Wilson's thread
 

Taking Hick's suggestion, this is the official thread of my car, Wilson.

It will be filled with Wilson's great adventures & upgrades & downgrades.

It will capture the essence of my attempts to grow Wilson into an unbeatable dual purpose machine.


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First and foremost I have finally gotten a steering wheel (and horn). So that's a good thing I suppose.

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Secondly, the HIDs are working rather awesome. That's another good thing.

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Here's the engine bay. The HID ballasts & wiring are just zip-tied in place. Will need to fab up some aluminum brackets. No biggy. You can get a peak of said ballasts near the bottom of the pic.

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This pic was taken for Hicks as he previously asked about the interior. I plan on making a new dash sometime within the next 6-12 months.

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Today I asked for the day off work. I spent hours & hours & hours in the garage. Took forever to install a wide band 02 controller. Making the bracket was easy & fun though. Here it is with the paint drying. I drilled the mounting hole offset in case I'd want to turn it but in the end just mounted it square.

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This was the kit I bought. The instructional dvd didn't work for some reason. But the manual was easily found on their website.

Why'd I buy a WB02? Simply this: my co-pilot was mentioning a popping noise under certain load/rpm... a noise that I had gotten so accustomed to. Further research informed me I could be doing engine damage!! So I asked for advice & the first things to do were: install a WB in case I was running lean. Up the octane level in the gas.

I didn't think I was lean; the exhaust smelled rich at idle. The coolant temps were always below half on the gauge. The spring temps are cool. But we bagged the snot out of this engine for 6 hours last weekend & it was powerful & ready to perform with the depress of the pedal. But I was concerned. Time to install the WB02.

After fiddling with the AFM fuel & spark settings & swapping ecms (from Wilks race chip to factory)... I was able to get a sense of the detonation & eventually realized that 89 octane won't cut it anymore. So I did some research... 94 is reasonably attainable. It's either put that in the tank or lose power. I topped up with 94 tonight & I guess thats just the start.

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What a son of a gun. Man today I just couldn't shine in the garage. For starters the second o2 sensor wouldn't fit under the torque tube. I KNEW it would be really tight. But no go. Damn. Oh well this narrow band factory sensor is 27 years old. So I shortened it & used it as a plug. -Further research informed me I might be able to use the WB02 to communicate on a narrow band level to the Motronic ecm. It came with wires for that. Sorry for the crappy exhaust pic. The black pipe bung is new & sits taller than the one on the header collector.

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This pissed me off. really. I take pride in my wiring. I'm good at electrical. But THIS piggy back system was the only thing I could do to give the WB02 Controller the "key on" power it needs. battery power comes in for the cab heater(29 or maybe 25 fuse). Then I made a "Y" harness to feed the heater the factory 7.5 amp fuse & the WB02 controller's recommended 5 amp fuse. Looks terrible. But it technically works (for now).

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So, I'm... y'know... tired, horny & hungry but JEEZ, lets finish on a positive note. So I powered through. The sensor works. I drove the car. With higher octane gas it doesn't ping anymore. And with the Wilks chip & "click 7 FQS" on the ecm, no matter how I drive... I'm almost always 12:1-12:5, occasionally 13:1. Rich not Lean. YAY!

Glad that Wilson is feeling better...It's nice that your relay box is out in the open where you can get to it...not so nice on the early ones...good quick and dirty there, Noah...I'm certain that it will be pristine by the time you get it all sorted out and put right!! :>)) !!

Thanks Tiger for the boost of confidence. Yeah I'm hoping to further trim weight from unused wires & what not. Make everything easier to access. Crawling under the driver's area (especially with he racing buck blows billygoats). While the top of the fuse box is lovely to access, the bottom of it is not. Hence why the black wire is running diagonally across the fuse panel & then down into the cab.

Porsche, if you are listening: LOVE your cars. HATE your wiring.

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The slender side-mirrors are ubber lightweight and I like the look, but I couldn't see sh!t. Until these convex stick ons. They made a huge improvement for visibility.

Adjusted FQS back to click 1 (regular spark, +3% fuel) on the ecm with the Wilks chip. Notice just 3% less at the injectors works out to .5 to 1.0 more air on the wideband controller. Occasionally at coast it goes to 14:1 but upon more throttle but usually 12:1-13.5:1. So, rich mixture which (from what I've read) is more powerful, but based on lots of driving experience with it at this setting, the fuel economy is quite pleasing.

...So my temporary conclusion is this setting is best for all around. And with a tuner kit, hopefully pull up even better performance.