Progress Thread Nicholase "lights out" build- TKX install

[nicholase]

I was keeping good track of my progress and taking a bunch of pics along the way. But once I got to the day of starting it up the excitement got the best of me. So I didn't stop to take pics.

Before I put the valve covers and upper intake on I did a bunch of tests.
1) Bleed P/S pump with cordless drill using pulley remover bolt. Repeat until no air bubbles visible.
2) Prime oil system with drill. Verify good oil flow.
3) Akwardly zip tie drill trigger, key on, verify guage works and shows good oil pressure. (Nothing worse than starting it for the first time and seeing nothing on the oil pressure gauge)
4) Key on several cycles check for fuel leaks on the rails and injectors
5) Squrit a quart of break in oil all over the valve train.
6) Get the fire extinguisher handy.... lesson learned when I was young...

So far so good. I just finished an other 30 minute heat cycle. Tomorrow I'm going to pull the upper intake and valve covers then give the intake, heads, and headers a re torque. Then I should be good to go.

It really sounds pretty bad azz in person. I was able to get the idle a little lower. Sitting at a lumpy 750 RPM right now according to my timing light. It was around 850 in the video. Fires right up quick. The new FP starter really spins it faster than the old boat anchor.

I took the cover totally off! LOL. It's in the washing machine before the wife gets home.

Couple engine pics.

For those with a centrifugal and thinking about a better radiator, the USA made Dewitt is about as big as you can go. It's a twin core 1" tubes. It's a monster, but fits... just....

 

[gkomo]

I've gone through your entire thread and made a list of P/Ns of at least all the P/Ns you've supplied and made a spreadsheet of 'need to buys' vs 'already bought' and i'm going to knock off items as time goes along. The Dewitt radiator is on that list as well.

As always everything looks great on your build.

 

[nicholase]

I had my heater on defrost when I was filling the cooling system. Everything seemed normal. I switched the vent to dash and noticed air continued to come out the defrost vent. Which is a fail safe for loss of vacuum.

I dropped the glove box and pulled the vacuum plug out of its hiding spot. Thankfully an easy one!

I put some high tack on it and pushed it back in. Ain't coming out again. That line actually popped out when I unplugged the vacuum connector doing the heater core / evaporator. It seemed ok when I pushed it back in but apparently it wasn't

I have the alignment ballparked. I want to get the ride height dialed in after a few shakedown runs before I spend the time to align it. I do alignments myself and it takes a bit of time.

I'm using 94 SN95 spindles in the front and a Baer 13" Pro+ 6 piston brake kit. The Pro+ indicates a two piece rotor with an aluminum hub and steel rotor bolted to it. The aluminum hub is very thick. So it pushes my front wheels out ¼" more than a typical steel rotor. This is the reason I went with skinnier 235/40/17's compared to the 245 I was using. There is a little less tire bulge and it looks better. Using 17×8 Pony wheels.

I think it looks nice but it does push them out.

For the rear I'm using fox length Moser 5 lug axles and the Baer 13" Pro+ 4 piston kit. I'm using 17×9 Pony wheels. I do have 17×10's but it's just too tight for my liking and offered no real advantage other than a bunch of problem to solve. I'll put them on the sell list when I get around to it. Sticky DR tires on the 9" wide wheels should be plenty.

I feel they are tucked in a bit too much compared to the front. So I have an assortment of shims from MM. This is with 3/8" spacer. I think it's pretty good. From some angles it looks like a little to much poke. I'll have to decide when I get it out in the wild. I could use the ¼" shims if I don't like it.

Looks a little pokey from here

I little less from this angle

From straight down the side it looks nice and even i think.

It'll probably look different when it's completely on the ground.


The original paint looks pretty good for 35 years old huh? I do paint restoration on the side. If anyone is in WNY hit me up. I'll hook you up or give some free pointers.

 

[BlakeusMaximus]

Very nice, really clean.

