Option 3 get my vote.

Julian

Figure I will weigh in since you asked for opinions. We met briefly the morning of CheckedItout a few weeks ago. I had the red 87 Targa across the street from you.

Interestingly I like option #2 as well. I like the lower nap(?) and wonder could you use it on the diagonal?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

Well today didn't go as planned.

You know when you're about to waltz into the end zone and then the keeper stops the puck from going into the hoop and scoring a run? Felt like one of those days. Surely the sum of the poop I've been consistently stepping in as of late has colored this day a bit but I was really looking forward to success.

I dropped the car off at the dyno and walked through an industrial wasteland for a mile and a half to a Starbucks where I camped out for the next 4 hours. Luckily I got some work done and found the end of the internet; it's an old Geocities site with one animated gif.

The long and short is that after 4 hours of working on the car it was not running in a state that would have made a full pull safe and the tuner really didn't want to hand be a milk crate with pieces of my engine in it...

There was a bit of stumble/misfire in the idle that amplified under load through the RMP range but really presented at around 2200-3500. It could be felt at WOT as well, but it was less noticeable. I thought this was a fuel map issue because I don't know anything about Porsches, cars, or EFI.

Me and the tuner, a very accomplished fellow with 20 years under his belt had a long talk and brainstorming session with the rest of the shop about the problem and here's what we've come up with.

ITBs
The shop all agreed that the ITBs were marvelously balanced (I'll take that compliment thank you very much) They were all very impressed and measured a variance of no more than 1/32" max.

Fuel table
The fuel table I had created was damn near there. Again, they were very impressed that I had gotten that far without any experience or equipment. Kudos to Jamie for the guidance; you earned some fans today.
They worked on the fuel table a bit more and it made a difference in overall driving but the stumbling was still there.

Timing
He tried everything with timing to see if that had any effect. Remember, my timing still controlled by the analog dizzy: +/- 2 degrees @ TDC. He used Megasquirt to add across the board (starting at 1 degree and working up to 15) to see if that altered the stumble/misfire. No dice. He concluded that it wasn't a timing issue as he could affect no change by altering the timing. Further, before the EFI/ITB conversion the car ran great and nothing about the dizzy changed; it didn't even move. He did recommend that I advance the entire table 2 degrees once I get the misfire sorted as that would give better performance while still being safe and streetable.

So, with that said, and knowing that the only thing that changed between a great running car and this not great running car was the fuel injection system and air delivery method and the ITBs are fine- it must be a fuel delivery issue.

The consensus was that it was my injectors (at least one of them) were closing incorrectly when trying to minimize fuel delivery. The pulse width was too short and the injectors just couldn't operate so they were closing- at least one of them. The recommendation was to lower the fuel pressure to 30 down from 40 to see if easing the pressure on the injectors would stop that closing; apparently sometimes the pressure on the injector can cause it "clam up" so-to-speak. After that, if it didn't work testing the injectors or replacing them was the next recommendation in addition to pulling the plugs and doing the same.

We didn't play with pulse width as he felt that it was unnecessary to start adding variables before we had everything running perfectly and that it could just create noice that would mask the real problem.

They felt confident that addressing the injectors would yield results and told me to look into Fuel Injector Clinic and Injector Dynamics. I did and do not want to look again. Those are expensive AF!

So now I have to decide what to do: pull the injectors and sed them out for testing and cleaning at $25 a pop and a few weeks, missing the best part of the season around here, or just replace them.

I'm leaning to replacement as I'm not here to mess around anymore; I want to drive this mofo and if I can get injectors for a reasonable amount, fine.

The question is with what?

The injectors I have are Bosch 30#:

Coil Resistance: Approx.12 Ohms
High Impedance Static Flow Rate: 30 lb/hr = 315cc/min @ 43.5PSI ( 300kPa )
Gain: 0.12ms/MG
Offset: 0.055ms
Turn on time @ 14VDC: 1.14ms
Turn off time: 0.85ms @ 300KPa
Amperage: 1.0 Amps
Pressure: Min 30PSIG/ Max 100PSIG
Length: 3" (74mm)
Diameter: 16mm
O-Ring Diameter: 14.5mm
OEM Part Nmber: M-9593-BB302 0280150945 0280155759 M9593BB302 4.6L 5.4L LSX L98 L99 LS2 LS3 LS9

And the plugs are NGK 7131 BPR6ES

So, advice?

