tortuga

Hows the Tortuga doing? Any updates?

Have you considered experimenting with a 98+ PCM?

happy birthday cody!

I heard some screams earlier today.... It's a long shot at ~1000 miles away but could it have been you?

charlieRobinson wrote:

Hows the Tortuga doing? Any updates?

Have you considered experimenting with a 98+ PCM?

It's probably going to happen eventually. I hate my 97 PCM. Technically I have everything to do it, it's just a pain in ass - maaayyybe next summer.
Nothing intensely exciting happening yet. I'm trying to get a group in the local forum together to go for some test&tune soon but this weekend is out 'cause I have a wedding.

Last couple weeks I've been workin on my new ashtray gauge setup. The front part is all done. Now I have to re-situate stuff behind it in the console.







I had two larger switches down on either side of the cd holder and now I've got four. The two on the right are both for the intercooler pump. The bottom switch turns the pump on any time the ignition is on and the switch above is like an override to turn it on without ignition for track cool-down and quick stops and stuff. The is what the relay I have wired up to the bottom of the ashtray panel is for. The lower switch on the left is the nitrous heater like before and the upper left is a two-way momentary switch which will toggle the nitrous purge and at some point, the other way will toggle a brake line lock but that's another project in its self. Now that I have everything in the ashtray portion arranged, I need to clean up the wiring in the console a little bit and maybe try to find a better latching relay to use for perfshift because this one is giving me trouble. Apparently 12v single-coil latching relays that don't suck are hard to come by. The one I have now is a part sold for Harley motorcycles hi/low beam headlight function and now only is it not working that well for me but it's like $45 or something like that. I got a spare on warranty a while ago so I'll probably give it a try but I'm looking for a better one.




Also I made an insert for the perfshift light so that the light comes in through the letters instead of lighting up like a shift light in my face at night.

matt270avian wrote:

I heard some screams earlier today.... It's a long shot at ~1000 miles away but could it have been you?

Haha not today sir. I rode my kawasaki to work. I'm trying to ride it as much as possible to make up some of that transmission $$$

I would imagine your wiring skills are pretty top notch by this point in the project? haha

I love following your project, keep up the great work man!  

yo, codith! Few questions for you!

Why did you choose the stage 3 cam.
What is your RPM limiter set at.
And why an L26 bottom swap? Why not an L32?

charlieRobinson wrote:

yo, codith! Few questions for you!

Why did you choose the stage 3 cam.
What is your RPM limiter set at.
And why an L26 bottom swap? Why not an L32?

I traded james my xp for the good IS3 he had sitting from an old demod. If it weren't for that, I probably would have gotten an xpz but I have no complaints about the IS3 cam at all. It's a great cam! My absolute rev limiter is set to 7200, max rpm for shifts 6800 although my shift mph is set to occur closer to 6700 at WOT. L26 engines are cheaper to buy from junkyards than L32 because they aren't supercharged and the higher compression means more possible horsepower over the L67/L32.

What are your thoughts on the XP? Why did you want to switch?

Xp is the best all-around cam for making lots of power everywhere IMO although personally I think it requires more tuning than just throwing it in and forget it like they suggest. It has a lot of overlap for a "mild" cam. Going from that to a "big dog" intense stage 3 cam wasn't really a big deal. I just wanted to go bigger and badder since I had the heads to support it and a mindset to go all out with making power with an M90. I wanna see what I can do with it. I don't think a new hp record is totally out of the question.

For some reason, today I got up really early from a pretty cool dream and had some time to burn. I decided finally to hook up the nitrous purge which snowballed into something else I've been wanting to do so now I took it all apart and have to do it all now. Don't you love that?

Re-working the nitrous stuff a bit...
The ZEX dry kit I started with has functionality that I have no intention of using and is kinda getting in the way now so I'm going to trim the fat and tweak things a bit. Part of what prompted me to want to do this now is that the nitrous pressure gauge I recently put in is totally data-loggable so I wanted to install the pressure sending unit as far downstream as possible to get a more sensitive reading, which means I need to screw with the plumbing to put in the sender. Then the purge needs to be sorta redone and so fourth. I'm just gonna go for the whole kill.



