Birddog0347 rescues a Fox

[bird_dog0347]

make sure not to use power steering fluid, put regular ATF in.

Never heard of that, is that to keep it quieter? Is that what you run in the race car and will I be able to get by without a PS Cooler?

[Baron Von Crowder]

make sure not to use power steering fluid, put regular ATF in.

[bird_dog0347]

So I've been working on the tune the last couple of days and it's getting better for sure. The most glaring issue now is the steering components and the LOUD ass PS pump. I've just dealt with it for the last few years and figured as long as it was working I'd fix it later. Last night I drove to the Sonic meet in Carrollton and back and it was really loud and annoying, but when I got home and parked it I noticed some leaking from the rack. Well, this morning I ordered a new Cardone 22-2000 Rack which is supposed to be a replacement for the 03/04 cobra rack with the same valving. Along with that a new power steering pump and some 93 Taurus tie rod ends as they are supposed to be metric to fit the rack but short enough to use on a Fox according to Corral.net guys. Then I placed an order to MM for a hybrid steering shaft... I'll replace the lines while I'm at it and flush it all out but it should be much better after that.

Arriving today is an Accufab 75mm throttle body with EGR blank and a new IAC to replace the stock units. Hopefully it's a noticeable increase in performance and throttle response, but if nothing else it should help with the sticking throttle from the crappy stock unit.

[AnthonyS]

Congrats and good job! Now go wear out some rear tires to celebrate.

[bird_dog0347]

Inspection and registration done today, car's legal and back on the road.

[bird_dog0347]

And here we are today, all put back together, in need of a bath something fierce, and ready for inspection and registration then I can start working on the tune again.

[bird_dog0347]

I then did the rest of the floor with POR15 and started laying down sound deadener.





Next up were the SFC's to install. Not a lot of fun to do without a full lift... it's hard to get the car up high enough to have room to work underneath it, but it's done now.

[bird_dog0347]

While welding in the new panel I took that opportunity to start a fire under the car. The red paint cup under the hole in the floor had Acetone in it... I meant to move it, but forgot and couldn't see it once I put the new panel in place. Turns out a welding spark will cause that to catch fire. I managed to pull it out from underneath the car and get my fire extinguisher from inside, but it was VERY scary and got my attention for sure.







I drilled 1/8th holes all around the piece as it was cut larger than the hole to overlap and I spot welded all those holes first before going around the rest of the seam.




Once done, I covered it with POR15 and seam sealer.

[bird_dog0347]

From 8/15/2017:

So some stupid mother fucker took a piece of sheet metal and epoxy'd it in place under the carpet to "patch" it I guess (the black square), then they used spray adhesive under all the carpet to hold it down. So I got to work pulling it all out and cutting out the rot then welding in the new pan section, and MM Full Length SFC's after that.

[bird_dog0347]

From 8/14/2017:

Bringing this back from the dead... I got burned out on the car for a while and I'm just getting around to working on it again. So I got my cooling system fixed up I think, SVE radiator, Mk VIII fan and DCC controller along with removing the UD Pullies. I have all the stuff to relocate the battery to the trunk but decided I'd tackle that last. Well... then I crawled underneath to see about running the cables and I noticed that a spot on the rear drivers floorboard that had looked like some rust had set in before was now really bad... like grand canyon bad and this car is a garage/jackstand queen in Texas. Well in preparation a couple years ago I had bought the floorboard panel from LMR knowing I'd have to do it one day and I think that day is today.

I'm gonna strip the interior out and I'll report back.

[bird_dog0347]

From 11/1/2016:

Ok, so update here... I decided I was tired of worrying about the temps so I got a SVE radiator, new 180 thermostat, ditched the UD pulleys and got stock steel pulleys. So far so good... doesn't get above 1/4 on the crappy ford temp gauge where it was getting 3/4 before.

Now... I think I have the cooling issue taken care of, but I think the tune CERTAINLY still needs work. Every single time I start the car... hot or cold, I've got to play with the gas pedal to keep it from dying until the WB sensor starts to actually read something. THEN it works fine, it's like it ignores the IAC (which I don't know how to test) and then once the WB controller (Innovate LC2) starts to read the actual O2 it idles fine. I'm not running closed loop BTW.

Edit: Crap, forgot to mention that at idle it's at 34 PSI on the BBK liquid filled FPG before my fuel rail... (can see RIGHT under upper radiator hose far left elbow) pretty sure that's supposed to be higher but not sure how to do that without an adjustable FPR or a new pump (I'm ok with doing both as a long term solution). Is that ok? or too low?