These ones worked well enough for me for 10
Years in my Bitz EFI conversion.
So well, that I bought new ones for my PMO ITBs.
https://www.summitracing.com/dom/parts/acc-150630

Joe Smallwood has had good experience with those Accel injectors as well. Heaven knows Summit ships fast and ground gets to us in 1-2 days max.

I'm presently running Bosch 315cc from fiveomotorsport.
They sent me a full latency chart, printout of the flow test results, and a set of 6 matched (new) injectors. $80ea plus the ride.
Overnight cost me, but they shipped it promptly and the gent I spoke with on the phone was super helpful.

Then, you've got your current injectors to send out for cleaning/testing at your leisure.

I don't have much to contribute here other than I just realized that I'm running the original injectors that came with my Triumph ITBs when i purchased them on eBay ($125 per bank with injectors and rails). They must be 24 years old now considering the T595 donor bikes were a 1998 models.

How new are your plugs?

I’d pull em out and check the gap, check for small cracks, and put em back in if they’re good- that’s free!

Otherwise, tested/confirmed good injectors sounds like a good idea- eliminates a variable completely that way.

What do your data logs show during the stumbles? Probably a lot of things happening at once, so likely difficult for me (a know-nothing) to decipher much from, but others may have insights.

Plugs are new as of Feb or March but they've had to be cleaned at least once as a result of fouling during initial startup and tuning. They're so cheap that I just ordered a new set; one of the benefits to running a single plug, 87 octane, mild cam engine, I guess.

I have new injectors en route from Joe Smallwood (the ones Dennis recommended and Al confirmed were great) so I'll just change them out.

I also have a stethoscope coming so I can check the injectors. At all of $4 I think it's money well spent.

I'm also going to take a look at TunerStudio's injector testing protocol and see if that can shine some light.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's the injectors or plugs as these are easy solutions that don't really cost that much money. An electrical or ECU problem would be not good.

I have a road trip coming up on 10/7 so this mother better be humming like an a cappella choir by then.

One of the nice things that came out of yesterday was that the tuner was really impressed with how much I actually knew about EFI and this car (I know, I was shocked too). He offered that when I do get the issue resolved he'd let me bring the car back to the dyno and allow me to run the car while he was monitoring. He felt that I could handle it on my own with a little guidance and supervision.

In other news; leather ordered, fabric ordered, new sewing machine needles ordered. Can't wait to get started!

Excellent.

Don't forget a soapstone for marking your fabric & leather.

That's great! stoked to see progress coming up

This is curious that you are dealing with the misfire/stumble. I've tried everything to resolve my similar issue with an MS2. Followed jpNovak's advice in various threads, replaced injectors, readjusted dead times, replace injector harnesses (old ones were crusty), etc. I am currently starting with mechanical verifications - leak down, valve adjustment, cam timing adjustments then will on to the fuel regulation circuit, etc. I feel like it's a feeling issue. At times if almost feels like a very quick, sharp fuel cut. You can feel it an hear it but not see it in the logs - unless it is in the bank without the O2 sensor. Mine is worse hot and I am wondering if it is injector driver circuit problem in the ECU. The ECU warms up and a trasistor goes funky at temp. Completely mystified.

What are you running for exhaust - could it be resonance that is causing the stumbles.

Mark

I have an m&k 2-in 2-out street muffler with electrically operated bypass valves.

I had a similar muffler on the car before the efi/itb conversion, and the car ran very well.

Jamie took a look at a log file of mine and offered some suggestions on how to address the injector issue that should benefit the car in all respects, and specifically eliminate the issue with dead time.

He also identified a problem with the ITBs that I thought I had squared away. Apparently one bank is opening before the other, either, they’re not balanced once the throttle opens, or there’s some corruption in the linkage.

So, that means it’s back to rebalancing the ITB‘s and effectively starting all over.

I’m really feeling not positive about this whole project right now.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I've been feeling the same way about my jalopy lately.
From past experience, I prescribed myself a drive. In this instance, it was just to take the car to work.
I feel much better having driven it, even with its warts.

Julian,
A few posts up, you mentioned that the dyno shop/tuner commented on how well you had the ITBs balanced. How did your tuner, at the dyno, verify the ITB balance?

