The Lawn Dart

[Deceus]

Have some oil seeping out of the front of the intake still. I'm hoping this time it's the breather because it's definitely not the valvetrain anymore. The breather on it is pretty restrictive so I ordered one with an open element. I don't think the rings are 100% seated and this thing just isn't keeping up when I get the engine up around 4k. The PCV is likely keeping things under control at idle like it should.

My speedometer isn't working at all now either. The sending unit isn't connecting for some reason. I figured maybe it was the ground but it's good and the unit is displaying it's got power, just never makes a connection. I'll have to email the company again and get a new one. It was wired up wrong when I got it and they offered me one if I didn't feel like fixing it. Hopefully that deal is still on the table.

Summit is apparently completely out of braided nylon -6 AN hose for a good bit. My original estimate was 2-3 day delay but it's looking like the 20ft hose won't be in til next month sometime. The 3ft and 6ft is in stock so I order four of the 6ft hoses and will just have to build my return line in sections. It's the only real option because I don't want to try and use my hose ends with another brand hose, the rubber hose doesn't like ethanol and I HATE dealing with braided steel (and it's absolute overkill for a return line).

Paypal fucked up and charged my old bank account for the fuel pump. They won't let me remove the damn account and when I called they told me there's nothing at all that can be for 3-5 days. So much for the backup option they make me select on every order because I know damn well in 3-5 days they'll just hit the same account and then not be able to do anything for another 3-5 days instead of simply using the right account. Not sure if the order went through at this point. Gonna have to call them once it's a decent hour on the west coast but that's the only piece to the puzzle missing besides the fuel line at this point. I'd really like to have it to mockup the install this weekend. When this is resolved I'm done with Paypal entirely. I'm not giving a company access to my money when they can't answer some of the most basic questions about a simple transaction.

It feels wrong to be tearing this thing apart the moment the weather is getting better but it's gotta get done.

[Deceus]

Finally decided to stop being a lazy piece of shit and get in the garage. Only waiting on the fuel line at the moment so I figured it was time to start mocking things up. I threw on the new valve cover breather and I'm pretty happy with it. It should flow A LOT better, fits pretty snug and looks pretty good as well.



Got the fuel pump mounted. Had to use some of the spacers I bought for the gas pedal to get it upright but fit really well where I wanted it. I have a vague idea on how I'm going to run the lines/filters and I think need to order a double female union instead of the male ones I have.



Tore into the EFI box to make sure everything was there and looked good. Managed to get it mounted and hooked up the throttle cable without any issue. The bracket could stand to be a little wider but once the cable is tighten I should clear all the linkage no problem. Took a look at the wiring charts and made sure I had a clue where everything was going. There was a second harness which threw me for a loop until i realized it's just for input/output to the gauges I already have hooked up so I won't need it. Just need to hookup positive, negative, fuel pump positive, coil negative and it's ready to rock. Probably going to have play roulette with my intake manifold hoses to get the EFI water temp sensor where it needs to be. Not a fan of that since I remember how impossible it was to locate the right NPT to Barb fitting for the passenger side hole.

[Senor_Taylor]

The engine bay is looking RIGHT.

[Steve85]

Very interested is following your experience with the EFI conversion. Always wondered if they were as straight forward as advertised and how well it runs.

[Deceus]

The engine bay is looking RIGHT.

I still need to clean up my spark plug wires pretty bad. I have everything I need to make em pretty, it's just pretty low on the list right now. When i feel like getting my hands soaked in brake fluid, I'll redo the brake lines as well.

---

Very interested is following your experience with the EFI conversion. Always wondered if they were as straight forward as advertised and how well it runs.

Shouldn't be long, I want to have it running again this weekend. I'm excited to see how well it'll handle autocrossing and if it'll solve my idling issues. It's been bouncing between 600 and 900 for quite some time now.

[Deceus]

Had a pretty productive weekend despite the hurricane force winds beating down the house most of the weekend. Got a lot of things mostly done but I have to wait on my order from Saturday to get in. Didn't have enough 90 degree fittings to finish plumbing the fuel pump properly but I got the return line mostly done and that's the hard part. I got the wiring all routed for everything but the battery connections. I decided to just order a 100ft reel of red and black 12ga wire from Summit because I'm tired of being nickled and dimed at the parts store. The O2 sensor is hooked up and should be ready to rock. I also pulled the plate out of the dash and I'm working on getting the proper holes cut in my new instrument panel. Ran out of things to do so I started trimming the spark plug wires to make them a bit neater and safer. The passenger side ones were hanging a bit low without the breather there to keep them from sliding off the back of the valve cover.









