Mike7447

I was gonna challenge you on that. Then I went down in the garage and got one of the harmonic balancers w/a trigger wheel mounted that was on one of my previous mega-squirt installations sold, installed, and ran as a 36-1 wheel, and counted the teeth minus the missing one. 35 teeth 🤔 Go figure. Why is Mookeh calling their wheel a 35-1 when obviously every other wheel listed as a 36-1 is exactly the same ?

But it’s not 36, it’s 35/4=8.75. 35 teeth, one missing.

I bought one of these because it fits the pulley and will be easier to mount it. But after doing some reading on the mega-manual for Megasquirt, it looks to me like a 35-1 wheel isn’t supported because the tooth count isn’t divisible evenly when trying to place the crank trigger sensor. Anybody got any input about this?

This car is beautifully primitive.

As stated, I’m converting over to a DIY made mpfi intake manifold. I’ll be using a universal 65 mm throttle body. Since I’m making the intake, I can design the thing to mount the TB where I want it. While I haven’t looked closely at the old throttle body, I’m sure I’m going to have to try and adapt the cruise control servo/solenoid/actuator to the new TB. Ignition will no longer rely on the old distributor, and the coil will go in favor of a crank trigger/coil near plug system controlled by a Ms ecu. I can get my tach signal from there. I don’t know how many of the (3?) water temp sensors are required, but for the sake of keeping the factory gauges working, will keep the factory ecu in place for that purpose unless someone can advise me otherwise. im hoping that with the extensive knowledge base here, I don’t have to strike out on my own. Thanks.

I have purchased the stuff to do that. Thanks

Simple enough it seems, I’m gonna have the timing chain cover off when I remove the balancer to modify it for a trigger wheel. Also gonna remove the head, and convert it to studs and the add back the Ajusa mls head gasket. What benefit do I gain by omitting the balance shaft?

This is one of those custom mixed and then “ injected” into a spray can things. When using the supplied spray card on a white base, it took very few coats to match the paint color. It’s lacquer I’m pretty sure, easy to fix should I “f” it up. the paint on the car is showing its age, I don’t think it’ll matter much at this point.

Well,… I got up and immediately did the honey-doos that I said I’d get to tomorrow ( today). That left me with a few hours to mess with the car. I’ve managed to take on so much with this project, I can spin 180 degrees and still find something to spend several hours messing with. The cooling fans got my half day today. I don’t know how long ago, but I bought a radiator for the 1980 Corvette project that takes up my lower garage. The fans that came with it were deemed insufficient, and I popped for a mega-sucker Derale unit to put on the radiator, as corvettes are notorious for bad cooling issues. That left a completely functional dual 12” fan mounted shroud with no place to go. Until today. I mounted the thing in place of the two old factory fans, it fit almost perfectly…. Only had to modify the thing for the radiator hoses . The radiator was full of crud, but I think it’s adequately flushed, The brackets I made to mount the cooling fans are painted and drying,… the holding point is that IDK if I want the radiator pressure checked before I consider it done enough to put it in the “ complete” column. I’m of the mind set that it’s easier to have something checked while it’s out, rather than put it together and find out afterwards that it leaks.

Today would’ve been a win. I got both fenders close enough to put them in primer. If tomorrow wouldn’t have been Mother’s Day, they'd both be back on the car painted. ( no way in hell I’m getting away with spending one minute on the car) And you’d be right to wonder where the problem is then….fenders free of the rust,…bodywork’d and almost read for paint…. One of the freakin fenders fell off the work stand and is now royally f’d. There was an intermittent breeze/wind today, and a gust came along and pushed the fender right off the stand. It fell face down of course. Paint is damaged in several places. If you zoom you’ll see the carnage. When it hit the ground, I had a full on meltdown that was followed by a mandatory cool down session to keep from having a stroke in my driveway. Now that that is done, I’m conflicted. I bought a paint kit on line. It came with a rattle can of this color- ( Light Buckskin Metallic), a rattle can of clear, a rattle can of primer, a small bottle of prep-sol, a tack rag and a trigger Handle to better control the rattle can for 100.00 bucks. It also came with a “ spray card” so you can make sure the paint will match. It looks like it’ll be really close. Down low on the fender, it would’ve been imperceptible if there was a slight color mismatch…. But if that whole freakin fender has to be repainted,…. You’re gonna see the mismatch. The paint on the car is 35 years old. The car has been bakin in the Arizona sun for many years. The rattle can is 12 ounces….. It might paint the whole fender… it might not. It might look good enough, it might look like a ss when it’s done. Im banking on a ss. I’ve painted before. It’s been a 50/50 experience. I could go to a paint supplier and have them mix me up a qt of base, and buy the required clear and all of the other crap ( reducer, hardener) to make it sprayable…. And have me a wrong colored fender that’s way too shiny. See what I mean?….Conflicted. I digress. The longer the car sits, the more likely it’ll sit. its officially in jackstand hell already. The rotors are all rusty, the sun keeps beatin down on my dried out interior,…I keep dousing the seats in leather conditioner,….And I keep adding junk to the “ plan” I have to dump pictures though… I said I would. The car was purchased off auction. The seller stated that the car had some surface rust in the lower fenders. this is what “ surface rust” looks like to this guy. You get the picture.. I made the patches in 3 pieces. The rolled part, the part that bolts to the body, and the front edge that the plastic inner fender panel bolts to. They all got Frankenstein’d together and the lap welded. That way, I was able to adjust the fitment using welding clamps and clecos to hold everything together till it got welded up. From there it’s body filler and paint.

