behold, the bailey and curtain wall of the fortress of partitude

well, i have a lot of parts in my garage.  hopefully, when 75% are in the car, and the other 25% have been pawned off through craigslist or forum sales, i'll get some of that room back.  hopefully again, reducing the fortress of partitude, while sad, will go a long ways to having a working driveway ornament.

yes, that ornament:  the reason i'm here wasting time, dirty, and still without a running track car.  :)



however, my serfs (me) have been busy at work building a fortress worthy of serious partitude.

firstly, we begin with the current state of said fortress:

the curtain wall and bailey above are well near completion.  the massive walls buttress a solid bailey resting upon it.  materials for the outer walls lie on the ground waiting for utilization (read:  nowhere good to put the long stuff yet).

their construction is made of boxes and bins.  yep, they all contain parts!  lots new, and some old that will be cleaned up and reused.

towering above this all is a structure destined to command the landscape, and be just out of reach for the easy grabbing of a wrench 1mm bigger, because you always second guess what sizes you'll need.  or the four bolts holding something on will have random sized (yes, this is common.  and irritating.)

however, as my astute readers will well know, any major civil engineering project entailing all sorts of medieval technologies will generate rubbish.

the midden heap above will either go for scrap or destined for craigslist and web forums.  there's actually some nice stuff in there...  some.  :)

behold, mortals:  my impregnable, growing (and mostly german) FORTRESS OF PARTITUDE!!!

you know i can actually hide behind it.  it's fun.

work has actually been progressing -- check out the album: http://picasaweb.google.com/incomplete/ThePorsche944TurboProject

and, because it's just that awesome, i took a photo of my favorite tool, coincidentally being my most favorite 24v cordless impact wrench in the world, also freshly promoted to CEO of the fortress!  congrats, impact wrench!

prepare to enter the fortress of partitude

all ye tremble with fear as you approacheth my fortress of partitude.

the elements of the castle arriveth at a frenetic, and almost daily pace.  the squire of delivery brought to me my new oil cooler seal gasket set +1 less than a fortnight ago, and my power steering pump rebuild kit +2 (vorpal vs leaking fluid) was handed to me by a maiden's hand thrusting up from a lake.

however, it's not all renn faires and maidens.  the rustonic plauge has been sending the nuts and bolts to meet their maker, and they take their plight out on me.  plus, they're wily little suckers, requiring a rather dexterous approach to helping them on their way out of the car.

the monks of the forums are telling me the end is in sight, and i think it is.  but first, i must complete my fortress.

really.  i'm gonna see if i can make a box fort.

then i'm gonna hunker down and prepare to put a lot of crap back IN to the car that i just removed.  only this time, it's all at least +1.

new parts arriving like the tide coming in!

i bet, if i tried, i could sell a couple of refrigerators to some eskimos.  really.

of course, i'd ply them w/booze.  then i'd get the hell out of town.  during my flight, i'd probably trip and fall, allowing them to catch up to me.

never get caught by enraged eskimos.  no fun.

on a slightly more bucolic note, the money pit project continues to swallow money, but at a much, much more reasonable rate.

one of my talents (other than fails-man-ship, ha!) is scrounging.  i have a slew of google alerts and scan a few select forums semi-regularly for porsche parts.

today, i scored big.  the first thing i picked up from a fellow forum member were a pair of brake ducts.  $50.  cool.

then, it turned in to a battle of salesmanship.  the gentleman and i were chatting and he offhandedly mentions a certain refurbished intercooler sitting in his trunk that i should probably just take a look at.

yanno.  just one little look.  $80, man.  hardcore refurb.

my internal purchase defenses immediately went in to code "omg".  i tried to not look too excited, but i bet he noticed my attempt at suaveness.

"sure, i'll take a look.    ok, how much?"

so, in about 10 seconds i became the new owner of a $70 intercooler.  yep, i couldn't resist, but my scrounge-dar went off the scale.

...and i thought picking up a full set of koni yellow shocks w/less than 16k miles for $450 (retail $900+) was great!  those arrive monday, and it's gonna be a metric fsckton of awesome to open that box up.

yep, people parting the sea for me.  now i guess i should start putting all this stuff in the car.  or, maybe build a fort from all of the parts i've acquired.  no girls allowed, unless they have air tools.