 

[nicholase]

Big day today. I pulled the upper and retorqued the heads, intake, headers and re checked the fuel lines for tightness and leaks. Got that all put back together. Then I topped off the transmission, put the shifter back in and.....


It's back on the ground for the first time in 7 months.

It's raining hard now unfortunately but it's ready for a shakedown run. Hopefully the weather is better tomorrow. Also I did finally get in touch with the powder coater. Should be done soon. I was starting to wonder with that dude. So that stuff will go on when I pull the intake (again lol) to do the ProM ems and injectors.

 

[nicholase]

The weather cleared up a bit. Decided to go fill up the tank with some fresh gas and see how it does. Also wanted a full fuel load to finalize my ride height.

Initial thoughts and observations:

-Really happy with the McLeod RST twin disc clutch. Super, super light pedal. Lighter than stock actually. Engagement feels great. Quiet. Perfect heavy duty high horsepower street clutch I think. I was concerned about the install but honesty there is nothing to it. If you can change a clutch, you can do the twin disc no problem. It's drop dead simple.

-Brakes feel good. I was just tooling around slow so can't say how they will feel when pushed or under heavy braking. But they were quiet and felt smooth. Happy so far. Was great to knock the oxidation off the rotors. I'll probably bleed them one more time just for grins. Still have to adjust the proportioning valve. Currently set fully to "less brake". Pedal feel with the 93 cobra booster and 1" master cylinder feels nice. It's a good match for the monster calipers.

-Flowmaster exhaust is pretty loud. I'm cool with it but I'd say it's louder than the Bassani that was on there. Maybe the cam has something to do with it?

-Engine runs smooth. I was taking it easy for sure but got the RPM up to 3500-4000 (no load, no boost) or so. So far so good.

-Suspension, too early to tell. No squeaks or rattles. Other than that I was really slow walking it so I can't comment to much now. I did hit some potholes and it felt alright. A little stiffer than before I'd say but nothing bone jarring. I think the 150# coilovers are a good match for my expectations.

-Fuel system seems rock steady. I had issues with the factory lines creating high pressure that I couldn't sort out (The reason i gutted it and replaced it all). Also was getting cavitation which caused FP fluctiations. I could feel air bubbles in the hoses. I think the return line was just too small and 35 years of fuel going through it probably makes the id even smaller. That all seems corrected with the larger lines.

-Nitto drag radials. I can't comment on traction just yet. I will say they are sticky and catch lots of road trash and toss into the undercarriage.

-Ford performance carbon traction lock discs. Again, can't comment on traction benefit. Can say it's quiet and I didn't get any chatter. I soaked the discs in friction modifier for a day or two. Then installed them. When I filled the axle I used Mobile1 synthetic gear lube which contains friction modifier. So I didn't add any extra. I was thinking I'd add some of I got some chatter. That wasn't the case.

Here's a few pic out in the wild.

And a little walk around video. I think the wheel offset looks really good. Probably will leave the 3/8" spacers in the rear. Doesn't look pokey to me at all. The TFS1 cam really sounds great. Has that hollow raspy lopey tone. Happy with that. Sounds healthy.



Tomorrow it's getting washed! Hasn't been washed for 7 months. It's pretty dirty and I got smudges all over it from the winters work. But (knock on wood) no major damages from all the work and shuffling stuff around it.

The garage is getting back to normal.

Looking forward for the stand alone to get here. But like i mentioned, I'm ready for a break. I've really been busting a$$ on this all winter and then some, pretty much every available hour. Bless my wife for not giving me shi+ over it.

I'll give it some more shake down runs then put it back up on ramps and give it a good once over. Checking brake lines for rubbing , fuel lines for clearances on things. All the little stuff that can cause major issues. Also need to finalize ride height. Now that I have a full tank of fuel I can really dial that in. Pretty happy with the stance. Just need to put a tape on it and get the side to side just right.

 

[85GT4V]

Man, looks GREAT!! I have nothing to suggest mechanically except it sounds like you’re at a nice starting point to dial everything in!