Should be coming together next weekend, stay tuned friends.

[ScottyB]

Ran out of things to do

you're insane.

but seriously, the engine bay is looking The Business and did you get a chance to monkey with the TBI system yet? i hope it runs awesome because everything i hear about with those systems is a big jump up in driveability.

[Deceus]

Ran out of things to do

you're insane.

but seriously, the engine bay is looking The Business and did you get a chance to monkey with the TBI system yet?  i hope it runs awesome because everything i hear about with those systems is a big jump up in driveability.

I spent more time doing errands than anything too. Even drove to Winchester and back on sunday to sell the kit I used to install my engine and trans. Just hit a couple small snags with everything but it was definitely a busy weekend for the car. Haven't got to do anything with it yet since I'm going to be smart and run the wires all the way back to the battery like you're supposed to. I'm excited though because I've heard nothing but good things about em. I'm sure a better carb would've done the trick too but I rarely hear about anyone switching back for anything other than looks.

Currently trying to talk myself out of revamping the brakes to hydroboost at the same time as the k-member swap. On one hand it's the perfect time to do it since I'm disconnecting and dropping the power steering box, on the other hand it's already March and I'd like to not bury myself in project hell instead of enjoying the car. I need to put the handbrake on it's own system as well if I'm opening that can of worms and unfortunately I have to pull the axles to replace the caliper mounts to one that'll hold dual calipers. idk we'll see. I suppose I could just bypass the handbrake entirely for a while since I haven't tried that yet. We'll see.

[Deceus]

Got the plumbing in the engine bay done. I didn't like how the EFI inlet hose was ran so I played with the routing for a while instead of finishing the return. I think I finally got it where I want. I decided to mount the big fuel filter on the bracket for the pulley kit. There just isn't enough room on that inner fender for anymore crap and coming in from the side was causing the fitting to hit my air cleaner.



Got the temp sensor in as well and moved the heater hose loop over. The AN fittings worked great but the hose wasn't really flexible to fit over the water pump so I had to boil it. Used some harbor freight hose clamps and of course they gave me hell, might be replacing those.



Just gotta run the battery wires and finish the return line. Should get the wire tomorrow. Probably won't fire until Thursday or Friday though.

[Deceus]

So I'm one AN fitting away from being finished with the EFI install. Had to place an order because I don't have any laying around. If they weren't $15 a piece I would've just ordered a ton to keep around. Wiring is done though. Had some issues with my new crimpers until I got used to em.

Think I managed to to fix the front turn signals as well. Just missed a detail in the install instruction that said to splice the front into the back running lights if they both need power all the time because they're switched off for the front with the headlights on. They're turning on now but not blinking, which is probably an issue because my battery is probably low since I left the lights on when I pulled out the dash plate. Speaking of that I should have my nice new panel in tonight since I'm out of other things to do now. (minus installing the k-member) I've been waiting on a white sharpie marker to come in so I can make clear marks on the black ABS plastic. Didn't think it'd take a week for Amazon to ship a damn pen.

Kinda bummed to see the first Autocross event come and go. I gotta be in NoVa this weekend and Maryland on Monday anyways so i guess it doesn't make a difference but I'm starting to feel the pressure to get this thing done. Think I'm gonna tackle the k-member swap in the same fashion as the EFI next week. Just do it during the week and pick one small task to complete everyday and call it a night. The plan is to get everything disconnected the first night, get the engine supported and swap the k-members the second night, get everything back together the third night and do the alignment work the final night. As much as I'd like to test out the EFI system the moment it's ready, I don't think the weather is really gonna cooperate. Next weekend is looking kinda decent though.

[Deceus]

Didn't touch the front-end work but did get the engine fired back up last night. It died the first time after a couple seconds but ran fine after that. RPMs seemed pretty high at startup but my idle was also around 1200 initially until i dialed back the idle screw. I think the system just adds 50% fuel at start-up so that was putting me at like 2100 rpm.

My timing on the handheld was jumping around and eventually settled at 7 degrees which I knew wasn't right so I busted out the timing light I bought a few weeks ago. Not sure what the exact number was but I saw the 40 and 50 timing marks and almost shit my pants until I remembered I was at 1200 rpm and not actually idling. That's still pretty high so I dialed it back down to 15-16 degrees once I got the engine back down around 750-800rpm where it should be. Gave it some gas and total timing was around 36 and the engine seemed a bit happier. I let the car get up to temp and hit the gas a few times. I think the system needs some time to self-tune because it was having a bit of trouble handling even a small jab of the throttle.

