Project Minne - A Saga of a 72.

[jpnovak]

Thank you. I appreciate the vote.

I need to do an update so I can get my vote count up.

For those who would like to vote for my project you can do so at this link.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/1030986-diy-build-contest-final-5-vote-here.html



There are some truly great projects in the DIY contest. I would probably be correct saying that I Have been the deepest into my car project (or should I call it resurrection?) considering the rust repair, paint and body, engine build and now assembly. I just wish my day job wasn't demanding so I could get into the garage more.

[jmz]

And let everyone know that we have a final 5 vote... I just caught that earlier today. But yeah, mostly go get to work!

[1980 SC Targa]

Amazing. That's all I can say. Truly inspiring work.

[FERFARIAS]

Here is another vote for you jamie

see you at 2020 hcr

[bobsven]

Jamie,

You have my vote and admiration for a really great job of "Resurrection". See you at the 2020 HCR.

Regards,

Bob Anderson

[Paisano]

Truly a labor of intense love, just so glad for you. Understand you are entered in a Contest , let me know where to vote. I live in Aledo, Tx and run a 78 sc on the backroads . I seem to have a conflict for the Hill Country Rally , I do F &C for CVAR , PCA club racing & SCCA . So , howdy neighbor .

[Jonny042]

Bump for updates!

[RWebb]

I want a '72 body...

[MJHanna]

Originally Posted by RWebb

I want a '72 body...

I have 3 how much do you want to spend?

[jpnovak]

OK. I realize I have not updated in a long time. Work and life have been crazy. Definitely the balance tipped in the wrong direction. I have been slowly chipping away at my long punch list as time allows. However, in the past 2 weeks I Have started working more consistently on the car.

First, I want to say thank you to everyone who voted in Pelican's DIY Build contest. Third Place thanks to all of you! Got my gift Certificate. More on that in another post.


After completing the oil system I worked on the fuel system. First, I started cleaning the original tank. I stripped the exterior and started etching the inside. I ran into issues getting the inside clean after about 2 weeks of trying. The tank was approximately 1/4 full when it was last parked. So, You can imagine the thickness of varnish residue. I am a chemist and tried everything short of mechanical cleaning but could not cut through it. So... I replaced it.

The new Dansk repo tank had to first be inspected, measured and checked for fit.



There have been issues in the past about flange locations and width preventing them from sitting in the chassis correctly. These issues must have been corrected in current versions. The new tank fit fine.



Since the tank fit correctly it was time to prep and coat. The factory E-coat was scuffed down and then coated with 3 layers of Upol Gravitex gray. The shutz gun running 48psi seemed to be about right.

This is as close as you can get to the factory Wurth coatings. It all came out nice. I was happy with color and texture.




Once coated it was time to put it back in the car. The tank really fills up a huge hole up front and I am glad to see it in place.

[jpnovak]

Since the tank was in it was time to connect my lines. I ran 6AN nylon braided line through the tunnel. It was just waiting for some fuel fittings on the other end. The supply line got an M22-6AN adapter. The return line uses the factory banjo with a clamp. I did not have enough room to the steering rack to clear a return fitting and 90 deg hose termination. The factory clamped the return line. There is no pressure on the line so I do not see any issues.



I installed a generic 044 sized fuel pump. Way overkill. But I am fine with that. Again, 6AN lines and fittings throughout the system.




Fuel pump mounted above the stock location. I used a 60mm fuel pump clamp bolted to the underside of the seat pan. This is because the pump did not quite fit in the stock tray. It was long enough to cause concern with trailing arm clearance under compression. We have enough bumps that I don't want any issues.



Fuel lines were then run up into the tunnel following the factory emissions hose tabs.
The fuel lines enter through the bulkhead/shock tower gap on the DS of the car.

Not pictured is a 6AN inline 50micron filter on the supply line before the pump. It is also mounted in the seat pan area and very easy to access to change out when needed. Serviceability is a good thing.



