Build Thread 1978 Mercury Cyclone. The pig is in the pen.

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#9,181
Mike you only bought the MS3 daughter board and MS3x expansion cards right?

From what i remember of our last tuning session Mike, the car ran beautiful... Even if it did take 2 fuel tables and 2 ignition tables to get the crazy :poo: you made working... I think it took me what all of 45 mins to live tune your car start to finish? If you dont plan to go further with the changes or upgrades I dont see a reason to change the whole build, just swap the MS3 card out in the ecu and load your current tune file over to it.. the MS3 is a better package overall... or return it and spend that money elsewhere
 
#9,182
a91what said:
Mike you only bought the MS3 daughter board and MS3x expansion cards right?

From what i remember of our last tuning session Mike, the car ran beautiful... Even if it did take 2 fuel tables and 2 ignition tables to get the crazy :poo: you made working... I think it took me what all of 45 mins to live tune your car start to finish? If you dont plan to go further with the changes or upgrades I dont see a reason to change the whole build, just swap the MS3 card out in the ecu and load your current tune file over to it.. the MS3 is a better package overall... or return it and spend that money elsewhere
Click to expand...
I bought everything including the case to upgrade the thing to 3x. I doubt they'd take it back after I've had it for 90 days...besides, you never know, maybe I'll come across some engine deal that will need the expanded capabilities of the 3x. I'll keep it.

The 6x9's got here yesterday, the computer integration stuff will be here Friday. Looks like I'm taking even more stuff OFF the car next time I'm in the garage. I'll have to remove the LJK so that I can take apart the rear seat delete panels and cut in the 6x9's. While I have it out, I'll remove all of the 6" duct work, and aluminum housing that the rear radiators used to be in. What to do with the G-gills will be next, but I'm not gonna obsess over that,..ill probably consider ducting smaller 2.5" hoses to the inner wheel tubs to act as brake cooling duct rpfor the rear brakes,..or, more likely, I'll tell myself that this car will never see track duty that would warrant even bothering with that, and block off the G gills altogether.

I'm at a point where the all of the interior equipment, and some of the body mods are done. If I'd stop sidetracking myself, I could put the car together, have a finished interior with new seats, a new shifter, new head unit, new speaker system, and some better thought out solutions to old problems.
 
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#9,184
Just a quick update.....
IMAG0296_zpsmg3eycob.webp

I put the LJK down for a nap, and in the meantime,..changed out his car seat.
The ducts are gone, but now I have to deal with the open holes that'll allow water in.
IMAG0297_zpsogjnoxl1.webp

Just as surely as I'm writing this water is gonna get in here. If not from driving it in the rain, washing the car will do it for sure.
I need to make an insert and seal it.
 
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#9,187
What started out going one way, turned, went past, and ended in a much better place.
IMAG0299_zps1pijqrdu.webp

:taco:
I believe that these "5ways" will do nicely to round out the system.
5 ways:nonono:.......... A woofer, mid range, and a tweeter make up the audible spectrum in a standard speaker. That is known as a 3 way speaker. In higher end car audio, and I'd guess some higher end residential sound systems, there can be a "mid bass", driver, and a sub woofer(s) adding clarity and depth to the bottom end, so I guess there can be a 5 way speaker........But not from a $100.00 pair of 6x9's

And as everyone has suggested, I took part of the old vent system for the rear radiators and made two inserts. They were already coated in Bedliner on one side, all I had to do was press it into the hole, and seal it in there.
IMAG0298_zpsh9f6a9jm.webp


I tried to make the computer display on the touchscreen, but the adapter I bought is a flaming piece of sht. It only flashed it's menu for a brief second then never showed me another thing after that. I swapped out cables went and grabbed
Two small TVs that we have here w/composite video inputs,.......still nothing.

A new piece of sht will be here on Saturday....we'll see if it was just a defective part.

The side effect of having to wait on that piece of junk is that the LJK can't go back in till I resolve the problem. Right now he's just laying on his back under the car..on the cold, hard, dirty floor......if DHR found out I got some little Japanese kid laying under my car in the garage,..they may have a problem with that.....lets hope that they're part of the shutdown,....and they're all calling in sick too...Maybe they're a state agency.:shrug:

Anyway, I digress...

I pulled the chrome plated plastic trim pieces off of the tail light lenses. It made polishing off the scratches way easier. Then Painted the backside of the backup lens candy red to try and make the clear lense red.

It's red,...not as red as the rest of the lens.
 
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#9,189
Well, it'll work.
IMAG0301_zpsag4f9lqs.webp

The question now becomes do I care?

