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I bought a basket case. Now what?


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I got the two outer cylinders mocked up.

 

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I only know one trick to mocking up headers and that is to get some blue rigid foam insulation and use a piece of the tubing as a cookie cutter. Push one of the cookies you just made halfway into the tube and it'll hold the bend in place.

 

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I actually leave the foam in there while I tack the tubes in place. The heat makes the foam shrivel up and then I just poke it out with a stick.

 

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It's coming right along but I really only have about an hour and a half each night to work on cars before I have to go inside and do "dad stuff".

 

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The only progress that I made today was to fully weld the two outer runners that I made yesterday. It was 95° today so I could only weld for a few minutes at a time. Yes, my table saw is also my welding table.

 

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I had delusions of going back out to work once the baby was in bed but I made Margaritas instead.

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The way to build exhaust headers is "one pipe at a time". I don't try to mock up the whole thing at once and then try to finish weld everything. I just go ahead and commit to each runner as I get it built while trying to be mindful of where the other tubes are going to be.

 

I mocked up the first runner and then notched the second runner to fit into the first. Then I went in with a 35mm hole saw and eyeballed where the third runner wold come in and made room for it.

 

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And so on...

 

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I just tack each runner together and then break it off to fully weld it. The worst mistake would be to try to weld around each seam with the other runners in the way. Notice that cylinder 3 is just lightly tacked in there but the rest are fully welded.

 

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Once I got all four pipes built, I broke off the turbo flange and then went in with a 32mm hole saw and cut out the collector. Then I welded it from the inside as much as possible. (Despite how the forced perspective of the picture makes it look, the collector is actually square.)

 

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Then I MIG welded it to the flange.

 

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I went ahead and bolted everything back together to see what it looks like. I'll be taking it back apart to stress relieve and heat treat the turbo manifold; and then have it ceramic coated. 

 

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Now it's time to do some wiring!

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In an oven.

 

Yup. 1300°f for 1 hour, cool to room temp over 1 hour, 1150°f for 2 hours and then cool to room temp over 1 hour. It's probably not necessary but the flanges are off by 2-3mm so I'm going to bolt it back to the welding jig during normalizing to get it to fit perfectly.

 

 

 

I probably missed it, but what are you using for the manifold (composition and gauge)?

 

18ga "mild steel" (probably 1018). I would have used 16ga but nobody had it in stock. This is the first time I've ever used 18ga and it was a little bit harder to weld without burning through. I'm sure they won't last as long but I will probably ventilate the block before the manifold has a chance to let go.

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There was a time in my life where I would have gone through the trouble of re-configuring the factory wiring harness. I would have split the factory harness, removed anything carb or distributor related, and added all of the wiring for the EFI system. I've passed that point in my life.

 

I decided to keep the OE harness and the EFI harness fully separate in case I (well def not me but maybe a future owner) wanted to put the car back to original. I did have to repair some minor damage first.

 

The OE harness was basically perfect and unmodified with one exception each: The ground wire from the alternator to the voltage regulator was completely burned, and someone had installed a CB radio.

 

I split open the loom with the burned wire and pulled a new ground from the alternator to the regulator. The large 12 gage wires from the alternator to the battery had gotten hot enough to become hard so I replaced them both. Also, I noticed that the power feed to the cabin was tapped from the alt batt+ wire about half way down the run. I changed that so the cabin and the alt each had their own wires.

 

I went ahead and separated the wires and ran larger 10ga wires from the alternator to the battery. I had to extend the batt+ wire to reach the battery so I just went and ran the wire all the way to into the cabin for future use; tapping into the original wire along the way.

 

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I wrapped up the harness like original.

 

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The trick to wrapping a harness in electrical tape is to make the first wrap with the sticky side out and the second wrap with the sticky side in. Putting the sticky sides together makes a nice vinyl tube that still allows the wires to slide around inside, keeping it flexible.

 

This is the mess I made just replacing that one tiny wire.

 

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I used to be able to say that I had never seen an OE manufacturer use solder in a wiring harness, until now. I'm still firmly against using solder in an automotive application because of the corrosion that the flux causes under the insulation if it gets wet.

