY of the issues I had with the old build that ruined the experience for me. I replaced the single 3" exhaust coming from the Twisted Wedge heads through shorty headers and a 2 1/2" H-pipe and mated it from there through a stock Lincoln dual exhaust..... not optimal for performance but quiet enough while allowing good, raw power delivery.
I also found a 'gotcha' that has been plaguing me from the start. I was always getting a random misfire...... it would be so bad as to cause a processor reset in Megasquirt at any time and sometimes corrupt the firmware. A SERIOUS problem!
I was determined to get to the bottom of it and after revisiting every relay, power connection, wire routing, etc. I finally was doing a 'wiggle test' on the harness, trying to maybe find a bad connection or broken wire.... and I FOUND ONE!
In my self-made wiring harness connecting the EDIS to the Tbird/Megasquirt wiring there was a shrink wrapped connection for the low voltage signal return to Megasquirt that was occasionally shorting itself to the shielding wrap. 10 minute fix for a 4 year pain-in-my-ass.
So now I am at last to where I can tune and drive the car as it should be, and am motivated to finish off the 5 or 6 finishing details to have it be 100%.
Of course in the meantime I found one of my 'punchlist' cars, a 2005 Jaguar XKR which means I will be finishing the Tbird to sell to someone else to enjoy. LOL
On the carpc side, I swapped the 500 GB HDD with a 250 GB SSD and disconnected the backup cam. The cam was constantly causing the monitor to switch screens without a signal, which was EXTREMELY annoying. Not only that, but the monitor would enter a weird high gamma display mode that washed out the display to being unreadable. Disconnecting the cam fixed that, too.
The PC is a SFF Atom with a Foxcon mainboard and just 2 GB of ram. I would like to have more for sure, and may try to find a cheap stick to upgrade. A M2ATX on a relay provides the power.
I have a 5 amp 12v-5v DC converter (on the relay) in the trunk that powers my 3 hubs. The 5v rail in the PC is a bit on the wimpy side, and I was constantly losing either GPS or WIFI until I got almost all the devices running through the rear 7 port hub instead of off the USB ports on the PC.
A hub in the center armrest carries the Andrea mic, Baumann transmission controller, keyboard, and a remote USB port for my phone.
A hub on the side of the radio console has the bluetooth dongle and a card reader built in.
Sound is through a decent Fosgate amp and 4 speakers. (No sub) I molded a Adesso touchpad into the custom shifter surround and it works awesome.
Right now the dash is torn apart while I finalize the dashcap installation over the cracked dash and I make a few tweaks. I had a modern fuel pressure gauge mounted in place of the original digital clock and I found it annoyingly bright at night with no way to dim it down.
It's coming out and I am putting a phone mount with a 12v to 5v USB connection so I can charge my phone at a higher rate and unload the usb......since I can now connect to the car via bluetooth and wifi hotspot. Doing so really chews up the battery life, so a dedicated power source should help things out immensely. I won't miss the FP gauge since the car is now running a stock fuel system with stock pressure. The turbo car had massive injectors and an adjustable regulator.
So that's where it sits. I should be driving it again in a day or two and back to tweaking Driveline features to suit my needs.
It's a 1987 Thunderbird Turbocoupe that I bought ages ago for it's engine and transmission. It was totally taken apart..... no dash, no engine, no interior whatsoever. It came with a good title and I just couldn't bear to part out a nice, clean example like this, even though I've had 3 stock TC's and was pretty much over having one. So it sat in my lean-to starting in about 2005 or so.
I used the drivetrain to build my TR7 resto-rod, and after that project was in the can I turned to the Tbird. I had a rebuilt 87 Mustang powerplant in my garage that came as a trade-deal on Triumph parts, so I set out to add a turbo to it, mate it to a 4R70W computer controlled transmission, EDIS spark and Megasquirt fuel injection, carpc with touchscreen and build up a unique car.
Unfortunately even though I did a good job on the build, it has given me constant problems (most of which were caused by improperly sizing the turbo!) and after fighting with it for several years I decided last year to remove the turbo system and convert it back to a N/A V8 car.
That has so far been a good decision. Now that the car can breathe properly I am not getting ANY of the issues I had with the old build that ruined the experience for me. I replaced the single 3" exhaust coming from the Twisted Wedge heads through shorty headers and a 2 1/2" H-pipe and mated it from there through a stock Lincoln dual exhaust..... not optimal for performance but quiet enough while allowing good, raw power delivery.
I also found a 'gotcha' that has been plaguing me from the start. I was always getting a random misfire...... it would be so bad as to cause a processor reset in Megasquirt at any time and sometimes corrupt the firmware. A SERIOUS problem!
I was determined to get to the bottom of it and after revisiting every relay, power connection, wire routing, etc. I finally was doing a 'wiggle test' on the harness, trying to maybe find a bad connection or broken wire.... and I FOUND ONE!
In my self-made wiring harness connecting the EDIS to the Tbird/Megasquirt wiring there was a shrink wrapped connection for the low voltage signal return to Megasquirt that was occasionally shorting itself to the shielding wrap. 10 minute fix for a 4 year pain-in-my-ass.
So now I am at last to where I can tune and drive the car as it should be, and am motivated to finish off the 5 or 6 finishing details to have it be 100%.
Of course in the meantime I found one of my 'punchlist' cars, a 2005 Jaguar XKR which means I will be finishing the Tbird to sell to someone else to enjoy. LOL
On the carpc side, I swapped the 500 GB HDD with a 250 GB SSD and disconnected the backup cam. The cam was constantly causing the monitor to switch screens without a signal, which was EXTREMELY annoying. Not only that, but the monitor would enter a weird high gamma display mode that washed out the display to being unreadable. Disconnecting the cam fixed that, too.
The PC is a SFF Atom with a Foxcon mainboard and just 2 GB of ram. I would like to have more for sure, and may try to find a cheap stick to upgrade. A M2ATX on a relay provides the power.
I have a 5 amp 12v-5v DC converter (on the relay) in the trunk that powers my 3 hubs. The 5v rail in the PC is a bit on the wimpy side, and I was constantly losing either GPS or WIFI until I got almost all the devices running through the rear 7 port hub instead of off the USB ports on the PC.
A hub in the center armrest carries the Andrea mic, Baumann transmission controller, keyboard, and a remote USB port for my phone.
A hub on the side of the radio console has the bluetooth dongle and a card reader built in.
Sound is through a decent Fosgate amp and 4 speakers. (No sub) I molded a Adesso touchpad into the custom shifter surround and it works awesome.
Right now the dash is torn apart while I finalize the dashcap installation over the cracked dash and I make a few tweaks. I had a modern fuel pressure gauge mounted in place of the original digital clock and I found it annoyingly bright at night with no way to dim it down.
It's coming out and I am putting a phone mount with a 12v to 5v USB connection so I can charge my phone at a higher rate and unload the usb......since I can now connect to the car via bluetooth and wifi hotspot. Doing so really chews up the battery life, so a dedicated power source should help things out immensely. I won't miss the FP gauge since the car is now running a stock fuel system with stock pressure. The turbo car had massive injectors and an adjustable regulator.
So that's where it sits. I should be driving it again in a day or two and back to tweaking Driveline features to suit my needs.