The Dodge Challenger Message Board

Hey Dave..........you feeling ok.........Haven't heard from you lately................

I was great until I got back from France.

I had a few jobs around the house to catch up on and was all ready to get back into the garage.

Then the doctors had a go at me (lumbar puncture) and I have been crippled with back pain for over a week.
It is getting better now though. I will have to be careful for another week before I dare put any strain on it.

I am not going to let them do any more tests on me in future. They never find out anything new anyway. Neurologists are like that. They can't cure 95% of things they find wrong with you but will put you through years of painful and detrimental tests just to satisfy their own curiosity.

But I have had enough.
I will let them scan me now and again to see if my brain is clearing up or not. But that is all unless I develop bad physical symptoms.

I want my life back in my own hands.

hope the best dave,with your brain , now you gotta deal with a bad back, i have damage in #2,#3 lumbar it sucks, stay ldle for a spell and hope it heals! i did find this and it is soooooooooooooo good, it takes a little practice on how to drink it, a little water a, shwish sip and the aromas wow good stuff, a nice classy change from the tequila we usually shot!

That's the stuff mate.

Good luck with your health, and please use the best medicine Drewcrane ordered you, it seems he must be doctor

rofl

Eddie has been very kind and sold me his LM-1 meter at a good price;
http://www.innovatemotorsports.com/products/lm1.php

I have also added the optional RPM/Aux Input;
http://www.innovatemotorsports.com/xcar ... 270&page=1

And it all comes with this software;
http://www.innovatemotorsports.com/prod ... gworks.php

Eddie has also aquired a MAP sensor to record manifold vacuum and I am trying to figure out how to fit or make a throttle position sensor so if any of you have ideas on that please get in touch.

To power the MAP sensors I need a 5v source so to that end I will make this little circuit;
http://www.tkk.fi/Misc/Electronics/circuits/psu_5v.html

So the next step is to weld a bung into one exhaust pipe.....

At the same tme as welding in a exhaust bung for the wideband oxygen sensor I also wanted to correct the angle of one of my exhaust cut-outs.

When I made the exhaust I accidently welded one pointing a bit lower than the other. So I just wanted to cut that section out and turn it up slightly. I have little ground clearance as it is and even 3/4-inch more is better. I just have to weld back the pipe from the cut-out to the muffler now but this is enough for today.

Hey Dave. I know what you are going thru with the back. I get an epidural/steriod shot on Monday. Disc between 3-4 is causing me some weakness and pain. If that doesn't work then its the knife. I had 5-6 worked on in 1985. Good up until lately. And I don't know what I did to creat this problem Anyway........take care...........my wife says we are getting old and falling apart. She normally is right.........

I didn't have much of a bad back until they did the lumbar puncture.
That was what made it bad.
I have them to test my spinal fluid for things going on in my brain. The Docs still think they could be missing something. So they keep poking at me.
Same thing happened the last time they did one on me. This was my third one in the last two years actually. They always seem to hit exactly the right spot to give me hell. But usually I just have regular MRI scans and blood tests. It's the scans that are always dissapointing.

Oh well. Only a simple MRI Angiography of my head next month and that will be that for this year. In fact I am going to refuse any more tests when I next see the Docs in December. I am fed up with it all.

Went all the way into town at the start of my lunch break to buy everything I need to make the 5v power supply for the map sensor(s).

Maplins had all the components in stock. The guy got them out and packed them in a little bag for me.

I put my hand in my pocket and no wallet.

I had it in my other jacket last night and must have forgotten to swap it to this jacket. :banghead: I hope. :pale:

Oh well. I will make it tomorrow then.

Not made a circuit like this for 25 years.

But it works!
12 volts in and 5 volts out.

Now I need to try it with the vacuum sensor tonight.

dave-r wrote:Not made a circuit like this for 25 years.

Heatsink for 7805 might be good idea?

jr wrote:Heatsink for 7805 might be good idea?

Be careful, I don't remember if the back of the IC is electrically connected to one of the pins or not (I know it is for a LM337). If it is, you may need a plastic enclosore with vent holes.

Hopefully the MAP sensor does not consume much and you won't need a heatsink.

