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

[RDM]

If Bill Verburg doesn't pop up on his own initiative, seek him out. He's amazing (and amazingly thorough) on these sorts of things.

[Showdown]

Day 19

I skipped last week’s update because I didn’t do anything on the car. After arriving at my studio and no sooner than donning my coveralls I felt a rising discomfort in my left side. It quickly went from idle to redline and I found myself on the floor writhing in pain, sweating as if I were in the 911 stuck in traffic on an August afternoon, nauseous and dizzy AF. I somehow made it to the ER without crashing and after being poked, prodded, stuck and tested a million ways my suspicion was confirmed: a kidney stone. Long story short, it passed and I wound up at home a few hours later feeling mostly fine if a bit sore but the day was a wash.

Fast forward to this past Saturday with a lot of pent up energy to make up for lost time and I made it to the studio to commence work, pain free.

I spent some time finishing up the AC install and chasing some errant wiring issues that were causing shorts. I pulled all the unused harnesses, freed up 4 fuses and felt damn good about that; add lightness, right…right..ha! While I was focusing on electric, I recycled the old fog light relay for the oil cooler. The Spal relay was huge and unsightly and now it looks Porsche. I also customized a fuse panel diagram I found here for my car. The “S” numbers at the bottom correspond with the factory wiring flow diagram.


Can you spot which one is new...?


My flow, my show brought me the doe,That bought me all my fancy things, My crib, my cars, my clothes, my jewels, Look, I done came up and I ain't change

I then reinstalled the gas tank, a strut brace because why not (good lord, why does that Renn-Company insist on using SAE hardware… it makes no sense at all!), the washer reservoir and smugglers lid and just like that, the trunk is finished. Given where it started, this is a huge coup. I had to spend a few minutes just looking at it.


If someone stuffed me in here, I wouldn't complain...too much.


Little things like clean brackets make me happy


With a major part of the build complete and feeling good, I turned my focus to the AC condenser. Because I’m using an R style front bumper the condenser just won’t fit into the front fender; no way no how. I tried to fit it in front of the right rear wheel in the fender but it kept blocking the torsion bar hole and that seemed like a bad idea. So, it had to go behind the wheel- in one of the farthest points from the system. I’m not delighted about that and had another condenser on order but cancelled it after almost 2 weeks of radio silence. I figure if one condenser isn’t enough, I’ll add a second.


Mounted and easily removed... with an angle grinder


The Porsche 911 is known the world throughout for its seductive lines... oh wait, these are AC lines, nevermind.

I welded some bolts to the tub, threw on some lock nuts to act as stops, washers, then the condenser, more washers and more lock nuts, some plumbing, some burga clips and voila, the condenser was fitted. I ran the new AC lines in the same place that the old factory AC lines were. Obviously, they’re kind of visible if you’re lying on the ground. But that’s fine, why are you lying on the ground, wierdo.


Damnit, get off the floor!

Now, of course there’s a slight catch. And that’s tire clearance. Right now, there’s plenty of room but I’m going to change wheels and tires. The current tires are 24.2” in diameter and the new tires will be 25” thus requiring an extra .4” all around. In the below photo you can see that the extra mounting tab will have to be removed but I should have .5” of clearance from the condenser to tire at full travel. While I wish it was more, I’m not sure that I can gain any more space. The condenser must be fit in a certain orientation and that limits positioning. If when the new tires arrive there is an issue, I’ll have to start doing surgery on both the condenser and the car to make room. Fingers crossed there’s no issue.


Oh so close, but maybe a cigar?

I threw on some high build primer on the front and rear bumpers in anticipation of a long day of sanding ahead of me next weekend.

I’ve also made several inquiries to local tuners to find one that will work on this car and have a few who might be able to do the final dyno tune.

Having the car on the ground feels really good even if it may have to go back up again. It feels close. At least closer than it did yesterday, and that’s all I can ask for.


QUESTION OF THE DAY:
By moving the condenser further back, some 8-10ft away from the compressor compared to 2-3ft as designed, with the additional hose, will I need to add more refrigerant than the prescribed amount. Having read many AC install threads there seems to be some discrepancy about the amount to be added.

[chrisbalich]

Julian,

IDK about the refrigerant.
But I'd advise reaching out to Kelly Moss and Performance Power about tuning your hog.

[Showdown]

Well, per the title of this thread, I couldn’t leave well enough alone.

I got all my work done today and at 4 I started about addressing the AC condenser.

After cutting off the mounts I somehow found more space by removing some of the impact bumper stuff that I had left and shoved the condenser rearward.

Some aluminum brackets and a new bolt welded to the tub and I was all good to go.










I feel much better about the positing and now I’m ready for big ass rallye tires

45mins well spent.