"Me and the tuner, a very accomplished fellow with 20 years under his belt had a long talk and brainstorming session with the rest of the shop about the problem and here's what we've come up with.
The shop all agreed that the ITBs were marvelously balanced (I'll take that compliment thank you very much) They were all very impressed and measured a variance of no more than 1/32" max.

Good question Al, I wasn't at the shop when he was working at first (he called me back later) so I can't say for sure. For all I know htey were giving me some sugar to make the medicine go down...?

I've measured the ITB's at idle with they synchrometer and have them as close as I can get (~1/32") but Jamie believes that there's an imbalance as the throttle opens; one of the linkages is longer than the other or bent causing a different travel rate...

I'll email you a linkage setup doc (although you may already have it) and you review/compare with your current setup ....and, if you will take pix of your linkage setup, especially at the drop links...I can review and forward to Rama at RHD. I'll touch base with Jamie, as well.

Every once in a while, the universe has to take a break from kicking you if only to tie its shoes…

Avid readers of this thread (both of you ;) will be keenly aware that the past few months have been rough for me. Last week was no different with more bad news. My grandmother entered hospice care and though at 92 years old we’re not surprised, we’re still reeling. Yes, everyone dies and 92 is a helluva run, but it’s still hard…Hell, it should be hard.

In the context of everything, the issues I’ve been having with the car are trivial, at best. Yet, that couldn’t be farther from reality, at least my acute momentary reality. The car has been a safe harbor as everything else slowly crumbles… the work and the progress, have given me something to focus on, something that I can affect change on and something that I can control. An anchor, mooring or compass.

A few weeks ago at CheckedItOut everything felt pretty magical and the high was palpable. Since then I’ve been to a few local car shows and that high is still potent.

Yet, all along there have been nagging issues with the car that I just haven’t been able to sort out myself. And these issues have started tainting the experience of the car. In short- I started to feel not so good about it and began passing up opportunities to drive it. My limitations were being revealed and into those wounds; salt.

Maybe, apropos of all that, today the universe’s laces came undone and I was tossed a bone. My marrowy morsel came in the flavor of Jamie Novak who was in Chicago for work, only a few miles from my studio.

Throughout my EFI tuning Jamie has been a constant commenter and emailer with tips, advice and the generosity to take a look at my tune logs to help me figure out what the heck I was doing. Well, today was no different. Fresh off a long day of work Jamie drove over to my shop and proceeded to school me in EFI/ITB, MegaSquirt, TunerStudio and Porsche. For over 3 hours we drive and tuned and tinkered and tuned and drove and tuned and so on.

It was bonkers to see how Jamie could just feel, hear and see issues that I couldn’t. More so, that he could affect positive change on them was mind blowing. And the speed with which he worked was downright awe inspiring. I know at this point the post feels hagiographic, and it should, damnit!

I was dealing with some misfires and stumbles during acceleration. Jamie went to work identifying the issue and narrowing it down to ignition. The long story short is that my rotor cap is on its last leg, my rotor is limping along and my Dizzy is in dire need of service. We landed on a two-tiered plan: replace the rotor with a resistor-less version, replace the cap, clean out the dizzy asap and finish tuning the car this fall and enjoy driving it. In winter, pull the dizzy, lock it out and move the timing to the MegaSquirt as the CIS timing is severely limiting the car, even with CIS P&C. Jamie suggested against a COP solution but mentioned a sweet optical timing setup he's been running that may be of interest if I feel the need to embark on another project ;)

None of these issues arose because of the EFI/ITB conversion, they were just magnified. Whereas with CIS they were present but masked and not a real issue, with ITB’s they are screaming. The magic of CIS is that once it's setup properly it just works- it has a great tolerance for imperfection and largely manages just fine. This is not to say that it shouldn't/couldn't be tuned to optimal performance, but I'd guess that lots of CIS cars have issues that the CIS is just making due with.

The feeling of not only identifying the culprit but it being something that I can solve quickly and get back to enjoying the car feels like everything all at once. A win that I'll gladly take.

It’s kind of crazy that Ian read my post about the dyno day being a wash and mentioned it to Jamie during a phone conversation who reached out to me to offer help via email and then just flat out came to my studio and car. All along this project I kind of thought that the car was important and what was giving me the drive to wake a 4am, cut up my hands and push myself beyond the confines of comfort. But it clearly was just part of the story.

