The turbomacncheese build thread

[AZPete]

you took the bait.

[lsfourwheeler]

Do you have a Tactrix cable to delete some of the codes for TGV and such?

[Ipassgas]

Dang. I go away for 5 months, and you start nipping at my heels. Crap. I gotta fix the Aston, the Bug, the WRX and then get back to winning the race!

[turbomacncheese]

https://youtu.be/PjIGawBcp4o

Never mind the beard and the hair.

[Shawn818c]

congrats on reaching the go-kart milestone!!

[turbomacncheese]

Not much very remarkable, as so many people have gone before me. I really need to stop procrastinating on the motor mounts and maf sensor now.
I DO need to say that the brake booster is perfect, though. I didn't mash the brakes because wifey was with me, but it felt just like the pedal on my other cars. Once I got out of the driveway, I forgot all about it. SUPER happy with how that turned out.

[AZPete]

What? "Not much very remarkable", you say. How can you say that when your power brakes worked? This is the first 818 with a working power brake booster, isn't it? I know that you researched, and researched, and tried, and errored (is that a word?), and persevered until you found what works. All the rest of us had to get used to pressing the pedal hard compared to our DDs, but you did it! Congrats!

Next, I think you should create a separate thread about adding power brakes so others can follow. Show the parts needed, how to install and whatever else would help.

Oh, and another First: First go-kart video at night.

Again, congrats on taking us up another step to power brakes.

[turbomacncheese]

Yeah, i suppose that's something. I did make the pdf already and shared it here. Not really much to add outside of that, as I already did my best to make it complete. Maybe a new post with the result update would be in order, though.

[turbomacncheese]

Well, i finally got to the bottom of the maf sensor problem. It does indeed only fit the intake tube in one direction. So it wasn't installed backwards. The intake tube though, that's another story. It doesn't fit equally well both ways, but it DOES go on backwards. I flipped the whole thing around and it fired up. But the family was waiting on me for dinner so between hurrying up to get inside and slapping myself simultaneously on the back and the forehead, I didn't bother to look at the lights on the dash.

[jforand]

Congrats on the go karting. We actually timed up pretty well.

1st Start - 2/13/21

1st Drive - 4/3/21
(had to wait on rear axles, ordered after 1st start)

Bus parking lot driving as it is not street legal

1st Track - Road Atlanta 6/12/21
Made it 2.5 laps and a significant oil leak actually caught fire during a Red Flag for another guys crash

2nd Track - Virginia International Raceway 6/28-6/29
Made it the first day and had tons of fun building up the speed. Lost a piston an killed the motor first session of day two.

4S9A9913.jpg
Good times while they lasted. Body optional!

4S9A4230-2.jpg
Fist in the air is the universal "oh crap, that is likely expensive" signal to the other people on track.

[AZPete]

. . . And slapping myself simultaneously on the back and the forehead,

lol

[turbomacncheese]

Chose to buy the $180 Tactrix OpenPort instead of the $40 knockoff because I'm slowly learning that it doesn't make sense to buy tools I need to fix before I can use them to fix my projects. I can't say whether skipping the import tool was a good idea, but getting the Tactrix was definitely a good idea. Connected on the first shot, pulled the ROM down on the first shot, took all my changes on the first shot, and uploaded to the ECU successfully on the first shot. Started right up, no check engine light, no abs light, no cruise control light. Gotta say, that feels really good. I think there is a lightbulb for the airbag lamp that we can remove, right?
20210805_184811.jpg

[Hobby Racer]

I think there is a lightbulb for the airbag lamp that we can remove, right?
20210805_184811.jpg

Even easier, if you connect the B3 wire from the large center connector to ground it will turn off the ABS light.

Screenshot from 2021-08-06 08-06-30.png

[turbomacncheese]

I have my abs plumbed in and the light is off. It's the airbag light I need to deal with.

[Hobby Racer]

I have my abs plumbed in and the light is off. It's the airbag light I need to deal with.

