TrumpetRhapsody

Tisk, late again! Back in early June I took the plunge and ripped out MS2 and EDIS, to completely rewire for MS3 Pro Mini with LS3 COP, a dedicated relay box, flex fuel, dizzy signal from a Jeep CAS for sequential fuel, and more sensors. I ran into some interesting issues. On the MS3 1.6 firmware I found a bug where Fan Control would not work properly on the PWM-Idle output, so I had to run 1.6.2 beta2. Oddly, having swapped to directly feeding MS3 from my crank VR sensor (instead of EDIS), triggering the fan was causing a phantom RPM signal to fire the injectors and coils thinking the engine was starting. I suspect my troubleshooting of that may have fried the firmware on my LC1, so I ended up upgrading to an LC2 which reads much smoother! I still need to figure out what's causing that, but so far I'm not seeing noticeable effects when the fan kicks on and the engine is running. To get my E85/Flex going I still need to cut bend and replumb my engine bay fuel lines through the new sensor, and I haven't wrapped the harness so no pics just yet. Eventually I also need to modify the Jeep CAS to fit the L28 slotted drive so I can get going with sequential. Still, it's running so much smoother on semi-sequential rather than batch mode. The AFR and fuel pressure safety features are also a godsend!

Since the last post I swapped in the 800cc injectors and ProTunerz fuel rail, but haven't gotten to re-doing the front lines yet. My idle PW is almost identical, and they seem to actually run smoother. Over time I had developed yet another exhaust leak, so I decided to have a flex coupler welded in and upgrade to a real muffler while I was at it. I'm also going to try the oblong locking exhaust nuts this time, to see if I can stop blowing out the gasket when the stock ones work loose. While the manifolds were off I swapped to my soft wastegate spring, since the hard spring was pushing a minimum of 14-16 which was a bit spicy at part throttle. The new spring wasn't giving me more than 12psi at max dutycycle, so after trying the reversed wg routing and getting a minimum of 18psi, I upgraded to a 4-port MAC boost solenoid. Now I'm able to hold from 6-18psi easily, and at only 60% duty I should have room to push past 20psi once on E85. I also wrapped my downpipe, because why not. Next up I need to fabricate some sort of air box and cold air feed, to stop sucking in hot engine bay air during the summer. Eventually I'll get around to wiring in MS3, new seats, roll bar. The list never ends.

Black Friday got me GOOD. I picked up MS3 Pro Mini, ProTunerZ 14mm fuel rail and manifold adapters, Deatschwerks 800cc injectors, Radium 10 micron stainless fuel filter, Aeromotive Stealth 340 in-tank retrofit kit, and all the bits to rebuild my soft lines with -8AN PTFE hose. E85 here I come! Over the last two months I pulled my tank to clean and install the in-tank retrofit. I used 1/4" wood blocks to space down the tank for clearance, plus thin pieces of foam on the passengers side so the pump unit wasn't touching the body directly. I had to bend the fuel level sender arm to clear the giant foam baffle. I also replaced the expansion tank hoses to be E85 compatible, using 2 90* fittings to make the u-turn on the 5/8" vent. Back of the car is done, and only had to rework one leaky hose-end! Now on to the front hoses, fuel rail and injectors. I'll tune with the 800cc injectors running 91 for awhile, then eventually rewire for MS3, add a flex fuel sensor, and start tuning for E85.

I haven't done a test run yet, but I'm 99% sure I found the cause of my knock "issue". When I made my custom timing indicator I didn't have a good way to verify TDC, so I just eyeballed it based on the cam marks and never circled back. I bought a proper piston stop, and lo and behold I was set at 11* over-advanced . That'll do it.

Updates! I found that I was still using the opto-isolator tach input/output circuit with EDIS, as originally suggested by B&G. MSExtra now recommends using the VR circuit, so I swapped to that. I haven't noticed a huge difference, but the placebo effect has me thinking it's running a bit smoother. I'm still having trouble fully eliminating my light ping above 10psi, even with timing pulled back to 15* and running 11.9 afr. I'm worried about EGTs (which I'm not monitoring) if I pull any more timing. I'm starting to wish I'd spent the time on some headwork before reassembling the longblock. Maybe I'll look into installing my methanol kit until I'm ready to take the plunge into E85, but I hate to have to do that temporarily. I just don't know what else I can troubleshoot. I do have a pretty constant miss at idle that I haven't been able to track down, but I can't see how that would have anything to do with my ping.

Right now it's just sitting in there, since I removed the forward console mounting bracket for weight reduction lol. Eventually I plan to put that back in and solid mount the cage to it.

Here's the Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CP3D46NH There are various options in 1-din, but all from China. I think I still had to trim my console a bit to fit a 1-din cage.