Its not getting warm at all at the moment.

I did stick a little radiator on the back just in case but things have ground to a halt.

If I have the sensor wired up right then I should get something like 0.3v at zero vacuum going up to something line 4.9v at 30 inches Hg.

But instead all I seem to be getting is the 5v input voltage at the output as well.

In desperation I have tried swapping the wires around but get no results.

Oh and I think current could be as low as 30mA if these sums are right. Can't check without a working sensor though.

Dave, did you build your first computer back in the day?!?! That is a lot more than I know about electronics!

Never built a computer in my life. Every few years I take home a pc no longer good enough for work. Then upgrade it. Basically only keeping the motherboard, processor and case.
It's like Leggo these days really.

Although I started using computers at work as long ago as 1979-80 (massive 32K memory!), for programming Audio Visual multiple slide projector displays with Basic language, I never had one in the office for "office work" until 1993 and my first home pc was not until 1997 I think?

I still have no idea how these things work or how to work with them correctly. I hate them in a way.

I hate them in a way,yes i built a computer in 2000,its a gaming unit, and as you say dave i hate them in way that some times they seem just plain stupid ,if microsoft designed cars we would have to press the start button to shut the car off

The sensor is BAD Dave. I have read all the data and thats the only thing it can possibly be. Input DC 5 volts to green wire. Ground is Grey wire and black wire is output voltage which should vary according to vacum/pressure differential from the internal resistor inside the map sensor which varies it's resisitance thus increasing/decreasing the voltage output to the black wire. It's a very simple pressure based resisitor. As resisitance changes so does the voltage.

Bloody GM part!

I like it Dave ,you have real nice ride.

Hezzel wrote::thumbsup: I like it Dave ,you have real nice ride.

Thanks.

I must put in more efort to get it on the road though. I am getting lazy lately.

Any word on the electrical project Dave?

Shelved for the moment. Just going to get the car running ballpark first with the O2 sensor. Then add things once she is ready for the road.

Cool, let me know if I can help. I can get another sensor and test it this time. (danged G.M. sensors)

Ade70 wrote:Hey Dave looking good man, now I know you are abit of a wizz with wires BUT, do you think that positive wire from the battery is big enough? you know the Luton lads, we like to do things about right and from experience we found we needed to use a bigger wire when using a battery in the boot.................

After thinking about this I decided to replace the battery cable.
I noticed that the connector I made at the bulkhead was getting very hot when cranking. I am not sure it it was this connection at fault because when replacing the cable I found it was a bit loose on the starter too.

So to be 100% sure I fitted a fatter and better quality cable and passed it directly from the battery to the starter. Then used another cable from the starter to that bulkhead fitting I made.

That seems to work better.

I also finished breaking in the camshaft at the weekend. It seems to have gone OK.

After, while the engine was still hot, I checked and adjusted the valve lash. It only needed a very minor tightning from where I had guessed the lash should be when cold.

The last time I tried to break in the camshaft the engine had ran very lean and damaged the finish on the ceramic headers. Pity that.
It turned out I had "guessed" the correct float level on the center carb way too low. It was leaning the mixture out.

My back was aching after doing the lash settings so had to stop. The next job is to set the timing exactly and see if I can get the idle nice.
I think i will wire up the LM-1 meter so I can monitor the air/fuel mixture while I am doing this.
But to wire up the meter I first need to wire up the cigar lighter so I have something to plug into!
The wiring for this is not included in the Painless kit so I have some 8A wire to fit to it.

Dave, did you use temporary valve springs for the cam breakin? If so when do most people change them out?

I only have the one set of valve springs so had no choice. Some people use weaker springs. With dual springs you can just remove the inners.

Of course. After your 20min cam break-in period you then will have to change the springs back to normal. Something I would rather not do with the heads on the engine.

I think the problem is with very high seat and lift pressures of big racing springs. Not something you would find on most street cars.

The most important thing is to make sure the lifters are only lightly oiled on their sides and that they lift, drop, spin freely in their bores. Also use an oil additive specially for cam break-in.

Short video clip of the electric exhaust cut-outs in action.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WhAAVSFWBoY