[timmy2]

Any thoughts to adding a gravel guard to protect the condenser and fan and wiring?
There was one on the rear condenser that was on my car when I got it. (Long removed)
Seemed like it worked as the fins weren’t all beat up.

[Showdown]

Yup, that’s next on the list of things I didn’t think I needed to think of until I realized I did

Probably will be thin aluminum painted black. I don’t feel the need for steel and powder coating.

[timmy2]

The one I took off was just some galvanized metal. Did what it needed to.

[chrisbalich]

Sheets of 20ga galvo can be had at most Home Depots.
They're cheap and malleable. But they don't take paint for $hit.

I'd recommend using posterboard to figure out what shape you need and then seek out a local plastics dealer for a sheet of ABS. Malleable with a little heat, but won't rock-chip and reveal a shiny underside when you go a-rallying.

[Showdown]

Day 21

Your normal Monday dispatch is coming a day early because I have to get a lot done this week at work and have to be disciplined about not doing Porsche stuff during the day...

Because my wife had to take our Volvo into the shop for regular maintenance, I had to swap my usual 5am work session for an afternoon time slot. Very strange to start working in the light and finish in the dark as I’ve been doing the opposite for months now, but I digress.

First off, the quick and easy things.

An aluminum stone guard was fabricated for the AC condenser. A few studs were welded to the tub, hit with Wurth rubberized undercoating and the shield installed. The edges were covered in edge covering for prettiness. I debated hammering louvers into it for airflow (I made a buck and some hardwood shaping tools and made a few practice pieces) but ultimately decided there was enough airflow and the louvers wouldn’t provide any benefit other than letting dirt in. I’d still like to put louvers somewhere because they’re incredibly rewarding to make but I don’t know where or why without looking like an also ran.


Making pretty things that will soon be ugly things


Everybody must get stone-guarded

I also decided to install a remote starter switch into the car. I know I probably won’t use it all that often but a.) I need one to set the timing so I was going under the car and up to the starter anyways 2.) if I ever need one again, I won’t have to jack the car up and Cee.) it can’t do any harm. So, I ran some wire from the engine bay to the starter, threw on a ring connector for the big bolt and a piggy back splice for the yellow wire. Then in the engine bay I terminated into a quick connector, the other side of which connects to my remote starter. So, I got that goin’ for me.


This little piggy went to market, this little piggy saves me from jacking the car up...


The remote starter in my hand plugs in and then we're off to the races, but actually not... this is for timing and testing.


And now on to the thing that I had been avoiding doing for a few weeks: more sanding.

There are any number of ways that I’d rather tire out my arms with repetitive back and forth motion that have a greater payoff than this, but so it goes.

The high build primer I sprayed needed to be knocked back so with the assistance of powdered guide coat, adhesive sandpaper on pink insulation blocks, let the sanding begin. I used the pink insulation because I have plenty of it, it can be shaped and rounded for non-rectilinear surfaces, it’s cheap and it works really well; poor man’s Dura Block.


Put it on, then take it off.

A few hours later I was surprised at how little additional work was needed; there’s one spot on the passenger fender near the turn signal that’s a bit low and will receive a little filler.


Not bad, if I do say so myself


Back to where we were several hours earlier.

Now, let’s take some stock.

The engine is all built up and the EFI/ITB conversion is complete. It still needs to be restarted and tuned but I’m confident that I can get it running well enough to take it to a dyno for final tuning. I’ve found a few local Megasquirt-expert shops that are excited to have a crack at it so I feel really good about the prospects.

Given that I’m ahead of schedule (I gave myself until June to be all done) I have decided to start on some interior projects, namely the dash. There are switches and controls that I need for driving that are just a tangle of wires at the moment and I don’t want to rig temporary switches so I may as well do it up right. Plus, I like the coachbuilding aspect. A full interior overhaul will happen next winter.

The bodywork is tantalizingly close to being almost, inching up to a state of being nearly adjacent to a position consistent with understanding itself as approaching…complete. A few spots of filler, some sanding and then I have to make a major decision.

Eventually I’ll repaint the car as the current paint is not good but for now, dear brethren, I call on your opinions:


1.) Leave it as-is with primer and filler and sanding marks and say to hell with it this season and deal with it next winter.
Cost: free.
Pros: done and free.
Cons: fugly, real fugly and not in a cool-project-car way.

2.) Throw on a coat of rattle can white so that it at least looks socially acceptable from 20 feet.
Cost: $30.
Pros: cheap and quick.
Cons: moderately less fugly, will have to be sanded off before real paint?

3.) Have the shop that painted the glass bumpers I used to have to mix up some “color matched” 2-part paint and try to blend it with the old and then take stock again.
Cost: $500.
Pros: a chance of real success and not needing a repaint asap.
Cons: costly and a chance that I f*ck it up and need a repaint asap.