#1 I can't find the damn power supply for the old computer. I've tore this house up looking for it, and it has freakin vanished.
That will require purchasing something else to make this broke assed thing work.
#2. Yeah, it's cool and all, but all of it jammed into a 7"screen requires that you get up really close to even see the mouse pointer. I would have to have it more as a redundant monitor of the engine gauges much like the digital dash in Steves car.
#3. Maybe it's just still in the display settings, but the picture quality is poor,... ( since its vga converted over to composite, I'm thinkin 1368x768 might need to be scaled back)...so that gripe is YTD.
#4. I'm not particularly in love with the fact that there'll be a laptop rigidly mounted somewhere in the rear seat delete area. Whose sole purpose is to display those redundant gauges..especially considering that they're so small you can't see anything should you try and use it as a tuning interface..why the hell doesn't it make sense that I'd just take the new computer along with me should I need to tune the car?
#5. I still have a BT fold-a-ble keyboard.....even more money on this folly.
#6. I still have issues.....how to turn the thing on/off with the top closed.
#7. The majority of the time, the touchscreen will be displaying Nav/phone/ music source data...the gauge interface time would be single digit percentage I'm also thinkin.
It's just another one of those things that you think would be so cool,....spend a stupid amount of time and money trying to make it work, then bailing on it whether it works, works badly, or not at all.

So typical for me.
 
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#9,191
I’ve gotten to a point in life where keeping things simple is the name of my game. I’ve done the same thing as far as spending a bunch of money and not being happy in the end. So far my Fox hasn’t brought me any real happiness yet. Course I haven’t driven it much, but I’ve spent a good $6-7k in the last couple years for a net of next to no enjoyment. Going forward I am going to clean and enjoy, and limit my spending until it’s fun to drive again.
 
#9,193
Yeah,..I'm ditching that plan. The car is in full forward mode. i bought a 5' long section of vent hose. Now I'll be able to put that AC vent wherever I'd want it to go. I'm really the only person in that car, you'd think that you would bias the AC vent arrangement to suit the driver...
The other side of that argument would be a self fulfilling prophecy: If I don't bias that vent over to the other side of the new head unit, Kate will never ride in it...guaranteeing that I would really be the only person in that car.

She hated the ratchet shifter...said it was stupid. ( evidently, I wasn't that in love with it either,...it's gone) I liked it because I could cut the handle way down, and just have that shifter ball hovering above the console. I stole that idea from another car I saw in a mag.
But I have a plan for integrating the new shifter into the Monster....again another potential folly. But if I can make it work...it'll be really good looking.

The tail lights work famously..and after today or tomorrow will fit as well.
The Cyclone center section is still a work in progress..This time around, I'm gonna have to get out the spool gun, and try to weld 1/8" thick aluminum with it. That could go either way,...either it ends up working like I want it to, or it destroys the Cyclone center piece. If I can make it work, that'll leave me with a decision on color.
IMAG0279_zpszynipvnv.webp

That whole center area will be black. The new cyclone center panel pretty much takes up al of the space in the middle spanning the full distance between the tail lights.

IMAG0230_zpsj5sqsrji.webp

The trim rings on the lenses themselves are remove able. And they are in fact off. They need some serious attention either with a scotch brite pad, or a scotch brite pad followed afterwards with paint.

So what if: I paint the area black that I said I would, then the cyclone center panels, and those trim rings go body color?
 
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#9,196
It sounds like you came to the same conclusion about a digital dash as I did. I actually BOUGHT a Holley Digital Dash (since I have Holley EFI) and was going to get a custom dash plate (MC-Machine or Florida 5.0) to mount it. Then I mocked up the gauge display and realized with 6 gauges, it would be too hard to see. Then I tried mocking it up to only display speedo and tach and use 4 real gauges for fuel, water, oil, and volts. I realized that my scope of the project was going out of control and I was going to end up with something I didn't like. So I sold the Digital Dash and someday, I am going to replace my digital gauges with the New Vintage direct fit cluster. I'll analog style gauges and be done with it. I'll carry a laptop when I need to.
 
#9,198
I know that the displayed gauges would look, and be and how many I'd want. In the end I prefer the analog gauges that are presently in the car. Just like everything with everybody, it's all a matter of preference.

Speaking of which, I prefer to split the difference.

I just finished modifying Blinkin. He now will hold the homeless center vent. I added the digital boost gauge back in, and of course the HVAC controls in the same space they were in before. Whether or not that makes a difference one way or the other ill just have to wait and see.
 
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