(i actually have a plan to fix the car.  december is most likely the month that endeavor starts...)

long time, no posty

hello, all faithful 4 followers!  i'm sure you've been wondering where my inane ramblings have gone, but needless to say it's been a heckuva busy couple of months.  in no particular order:

1) burning man.  it was great.  dusty, too.  i even took some pics.
2) porsche work.  i painted some stuff that didn't need it, wrapped tape around a wiring harness, and am scrounging the hell out of the porsche forums for stuff.  hopefully in 2-3 months, it might run!
3) work work.  wow, work is work sometimes.  my "new" position is 6 months old now, and i'm feeling like my swimmies are partially deflated in the big kid's part of the pool.  :)
4) flea infestation.  instead of getting karma points for rescuing a loving, poor and starving stray kitten, the ladyfriend and i got fleas.  two doctors were convinced we had contagious skin conditions, courtesy of the kitty, but it ended up being a false alarm.  that was a week and a half gone to quarantine, however, and in two weeks i must have done 20+ loads of laundry to kill any of those dirty little flea bastards.  this did cause me to miss what would have been a kick-ass dj gig, however.  :(
5) computer lovin'.  i finally installed my new RAID array, 10k rpm system drive, and upgraded my gaming box to windows 7.  i took the opportunity to clean up my cabling, too.
6) skydiving!  yep, for tiffany's birthday i had her thrown out of a plane.

this week is no exception:  i'm spinning records at blowfish sushi in SF on wednesday, and then flying to NC to see my mom (and eat oysters at the southport oyster festival).  i might be co-driving a robot at combots the weekend of the 23rd, and then it's partying my ass off for halloween.  i've got work somewhere in there, too.  and maybe some video games.  :)

staying on course and a high-tech archaeological dig

the wacky idea i had last weekend, while intriguing, was but a pipe dream. why?

CARB.

yes, my great state has deemed that the 4-cyclinder dead-dinosaur consuming and carbon spewing turbocharged german death motor is preferable to a modern, emissions-happy high tech v8.  i'd get better gas milage, spew half of the emissions, and generally be a much more reliable motor.

there is an option, but it's so far out of my price (and sanity) range, that i have to banish it from my mind:  the E-ROD.  $9k for the motor, and another $10k for the mounting kit, heater/air conditioner adapters, upgraded brakes (as the stock power brake booster has to go), catalytic converters, and other sundry items.

but it'd sure be pretty awesome to have a v8.

anyways, back to reality.  let's fix what i got.  there are some rumors of other combos that will work, but before i take a plunge like that, i would need to be damn sure.  for reals.

this week, i got the engine computer(s) and harness out, which is a big step.  the computer chips, like my fuel pressure regulator were built/programmed by "ProMotion Racing".  nothing currently shows up on my favorite search engine, but i checked out the internet archive and found an old website.  i posted this on the rennlist.com forums, and a gentleman who's having a car built by this gentleman got in touch with me.  now i have the phone number of the guy, and can find out what, if anything, has been done to the engine internals!  yay!  i can hopefully find out about the programming on the chips, and whether or not they're updatable, and worth keeping in my car.

the trick fuel injector harness has just been spliced and soldered to my donor engine wiring harness.  all that needs now, besides replacing ALL of the stupid little plugs, is some cleaning and taping on the end that goes in to the passenger compartment.

now, i just need my new wiring harness replacement kit to come in the mail, so i can refurbish my donor harness.  that, and new battery leads, will then remove all fears of electrical shorts from my mind and engine bay.  after that, it's time to reassemble the beast with my new speed/crankshaft reference sensors, vacuum lines, fuel pressure gauge, braided fuel lines, hot plug wires, and wideband air/fuel monitor.

then i will try and start the car.

class car:
  def __init__(self):
    self.State = ''
    self.type = ''
    self.year = ''

  def Start(self):
    if crank_motor:
      if engine_catches:
        return True
    return False

  def TryStarting(self, start_count)

    start_count = start_count + 1

    if not self.Start():
      if start_count <= 3:
        TryStarting(start_count)

      elsif start_count > 3:
        self.State = 'dead'
        return False

     else:
       self.State() = 'running'
       return True

  def GetItOutOfDriveway(self)
    if self.State() == 'built':
      return self.TryStarting(poorsche, 0)

    else:
      logging.fatal('put the damn car together before you try this again!')
      return False

  def DriveToShopToGetTuned(self)
    if self.State == 'running':
      return GetToShopAndPayMoneyForTuning()

    else:
      return False

if __name__ == 'main':
  poorsche = new car.Porsche(type=951, year=1986, state='built')

  if poorsche.GetItOutOfDriveway():

    poorsche.DriveToShopToGetTuned()

  else:

    poorsche.Debug(desc='maybe i should try scrapbooking')

small things, big things, and a dash of autodipity

hmm.