4.) Have it professionally painted now and potentially miss out on much of the season, but skip having to reassemble the car and then disassemble it again next winter.
Cost: lot$ of money.
Pros: I get the paint job I want without delay.
Cons: loss of driving time.

[rwest]

My vote is #3, good chance it looks decent enough to give you plenty of time to paint it properly.

[Hulley]

My vote is #3 also, I'd rather wait until my car is mechanically 100% before I make it pretty and often times that involves a lot of driving, which is exactly what I'm doing now.

[chrisbalich]

Julian, I'm doing paint last. Every time I've thought the body was in its final form, I find another small tweak I want done. I mean, hell. Look at the state of my front fenders right now. Oy!

Epoxy primer doesn't sand nicely, but is UV stable and water-repellant. Regular primers absorb water. So 1 is a no-go in my opinion.

Rattle cans are the devil. Even the nice 2k rattle cans leave a lot to be desired. Trust me on this one. I did the roof with them and had to go back and blast it with the big gun to make it even.

Option 3 isn't a terrible idea at all. This is my second choice.

Option 4 is a non-starter as I'd not so easily surrender an entire year for something that ought to be planned out well in advance to maximize value and impact while minimizing downtime.

I vote for option 5. Buy a HF (or Summit) spray gun and blast it with some single-stage white. It'll better protect the car under it and you can buff/sand/polish/blend it with some effort...Not to mention the minimal outlay of cash and another feather in your cap for things done at home. It's a middle-ground between 1 & 3 without being as icky as 2.

[Showdown]

I figured those were the responses I was going to get, and truth be told, that's what I expected to do from the outset... I just wanted to get the collective hive-mind wisdom.

I have a pretty nice Anest Iwata setup at my work for spraying varnish on paintings- only problem is that I don't think I can maneuver the car into the spray booth...

I'll have to build a temporary one where the car lives. Not a problem, I've watched a lot of Dexter and know how to setup a kill room, err, I mean spray room.

[chrisbalich]

Originally Posted by Showdown

I figured those were the responses I was going to get, and truth be told, that's what I expected to do from the outset... I just wanted to get the collective hive-mind wisdom.

I have a pretty nice Anest Iwata setup at my work for spraying varnish on paintings- only problem is that I don't think I can maneuver the car into the spray booth...

I'll have to build a temporary one where the car lives. Not a problem, I've watched a lot of Dexter and know how to setup a kill room, err, I mean spray room.

You could replace those timbers with steel posts and sell them for enough to cover a full paint job. Goot lort!
(lol. Please don't do that.)

[shoooo32]

I'm with Chris; DIY all the way. Buy a cheap HVLP and shoot it yourself. If you plan to drive it as hard as I think you do, there's no reason to spend big money on a concours level paint job. Get it 10ft shiny and drive the piss out of it.

[Showdown]

Day 22 - Part 1/3

After the past few weekends of working hard and having little to show for it, this weekend was a big one.

With the engine “just” needing tuning and the body “just” needing painting, I decided to turn some attention to the interior. Though I had planned on doing the interior next winter, I’m ahead of schedule and wanted to do some of the interior so that the car would be drivable and presentable. I’ll still focus on the larger interior work next winter.

I wanted to delete the ashtray and reshape the knee pad; the mid-year cars have a massive pad and not only is it visually heavy when wrapped in anything other than black, it also makes contact with my knees and that, I don’t like.

So. I took it off and created a new slimmer profile.



Using foam insulation and my table saw I cut down and laminated some pieces. After clamping it was ready to shape.



I created a template of the new shape out of Masonite.



The template was pressed or stamped into the leading edge of the foam every 2 inches or so. This creates a depth guide for sanding. This is really key as it’s easy to over sand the foam and without a guide the odds that the shape would be uneven is too high.



On Carreras this is a pretty easy piece to make; it’s a flat sheet shaped. On the mid-year cars there are end caps, and those need to be fabricated too. More foam and a sharp knife makes quick work of it.



A dry fit just to check everything is in place. Phew, it fits and looks good. On to fiberglass. I used 4oz glass with epoxy laminating resin as it won’t melt the foam. 4oz was the perfect balance between highly flexible and thick enough that one coat was sufficient. 2oz was too thin and would need multiple layers and 6oz was too thick and wouldn’t conform without vacuum bagging.





Once the glass was dry and trimmed, I hit the shape with a coat of Evercoat rage and gave it a quick sand. Making sure that any defects are corrected at this stage ensures a smooth covering.



I drilled holes, threaded in some dot and epoxied it in place. Looks flimsy, is ridiculously strong.



All fit into place. Perfect!

[Showdown]

Day 22 - Part 2

To finish off the knee pad I needed to wrap it. I contemplated leather but then the entire interior would need to be leather and while I may do that next winter, for now I settled on vinyl. I procured cork vinyl from Germany and using Super 77 got the form wrapped.



