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

[Showdown]

I have a sawstop professional table saw and built an out feed table out of melamine coated particle board. The harbor freight bench is the exact same height as the table saw and I bolted it to the cast iron table saw top as well as the outside table. The whole contraption is rock solid and totally flat, level and smooth; I can slide a piece of wood across and there are no lips to catch on.

[shoooo32]

At first glance it appears there's room for a two post lift...

[1980 SC Targa]

VERY nice thanks for the pics. Your shop is epic too btw...

[rswannabe]

Originally Posted by Showdown

I can list everything I did for the gauge- parts, code, etc… it’s not all that hard and given that you know your way around electronics, it’ll be a breeze for you. Honestly, the most laborious part is configuring TSDash but I think I can export all the gauges thus making it super simple.

I would be interested in getting this information as I would very much like to have a gauge like you made.

[Showdown]

Originally Posted by rswannabe

I would be interested in getting this information as I would very much like to have a gauge like you made.

I'm working on getting something together that will be a much nicer and totally custom plug and play solution but the technical aspects of it are a bit beyond my pay grade so it may not come to fruition.

In the interim... I'll try to put something together on how I did the gauge... but it involves soldering boards, writing C++ code and a lot of tinkering with the Raspberry Pi and it's OS... It's going to take me a while to come up with something coherent.

[Showdown]

All this week I've been sneaking away 10 mins here, 10 mins there... ok, more like an hour here and and hour there from work to mess with the car and these darn tail lights.

I purchased them from the classifieds at least a year ago for a song and dance and kinda never thought I'd use them but after growing tired of the existing tail lights and just looking for a small project to scratch the itch I figured why not run them...

The first problem to tackle was somehow securing the light bodies to the glass housings. The previous owner had used some sort of silicone adhesive but that was gross. I decided to fiberglass the metal backings to the tail light housings. That was pretty simple.



After that it was lots of wiring and making harnesses... Not all that difficult but meditative nonetheless. I've found that I really enjoy wiring and body work... two things that I think most people just abhor...

Once I figured out the existing harness' grounds were compromised it was smooth sailing and getting the lights installed was a piece of cake thanks to McMaster Carr's same day delivery of M4 x 100mm screws. Yes, it cost me like $20 for 4 screws. PCar tax? Impatience tax? Doesn't want to drive to the store tax?





The R-style lights have white reverse lights, orange turn signals, red running lights and a red brake light; 4 bulbs that make them totally legal... you know, to go along with my lack of license plates, yellow headlights and glass shattering exhaust...

When I deleted my clock and replaced it with the digital gauge, the gauge housing was much larger than the clock- it needed to be to get a big screen in there and that meant that my expensive Rennline phone mount wouldn't fit around the now 86mm gauge housing as the clock is 80mm. So, off to the cad software and 3D printing service... The Rennline modeled larger phone holder was a success and now I can have my phone partially blocking the digital gauge I spent months making... yippie!!



More to come but maybe not for a minute as I'm waiting on stuff to arrive before pushing through to the next phase of idle hands make bad Porsche company...

[rswannabe]

Originally Posted by Showdown

I'm working on getting something together that will be a much nicer and totally custom plug and play solution but the technical aspects of it are a bit beyond my pay grade so it may not come to fruition.

In the interim... I'll try to put something together on how I did the gauge... but it involves soldering boards, writing C++ code and a lot of tinkering with the Raspberry Pi and it's OS... It's going to take me a while to come up with something coherent.

Realistically this isn’t something I’d get to anytime soon. So don’t put yourself out. I’m probably better off to wait for you to perfect your new and improved version and then bug you for the “recipe”.

[Showdown]

When I deleted my clock, I had a clock sitting around. I like the clock and figured I could put it to good use.

So, back to the CAD software and 3D printing... And now I have a desktop clock.








Clearly I need something to do or for the roads to clear up...

[chrisbalich]

Desk clock looks nicer than my clock chillin on a shelf in my basement.