In Panorama, the Porsche magazine the oft repeated catch phrase is “it’s not the cars, it’s the people” I’m loathe to admit it, but they’re right.

Damn, they’re right.


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1664373174.jpg

JPN is in a class by himself.
Glad you two got your stumble sorted.

Sometimes, you have to pile up little victories just to get by.
But then after that pile grows, you find maybe it wasn't as bad as you thought/felt afterall.

Glad you got it worked out, that has to be a huge load off in itself and yes, there are some great people in this community. I lost my grand parents a couple years ago at 88 and 86, we were very close. When I'm struggling, or having a bad day, I go for a ride or just sit in the garage with a beer and some music and let it go, it's definitely my escape.

Some say his blood runs with pure molten magnesium and he drinks beer through an MFI pump.

Julian, It was great to meet you. Glad I could lend a hand. Great diversion from a stressful work trip. It is not often that I find a few extra hours when traveling. But I will certainly have to look to build more into my schedule. It truly is about the people in the group. So much more fun to be there in person rather that sending electrons (key strokes) back and forth.

This almost feels like I am being introduced as something more than just a guy wanting to get another old 911 running to its full potential. I appreciate the compliments and am happy to help where and when I can.

You have really done a great job on the car and you are so close to finalizing those last few details. There are so many personal touches that really stand out on the car when you see it in person.

I am certainly looking forward to the next installment when you have new ignition parts.

LOL!

One thing is for sure, he's a class act!

Awesomeness! It's great to have a community like this that is knowledgeable and willing to help!

Julian,
Glad that you two were able to identify the likely source of the miss/stumble. Hard to debug sometimes.........and you lucked out by having Jamie stop by to lend an experienced ear/eye/ hand. He is who I reach out to, when I get stuck.

regards,
al

One of the coolest things I'm discovering about EFI is DATA! There is so much data that can be collected and analyzed and in those logs lies all the answers one could ever want about these engines. The trick is a.) knowing how to sift out the signal from the noise, or at least where to look in the data and b.) knowing how to affect change.

Jamie is a wiz as are so many folk here. I feel really lucky to have access to all these experienced and helpful people.

Here's my rotor and Pertronix... Yeah, time to replace!

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1664469808.jpg

After Jamie’s visit things were looking up… until they weren’t. More driving and collecting data revealed that though we had made huge improvements something was still wrong.

I replaced the shot Pertronix, 45 year old rotor cap and eventually, after failing to source the correct part from 3 different stores, I replaced the rotor with a resistor-less version courtesy of Rutager West... This community I'll tell ya... so cool!

More driving and data logging and texting with Jamie. We started brainstorming all of what could go wrong and eventually hit a eureka moment. After looking at the wiring schematic I was following Jamie caught an error; the Pertronix was wired incorrectly. It needed to connect both with the MegaSquirt and the MSD. The schematic had it going directly to the MegaSquirt and ignoring the MSD which made for all sorts of confusing headaches as my dizzy is still controlling timing and not locked out which means that the MSD needs to be connected. If the dizzy were locked out and MegaSquirt were in charge of timing the wiring schematic would have been fine. Eventually I will change how my engine is timed but for now, one mountain at a time.

I said to hell with work, tore open my harness and began correcting the wiring error. It only took 15 or so minutes; I’ll attribute that to my fine wire organization ;)

The goal this weekend was to take the car on a weekend road trip with my brother to Southwest Michigan (Bridgman, to be specific) where my family has a weekend house. I wanted to rip some of the rural roads, go hiking, eat indulgently, drink too much and just get away from my life for a minute. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to retune the car and didn’t want to chance getting stranded in Gary. So, the car stayed home.

The mini vacation was great and aside from tearing up some roads, all boxes were checked.

On Monday morning I returned home and had a few hours of time to play with the car. I took it out to a stretch of road I used for left-foot dyno tuning and started the process of mapping the fuel, something that I've become really proficient at lately.

In a matter of 20 mins everything had changed. The car was idling steady, ripping to red line in all the gears, AFRs were pretty close to where they needed to be and all of the stumbling and misfires were gone. It sounded raw and aggressive, responded to the throttle like a rabid dog and felt like a real 911. There’s still fine tuning to be done and of course I have to address how I'm going to change the timing this winter but hot damn, it feels like the storm has passed and the fever broken, and right now, that feels like everything to me.

