[digitalsolo]

Annnd, more dressed in:

Dash with all engine wiring in place and dressed in properly:

Engine ready to start. Finished up my custom coolant pipes:

Trunk work in process:

 

[digitalsolo]

And, up to date. This was 2 days ago (6/16/18):

It lives!

 

[Black68coupe]

This one of the nicest builds I ever clapped eyes on. The packaging of the turbos is spectacular.

 

[digitalsolo]

Thanks! The turbo packaging was a giant pain in the butt! LOL!

I actually have a leak on one of the oil feed lines, and the packaging is so tight I can't pull the line without pulling the turbo, so off it comes tomorrow to replace the bad fitting.

 

[Desert66]

Unbelievable, very envious!

 

[digitalsolo]

Thank you, I very much appreciate it. I'd note that just about anyone can build something like this. It just takes a TON of time, I'm a garage hack at my very best, so there is a lot of "well that didn't work, let's try again" hidden in these pictures, LOL. I've got about 2.5-3 years of actual work effort in this thing so far.

I've been working on sorting out the few issues I found on first startup, namely I found a bad fitting that caused an oil leak and fixed that up, and now I'm working on getting the cooling and charging systems sorted so that I can run it for more than 20 seconds. Once it runs for a few minutes, I'm sure I'll find some more things that need sorted out. I did pressure test all of the aux lines in the cooling system, but we'll see how my radiator mods and the custom coolant passages I built on the Coyote work out. I'm hoping for "they work well", haha.

 

[digitalsolo]

A few notes:

1. The clicking on corners is the Detroit Locker. It's not very loud in the car, but pretty noticeable on video.
2. The "bang" was a decel backfire.
3. Steering feels a little slower than I might like, and was hard to use in the driveway. Not sure if something is binding a little somewhere or I just need to get the power steering hooked up. I'll look at it.

Nothing else of note, really. Seems to be behaving pretty well. Nothing leaked, lit on fire or fell off.

Also got the taillights done:

 

[BlakeTX]

Holy crap, man. That thing is seriously impressive! Love seeing the fab work like the ECU mounting. Keep updating us. Can't wait to see how this turns out.

 

[Huntingky]

Totally awesome build! That thing should lay down some serious power.

Only thing that made me cringe "I'm designing a few custom things in the electronics systems. One of which is a body control module system based on CANbus architecture." I have a brand X car with body control module which I really wish was simple analog controls. Works great when it works and is something sent from hell to annoy me when it doesn't. So many critical components controlled by one finicky electrical brain.

 

[digitalsolo]

Thanks chaps!

On the CANbus stuff, I don't know that I'd call it more complicated than basic controls, just differently complicated. Ground switching all of the controls means that they don't wear out constantly; built in diagnostics and troubleshooting, minimal wires run front/rear, independent fuseboxes, programmable blinker behaviors, etc.

Now, if you don't do programming/electronics design, by all means, it's silly. But I'd rather be able to see what's happening and control it in software than relay on high amp connections through mechanical switches of dubious quality. Plus I enjoy playing with things, and designing stuff like this has always looked interesting, so this was a chance to learn. The final result is similar to the ISIS/Infinitybox stuff, though somewhat less integrated and much more flexible.

 

[Huntingky]

Thanks chaps!

On the CANbus stuff, I don't know that I'd call it more complicated than basic controls, just differently complicated. Ground switching all of the controls means that they don't wear out constantly; built in diagnostics and troubleshooting, minimal wires run front/rear, independent fuseboxes, programmable blinker behaviors, etc.

Now, if you don't do programming/electronics design, by all means, it's silly. But I'd rather be able to see what's happening and control it in software than relay on high amp connections through mechanical switches of dubious quality. Plus I enjoy playing with things, and designing stuff like this has always looked interesting, so this was a chance to learn. The final result is similar to the ISIS/Infinitybox stuff, though somewhat less integrated and much more flexible.

Yeah, it might be really interesting and a good path to follow, and with my electronics back ground, I might really enjoy it. I guess some of the poor designs, difficulty in getting to them and lack of programming access soured me on them.

 

[jerrytotin]

Well, this makes my build looks like absolute garbage and makes me realize how little money I have and I feel like I’ve failed at life , sweet build though. Very envious.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[digitalsolo]

Yeah, it might be really interesting and a good path to follow, and with my electronics back ground, I might really enjoy it. I guess some of the poor designs, difficulty in getting to them and lack of programming access soured me on them.

Yeah, I'm with you 100% on the factory stuff. They're a PITA. I had originally planned to use the Eaton J1939 integrated fuse/relay boxes, but they were $$$, and the factory stuff was too locked down to make any use of, so I did what I tend to always do and went "screw it, I'll learn how to do this myself" LOL. Plus I'd never designed a circuit board or written Arduino code before, so I thought it'd be a good excuse to learn. So far, so good. To be transparent, I did go to go Purdue for Electrical/Computer Engineering, so it's not like I didn't know about electronics, but I'd never done anything that wasn't a "theory" situation.