Last winter when I got the car I took advantage of the ashtray space and added a USB port and voltmeter: Ashtray Modification (USB + volt meter install) With it now deleted I had to find a place for powah!

I added a USB 3.0 Quick Charge port on the bottom of the knee pad. I still need to trim the vinyl so that it sits flush but the fit is spot on and it’s completely invisible.



One of the issues with backdating the dash, as thoroughly documented by alexandervdr in his DIY Singer-Style Dash Build here: DIY Singer style Dash build , is the issue of the glovebox. Either you have a gap under the trim which looks terrible, you delete the glovebox which in a street car with minuscule storage is silly, or you modify the hinge mechanism to compensate. alexandervdr did an amazing job modifying the hinge and I thought about it but it looked like So. Much. Work. So, I came up with another solution; modify the trim piece.

With a right angle on the back of the trim panel it must have a gap or the glovebox won’t open. But if you eliminate that hard-right angle and add a radius, well, not only do you get a flush fit on the front of the trim panel, but the ability to open the glovebox too. Mark it ten, Dude.

[Showdown]

Day 22 – Part 3

With the glovebox solved I started working on the rest of the dash. My trim piece came from ST-Parts but is probably the same as the Rennline one, or the one you can design in Sketchup and send to an online CNC shop for a fraction of the cost…

It fits but like everything, will need some modification. Fine.

The dash pad is thick vinyl-wrapped foam and with it removed there’s a void that needs to be filled. I thought about casting the originals and molding them in urethane foam rubber but for a single piece that’s just ridiculous. MDF to the rescue. MDF is a garbage building product in every respect save one; it shapes beautifully.



I began making the filler pieces for above the trim and got one done. There are three different bevel cuts on that piece and some hand shaping. During the making of the other two (one for the glovebox and the other on the left dash) I tripped my SawStop table saw, so that put an end to that, and it’s going to cost me a few hundred. Grr.



Bummed, I pivoted to the actual trim piece. My trim piece came with a radio cutout and a mid-year/Carrera HVAC cutout. I’m deleting the radio face and using a hidden Bluetooth receiver so that cutout needed to be filled. I’m also using a longhood HVAC control I bought on e-bay for a song and dance so that trim cutout is too large as well.

The solution was to use a 2mm sheet of fiberglass inset into the trim piece. It will cover the cutouts and has the added bonus of making the trim piece more flush.

The obvious answer to a question that nobody asked was to use the chrome bezel on the HVAC control, make the dash look like everyone else’s, and call it a day. If you’ve read this far, you’ll know that won’t cut it.

I wanted a cleaner, bezel-free HVAC control. I also decided that because I have a Classic Retrofit AC system, the labels on the HVAC control are meaningless as the CR system changes their operation. So, let’s delete it all together.

I marked the location of the slider controls on the fiberglass and then paused. I was going to use my tablesaw and rise-cut the slots with the blade but it’s out of commission until a new blade and cartridge arrive. I thought about using a router but that seemed unreliable. And then I remembered that I have a mill! Julian, you damn genius! No more than 10 mind later I had three perfectly parallel 3mm slots in the fiberglass.





A very nervous test fit revealed that my measuring and milling was damn accurate and that the HVAC sliders work perfectly while being completely integrated into the dash.



I whipped up the left dash piece too. This one was pretty easy and just required making holes in the fiberglass. I have some plans for that area bit it might require the purchase of a lathe, or the bribing of someone with a lathe to fabricate a part for me.



Awesome. Let’s do more awesomeness.

Seeing that the radio face is gone I had some space. I also had the need for some controls; the AC on/off switch, the CR blower fan speed switch (I’m not using the slider to control the fan so that I have full control over the vents), the rear defogger switch, the oil cooler fan override switch, the intermittent wiper switch from the dash and another secret switch (passenger ejector seat? oil slick, smoke screen? Muahahaha) I used that blank space formerly occupied by the radio for said switches. Drill press meet fiberglass. Fiberglass, meet switches. I opted to align the switches with the center slider. Because I couldn’t move the position of the sliders, it makes visual sense to align the switches with the sliders rather than center them in the trim piece and create a visual discord.

And just like that my vision is coming together quite well. Yes, the fiberglass will be covered so we’ll have a continuous panel with no bezels, no labels, just controls; sliders, knobs and toggle switches.



I still have to finish the MDF filler pieces once my table saw is back in operation next weekend, secure the aluminum trim piece to the tub, wrap the fiberglass sheet and do all the electrical wiring but this was a huge day of work, turning an idea into a proof of concept and then reality.

I can’t wait to finish it up!

[shamrok]

Holy moly. More pls.

[Ginger77]

Very cool progress! Well done!! I like where this is going with all the custom fab touches throughout the car.