 

[91AOD5.0LX]

Absolutely incredible and fantastic work as well as all your updates, pictures, and posts! Your a wealth of knowledge! Thank you for sharing all this sir!

 

[Noobz347]

Absolutely incredible and fantastic work as well as all your updates, pictures, and posts! Your a wealth of knowledge! Thank you for sharing all this sir!

Yes!


This is how [Progress Threads] should be.

Ok, he's a little too clean and organized for a lot of us.

 

[nicholase]

Thanks fellas. Glad you guys are enjoying it. I enjoy it too. It's sort of part of it for me. Work hard on the project and then when I'm done working I post up what I did, and then go to my spread sheet and plan the next days work. The spread sheet helps make sure I have the parts I need for the next few steps.

Parts, inventories, and checklists is a big part to keep it going smooth and on track. I had hundreds of cardboard boxes here. It was ridiculous. Every weekend I loaded up my Bronco to the max and took all the cardboard to work. Every single weekend for 6 months lol. I'm down to one box of A/C lines that I'm going to wait on until I get to the standalone. No sense putting all that in the way.


Today I took it out for a nice cruise. Really seems to run solid. I did some adjustments to the MM coilovers. Raised the passenger side about 5/16" then got the rear MM adjustable perch control arms dialed in. I took it for a quick spin around the block and it stayed. So I tightened up the rear uppers and gave everything a good look over.

No leaks which is awesome. Fuel, brakes, oil, trans, P/S, coolant, all sealed up nice. Brake lines all look good as far as clearance on things. I hit all the exhaust clamps once more with a wrench but everything was tight.

I think I'll align it next weekend.

 

[nicholase]

Well, I've had it out several times this weekend. Running great. Getting some break in clutch cycles in the books. Approximately a thousand to go lol. I'm suprised how well it behaves just tooling around town. Hopefully my standalone gets here reasonably soon. I'm thinking 3-4 more weeks or so. By then I should have the clutch broken in. So that should coordinate well.

In the mean time I got my stuff back from the powder coater. Good and bad news. The Anderson powerpipe came out nice. I welded a bung to it for the fresh air supply to the valve cover.

But... he messed up my valve cover that I had all set up with a welded the oil fill tube. He was taking so long i bought a second set of valve covers, so for now I'm just going to use the push in oil fill tube I currently have on it. You have to drill it's location yourself. For reference I measured 4½" from the edge of the valve cover for the center of the hole. It puts it right between the rocker sets for cyl1 and 2. That way oil isn't shooting up in it.

Because it's not baffled at all I installed some of my own. I mimicked what UPR does on parts of their catch cans as it seems to work well. So I put a series of o-rings and perforated aluminum discs along with a machined baffle.

They stack up like this

I did have to raise the barb fitting to allow room for the baffles. So I drilled and tapped a new NPT fitting as high as I could and still have the lid fit in.

In my old setup up I ran a catch can here (between the super charger inlet and valve cover). However I never got any oil to speak of in it. So this time I'm going to just run a small oil seperator I got from JEGS. It's just a little insurance to not push any blow by onto my impeller.

 

[nicholase]

Just been getting the car out on occasion. Have to be real careful to stay out of the boost because it isn't tuned at all. Just getting some clutch cycles in here and there. Should be broken in by now. Took it to work a few times. Really love the big brake look. The suspension improvements are massively noticeable. Really handles nicely and rides great. So I'm happy with all that. I was sort of worried it would be a rough riding rattle trap but it still has a pleasant quiet ride. It seems to be the perfect performance street car style setup. The panhard bar is awesome. Not only is it nice to be able to perfectly center the rear axle but it really feels great now in the twisties. It looks pretty cool from the rear too.






Just got my tracking number from ProM for my engine management. Hopefully I can get started on that sometime this summer.

 

[gkomo]

Welcome back, glad the car is still going strong.

 

[Flyboy60]

Yes, welcome back.
I started to have withdrawals from the lack of updates

 

[nicholase]

I received my ProM engine management system. It took around 6 months.

