Something w/ rabbits. 72.5 pages of BS

So seeing as spring is just around the corner, I thought I'd start a thread on the future undertaking of swapping in the Dana 60.

The axle is from a 1986 "Fawwd" F-threee "fitty", sporting some kingpins and a whole lot of rust. I took this axle apart a few months ago (except stupid me didnt remove the pinion nut before breakdown ) and had it hot tanked. I wanted it sandblasted, but the machine shop owner smirked and said "naaah yo, that junx is too big for my blasting cabinet" .. okay except he didn't really say that cauz he's old and a really cool guy. ANyways *twirls blonde hair*, this is my plaannn:

- WMS-WMS this axle is just a bit over 69" wide so I'm going to cut the passenger's side down a few inches to match 'ye ol General Motors 14-bolt axle. So this is going to require custom axle shafts and I think I'm going to go Chromos and 35-spline outers off the bat from the most awesome guys at Complete Off Road.

- Drive flange or lockouts? They are about the same in price and its a dedicated trail rig so I'm leaning towards the drive flanges. Right now, the cheapest flanges I found are the Teraflexes at $180 for a pair. If anyone knows of a better deal, please let me know !!

- High-steer arms and a double-ended hydroponics goodness ("cylinder").

- Opposite-ended panhard bar! The idea is to mount the chassis end of the panhard on the passenger's side frame rail and the axle end on the driver's side. Doing so should allow a more simple and cleaner design since the axle-mount can be mounted on top of or near the differential housing, instead of a tower on the passenger's side (like in my current D44 setup). I also plan to boost the panhard as far up as possible to increase the roll center of the front suspension. Yeah the concept is a little strange but I'm hoping it'll work and won't have any issues (no drag-link to factor into the design). But if anyone knows of any problem running this config, please chime in!

*EDIT*
- Detoit Locker for the carrier. I'm please with how the Detroit in the 14-bolt has performed so I figured I'd run the same in the front. Of course 5.13s to match the 14-bolt.


So here's the little guy, he's been in this position for the past few months just collecting dust:

 

[IZwack]

They are smooth enough cauz I also rung my fingers through some of them. Ive been running a flap disc over them and that seems to help out significantly.

BTW its time for you to change your avatar -- your usual 2 hour period between avatar changes has long expired.

 

[BKennedy]

BTW its time for you to change your avatar -- your usual 2 hour period between avatar changes has long expired.

Thank You for reminding me to change that. I did really like that one though. Is this better?

 

[IZwack]

AHaha thats a pretty good one!

As for MegaSquirt, I think the Ignition ("IG") is working after all. I really had to take a close hard look at the LED to verify that it was blinking. Placing a cardboard between the "IG" and injector LEDs made it a lot easier to distinguish the blinks:

 

[seafarer76]

Yep. Looks good. The varying voltage that you posted earlier indicated that the signal was pulsing as well. The varying pulse widths lead to different average voltages, as in PWM motor control.

 

[Burns]

AH yes i can see it blinking with the cardboard. Are you going to do a write up on the MegaSquirt on its own?

oh and you post a video and this is the result:

 

[IZwack]

Ahaha what? No way!! A baby?

I wont do a writeup on the MegaSquirt's assembly because there's already an online manual here:
http://www.megamanual.com/index.html

But I will take pics when its time to wire it up to the Explorer's engine - which should be pretty simple because there are only like 15 or individual wires that come from MegaSquirt to the rest of the vehicle - like the fuel pump, injectors, throttle position, and so on...

Yep. Looks good. The varying voltage that you posted earlier indicated that the signal was pulsing as well. The varying pulse widths lead to different average voltages, as in PWM motor control.

Thanks again (again) for all the help seafarer76!! Its great to have someone else on the forum that has not only gone through this process, but knows the hardware front to back!


EDIT - on a side note, someone just edited my avatar!!!

 

[410Fortune]

cant wait to see that sucker run with the new controls, how cool is it to assemble your own system!! You should be able to diagnose any issue when you built the thing!!

 

[FROADER]

Weird, I'm not seeing a mega squirt or a baby. I've got some foreign pool party vid.

 

[IZwack]

You guys are pulling my chain! I'm going to go postal on all ya'll! (wow I havent heard that phrase in a while .. I guess most Postal workers these days are satisfied).

Anyways, bought a GM IAC today but didnt have the connector (still need to get one from the junk yard) so I I hacked up a regular computer ATX power connector to pull out the metal contacts:

Taped off (so they dont short out each other) and crimped a little before insertion to make sure the contacts dont pull out of the IAC:

And the other ends piggy backed onto the DB37 connector of the Stimulator:

Took a few minutes to figure out which wire goes to which on the IAC but finally it all worked out. In the video below, the X axis on the graph is the coolant temperature and the Y axis is the position of the IAC's stepper motor. In other words, MegaSquirt's IAC function is based on the coolant temperature. So the IAC retracts its plunger during cold temps to let more air into the intake - and visa versa. I'm changing the coolant temperature via a potentionmeter (knob) on the Stimulator.