Oops, you need to run +12V to B18 in the same connector. Look at the pic I posted before, its there.

[turbomacncheese]

I see. I also didn't realize the back of the cluster has to come off to even see the light. The bulb I THOUGHT I would pull is actually for the battery. Weird how some of the bulbs are accessible, though.

Is there any other advantage to running 12V besides not risking a few broken clips?

[Hobby Racer]

Is there any other advantage to running 12V besides not risking a few broken clips?

Not really. By running +12V your just faking the cluster out to think the air bag is connected and working fine.

[turbomacncheese]

Thanks. Wish I'd known a year ago. Right now I'm about sick of wires, but I'm pretty sure I'll end up taking it all apart at some point in the future anyway.

[turbomacncheese]

Turns out it takes a lot of skill to go from a want to an idea to a thing (which has only increased my admiration for most of you!). My wants exceed my ideas, and my ideas far exceed my skills, at least with my current tools. I'm spending way too much time trying to figure out how to make certain things work the way i WANT them to, so I've put the stock intercooler and motor mounts back on. I'm also going to roll back my ideas for the interior. Pretty well committed at this point to stripping it down after driving for a while and shaking it out, which will give me time to figure out what I'm going to do for the wife's hallmark truck request. Plus I'll be out of the rental house by then and have room for my tools and real space to work.
But the dang shifter. I figure driving a car means shifting gears a hundred times a week or more, and if I don't fix it now I'll be mad a hundred times a week, and i don't need that kind of negativity on a ride. My immediate plan is to turn the kit shifter around and press out the stick so it isn't bent the wrong way. That means I'll need to reverse the motion on both cables. If I can't get that to work I'll spend the money on one of the generic ebay shifters. Then I'll move on to shortening the cables as a couple others have done, otherwise if shortening the cables doesn't go well, I'll do as most and buy them. It won't take me long to spend more money on the attempt than on the cables, so I'll need a fair bit of luck and the ability to call the effort dead (not my strong suit).
I'm the meantime, here is my progress on the crank. So far, I think it's gonna work. Just need to pick up some tiny rod ends so I can figure out what the selector bracket needs to look like. Once I have that, i can probably sketch it. The large bracket will be steel, the cranks will be alunimimium. If I can't make this work, I'll buy a solution need I need to move on.

https://youtu.be/sPc9IH6Fv8c

[FFRWRX]

Exactly what I did. Mocked it up in wood and then machined the parts in aluminum. Add a few extra holes for adjustment, so you can play with shifter throw vs effort. My 'L' bracket also reversed the throw, since my shifter needed that.

001DE23E-F131-482E-8DB3-8BF64579D3CE_1_105_c.jpeg

Rick

[turbomacncheese]

WOW. That's really something, how similar they are!

[jforand]

Same basic thing here (My wood mockup was far more primitive though). I also integrated in a lever for the reverse lockout. It is simply bicycle brake cable and it runs up to a collar on the shifter itself. I just reach down with two fingers and pull the collar up for reverse.

shift linkage.jpg

This was early on so, NO the sheetrock screw is not how I am securing the reverse lockout lever and the spring roll pin is fully engaged on the lever arm Currently I have flipped the plastic FFR shifter around backwards so the cables come out the rear. I ended up shortening those to tighten things up a bit. It can get a little confusing on reversing or not revering the push/pull actions.

[turbomacncheese]

I like it! I'm not gonna lie, I wish I'd seen either of those setups before I started mine. Designing stuff is NOT something I've ever been good at, and I spent a LOT of hours getting this far. Thanks for sharing.

Was it difficult to shorten the cables? I've seen that a couple members did this successfully, but it seems a bit...fiddly?

[FFRWRX]

Was it difficult to shorten the cables? I've seen that a couple members did this successfully, but it seems a bit...fiddly?