Wow!.. thanks for the replies… Kev, that looks really great. I know interest in a thread in a forum lasts only as long as there are pictures,….and it’s my intent to start posting the progress I’m making.. but I’m not the guy that’s one to post ghastly pictures of “ attempts” of fixing junk. Im about 3 weeks into this new car, Despite what the online seller stated about the lower front fender “ surface rust” they are far more rotted than what can be labeled as surface rust. i think after tomorrow, I’ll have a decent “ before and after” set of pics to show how I dealt with that. Along with the urethane cracks in the front bumper. If I can get to a point where I’m proud enough to post the progress pics of what I’ve done, I’ll post them tomorrow night. Right now, working on them about 2 hours a day, I’m about 75% done to a point where I’d consider them “ roughed” together. its all hand fabbed stuff…I’m pretty confident that I can make it look good. Tomorrow will tell about that. As for the intercooler, I’m keeping the AC in the car, that means an Air to water unit mounted between the lower crank pulley and the radiator with a heat exchanger taking up the space the old a2a took up is the plan.

This thread appears to be a two person party, so I’m sorry in advance if you are the only recipient of my replies. None of the old pics work here, and the gallery pics just go black when I try to open one. Is there any actual examples of how people have plumbed a traditional intercooler out the opposite end back into the engine compartment somewhere?

I bought the trigger wheel from that company, but 44.00 for a piece of aluminum with a hole in it seems a little stee. My plans for a distributor hole block off plug comes straight off the AZ help counter in the form of an expando-freeze plug. That said: The only thing I know exactly about is that I dont know nuthin bout birthin no babies.🤔 In addition to that “unknown”, I don’t know for sure about: 1. how to get the crank pulley/balancer off. 2.With a 250-300 hp goal in mind, is the factory intercooler adequate? 3. What size ev-1 injector should I get in cc or lb per hour to adequately supply the fuel ( will probably use MS recommendations from mega-manual) 4. Whether I should build a new intake from scratch, or modify the stocker to accommodate the injection. I just don’t know.

I appreciate that, but right now, the words “ batch fire”, and “ wasted spark” are my go-to to keep the tune simple. I pulled the distributor, it appears that it does nothing other than “distribute” the spark like any other old school dist. Based on that, it will get omitted and the hole plugged. i do intend to run a crank trigger. No springs, no vacuum advance to mess with, and a much cleaner engine as far as wires go.

Elsewhere in another thread I stated my plan to upgrade the 72k mile engine in my 89 tsi. I said I wanted to upgrade the turbo, add an external waste gate and bov upgrade the fuel system, to supply the 4 separate injectors, and DIY convert the intake to MPI, control the engine with a MS3 pro. Replace the distributor with a plugged hole, and run LS coils in a wasted spark config. here is where I am as a result: exhaust and intake manifolds off, im gonna pressure wash the lower part of the engine tomorrow. Since it’s this far apart, is there anything else I should consider doing before putting stuff back on?

Thanks for that, I really appreciate it. Is the OD circuit the only thing that the transmission reads electronically via related sensors to work? I think I read that there is a vacuum modulator in the thing… meaning that other than OD, it’s a standard 3 speed trans. And if that’s the case, what did the factory do to block boost from pressuring the modulator?

Nope, I’m gonna run fuel and spark. I don’t want to lose any functionality, only seeking to improve the way it runs. I purchased a MS3pro mini. It’ll go way beyond what I want to do with this project, to include control of the auto w/the purchase of an additional controller. Right now though, the trans appears to have 3gears, plus O/D full time. The button on the shifter does nothing.

I am going to add a MS pro ecu to control the engine and FP. If I install the new ecu in piggy back style, and leave the factory ecu in place, what signal will the trans need to work properly? I.e. rpm?

As long as I can trust the original window sticker, the color appears to be buckskin.

I just bought the only SS exhaust manifold available on eBay for this engine. It’s engineered for a t3/t4 turbo. Im not looking to hurt the 72k mile stock engine here, so my power goals need to be reasonable. 250-300? I need a turbo recommendation please.