I figure we have until early December until there's a snow worthy of salt and then the 911 goes to bed for the winter. Until then I have some miles to accumulate.

changes
 

Julian,
I am glad that you are finally over the hump......The wiring was configured for you to use the M'squirt to control both fuel and spark.....you can lock out the mechanical advance and that works well....but you do not need to lock out the dizzy for this to work well.....I have had good results using the mechanical advance and then you just use the m'squirt timing on top of it to get to the curve you want and you don't need to worry about rotor phasing, etc....it is similar to when people would install carbs and then send the distributor out to be recurved.....you just recurve using the M'squirt advance table.....I've had this done on the dyno with very good results.
That being said.......I'd leave it , drive it and enjoy it.......you have it running well, with Jamie's help......it is a good system and you will love it, moving forward......later, you may wish to have the added flexibility of the ignition control, but I will bet that you will not miss it. ......now you get to the fun stuff.



regards,
al

Julian,

Stoked that you and Jamie got your car sorted out.

I would agree with you that getting stuck in Gary is a bad time.

I would agree with Al that maybe it would be most prudent to leave the EFI/timing as it is and just enjoy the car for a full season before delving further into ignition modification. I have found that sometimes restraint goes further than ambition when it comes to cars.

This is most true. Get the car running and enjoy it as long as you can. You did a great job on the backdate. So...

Drive.
Show.
Smile.
Rev.
Repeat.

Hey Julian,

Glad to hear that you've got the car running well enough to just enjoy it for the next few months!

EFI usually has some consistent fiddling to get it set up right but at the end you know so much about how engines operate it's hard to consider that a disadvantage (if you're a fan of learning new things).

Well it's been a minute...

The past few weeks have been a bit hectic and I wasn't able to get much seat time. That all changed this weekend; a 70 degree bright blue sky Sunday that saw me with the WHOLE. FREAKING. DAY. to myself. So I drove.

And drive I did.

I took the car out for 6 hours and drove up to Lake Geneva and then the Driftless area in Wisconsin, just West of the Dells. I took a rallye route from the Ferrari Club of America with plenty of twists, turns and elevation. Side note- I can't imagine the Ferrari drivers ripping down some of these roads with the way they seem to baby their cars...

In any event, the car was marvelous. Simply marvelous.

No misfires, no stutters, no lagging, no issues whatsoever.

It was the first time I have driven the car without the laptop hooked up- not logging data, not looking at AFR, MAPdot, or pulse width, just driving. It was in a word, a revelation and all of what I had hoped would come of this project when I started the EFI/ITB conversion. I couldn't care less about HP or TQ numbers, I'm not tracking this car or competing in anything, and the change from CIS (even with the CIS pistons and cams) is pretty remarkable.

Oh, I also added a JBell 10k tach, because why not. The other gauges will et silver dots this winter.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1666648272.jpg

And I added a proper "license plate" to the bumper with my father's airplane tail number. Though I am tempted to throw it on the hood... hmmm...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1666648272.jpg

Congratulations Julian!

I’m a bit jealous too, I know I will get there someday as well.

Maybe next summer we meet up near the Dells, must be about the halfway point between us.

Rutager

Congrats
 

Julian,
Congratulations....all of the hard work has paid off and now it is time for the fun part. I admire your DIY, roll up the sleeves approach......it ain't always easy, but if you keep your head on straight through the debug phase ( you never know what that will reveal) the end result is worth it......and your 911 is stellar.

regards,
al

Julian,

this is most excellent to hear that your car is running well. So glad you never gave up and that you are now enjoying the benefits of the conversion.

Hope you have a continued Fall weather and lots of miles over the next many weeks before those winter snow days set in.

Hell yes, Julian!
Sounds like a banner day.
I'm hoping to sneak in some more miles before the salt comes...but I know our time is fleeting.

Thanks for sharing! I'm working through the conversion currently - at the clean up the old CIS engine wiring loom phase, now, so I have a way to go.

When Well Enough Can't Be Left Alone; Backdate, EFI/ITB, AC, and more!
 

Well, it’s been a while since I posted to this thread. Life got really bad, then really good, then some more bad and now it’s just whiplash between the two. That is to say that motivation, focus and time all waned this fall. I drove the car a bit more but really didn’t have the time to do much fun stuff.