What 'electronical' sorcery did you use to power that?
3-phase 240V stepped down through a transformer, controlled by a Raspberry Pi with arduino interface that's masked to look like Facebook? Knew it.

[Showdown]

I bought some very suspect and questionable 120vAC to 12vDC converter on ChinAzon. It was all of $5 and I suspect that it's either listening to me talk or capturing biometric data and sending it to Beijing. Either way, I'm good- I have a clock!

[chrisbalich]

Originally Posted by Showdown

I bought some very suspect and questionable 120vAC to 12vDC converter on ChinAzon. It was all of $5 and I suspect that it's either listening to me talk or capturing biometric data and sending it to Beijing. Either way, I'm good- I have a clock!

Basically what I said.
You coming down with Gabe in a couple weeks to wet sand the LBDC?

[Showdown]

Give me the date and if it's doable, I'm in.

[AutoXer23]

Originally Posted by Showdown

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.



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...

Man your jabbing skills are awesome !!! Wish you were my neighbor.
By the way the house across the street from me is for sale if you ever want to move to sunny S Florida

[Showdown]

Originally Posted by AutoXer23

By the way the house across the street from me is for sale if you ever want to move to sunny S Florida

It was all of 2 degrees this morning here in Chicago. Don't tempt me.

[Dangqd]

I just spent the last 2 hours reading your thread. Congratulations on all of your phenomenal work. I have an 83SC 3.2ss with Weber carbs that runs pretty well. I bought an RHD ITB kit from a forum member that decided not to go through it over a year now and I have yet to get started as well. My Webers run well, but I like the pros of the efi/itb. I have to admit the tuning part of the efi/itb is a bit intimidating. It would be nice to have a good comprehensive installation manual on this forum that could get a diyer through this process quickly. I hate the idea of having the car down for such a long time. Thanks for sharing your project. It definitely gave me some ideas for my own car.

[rwest]

Originally Posted by Dangqd

I just spent the last 2 hours reading your thread. Congratulations on all of your phenomenal work. I have an 83SC 3.2ss with Weber carbs that runs pretty well. I bought an RHD ITB kit from a forum member that decided not to go through it over a year now and I have yet to get started as well. My Webers run well, but I like the pros of the efi/itb. I have to admit the tuning part of the efi/itb is a bit intimidating. It would be nice to have a good comprehensive installation manual on this forum that could get a diyer through this process quickly. I hate the idea of having the car down for such a long time. Thanks for sharing your project. It definitely gave me some ideas for my own car.

Your wish (and many others) has been met as Jamie started a tuning thread that is excellent. EFI Tuning - How to Process Description

[Dangqd]

Thank you Jamie and rwest.

[Showdown]

Well it’s been a minute but rest assured dear readers, I’ve been busy. Life has been super bonkers during the past few months, really the better part of the last year and my time working on the Porsche has been severely curtailed. I’m really limited to the few hours I can squeeze out of the week at the end of each work day but such is life and we make what we have work!

One of the premises of this car was that I was going to make it as much of a 3.5 season car as possible and use it as much as I can before I go not so quietly into the night. To that end one of the weaknesses of a vintage coupe is cargo space, particularly if one has small passengers in the small passenger seats which I will.

The obvious solution to this conundrum is roof rack.

So, I took a survey of the available options:

Modern Thule/Yakima: Barf. While functional, they have no place on my car. They’re also quite costly.

Carbone: BWAHAHAHAHAH!!!! You want how much money for that!!! BWAHAHAHA!!! Also, while the curved rack looks good, it's less than functional as the point of a rack is a stable platform. The sides, front and back lips I suppose aide in things not moving around but it still seems like a stylistic choice over a functional one and that makes the rack an aesthetic not utilitarian addition to the car. While I'm all for aesthetics (uh, look at my car) a roof rack for style is stupid and is right up there with fake patina in my book.