That said I feel like I've made some good progress and it's close to being driveable daily for my 38+ mile commute these days.

[bird_dog0347]

From 5/4/2016:

I got the MS2PNP installedish (passenger floorboard) for now to start it up. Fired up on the first try with a really high idle, got the trigger offset corrected so that with the spout in the timing shows 10 degrees like it should but I still idle around 1500 RPM.

So I started it up and it took 3.5 turns out on the idle screw to get it to idle around 800 RPM, then I calibrated the TPS, and now it idles like a champ and already runs 110% better then it ever did with the A9L. When I first opened the project in TS I selected narrow band O2 sensors, I'll change it when I add the WB hopefully tomorrow. It hasn't left it's perch on the ramps under the front tires but holy hell is it already better. WELL worth it.

5/5/2016:

Last night I put the WB sensor in the passenger side header (it fit the bung) and today I should get my A-Pillar gauge pod from LMR to put the AFR gauge in. I also set the idle polarity to normal as suggested. I now need to figure out where I'm going to run the wire through the firewall from the sensor to the controller then figure out how the hell to connect the controller to the MSPNP2. THEN I'll be able to change the settings to WB and start it back up. Yesterday however with the NB sensor once I got the TPS set and the idle set it was already running better than it ever did with the A9L and no exhaust smell. It was running way off with the A9L cause even with cats in my H pipe the smell was horrendous.

5/13/2016:

So I got everything all installed and setup thanks to everyone here and in the MS tuning thread for the help. It took a while to get the timing set right, as well as the WB configured and up and running. I worked for a few days on just getting all that setup and safe and got it running pretty well, and took it around the neighborhood a few times to make sure it wasn't gonna puke on me. Then last night was the normal thursday night GTG about 12-15 miles from my house so I decided to take it there and hang out. There were a total of 5 foxes including mine, and 4 were notch backs. I used the auto tune feature the whole way there and it seemed to run really well even in like 85 degree heat and lots of traffic.





On the way home, I tried to data log it but I kept loosing connection to the MSPNP on the laptop as I think I need better ground wiring on the engine. I knew before all these upgrades that when I would turn on my headlights at night it would make my temperature gauge jump up 1/4 from it's normal range, and turning off the headlights made it go back down to normal, on again and it's back up. I did some checking and the common theory is that I need a larger ground wire from the engine to the chassis since I upgraded to the 3G and have a 4GA wire coming off of that. I'm going to try that next and hopefully it solves the problem. That said, would it be better to replace the strap on the back of the intake with the larger wire, add the larger wire as an additional ground to the back of the head, or something else?

From 8/11/2016:
Ok, so this past weekend I took the notch to a Fox get together and it was about eleventy billion degrees outside that day (thermometer only read 102 though? strange...). It showed it was running much warmer than I'd normally like on the factory gauge but on my laptop I saw a max of 213 degrees on the way out there (hottest time) while I data logged but the gauge was over half way and has a 270 mark at the top. On the way home, I didn't data log cause I seem to have issues with the PC keeping it's connection to the MS unit when driving at night with my lights on... the lights being on also causes the temp gauge to immediately show about 1 notch higher and drops back down with the lights off.

I had thought this might be due to a bad ground from the engine to the car, but I replaced the stock ground strap with a 4ga ground wire with good connections and a good clean mount to the body. Soooo... it looks like I'll be chasing down a possible ground issue. ALSO, I've got my WB gauge ground wire going right to the battery and it seems that ground should be the exact same as what the MS ECU ground is... should I move the gauge ground to splice into the factory harness ground which is what the MS ECU uses or redo the ground from the ECU right to the negative battery? Just for extra info, I get no noise or static or anything like that in my stereo system to make me think there's any other obvious problems. Also I just looked and I've only put 2100 miles on the car since I got it over 4 years ago.

[bird_dog0347]

Hmmm, maybe yours is as bad or worse... lol

[Stephen]

[IMG]However it's been pretty low on the list as I'm treating it as a true build where paint/body comes last after all the real work is done. (over the next 48 years)

Reasonable goals!

Car is is gonna be sweet though!

[samuel642000]

My car needs paint and body in the worst way. It must have been painted by THE most retarded meth head in east Texas. However it's been pretty low on the list as I'm treating it as a true build where paint/body comes last after all the real work is done. (over the next 48 years)

T
Idk about that brotha. But I agree the paint and body is pretty low on the list for now. Just ready to get it reliable and enjoy driving it.