Points to Ponder

After a great deal of reflection (particularly when driving to pick up another $1.25 part) I have come up with some words of wisdom ...more for my own benefit than for the education of future roadster builders. If you wonder how I came to these conclusions, don't ask me how I know.

1. If you are going to pick up a $1.25 part, make sure that you don't already have it in your garage. It's not the waste of time and gasoline to drive across town that is bad, it's the disappointment of coming home and finding the part and realizing that the elegant solution to the particular problem you had did not work the first time you tried it.

2. If you see a large threaded hole in the intake manifold that looks like it should have something plugging it, find out what it's for before you fire up the engine. Sometimes those holes can be connected to other air passages that allow air into the intake, thus making your throttle plates decorative to some extent. In a carburetor engine, this is annoying, but in a fuel injection system, the feedback software in the ECU gets really upset.

3. If you are doing something that requires removal of the distributor, really be attentive to the position of the rotor and mark the position (duh!).

4. If you have just used a breaker bar to rotate the engine to TDC, don't forget to remove it before starting the engine (see above for reason to find TDC).

5. Directional tires means that the arrows point in the direction of predominant rotation of the tires. It looked like I was going to be doing a lot of reversing.

6. If you think you need to order a part, do it! Don't wait to see if you can find it at the local hardware/plumbing/doughnut/custom parts store. Most times you can't and other times you can, but by the time you find and get it, your part would have already arrived and been installed.

7. It always sounds easier when the guy at the shop tells you how to do it, despite the fact that most of the time, "he" has never done that particular task.

First Go-Cart ride... it is alive!

After a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing and much gnashing of teeth, the vehicle runs. Still alot of stuff to do to make it run WELL, but nevertheless, it runs.

If it's not one thing, It's another

Since the first start, I haven't been able to make the vehicle run smoothly. With no experience in the past, either with fuel injection or with a carburetor, this leaves me in a bit of a state of "disrepair". So I got on the ffcars.com website and posted my Mayday. Within minutes, some good responses and suggestions to visit the Powerjection III forum.

As always, the less you know about something, the simpler the task appears. Now that I know a little bit more, the task seems a lot harder than when I started. With some of this new found knowledge and ability, and with the self-confidence that ignorance (on my part) breeds, I tried fiddling with the settings and the engine last night. I was making some headway with idle/decel/no stall settings and then everything stopped. The starter no longer started and the ignition power turned off when I tried the starter button. OOPS.

So, of course, I take apart the dash and look at the connections. Stare with total lack of understanding at the ISIS power control and powercell unit... stare at many many wires... stare at the laptop computer...none of these highly developed organisms fell prey to my laser gaze and none gave up and returned to their previous performance.  So after much staring I looked at the voltmeter and noticed that my 12V system was reading 8V.

Ah....too many starts, not enough engine running to let the alternator charge the battery, then the ISIS power will cancel all function if the battery doesn't read between 10 and 12V. So, having predicted that I might need a battery charger, I cracked the brand new box and hooked it up. Lo and behold, my battery had LO capacity and needed a charge.

Hopefully, the overnight charge will resolve my no-start issues and I will be back to where I was. I will still need to figure out the fuel injection, but, that's why I do it....How hard could it be?

First Start

It's been a long time coming, but I have been busy....

Since my last post.... oh about 18 months ago...

Drivetrain -Ford Crate Engine X302, tremec 5 speed, 8.8 Moser FFR rear end
Brakes - Ford Mustang PBR front calipers, Ford rear disc brakes, Ford Racing proportioning valve,
Fuel Injection - Powerjection III Professional Products TBI
Gauges - Speedhut Legacy Cobra kit with CCW GPS speedo 
Ignition - MSD 6AL-2, MSD Coil and distributor
Electronics - ISIS Power 3 cell system
Modifications - Driver side footbox expansion, Passenger footbox expansion, Trunk box expansion, dashboard modification, Custom fab fan shroud, E-brake relocation to transmission tunnel, Radiator support bar, Dash switches - LED momentary and latching,

Further planned modifications...Trunk cubby for storage, Transmission tunnel cover redesign,

Here's a terrible quality video of first start from my iPhone.  I didn't read the instructions for the Powerjection and we tried starting without the computer configuration. That was when we had the video running. Surprise- no fuel and we were unable to start until after I got the computer up and running. So I started the engine solo.

 

See what else I have been doing with my spare timewww.targateam1984.blogspot.com