 

[RockRanger]

Maybe I read it and forgot but why are you going megasquirt and not using the factory efi? I do not have the patiance to do that. When we wired Tracy's jeep for the motorswap she read all the wiring diagrams.

 

[IZwack]

Maybe I read it and forgot but why are you going megasquirt and not using the factory efi? I do not have the patiance to do that. When we wired Tracy's jeep for the motorswap she read all the wiring diagrams.

Initially it was because I was switching from the automatic to the manual transmission. But then I thought about it and figured yeah one could mimic a transmission in Neutral but then there's still all that circuitry thats just sitting there not doing anything - which also meant there would be a boat load of wires that is not really needed. With MegaSquirt, there are about 15 wires and the wiring harness (which you buy extra) has each individual wire labelled via an inkjet printer process - very simple.

Plus with the factory ECU, I would need to figure out the dash - matching gauges to the appropriate factory sender (different OHM values). But with MegaSquirt, run an LCD and you have all the gauges on one screen.

 

[410Fortune]

dont be scared of the factory computer and wiring! Oh wait this is a SOHC, be afraid, be very afraid! LOL

 

[IZwack]

Hey seafarer76 - where do you go to set the number of cylinders in MegaTune? I'm trying to set the injector params and the "Number of Cylinders" field in the "Required Fuel Calculator" is grayed out (cant change it) - almost like the parameter is set somewhere else.

EDIT!! Nevermind, I are the stupid. Found it!

 

[BKennedy]

Iz, when you moving to California so you can help me build Sarah a trail rig?
This thread needs to have a name change, its now got 52 pages of BS.
Edit; 53 pages....................

 

[Dannyboy]

what was the price on the megasquirt unit IZ? I can tell you having a lot of unnecessary wires and then wiring the aftermarket gauges wasn't by any means cheap or easy either. I think I was around $350-400 at the best price I could find the autometer gauges.


Just remember, there is one wire coming out of the alternator that needs to be hot when the motor is running to tell your alternator to kick on but you can't run it constant hot because it will drain your battery. That's the only "funky" thing I found when going away from the factory cluster.

 

[jwrezz]

Iz, when you moving to California so you can help me build Sarah a trail rig?
This thread needs to have a name change, its now got 52 pages of BS.
Edit; 53 pages....................

Like I said before, it all depends on how your user CP is set. Mine is only 26 pages, see?

Pages, smages. Great build, none the less.

 

[IZwack]

Iz, when you moving to California so you can help me build Sarah a trail rig?

I'll move out there as soon as I get a Scottish Fold to stare at- they are on of the funniest looking animals:

what was the price on the megasquirt unit IZ? I can tell you having a lot of unnecessary wires and then wiring the aftermarket gauges wasn't by any means cheap or easy either. I think I was around $350-400 at the best price I could find the autometer gauges.

The price depends on which model and board. There are two MegaSquirts, One (I) and Two (II), and then there are different printed circuit boards. But I think the cheapest option is MegaSquirt-I with version 2.2 PCB which - $140 unassembled but all the hardware is there: http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/...le-efi-system-pcb22-unassembled-kit-p-28.html

The Stimulator runs for $45 unassembled. But then you have to add on a display unit and there are different routes. This ready to go, touch screen interface runs for $350: http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/lcdash-digital-touchscreen-dash-display-for-megasquirt-p-167.html

As for my combo, I'm running MS-II on a ver 3.0 board. I'm going to run another PC on the Explorer and that will have some sort of an LCD display running MegaTune or Tunix (both of which are like "virutal" dashboards which also alows you to change most of MegaSquirt's settings on the fly).

The ultimate goal is to house MegaSquirt and the PC (and any other related electricals) in a rack-like enclosre so I can pull the thing out once the vehicle is back on the trailer and no one will be able to "hot wire" or run the vehicle because there wont be an ECU once the rack is removed.

 

[IZwack]

seafarer76 - if I am not "tuning" MS for horsepower or performance, then I can just run a typical narrowband O2 sensor correct? Because I'm not trying to run down the track as fast as I can and stoichiometrically, I'm going to stay at that 14.7:1 ratio once nominal temps have been reached.

Plus my main motivation for going with narrowbands is that the SOHC already comes with four O2 sensors and not having to dump another $150 for widebands and another $150 for a controller would be nice

 

[james t]

Computers and wiring... these are my kryptonite(s). This would be the part of the build were i would be making a sheet metal intake and running a backwards Qjet or something.

:

 

[seafarer76]

The biggest advantage to a WB02 is the ability to tune at WOT. So for most trail usage the NB02 would be sufficient.You may even be able to use two of them. I can't remember for sure.

Remember you don't want to run at 14.7 at large throttle angle with load. So that just requires some guesswork or dyno tuning with a tailpipe wideband.