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.