That's how I've had it which is in a pretty nice spot somewhat hidden. I made some simple brackets to bolt it right up to the master cylinder studs. You can also see how I capped off the fuel pressure boosting circuit on the ZEX 'nmu' box which I never liked but had to eliminate somehow. Those two pics I took when I installed that custom nozzle hose with the 90 end on it. Everyone I asked told me a usual swivel elbow on a little -3 hose is restrictive. Anyway now...



I tore apart the NMU "nitrous management unit" to basically get the actual solenoid and ditch everything else.


Then the puzzle of figuring out a way to make everything all fit where it needs to with the constraints - delivery hose can only be in a certain spot, nozzle hose has to be close to where it was, so fourth. I found a way to do it and make it easy to install. I just need to make a new bracket to mount the solenoid to and hang on on the master cylinder again. Then I need to do all the freakin wiring again which isn't too bad but I do still have to run the wire for the purge through the firewall as well as the whole harness for the nitrous gauge.  

More to come on this!

The best nitrous purge is the one you can't see. Put it in neutral, crack the throttle, tap the nitrous button a few times. Purge completed, spark plugs cleaned. Seriously.

Nitrous re-doing came out awesome and actually I think it's even less noticeable than inside the purple box - I just need to get stuff rewired during this week.




made a bracket to hang the solenoid in the same spot.




ZEXBOT!

The length & position of the supply and nozzle hoses constrict me from relocating the solenoid and stuff but I've had no issues with it under the master cylinder there. Took a little playing to get things arranged so everything clears everything and I can get to connectors and stuff easily. By the way I happened to notice my original 97 master cylinder is steel or iron or whatever - it's painted and will rust. The master cylinder that I used for mockup from the 98 riv I tore down was aluminum - otherwise looked the same. I'd love to swap that one to my car but I'm mostly afraid the tube nuts are gonna be sized to the tubes like they always get on old cars. Maybe I'll try doing it next summer though.


2nd hand exposure to some nitrous... sucks!

Nice bracket if a bit overkill! (and nasty looking burn...)

yeah I was gonna say,dats some braket dere buddy! If ya ever get a flat you can use it as a tire iron

Custom machining is never overkill.   Bracket looks good! Nicely tucked in there.

Codith, you're my Riv hero. Nice battle wound too.

 goin to Byron dragway tomorrow!
somebody go there!

How'd it go?!?

deekster_caddy wrote:

How'd it go?!?

I didn't wanna blueball everybody hahah. Working on videos now. It's a process since I used an ancient miniDV camera. This thing was amazing back in DVD days. I really need something better now..
Will update when I have things to show but I will say this right now. I didn't break the car so I'm happy!

I'm number 34

1st run

2nd run

3rd run

4th run

5th run  

6th run

7th run

12.430!? DANG DUDE. DANG.

THE TURTLE LIVES.

Who/what was car 61 on run 6?

NICE, BTW.

12.4ish your best run. pretty nice

What's next? Whipple? Turbo? Both?

Charlie, I didn't even really notice that! haha wow I wish I knew now!

Matt, There's a LOT left on the table with the current setup. I was having issues at the top end pretty much every run mostly because I'm shit-outta maf. I wasn't thinking before but then I realized halfway through the day looking at my logs, maf hz isn't the only problem, I'm going out of bounds on maf g/s in the tune and really scary things happen once I get there. You'll see in a couple of the videos.
It's shifting up at 6700-6800rpm which it actually seems to like speed-wise but before even getting into nitrous, it's already basically out of maf up there. The computer will do some really funky things when it sees the maf hz or g/s clipping. I tried lowering the shifts a bit but I felt hurried and didn't really get far with tweaking anything. I will definitely be making a track-only tune from what I have learned today.