big things might be getting interesting on the porsche front. and by "big" i mean "twice the cylinders". "interesting" is code for "LS1". i have lots to think about, but given how an idea followed by a phone call, followed by a barrage of emails leads to a potential solution to my irritation at german engineering could possibly mean one thing:

craigslist coming through! as soon as the category-5 email storm ended, and my response flutters to the aether, a message magically pops in to my inbox and i will now be selling a nice oil catch can that's been sitting around catching dust. i so did want to use it, but car plans changed a year ago and i sold the car it was destined for.

funny how things can just happen when you least expect it. anyone want to buy a 2.5L 1986 944 turbo motor? it's got a metric fuckton of new parts, but doesn't run quite yet. :)

move over malaise. see you later, serendipity. say hi to autodipity. dippity doo dah day.

sometimes, it's the little things...

but many little things can add up to a big thing, yes?

i'm getting sick of looking at the car under the cover in my driveway and recently decided to do something about it. after looking at my to-do list, i started w/the easy stuff that could be done atomically at the girlfriend's. basically getting little tasks done to kickstart the motivational process.

like making my own battery leads. (i got to use my propane torch for this. that's always a good time)

and cleaning out my intake manifold. (this was NASTY)

somtimes side pursuits pop up in the middle of this, like striving for better organization of photos, and album creation. of course, this means deleting old albums and creating them anew, messing up every freaking forum post i've made.

btw, the "old porsche owner" communities are insane. as in selflessly helpful and mostly right in their advice. searching for things like "porsche 944 vacuum help" shows how much of a pain in the ass this car can be, but how it's just paying dues. if it wasn't for these resources, i'd be broke from paying for repairs, homeless and living out of the 944. which would be broken down somewhere, of course.

it's the whole tinkerer mentality. it's just a different medium than, say, linux. or scrapbooking.

ok, neither of those two things are like scrapbooking. but blogging sure is.

the 951 project, or: staring deeply in to fail's eyes

well, it's time for a possibly intelligent blog post.

really.

ok, maybe not.

i spent the last couple of hours working on my driveway ornament and getting it ready to send off to the garage. before i call AAA, however, i have a few things i want to do.

in the name of savings, of course. working on this beast is expensive.

i just got two new 'used' injectors for $20, and an entire wiring harness in the mail a couple of days ago. i'm having the injectors rebuilt and matched by my shop, which curiously had happened before. after a professional noticed two of my four were leaking, i found these in the internet. new ones are really expensive, the guy says these work, and they can't be worse than the two that spew fuel everywhere... i hope.

i have a little work to do one the harness before i send the car off. i need to swap my donor fuel injector harness with my new (and super fancy, red silicon heat sheath coated) fancy harness. Mostly because the current one is 24 years old, and due to some (repeated, apparently) overheating, cracking.

i figure that cutting out the old injector is easy, but i need to do (yet again) more homework to ensure i connect the right wires to the right connector.

of course, every guide i have found has a different injector harness (par for course) and the color of my new wires don't match anything in the guides.

note the trend here.

the new 'used' battery leads are in worse shape than my current ones, so i'll be asking one of my parts sources if i can work out a refund or trade for some other of the massive lists of things i need. at least i can measure the length and go buy some cable and cut it myself.

oh, and in a couple of weeks i should be getting in a set of brand new replacement connectors for the harness. that's about 243562 plastic plugs to replace, but again: think of the cash savings.

yep. i'm intelligent. i own a 24 year old, heavily modified german sports car and am working on a lot of it myself.

some day i'll take this damn thing to the track, even if i'm living out of the back and taking showers w/baby wipes. for now, it's back to asking for advice and trying to cherry pick the proper bits that are more useful than potentially dangerous. :)

wow. it's 2010 and i finally have a blog.

who knows... maybe i'll use it? for now, let's look at a kitty!