Well, this makes my build looks like absolute garbage and makes me realize how little money I have and I feel like I’ve failed at life , sweet build though. Very envious.

Well geeze, don't go that far. This build was expensive, but not THAT expensive, as long as I don't count all my time, haha. I've been building cars for >15 years now, I guarantee the early stuff I did was WAY worse that what you've been working on! Just keep at it, and if stuff is too expensive, learn to make it yourself! I could never afford to pay someone to build a car like this!

 

[hsvtoolfool]

Thank you DigitalSolo! This is seriously inspiring build just from
the care and craftsmanship angle.

Quick question: How close did you look at the ISIS/InfinityBox
system before choosing the roll your own CAN? Was your decision
based on cost or just a desire to do it the "hard" way and learn
to use the Arduino?

 

[blueovalfan68]

Very inspiring. Been wrenching on cars just as long, and no where near as good. I probably need another 15 yrs...

Seriously, thanks for posting and sharing your work.

Now on to my car...

 

[digitalsolo]

Thank you DigitalSolo! This is seriously inspiring build just from
the care and craftsmanship angle.

Quick question: How close did you look at the ISIS/InfinityBox
system before choosing the roll your own CAN? Was your decision
based on cost or just a desire to do it the "hard" way and learn
to use the Arduino?

Thanks, I appreciate all the compliments! This thing has been (and will continue to be) a long, rather arduous process, so the support is nice.

I looked pretty hard at the ISIS/InfinityBox, but had 3 reasons for doing it myself.

1. COST. Wow that setup is expensive!
2. Flexibility. I want to be able to do EXACTLY what I want, EXACTLY how I want to do it.
3. Learning. Arduino looked cool and I wanted to learn it. FWIW, my custom CANbus gauge cluster for my AEM Infinity actually predates the CANbus body control systems. The reasons for that were the same; I saw a gauge for sale for my AEM, at 450 dollars, and went "ya know, I bet I can make that for like 50 bucks" and once that looked like it was going to work out, I decided to do the body control systems, too.

FWIW, if I was doing it from scratch, I would have built my control box like before, and then I'd have bought two of these instead of building my relay controllers. They cost a bit more than my setup, but still much less than an ISIS setup, and they integrate the fuse/relay centers I use and J1939 CANbus into one box. Pretty slick.

https://waytekwire.com/item/46066/EATON-31M-000-2-Mulitplex-Vehicle-Electrical/

 

[Russstang]

Holy crap!

FWIW, my custom CANbus gauge cluster for my AEM Infinity actually predates the CANbus body control systems. The reasons for that were the same; I saw a gauge for sale for my AEM, at 450 dollars, and went "ya know, I bet I can make that for like 50 bucks" and once that looked like it was going to work out, I decided to do the body control systems, too.

FWIW, if I was doing it from scratch, I would have built my control box like before, and then I'd have bought two of these instead of building my relay controllers. They cost a bit more than my setup, but still much less than an ISIS setup, and they integrate the fuse/relay centers I use and J1939 CANbus into one box. Pretty slick.

https://waytekwire.com/item/46066/EATON-31M-000-2-Mulitplex-Vehicle-Electrical/

You will be interesting to watch for sure. I took data processing in college on a computer the size of my 65 fastback that used data punch cards. I'm like the cat on the Far Side comic where you say stuff and I hear "blah, blah, blah, blah, gauge, blah, blah, blah". And I work in the nuclear industry. Yessir, this will be fascinating. On a side note, I know a trick and can make my grandson think I am pulling my thumb apart. Gets him every time......

 

[hsvtoolfool]

Thanks again. I'll be following along.

 

[digitalsolo]

You will be interesting to watch for sure. I took data processing in college on a computer the size of my 65 fastback that used data punch cards. I'm like the cat on the Far Side comic where you say stuff and I hear "blah, blah, blah, blah, gauge, blah, blah, blah". And I work in the nuclear industry. Yessir, this will be fascinating. On a side note, I know a trick and can make my grandson think I am pulling my thumb apart. Gets him every time......

Hah, this literally made me laugh at loud, thanks for that!

 

[hsvtoolfool]

DigitalSolo, another question popped into my head. I also plan to
use a manual brake reverse dual-master cylinder + clutch cylinder
setup. Did you consider using the remote fluid reservoir models
instead of the on-cylinder versions? If so, why did you reject the
remote reservoirs? It seems much more convenient to mount the
fluid reservoirs on the engine bay inner fender somewhere.