The supply line then enters the flexible fuel line distribution manifold. The flex lines are for my RSR style EFI connections. More on that later.



The supply line then goes across to the fuel pressure regulator. I mounted this on the passenger side shock tower reinforcement. This makes the gauge easy to see and adjust with the MFI stacks in place. Sometimes quick checks on fuel pressure are needed during initial EFI setup.

[jpnovak]

With the fuel lines run it was time to pull some wires. First step is the main harness through the body. I am running a Microsquirt ECU. These have more than enough features to control spark and fuel on an old 911 and the package is small enough to fit inside the tunnel under the shift coupler.

The wiring harness is pulled through the speedo cable hole. There is room for both the speedo cable and harness. From the tunnel exit the harness routes up across the DS undercarriage following the same basic path as the fuel lines. The wiring enters the engine bay at the DS rear corner behind the shock mount.

At first the bundle of wires is daunting... So many colors.



The wires are all clearly marked and get divided into 3 categories.

1) unused - Which means they get cut off and secured out of the way.
2) car side connection - these are 12V, ground, O2 sensor and ignition outputs.
3) engine side connections - these are all the engine mounted sensors and injector connectors.

I separate the engine side connectors with Deutsche 12 pin connectors. Waterproof, easy to install and gives single disconnect point for all EFI should I need to drop the engine.



The main connector is the focal point for the engine wiring harness. You can see here some of the different directions electrons must go. I leave the wires out until it is time to secure and cover.




Based on the position of the 12 pin connector, I use a CAD (Cardboard Aided Design) layout for my wiring harnesses. Simple really. Binder clips in injector and sensor locations. I can clip a connector, cut a wire to length, crimp a terminal and assemble the proper connector with heatshrink as needed. And... I can work in an Airconditioned space. This is most important in July in TX. I think my wife is amazing considering she will walk out in the morning to find wires and tools all over the kitchen floor. Love her for sure...








The EFI needs ignition control. I am a fan of big spark. If there is ever a fault in the EFI you need plenty of spark to keep it going. Case in point... Years ago my MAP sensor failed one a drive. I was 2 hours from home. The car thought it was at WOT all the time. This meant I was running AFR7 under cruise. The twin plug driven by dual Crane Hi-6 boxes never fouled a plug as I drove home. Yeah, I put them back into this car. I mounted them clean on the backside of the rear deck.



A few other items were added. I run a secondary relay and fuse panel in place of the stock CDI unit. I also mount the wideband O2 controller in the same location.

Once everything was mounted I was able to go back and tie up the wiring harness.



The engine bay is getting more busy but it certainly stayed as clean as possible.

[1980 SC Targa]

Looks awesome man. Absolutely top notch work.

[jpnovak]

Next it was time to work on ignition delivery. I am using EFI with integrated ignition control. But I don't like the look of COP, coil packs or other spark delivery methods on a vintage car. It should be a 12 plug distributor for twin plug. I only use the body, rotor and cap since the ECU controls everything. But I took out the least reliable parts. Caps and rotors tend to last a while. So.. Here is the process to build my twin plug distributor.

First I strip the distributor down. This donor had bad bearings so I pulled the gear and shaft out as well.

The body is turned on a lathe to make the top concentric and reduce the diameter for my adapter cap. You can see the cut lines. The distributor bodies are not round. They are oval at the casting parting line. The top sections are not machined and don't have to be - unless you are adding a part on top.



the machined body is then placed in the freezer while the twin plug adapter cap goes in the oven at 200F. 15 min later they are mated. A few soft blows with a dead blow hammer and the body drops into the adapter cap. The result is a twin plug distributor body.




Next, It was time for new bushings. I bought these from a supplier in AZ (PK) since Pelican does not carry them. Again, Heat the distributor body, freeze the bushing and then press in. I used a 12" C clamp to press them in. They did not fit in the vise and my press didn't want to hit the inner bushing.



Lower bushing pressed in.


