This ain't no build thread!

[chiefmg]

Paypal accounts are not blocked, exports and imports happen as usual, it's just the banks that are closed. But no big deal, since you found an alternative

Thanks for that info. I read something around a month ago that things like PayPal were going to be suspended so I thought I might have to wait to get one. Now I just have to hope that TSE has them in stock.

[chiefmg]

Got home last night, the wife and I went to a B&B for a little alone time.

When I got to the house this morning I said hello to the grandkids and animals, then went on my treasure hunt. Found everything I had bought without too much searching. After some relaxing I dove into things. First I installed the Garage Star door blocks, there's already been enough pictures of those. Mine went on without any trouble, although the passenger door doesn't want to close without a big heave (driver's door is fine). I will see how it is after some use and then adjust if necessary.

I opened the CAN bus wideband interface and did some research on installing it. I removed the wiring harness between the MS and the factory harness where I'm going to install it but the wine kicked in and I decided to wait on that bit until tomorrow.

Finally, I removed these:



And installed these:



These were what I got from revlimiter. Adam does great work. And now she officially has her name.

[chiefmg]

Up early this morning (as per usual when I first get home), I decided to go ahead and install my CAN wideband interface. Unfortunately it isn't going to be simple. The instructions specify which wires to connect to without telling which pins they are. I found that information elsewhere, but only references to one DB37 connector. My MS2 has two connectors, and neither one has wires on all the pins that are mentioned. I've just sent a message to MS Labs asking for guidance.

[chiefmg]

Heard back from Reverant. Apparently my MS is one of his earlier builds and it does not have the CAN setup like his more recent ones. Not a huge deal, I just have to remove it from the car, open it up and add some wires to the board.

[chiefmg]

Met up with a small group of people to drive to Columbus for a swap meet. The guy in front of me told me the front end of mine looks intimidating in the rearview mirror. Maybe that's why people seem to drive like idiots when I'm passing them. Or maybe they are just idiots.

Sold some things at the swap meet, and bought this:



Going to try to get them installed tomorrow. That's if I don't have any aftereffects from the wicked sunburn I have.

[—tsingson—]

Well at least you know why they have that look on their faces.

[chiefmg]

AANNNNDDDDDDD the brakes won't work with my Flatouts. Just not quite enough clearance. I will have to try and find out what wheels will work, and if I like any of them enough to buy a set.

I was surprised though to find the bigger rotors were lighter then the stock sized ones. I was told the calipers are also lighter than the stockers but I didn't remove mine to find out (just tucked it out of the way while I checked fitment).

[Ice88]

AANNNNDDDDDDD the brakes won't work with my Flatouts. Just not quite enough clearance. I will have to try and find out what wheels will work, and if I like any of them enough to buy a set.

I was surprised though to find the bigger rotors were lighter then the stock sized ones. I was told the calipers are also lighter than the stockers but I didn't remove mine to find out (just tucked it out of the way while I checked fitment).

The dynopro radial mount callipers are slimmer then the normal dynamite calliper

[chiefmg]

The guy I bought the brakes from found the spacers, he's sending them to me.

Wife and I went out last night, while waiting on her outside a store I decided to take a picture:

[chiefmg]

I decided today was the day to do my contortionist act and work on the MS. I pulled the unit out from under the dash (you may recall I have it installed in the same location as the factory ECU) and brought it inside to work. Here are a couple of pictures showing the top and bottom with it mounted to the plate I fabricated, you can see the area I removed on the bottom edge to give my foot clearance (as mentioned when I talked about this initially). Apologies for the blurred pictures, I'm not sure what was happening as some were fine.




In order to open the box, you have to remove the two nut screws (I'm not sure of the actual nomenclature for these, you computer guys will) holding the serial port in place.


You then go to the opposite end and remove the four corner screws:

After that you can slowly pull the boards out of the box:

[chiefmg]

I have an early MS2e, so the guts of mine might be different from someone who is looking at this. Here are the boards installed in mine (don’t ask me what does what as I have no clue):


Flipping this assembly over I found the two holes that I needed to add wires to for the CAN input from my wideband. JS6 is the CANH (white wire) while JS8 is CANL (black wire). The holes were in the middle of the small raised board on the main board, but I found that was removable.


I went to Ace to get some white wire as I didn’t have any. All that was available was 18 gauge. Once I got home I found that wouldn’t fit into the hole, so I ended up using some red 22 gauge wire I had for the CANH connection. It’s a little hard to see but the wires are in place in this picture:

I also bought a battery driven soldering iron as my old one doesn’t have a very small tip. Unfortunately it didn’t work too well, might just need new batteries but I didn’t feel like messing with it further. As can be seen from the pictures it was very tight in there so what I did was place the soldering iron on the wire a little way up from the board, let it get hot and then flowed the solder down the wire. Once it was all cool I cut off the extra wire. Forget about a picture for that, the camera was going nuts trying to focus. You’ll just have to take my word for it that I got them soldered correctly.

There is an extra hole on the one end cap of my housing that I was going to use for running the CAN wires out from. Didn’t want any chafing so I put a grommet in that bad boy.


After I got the heavy lifting done, all I had to do was put some connectors on the various wires to make it easy to remove things when needed. I put my ground wire to the bolt holding the ground block under the dash and tapped off the wire I previously took power from the radio fuse for one of my gauges. Ran all the wires out of the way and used some zip-ties to keep them there. No pictures of this, because not only can the camera not focus on this stuff very well, neither can I to see what I want to shoot. If anyone wants to see it you can pay me a visit and stick your head up under my dash.

Then it was time to update my settings in the MS so it would know to use the digital input from the wideband. This is where it fell apart. I connected my laptop to the MS with no trouble via Tuner Studio, but I found that the configuration of my version of TS did not have the same menu options as what are in the instructions. While I was trying to figure that one out, TS lost communication with the MS. It would try to connect three times but then it goes into offline mode. I am now trying to update TS to see if that will correct anything. In the meantime I removed the CAN wideband interface and reconnected the analog wire for the wideband input so I can safely drive the car.

[chiefmg]

Had a guy get a rolling picture of me at the local cars & coffee Saturday (credit to the photographer as listed on the picture):

[—tsingson—]

I had to make sure I was in the right "thread" as this usually doesn't have any pictures.

It looks good.

[chiefmg]

I had to make sure I was in the right "thread" as this usually doesn't have any pictures.

It looks good.

EVERYBODY's a comedian. You've been listening to stories from Tony, haven't you? You do have to admit I've been doing better with pictures of late. I can't take credit for this one, the photographer was kind enough to let me have the high-res version of it.

[—tsingson—]

I love reading your thread and I love the fact that it is an SE that you are modding. Did you get the wine glasses and backpack with it?