They custom make the harness as the kits are ordered so it does take a bit of time. I ordered a new MAF from them as well and had them enter all the transfer functions in the base tune for me. I figured I could always sell my basically new 24lb injectors and calibrated MAF easily enough. The harness looks very professional. What's nice about the ProM harness is that it's actually complete and designed for a fox. There isn't any splicing needed for the factory gauges, AC, airbag or anything else. Fully plug and play. None of the other stand alone kits are designed this way, so that was a big consideration for me as well.

The computer is one of the driving reasons I went this route. It's an actual Ford computer that's been modified by ex Ford engineers to work for this particular application. Solid metal enclosure. Quality sealed connection ports and plugs. It's a modern OEM style computer that's tunable for our cars.

Lots of options for future growth. Meth injection, nitrous and boost control options, two step rev limiter, traction control, electric cooling fan controlled by the computer without any outboard stuff, and much more. Many possibilities.

Everything is clearly marked

The ProM kit in it's basic form doesn't use the TFI to trigger ignition or for any function other than a connection point from the PIP to the computer. The computer now controls spark and fires the ignition coil. It will run fine even with a defective TFI. Eliminating the TFI as a potential drivability issue is a nice bonus.

I pugraded to the crank trigger setup. It eliminates the need for an OEM quality accurate PIP sensor. The factory PIP is a combination cam / crank position sensor. By adding the crank mounted trigger wheel it removes the need for the PIP to accurately read crank position. It operates merely as a cam sensor. In fact I'll need to cut all the teeth except one off the shutter wheel. It will operate fine with any off the shelf POS PIP. So if and when my 35 year old PIP takes a dump, I'll be fine with a parts store replacement.


I did get the car out today for probably it's last EECIV run. It sure sounds and feels good. I think the clutch is broken in enough and ready for the tune. So I'll be able to stand on it when I get it all sorted. Looking forward to that for sure.

 

[gkomo]

Sounds like a solid choice!

Not too familiar with all the aftermarket management systems but I can only assume you did a fair amount of research to come to the ProM.

Calibrated MAF and 24lb injectors…

 

[nicholase]

Sounds like a solid choice!

Not too familiar with all the aftermarket management systems but I can only assume you did a fair amount of research to come to the ProM.

Calibrated MAF and 24lb injectors…

Yeah. Tons of research. I'll share some (all) of it for anyone considering a standalone. There are lots of options out there. It just comes down to personal preference and what is important to each individual. I'm sure when properly set up they all work well.


My list of wants were :
-OEM reliability
-Set and forget tuning
-Quality harness and as little hacking of the factory harness as possible
-Room to grow without needing to re tune constantly

So that led me to ProM. Only time will tell of its all actually true in a real world scenario.

I'll be utilizing the built in traction control and have the harness ordered for a dash mounted I/O switch. That should be cool.

 

[nicholase]

Sharing some of my research. Usually I post lots of pictures. Unfortunately there isn't much to photograph when talking about tuning. So it will probably be boring. But....

The ProM EFI setup is a mass air system. For tuning it utilizes a load vs lambda approach. Many of the other stand alone setups are speed density and don't use a physical MAF sensor.

Most modern cars don't use a MAF either. At least not on the car you buy at the dealer. This is mostly due to cost cutting. Once the tune is developed (likely on a vehicle with a MAF senor and many engineers data logging) it can be written and loaded into tables for a tune. Every vehicle will run well because the tune has been perfected and with modern production tolerances all the engines and senors they are all pretty much identical. As long as nothing changes you won't need the MAF sensor to see and adapt to the change. But when you change something, or add performance parts. Then you need to tune it again and again everytime. This isn't a bad thing. If you like tuning I'm sure it can be a fun hobby or lucrative career.

When the vehicle has an on board MAF sensor it can see real time intake air supply and compensate. We see this even in our old three + decade old MAF based systems. They actually adapt pretty well (Within reason). Even my car with aluminum heads, a cam, a 75mm TB, different intake, headers, and a blower actually purrs like a kitten and drives around town just fine with absolutely no tuning.