Looks like I missed some updates! In September I showed my car in a local event, TougeCon. They had a nighttime parking garage meet that I installed underglow for, and a daytime "car show" at the town square. Was the first time really getting the car out, and it garnered a lot of attention! I still haven't dug into diagnose whether I still have the noise issues (probably, I still see some spikes on CLT and AFR), but as mentioned in this thread I did finally resolve my jumpy tach. Turns out using a 12V zener was allowing noise through, and using the proper 18V zener cleaned up up. It's nice to finally have a solid tach. I picked up a cheap Chinese touchscreen head unit that runs android, so I could load ShadowDash and connect Bluetooth to Megasquirt for logging and some extra gauges. It's pretty slick! I have it auto-uploading logs to Google Drive when I hit Wi-Fi, and can download and burn tunes. In the last couple weeks I noticed a distinct whine after the engine got up to temp. It sounded like it was coming from the block area on the passenger side. Eventually I realized that back when I did the L28ET swap in 2009, I blocked off the inlet/outlet on the factory oil cooler since I didn't have a filter stud handy. It must have been bypassing oil the entire time I've run this engine. 🤦‍♂️ For now I got a stud from Nissan, and have an oil cooler coming from GRW. After the tail light swap, I realized the late-style license plate light wouldn't fit the early panels. I took inspiration from Skillard, and fabbed up a simple blanking plate using LEDs. I also pulled the trigger on a fuel system refurb. I'll be retrofitting an Aeromotive Stealth 340 into my factory tank, using a Radium stainless 10 micron filter, and upgrading to PTFE lines to eventually run E85. No more fuel slosh and starvation! In the meantime, now that the engine is broken in I've been working on dialing in my tune under boost. I set up some knock ears using a knock sensor, portable audio amplifier, and some headphones, and it seems to work pretty well! Once I hit around 10psi in any gear, I can clearly hear some ping. I'm holding steady at < 12:1 afr, and have backed my timing out to 19*, but still haven't gotten it to go away completely. I'm going to drastically pull timing and richen things up to work from the other direction, but that's already less timing than I'd expect necessary.

Just wanted to update this thread to say that the 12V zener is not a good idea, as was suggested here: https://www.msextra.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=39695 Over time I started having a jumpy tach under load, and I think it was somehow also contributing to some ECU noise. Switching to the correct 18V zener cleaned up both issues.

Found a few more issues: The EDIS module had an intermittent ground on pin 9, and working backward I found a cruddy solder joint where I was experimenting with a diode. My PIP/SAW shield was grounded at MS and combined with the VR shield at EDIS pin 7, creating a ground loop. My PIP/SAW shield was combined to another ground where I connected the MS harness to the EDIS harness, ground loop #4. With all of that cleaned up I still had RPM spikes. I enabled Noise Filtering and that seems to have fixed it, but I'm not really happy with masking a noise issue. I'll try to scope the VR and PIP signals at some point, and see about adding a condenser to the coil + just in case.

After much deliberation, I decided to go with FutoFab's HD wheel stubs, 930 CV axles, and diff stubs. It took me a few days during the week to install the wheel stubs and bearings, and I finished up the axle install today. It's nice to have a fully refreshed and strong rear end, though I'll need to dig back into my diff at some point. I'm getting some noise at speed and on decel, and despite the CVs being smoother I still have a slight on/off clunk.

Dove in deeper than I thought I'd need to while addressing the RPM spikes: Replaced my EDIS crank sensor, which was chewed into at the tip after contacting the old trigger wheel. Modified the mount to close the gap between the crank sensor and new trigger wheel. Discovered that I combined my ECU ground, ECU pin 7 sensor ground ref, sensor ground wires, and LC-1 grounds all to a chassis ground at the firewall with a ground strap to the battery. This goes against prevailing wisdom to keep sensor grounds separate and direct to ECU pin 7, and to keep the noisy LC-1 heater ground far away from the ECU ground. Realized the ECU box is mounted to metal (chassis ground). Potential ground loop, so likely not ideal. Unfortunately, despite significantly reduced noise in my logs and no more resets, I'm still getting RPM spikes under load/boost. I'll have to dig deeper.

Got my RCAs and inner/outer tie rods installed, though unfortunately T3 neglected to include the bumpsteer spacers so I'll have to circle back and dial that in once those arrive. Drilling out the steering knuckles was HORRIBLE. Due to the metal hardness it took me 30+ min of drilling per side, a broken $20 drill bit, and a considerable amount of strength/pressure. If anyone else installs these I highly recommend pulling them off the car and using a drill press rather than drilling by hand.

Went on a 100mi twisty cruise last weekend, and discovered some new items to address. Tires are rubbing the front flares in turns Someone (me?) re-drilled a rear nutsert after breaking a bolt off in it, which has now failed One air dam bolt disappeared Getting some RPM spikes above 3k rpm Logging is dropping out, not sure if it's a loose serial cable or actual resets Bumpsteer is terrible I've re-drilled the front flares to give more clearance, drilled out and replaced the failed nutsert, replaced the air dam bolt, reconfigured my reset bluetooth adapter to get wireless logging back, and bought RCAs and T3 bumpsteer adjustable tie rod ends. I also swapped out my faulty ignition switch that was giving me trouble for the initial start.

At long last I can post a few reveal pics, now that the "look" is complete! Though, I do still need to drill the body to properly mount the front and back bumpers. The paint is TH1 Midnight Blue Pearl from the R32, ceramic tint for heat rejection since I'm AC-less, and partial PPF on the buckets, hood, and behind the tires.