Was really cool seeing the system pickup that my timing was off and finally getting to see what my air/fuel readings were. Got everything installed into my new instrument panel and have it in place now.



No fuel leaks or surprises really. The install was super simple. If I had a fuel pump, return line and the battery up front, then it probably would have been done in a single evening. Time to get this thing off the jackstands and drive it a bit. Still kind of undecided on how I'm approaching the K-member. I have a 3 day weekend of nice weather and my gut is telling me to knock this shit out.

Oh I guess I'm buying a house on Massanutten too so I guess I'm officially going to be a townie.





So much room for activities.

[Senor_Taylor]

I need to see this house when you make the move. That looks beautiful and seems like a great location for you. That garage is wonderful.

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[ScottyB]

that house is baller!

super interested to see how your setup self-tunes. technology is cool.

on my old subaru, after a battery reset, it needed at LEAST 5 minutes at idle to relearn the proper A/F and throttle position or it would completely die at idle if you just got in and drove off. granted that's on a MAF system but still, i'm sure it'll smooth out given more run time as the coolant and oil temps rise and level off.

[Deceus]

Yeah it wasn't bad. It would just stumble and the A/F ratio would spike real hard but it was doing a pretty good job correcting itself and not just out right dying. I'm thinking the timing issue might explain why I was seeing a bit oil seepage on my last journey. At least I hope that's the case because I don't want to have to take the intake off a third time.

That brings up a good point though. I need to put the wires for this thing on some dedicated battery terminals. Right now they're just behind the nut on my battery cables. I'd rather not wipe out the memory on this thing everytime I need to disconnect my battery. That might not be the case because it does have an SD card in the handheld. I imagine that's where it would store memory/history but they were pretty adamant in the instruction to have it on it's own circuit entirely.

[Deceus]

Well I spoke too soon. One of the fittings was leaking pretty bad. It seems the hose got pushed out of the back. I knew it didn't look right when I made but I ran with it because I was tired of fucking with AN fittings. Plus these things don't really like going back together a second time for whatever reason. These aluminum threads really love to eat themselves. Aaaaannnnddddd speaking of which that's exactly what this fucker did. I don't have an spares laying around so I'm stuck waiting on a $5 part that won't get here until after the weekend. So much for driving it on my 3 day weekend.

[Deceus]

REALLY need to pick up some caps for my AN fittings. Apparently where I disconnected the return line started dripping last night and I woke to the smell of gas in the house. It wasn't too strong or anything but the garage of course reeked. Gonna tear into the front end this weekend against my better judgement. Don't have much else going on and Sunday is looking pretty good actually. Once this is done I should be done with any major work until the end of the season.

[Deceus]

Phase one is complete. The K-member is ready to come out once the engine is supported. Not sure I'll have time to do it tomorrow since I'll be at the new house with a home inspector.

[Senor_Taylor]

You move so quickly. Please let me come watch you some day.

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[Deceus]

You move so quickly. Please let me come watch you some day.

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I feel like I've done everything there is to do on this car at least 3 times now.

Only had the motivation to fix the return line since the fittings came earlier than expected. Gonna have a busy day tomorrow getting the old k-member out, the new one in and the suspension put back together. The tie rod boots on the passenger side are in bad shape somehow, so I'm ordering some polyurethane boots to replace the shitty thin rubber ones. I'll probably just get everything in place and call it a day. No sense in trying to get anything torqued down.

[Deceus]

Today was just one of those days on the car that completely pushed me over the edge. Every bolt of every step fought me and I had a few full-blown meltdowns. It's mostly in now though by some miracle. The power steering box is hanging on the header so the driver side mount isn't fully seated. I'll have to drop that side and see if I can get it the rest of the way in. The real scary news is that the 2 passenger side K-member bolts were so loose I took them out by hand. I was probably only a few dozen miles away from a stage 5 code brown. Definitely going to make sure the new bolts are torqued down a few times and throw some lock-tite in there for good measure. Didn't get a chance to throw anything else back on but I'm waiting for ball joint boots anyways. Hopefully I never have to touch the front suspension ever again.











So much for the expensive ass headers and steering box I bought to avoid this issue ...



Look at all that room though.