But because of the old tech they do have limitations and in my case it can't compensate enough for the boost. A modern MAF based system doesn't have these limitations.

The way it works is pretty simple actually. You enter some basic info to the system. Bore, stroke, and number of cylinders. By knowing these three things it can calculate how much air it would take to completely fill all the cylinders.

A naturally aspirated engine will never totally fill the cylinders. They typically never exceed .85 load or 85% efficient filling the cylinders. If a load of 1 is achieved that would mean it's 100% efficient in filling the cylinder. By knowing how much air the engine COULD ingest, and knowing how much it ACTUALLY ingests by reading the value of the MAF sensor it can calculate load. If a load value over .85 is calculated it then knows that extra air is being forced into the engine somehow (blower / turbo). The air/fuel table will display load on left vertical axis. It shows values ranging from .10 (or 10% load) to 2.0 (or 200% load). Anything over .85 indicates boost and extra fuel will be added. (The TIMING table operates in a similar manner with timing pulled over .85 load)

The top horizontal axis indicates RPM.

All the squares in the body of the table indicates lambda. Lambda is a different way of saying AFR. We all know stocimetric is 14.7:1. Anything higher than that is lean. Lower than that is rich. Lambda operates similar, however a value of 1 is stocimetric. Anything under one indicates richer than stocimetric.

Notice on the table how the Lambda value decreases as load and RPM increase.

Because of this, the system can use the same table for N/A or boost. If you add higher flowing heads it will see that change as more air ingested and passing through the MAF. More air getting into the same bore and stroke engine at a given RPM will raise the load value because the engine has become more efficient in filling the cylinders. As the load value increases on the left axis for any given RPM the lambda will decrease. Therefore the computer will add fuel by opening the injectors longer.

Here's an example of the fuel table:

This is the biggest reason I decided to go with ProM. By entering the bore, stroke, and number of cylinders it can determine load. A few more things need to he entered. I paid a little extra and had them enter this info for me to my calibration file. They are:

-MAF transfer function- by entering this the computer can accurately monitor how much air is actually ingested.

-Injector slopes. By entering this it knows how much fuel will flow through the injector at a given pulse width (time injector is open)

I went with Deatsch Works 550cc (52 lb/hr) injectors as they have all this info readily available and are know to be accurate for tuning. They were one of the brands recommended by ProM and something they have a lot of experience using.


-Wideband sensor calibration- By entering this the computer can see the result of the combustion process and make changes as needed.


Typically the ProM ships with an Innovate wideband setup. While I have no personal experience with Innovate I've read enough to want to stay away. I have read good things about Zeitronox so I went with a Zeitronix Zt4 wideband controller and asked ProM to enter that wideband controller slope info in my calibration file.


Next up is to install the calibration file and tuning software on a labtop.

 

[AeroCoupe]

The Pro-M system is really nice and its worth the money IMO. I really like that you get a new harness and it integrates with the dash harness with zero hackery. From what I have seen their support is excellent and the system works as advertised. I will be following to see how the install and tuning goes on it. Great choice and you are going to love that system.

I looked at this system pretty hard but in the end what drove me away was the price. I ended up waiting on the MSPNP-Pro to come out as I can use a MAF with it, can run a left and right bank wide band, its sequential injection vs bank, and it works with the factory harness. What really swayed me is I have a brand new ECU harness for my Coupe so I do not have to worry about a 30 year old wiring harness. I wish DYIAutoTune would offer a custom base tune vs the stock one as I have no experience tuning. So with that I will have a remote tune done with someone as I really do not want to F this up.

 

[Noobz347]

So with that I will have a remote tune done with someone as I really do not want to F this up.

This part causes me to grimace. Do you get the same dude each time? I mean... My luck, I'd get some tuning done by the dumbest dude in the company with PB&J stains all over his shirt.