Vintage rack: Questionable durability and they're also pricey. In addition, I'm not a fan of all the sliding hardware that's necessary to make them fit many different cars. Nuts and bolts can rattle loose and they break up the clean lines of the rack and car.

With said data collected and processed by the home office the natural conclusion was to fabricate one myself because out of the plethora of acceptable racks I have to make it more difficult...I just can't leave well enough alone (see what I did there...)

So, I did.

It started by designing some feet that will clamp to the drip rail. These are made in CAD and sent off to Send Cut Send to be laser cut and bent to spec. And yes, to the right of the feet/brackets is a cup holder I made in CAD too; it's modeled after the one that everyone sells for $50-$100. It took all of 10 minutes and cost something like $8. I'm sorry, but I'm just not paying $50+ for a piece of metal with holes in it.
Total cost $70







Next, we proceed with 1” & ¾” square steel tubing which gets measured, cut, filed and prepped for welding to the feet. These would be the main load bearing pieces. The ¾” was used as crossbars to add rigidity and make the rack one piece. I didn’t need 1” all around and the ¾” made the rack lighter visually and literally.
Total cost: $100

I decided to TIG weld these and practice so that I can get better in hopes of one day doing some more body work on another 911-something that I found I really like. The welding came out wonderfully which was no surprise as anything other than vintage sheet metal is pretty easy to TIG. Once welded I ground them down for prettiness, of course.







After that it was time to see if everything still fit and the rack would mount to the car. Nervous moment of course as I was trying to be very careful during the fabrication measuring my angles and distances thrice.







After that it was time for etching primer and then to drill lots of little holes in the top of the rack. No, these are not speed holes, but they will serve a purpose.





Continued below

[Showdown]

Originally, I thought I’d power coat it satin black but then I considered how a massive black thing would look atop my car and decided to paint it instead. Perhaps it’s less durable but so be it (it’s the same single stage paint as in the car so it should be plenty durable). Painted the same color as the car, the hope is that it kind of just disappears or at least blends in with the car and doesn’t stand out; it’s an accessory, not a feature.



After paint, we had a rivnut party. 33 of them to be precise. M5, yellow zinc.



Now, you may be asking why I drilled holes and inserted rivnuts, 33 of them to be precise. The answer, of course is wood slats. I love the look of wood slats on racks; it harkens back to a day of chalets, apres ski hot tubs and multiple girlfriends. Maybe I’ve seen to many movies…

For this car and rack it had to be mahogany. Sapele to be precise. Mahogany is known for being durable, easy to work and weather resistant; a key point.

I went to the local lumber yard and bought a piece of wood, cut, ripped and milled it down to 11 identical pieces. Each one received chamfered edges on the top and countersunk holes in three places.
Total Cost: $70

A coating of Danish Oil will help keep it looking good and repel water better than nothing. I reject film forming finishes as they will all fail at some point and oil can be reapplied as needed.



With the wood milled assembly could begin. I procured brass M5 countersunk hex head screws, 33 of them to be precise and got to work screwing the slats to the rack.

After all the screws were in place, yes, all 33 of them to be precise, it was time to mount the rack to the car.

On each foot and clamp I placed white rubber trim to pad the car and for better grip. I also used an M6 threaded knob for quick installation. I can switch to any M6 bolt if I like but this looks a bit nicer in my opinion. Some nylon washers to protect paint and we’re off to the races.
Total cost: $60




I tested the rack when it was on the ground and it easily held my weight- a colossal 142# which is just about the load limit for modern roof racks and plenty to hold a collapsed tent, cooler and whatnot for camping.

[Showdown]

So, there it is, for about $300 and maybe 8 hours of work I have a custom roof rack that goes on in a matter of seconds, can hold plenty and doesn’t look too out of place on my car. The total platform is about 38" x 26" give or take... That's plenty wide for 2 bike trays, a Christmas tree, a tent, or a tire and jerry can if I want to look cool without actually being cool

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some campsites to reserve and some girlfriends to call.