 

I also used to hate crimp connectors but, after years of trial and error, I realized that I hate the vinyl coated crimp connectors that you are used to seeing. I found that, if done properly, crimp connectors are much better than soldering. The vinyl insulation is completely worthless and the crimp tool that you have is garbage.

 

You can buy the crimp connectors without the vinyl insulation and they are WAY better; and that's what I use for everything but butt connectors. I don't like that the common butt connectors have a tab that only lets you slide the wire half way in so I started making my own.

 

I buy refrigeration grade copper tubing (which is a little thicker and has been cleaned on the inside) in 1/8", 3/16", and 1/4" sizes and cut it into lengths about 10mm long. I clamp my tubing cutter in the vise and chuck the tubing into my drill and make a bunch of them in assembly-line fashion.

 

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This is the only crimper that you should use. Throw the other ones in the trash.

 

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The crimp takes 2 steps. First make it into a U

 

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Then pinch the sides of the U to make it round.

 

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Then slide your shrink tube over and seal it. Notice that I tapped into the one wire without cutting it.

 

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I pulled all of the wires that I needed to make the EFI harness.

 

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I wrapped the harness as I made it. I used the same technique as the OE harness so it looks pretty much original. I also tried to follow the same pattern of routing.

 

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You can't make out the EFI harness in a lot of those pictures but that's the point. I folded over and taped off all of the connectors that ran to the distributor and carb.

 

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When I was under the dash I removed the CB and wiring. Luckily, it was installed using Scotch Locks so it came right out. The OE wiring is 100% pristine!

 

There is a radio speaker mounted to the kick panel that doesn't look like an OE piece but it does have OE looking connectors and it looks like it belongs there. I'm sure that the speaker is shot so I was thinking about hollowing it out and using it as a cover for the ECU.

 

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I re-purposed a fuse and relay center that I had left over from another project. It has 12 circuits and was intended to run a whole car. I'm using 10 of the circuits just for the EFI. I ran the feed wire all the way to the battery so it's a completely separate harness. The only thing I need from the OE harness is a 12v+ IGN input to make the relay.

 

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This is what I use in the engine compartment to help protect wires from heat.  For the small amount needed of each diameter I buy from NAPA.  It is an added expense but it makes a clean job of the engine bay wiring.

 

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Asphalt impregnated cloth wire wrap.

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I had intended to pick up an ECU last week but my wife accidentally tried to kill my dog (the artificial sweetener Xylitol is basically dog poison) and my car budget for the month went towards pumping her full of antitoxins.

 

I have an AEM Series 1 ECU that is pinned for a EVO 8 that I guess I could use to get it going but that seems like a lot of work just to half-ass it. I already built the harness for batch fire and EDIS (which the AEM won't run) so I would have to start over and rewire everything.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

It's been over 90° in Georgia for the past month or so and it's not going to get any better in the foreseeable future. The humidity has been over 70 and it's just miserable if you step away the fan for more than a few seconds.

 

I had saved a large, commercial packaged A/C unit from a rental property that I renovated. The unit was only 10-SEER and it was already 10 years old at the time so I just ripped it out and installed a conventional split system. I had never had power to the unit and I was pretty sure that it wasn't functional but I saved it anyway thinking that I could scavenge some parts and get it working enough to use it in the shop at home. The heat index was 117° last weekend and it's just been too hot and humid to do any work in the garage so I went ahead and put power to it in the hopes that it just needed a recharge or something minor.

 

To my surprise, everything worked and the unit just fired right up. The only thing I had to do was replace the compressor contactor (it worked but it buzzed really loudly). I didn't want to run a bunch of ducts so I just cut a hole in the side of my shop and built a platform so I could just install it like a big window unit.

 

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I scavenged nearly all of the materials for installation so the grand total cost for the whole project was $12.30 ($8.80 for the contactor from Amazon and $3.50 for some filters from Lowes). It's also set up for propane heat but I doubt any of that works based on the amount of water that I dumped out of the gas valve.

 

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But fk it. I have 5 months until I have to worry about that and it's colder in here than my house. Back to the car projects!

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One of my side-gigs is building camera car rigs for a few of the production companies in the Atlanta area. I've been pretty busy since there are several action series filming here now. I can't really say much more than that because of confidentiality agreements but Hollywood money is pretty good and paying jobs skip the line. At least I'll have some folding money for the off-season.

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