Today marked not only the best day of the year (more sunlight than yesterday) but also in a cruel twist of fate, the first winter storm that dumped a few inched of snow on the entire Midwest. And along with single digit temperatures came the salt. So, the car is effectively garaged for the next few weeks if not months. Perhaps once the

roads dry out I’ll be able to take it for a drive; as long as the salt isn’t mixed with water or snow I’m not terribly concerned about it.


In any event I did get an hour last weekend to work on the car and I decided to tackle two totally unimportant projects that I’ve actually employed a surprising amount during my short tenure with the car; tow mounts/tie downs.


This car has been on a flatbed like 5 times!


I ordered some front A-arm tow mounts and a rear engine case lift bracket/mount from JManPorscheParts. They were priced ok but in all honesty, with the ease of CAD and Send Cut Send I could have made them for a fraction of the price and they would have a.) fit better and b.) been exactly what I wanted. In any event, it took a bit of labor to get them to fit and I had to cut down the rear tow arm as it was too long for my likes (I may cut it down more) and modify the jack bracket so it actually fit. Thank goodness I have a mill!


Anyhow, photos:

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...0bc9cb5408.jpg

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...0e4290a11b.jpg

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...1acf85e62d.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...20a047a3e8.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...f46e1d139d.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...f9856fc2f7.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...05a8939eb7.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...c2bcf08159.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...bc2bff98b0.jpg



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Ahh the age-old tale of bolt on parts that don't quite bolt on. :D
Good to see you still tinkering and improving.

Now let's keep those recovery points shiny and new by not using them in 2023!

So, aside from some menial projects when time allowed I haven't been doing much with the car other than looking at it. That said, I haven’t been totally away from projects. In fact I want to share one that I’ve been tinkering on for a few months.

I’m running a MegaSquirt and that allows me access to a litany of data streams when running TunerStudio on my laptop. The only problem is that I can’t really run my laptop in the car all the time. Many people add small touch screens to their dashes or cars so that they can access that data but that was never an option. Even though I have EFI I don’t want the cockpit or interior to give that away. So, what to do…. Well, get creative, that’s what!

Like so many others I decided that my clock wasn’t really adding anything of value to the driving experience and a perfect place to put something else. Jamie Novak has a digital gauge that provides all sorts of data from his EFI, Chris has one for his AFR sensors, and many others have variations thereof.

But I wanted more.

The developer of TunerStudio recently released a lightweight, fast loading version of the software called TSDash that was designed to run on a Raspberry Pi. It has all of the features I want with none of the bloat; it's basically only for creating digital dashes and data logging, not tuning the MegaSquirt. It's far from perfect but for the time being it's pretty close and as it's part of the TunerStudio family anyone who uses TS will be able to hit the ground running. Another cool aspect is that it can data log every drive automatically and overwrite the old files like a surveillance camera and with 256GB on the SD card I doubt that will fill up any time soon. On top of that, you can use your laptop and TunerStudio to connect to the Pi and TSDash remotely (basically SSH) to download those data logs, to add screens, change the configuration and do a bunch of other stuff, making it pretty flexible and dynamic.

First step was to procure a Pi 4.0 with 8gm of ram. Way overkill but at a whopping $45 who cares.

Next was sourcing a screen. Off to Alibaba I went and ultimately found a 2.8” TFT touch screen with 480x480 resolution. Better still was that the manufacturer offered an HDMI board for it for $10. I bought two with boards for $80 shipped.

The initial tests were positive and I was able to get the Pi running on the small round screen. TSDash had no trouble running on the Pi and after designing Porsche-style gauge faces I was feeling really good about this!

And that’s where it started to get complicated.

I needed a way of cycling though the 6 gauges I wanted… At first I considered using the touch screenbut I nixed that idea quickly. I couldn’t have a mouse or trackpad… I thought of a scroll wheel down by the parking brake like modern cars have but that wouldn’t cut it. So off to Adafruit I went and procured an Arduino Micro board that I programmed to act as a single key command (command+left arrow) which would tell TSDash to scroll through the gauges. I wired up a momentary push button to the Arduino so that when it was pressed the key command was sent via USB to the Pi. In effect, I made a single button keyboard that has one action. Perfect.

The next challenge was power. A converter was able to take the 12v DC and convert it to 5v AC to power up the Pi. That was never going to be an issue. It was the powering down that was problematic. See, you can’t just unplug the Pi or kill the power as that will eventually corrupt the SD card and all your hard work will be gone. The Pi is a computer and needs to be shut down through software. But I don’t want to do that because it would mean having a keyboard or another dedicated button to turn it on and off. I just want it to come on when the car starts and turn off when the car turns off… duh!