After spending about 30 minutes writing about the above two pictures, all of the written stuff just disappeared. In the grand scheme of things, it was probably too much blather anyway, so maybe a good thing? My purpose was to demonstrate that I’ve had these cars before, going back 20+ years. Both cars were destined to go to a JY, with the Blue one only needing a new engine, and the white one, was only a shell. Both had big inch ford small blocks, the blue one had a TT’d 363, and the white one, a dual stage nitrous’d 393. That was then…….2003-2007. In 2013, I bought another one of my favorites that started life as a “ shell”… And after about 10 years of modifications redo’s and improvement, became this: The irony here is that this is a Ford,…. Given my penchant for putting a ford motor in a non ford chassis, you’d think there’d be yet another boring Windsor small block under the hood. Uhhhh.. not this time. The mighty 2j albeit for a little deceitful badging on the front cover, this is by far my favorite engine. In the car and tuned, the combo made 617whp at 23 psi. I drove it hundreds of miles to coastal car cruise in events multiple times over the last several years, and had planned to take it on the hot rod power tour, but decided to sell it in 2022 instead. A real dumba** decision amongst my previous dumb --------------- decisions. And although there is another project car currently undergoing its transition in my garage as of this writing, from now on we’ll just focus on the other car in my garage. All that aside, the plans for this car have already started in motion. This car spent a couple of its first years in Ohio, and while the body is completely rust free, the wheels are kinda rough. So step one is to correct that economically. im gonna have them blasted and powder coated. ( thinking bronze). Kinda hard throwing away brand new rubber, so I’ll be keeping the stock stuff for now. The car is an auto, and I’m fine with that. After having a 2 Jz sing 23 psi songs to me followed by the big whoosh when the bov cracked open, the barely audible turbo spool leaves me wanting. I want some form of that again. i have a 220 lph Bosch style pump laying in a drawer, idk if that will work to upgrade the fuel delivery so advise me please if not. my plan is to buy stand alone fuel injector mounts that are threaded in, and use the factory intake. I’ll replace the tbi unit with an elbow and some standard TB to pass the air. I’ll use the new AMP’d efi micro squirt to control the engine, and put a 36-1 trigger wheel and a jy EDIS-4 to control ignition and batch fire and let edis do a wasted spark thingy. If the distributor is only controlling ignition and isn’t required to drive something else, I may consider pulling it and plugging the hole, I haven’t looked at that yet. i guess I have to replace the exhaust manifold to put some t3-t4 turbo on it. whatever modest power boost I can expect from that plan, w/o compromising durability or reliability will dictate that I guess. I do not intend to try and cram some v8 or 1jz in place as stated, I’m already kinda happy with the car as is. but I forget who’s I’m talking about sometimes,….I bore easily.

Ok. 69 views…I hope someone can help me Rather than just go all newb, and ask a bunch of dumb --------------- questions that have been asked since the dawn of eternity, I tried to do some forum surfing first. The site crashes almost 85-90% between every topic change and makes me reload the page. ( tells me something like too many of something is happening, and to try again….then I have to wait about a minute for it to work) No pictures from any other sub forum is/are viewable. I cannot glean any useful info from any previous how to..anywhere. wt.... is happening here?

Hello I’m Mike. ( I’m not an alcoholic). 20 years have passed since I was last here. At that time, I had a 1987 Conquest that I had completely converted to a twin turbocharged 700 hp 363 c.i. Ford motor/Powerglide drag car. In the cars previous iteration, it was a N/A 347/Tremec 3550 street driver. Before that, it was a dead engine’d stocker sitting under a Spruce tree with a pretty serious Hornets nest under the hood. A few years before that project, I had a 1987 Starion that also ended up as a ford engined drag car. In between Starquest ownership, the last car I had was a 1978 Ford Fairmont street driver. With a 617hp 2jz GTE/CD 009. When a complete JDM 2jz could be bought for 2700.00 Now, present day, I just bought a 1989 Buckskin Conquest off auction that I’ve had for about a week now. A declaration to the purists: My drag racing days are over. This car will not get hacked up and ford engine swapped. It’s a 72k mile fairly nice, mostly unmodified stock car. Save for squeezing it to make more power, I intend to leave the drivetrain alone. The Transmission shift linkage is worn out, the front seats have been in the Arizona sun too long, and the tires are flat spotted so bad the car drives like it’s on square tires. But other than those “ fixes”, it will make a nice driver. ill be asking for HP mod help, Suspension and braking upgrade advice, and what others have done to make the seat accommodate a 6’ driver. And put it all in a build thread. And desperately try to avoid putting any other engine in the car. Thanks for reading. ( I’m “ wordy”)