Depends on the tools and equipment you have. I figured I had nothing to lose to try shortening them. Worst case was I mess them up and order new ones, which I would have done if I didn't try shortening them. I put some details on my build page on how I did it (post #66). I would say not terribly difficult, but a bit fiddly. I used a lathe to make/modify some parts and a small hydraulic press and silver brazing. If you are about to order new shorter ones, then cut one of the cables off near the end and see how it is made up and how to shorten it. Probably many ways to do it. There isn't a huge pulling load on them so it probably doesn't need to be as strong as the factory connection. But you certainly don't want them coming apart.

Rick

[aquillen]

I have leftovers from shortening mine (I think I do). I could send a piece if you want to see what it will demand of you to try first. You probably saw my posts on doing this. Some fab work required beside just chopping things off since you have to make your own new end peices.

[turbomacncheese]

Thanks gentlemen. I'm pretty sure that you are exactly the two I was thinking of. The silver solder rings my bell, and Art, well, you're Art, lol.
I will definitely not be using these cables, so no harm if i mangle them, and not a lot of boats out here in the desert so i can't imagine anyone needing 20ft cables so no money lost there.
I did build several cncs since I talked to you about them a couple years ago, Art, (which is why my parts aren't lopsided or crooked and the bearings fit) but I'm down to 2 routers, a laser, and a couole printers, lol. None of them suitable for making the required endpieces, i think. And no lathe yet.
I think I'll just cut one open and see. When I was a kid I took things apart just to see how they worked (I'm pretty sure everyone here did) so this will be no different.
First, i want to get everything else sorted though. I picked up a new endmill and i want to try steel on one of my routers. It would be real nice if i could cut that part in house.
Thanks for the help.

[turbomacncheese]

Well, I didn't forget about this thing and I haven't given up (although I did briefly consider selling it and buying an 80s camaro or jaguar to work on instead). Long story short-ish, we built a house on 9 acres, had to live in a rental while it was being built (with hardly any garage space), and when we finally moved it got a good hard rain that flooded the garage because the concrete wasn't sloped away enough from the bay door. Guys came out to grind it down for us which required moving the 818 outside, and while they were working, the heavens opened up and rained on it. Took me 6 months to figure out the reason it stopped working was that the immobilizer got wet and the board rusted. Anyone who's looked at the 2006 immobilizer knows why this is a big problem for us.

After MUCH consternation (and swearing), many phone calls, hours and hours of internetting, and some deep soul-searching, I lucked into another ECU/Immobilizer/Key. Ajzride sold me his, and if anyone got here searching his name to find whether he's trustworthy because they want to buy something from him, he's great. Really bailed me out, big time.

In the months of sitting, some things have deteriorated, some things were finished quickly to get it running so I could load it on a rented trailer, and some things, well.....

Most pressing is that we pushed it outside to work on the Hyundai, and the wife noticed fuel leaking from the elbow that comes off the fuel tank. I'd hoped it was a loose clamp, but it's all kinds of cracked up. I'm gonna need a replacement, not sure what to replace it with.

After that is the engine mounts. The DIY urethane I put together didn't leave the faces parallel, and when I tightened one of them down the plate separated. I had some scrap 4x2 steel that appears to have the dimensions I want, so I'm going to try some sold mounts out of those. If that doesn't work out for me, I'll attempt some IAG clones, and if that fails, I'll just make spacers that use up whatever extra thread I have on the stock mounts and settle for that.

The epoxy holding the windshield frame together has failed, so that's disappointing, but I think it should be trivial to scrape that away and add some new, although I could use some clues about what kind of epoxy would be suitable.

After that, dashboard lights and really all the lights. From there I just want to button it up and get it registered. If it works well enough, then it works until then. Maybe drive it around for a month or two and make a list of everything that I don't like (including the wiring) and rip it all back apart to finish it better with all my new skills and tools. THEN I'll paint it. Starting to feel pretty good here, but I want to build an auxiliary shed/garage for working on cars (or at least storing them) and reclaim the spot it's in for woodshop stuff. Wifey is getting pretty serious about the side-gig, so we need more room (of course).