Luckily someone has thought of that and so I purchased an ATX-Raspi, a little board that will allow the powering on and off of the Pi safely with a physical switch; they are primarily used for video gam simulators where a slide switch is used to power on/off the device. But wait, Julian, you said no switches.

But what is a button other than a way of delivering a signal…. And there are other ways of delivering that same signal. By using a Bosch relay I was able to tap into the ignition-on power source to send a signal to the ATX-Raspi that looks to the board like a button. That is, when the car turns on, a 12v circuit is completed and that trips the relay to close a secondary circuit on the ATX-Raspi board which is exactly what a switch would do and that in turn tells the ATX-Raspi to either instruct the Pi to boot or to shutdown via software. Cool stuff.

No what to do with all of this stuff.

I 3D scanned the bezel of one of the small gauges, modeled it up and 3D printed it. I printed some retaining rings as well. I sprayed it with high build primer, sanded it and sprayed it with satin black paint and then matte lacquer. I then hand rubbed it so the finish better matched that of my other gauges- somewhat burnished by touching over 45 years and a little imperfect. I cut a round piece of glass and started assembling it all.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1672093319.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1672093319.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1672093319.jpg

There were a lot of boards and wires to work out. The HDMI board mounted to the back of the display as did the Aruduino button board, Then all the connecting cables had to be plugged in and dealt with. Eventually I made a back the gauge and sealed it up.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1672093319.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1672093319.jpg

The Pi will mount under the passenger seat where I can tap into both always-on power and ignition-on power. Then I’ll have to run 2 x micro USB cables and 1 x micro HDMI cable up to the gauge to deliver power to the Arduino and power and HDMI to the HMDI board.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1672093319.jpg

The button was then installed in the intermittent wiper hole as I relocated that knob to the radio delete panel.

So, there it is installed, it looks like it belongs and when the car is started so too will the Pi and the screen.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1672093319.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1672093319.jpg

I can rotate through the gauges (AFR/target AFR, Voltage, TPS/Accel enrichment, MAP-DOT, Oil Temp/Warm up enrichment) with the push of a button and if I want to add more gauges I can do so remotely with my laptop as TSDash is network enabled.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1672093319.jpg

But wait, photos don't tell the whole story. Here are some videos of me cycling through the screens and one of me driving just to prove that it actually works! you'll notice that the button is taped up because I dropped the lock ring and couldn't find it and didn't have another one handy. I have a bunch at home and so next time I'm at the studio I'll fix it...

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/a1hsWli9aU0" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>


<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4AZQ2Avyg40" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Now, though this works, it's a lot. I have 4 boards, a power supply, a relay, a button, three cables and three wires all to deliver a gauge. There must be another way. And there is!

I’m currently working on an Arduino-only based solution that takes all of what you just suffered reading through and condenses it onto one board. The Arduino will have software on chip so powering on/off isn’t an issue, it will startup in about 1 second, it’ll all fit behind the display and be elegant AF.

The problem I’m facing is that I’m not a professional coder and my C/C++ is rusty as an old 911. In addition, I have doubts about the Arduino’s ability to display the graphics as fast as I want. There are some workarounds like only animating the needle as a series of still images, or vectoring the needle and I’m sure there’s a solution but I’m not sure if I’m that smart. I’m looking for a developer to assist but the biggest issue is that if they don’t have access to a MegaSquirt and a car it’s really hard to develop and debug. In addition, and this may be the biggest obstacle; getting these esoteric Chinese screens to work with the Arduino has proven to be a bit more complicated.

If anyone here is an ace with C/C++ and Arduino and wants to team up to figure this out with me I'd love to talk details... shoot me a PM.

But I figure I’ll get there eventually, or not… ;)

That digital multi-gauge is freaking awsome! Very cool project! I would SO use that in my cars (megasquirt as well). Unfortunately I have zero programming skills to help you. I would buy one or two if multiple are made.

Does megasquirt have a CANBus setup? I admire your ability to build and code something to achieve this. Well done!

I've been using a BTI gauge in place of my clock and love the ability to see all parameters with the touch of a button. Makes it easy to monitor and troubleshoot while driving.