Once the bushings are pressed in you have to ream them to 12.5mm. I used a long drill bit to also make sure they were parallel and that the shaft spins freely.


If you have 12 spark plugs and 2 ignitions you need two coils as well. So, I wanted an adapter plate to mount them on the top of the fan. I just like the look. A section of flat stock was drilled with mounting holes and cut to length. Then it was painted black. This will all make sense in another post.



I bought two cheap coil brackets that were silver zinc in color. These were trimmed at the mounting holes and then I converted the clear to yellow zinc.



The two coils will mount side by side on top of the fan. The brackets were trimmed to get them to mount closer and reduce clearance. Have to keep it tidy.

Lastly, I Have to prep the twin plug rotor. I make an adapter pin that offsets the rotor to match the height of the cap adapter. I used to use a mounting screw but had issues with high rpms and the screws not being secure enough. Now I epoxy them into place.



I will show the completed assembly soon in another post.

[jpnovak]

The engine needs some induction intake system to run. I am using factory MFI throttle bodies and stacks with my EFI system. The system works, looks great, has excellent linkage geometry and can be modified.

The MFI TBs and stacks were bored to 38mm to match my heads. I did not do a full taper but rather a straight bore. My cams do not require n(th) degree tuning as I am not chasing HP numbers at high rpm but rather area under the curve.

The TBs were further modified with vacuum ports under the throttle plates. This will provide pressure signal for the MAP sensor and thus- engine load in speed density mode for the EFI.




The Throttle bodies were base lined before installation. This means throttle stops were setup correctly, the linkage rods length adjusted so they snap on with no load, the idle control screws cleaned and set 2.5 turns out for first start.

At this point the MFI system is attached to the car. The cross-bar linkage is setup. Side bank rods are balanced for length. injector adapters are connected to the EFI injectors, air filter assembly is in place and finally...

It looks like a proper engine bay.




It just needs some ignition wires... Soon.

[jpnovak]

I have also been working on the interior. The heat of the summer is the best time to install a headliner. The fabric is warm and easily stretches to remove wrinkles. So, 100 binder clips and some glue later, the headliner is in.



Love a tight headliner. Its gotta have a near drum head feel when you thump it.




Yes, I went back and trimmed the edges after installation.




After the headliner I wrapped the A and B pillars. The B pillars were tricky. If you go back a bunch of pages you may recall I installed an integral roll bar with B pillar reinforcement. The extra width made the headliner interface quite tricky. I ended up with a slight defect where I cut too deep wrapping around the sharp edge. It's mostly covered with trim vinyl and hardly noticeable - but I know its there.






The A pillar is straightforward. Just remember to mark the height of the holes for your VIN tag. Otherwise, I just stretch and glue along with a rolled inside edge at the top.



Why work on the interior? The reason was that I wanted to start putting glass in the car. Can't do glass install without the headliner and trim first. So... there you go.

Actually, the reason I want glass installed is for the rear window. With the 911R hinges the decklid flips onto the rear window. Without glass it wants to fold into no-mans land and the hinges can't bend into the back seat. Why do I want the decklid installed? Because its taking up space and I have knocked it over 2X and chipped corner paint. It's safer on the car.

The glass had to get ready. Here is all the glass cleaned and ready for... Coatings. That's right I like coatings....








What kind of coatings on the glass you might ask? I decided to get all the glass tinted with clear (90%) UV/IR ceramic film. Anything I can do to block heat in TX is beneficial to my driving comfort. Plus I am setting up for eventual AC system.

Slowly this car is coming together. One section at a time.

[Trackrash]

Nice work. I love the look of the injectors without the fuel rails. Who makes the injector adapters?

[jpnovak]

I make them...

[SWS911]

Jamie, That twin plug MFI look is Badass!!! Lookin' forward to seein' it with the
coils mounted and those spark plug wires snakin' through that engine bay.

[al lkosmal]

Looking good Jamie.
regards,
al