fowljesse's GS/SE DE/ZE ;)

[marcdh]

awh man! That blows. You'll fix it though! This way you now have full creative licence eh?

[fowljesse]

Thanks, Marc, you're right!
Mark, fortunately, it was just the hood, a small chip off the cowl, and the points of the fenders at the cowl. Oh, and the hinges were bent pretty badly.The top of the hood was broken at the corners of the rectangle vent hole, the lines coming from the hole were trashed almost the full lengths, the corners near the window were almost torn off, it was warped all over, and the underside support was shattered in many places, and mostly torn from the upper skin.
Marc, and Mark, I was thinking about painting it anyway, so I'm okay now. I went to a helpful place; "TAP Plastics", and bought a bunch of stuff (FG sheet, resin, filler, etc..). The hood is fixed. I could have restored the CF, but it would have cost more, and been harder to do. It is now in almost perfect shape, and stronger than before. It turns out that he mated the 2 sheets with straight resin, and not a filler, that has bits of fiberglass in it, which would have been stronger. The bottom looks ugly, but who's doesn't? I'll put up pics, soon.
So, about the artistic license; I'll have "Angry Angel Eyes" soon
Also, I learned alot more about F/G, and Carbon Fiber. I almost wish I had the CF fetish, because I can wrap just about anything. I may make a few pieces, just because If I wanted to, I could re-cover the whole hood, and hatch, but it's not worth the $$ to me.
I may do something cool with the space between the rear windows where the spoiler was..

[Mooneggs]

yeah TAP plastics is a great store! That's where I got the lexan to do the little window in the hatch!

Glad to hear you are making the best of the situation (I actually don't expect anything less from you ) and I look forward to seeing what it looks like once you're done!

[fowljesse]

Thanks Mark Let's meet up soon!
I'm staying with a friend, so I can't do pics yet. HOwever, after fixing, and painting it, it looks almost perfect If you scrutinize, you can see that the edge along the fenders has a very slight dip.

Yesterday, I decided to do some fine MegaSquirt tuning, so I went to a steep hill, and went up, and down until I had all of my map tuned. I went up in first gear, holding at different rpms, and tuning to 13.5:1 AFR, and then in second gear. When I had to do the higher end of the powerband, I put the parking brake on, varying the load, depending on which vertex I wanted to be in, ie., 3,000rpm/ high load. It feels even better, but I need to do it on a dyno.

[fowljesse]

So, here are the pictures of my broken hood;









I don't have pics of the underside, which is where the damage really was. It seperated from the skin, and shattered. I'll get a picture of my uuugly fix. It's alot more rigid than before, and the same weight, or lighter, since alot of solid resin was originally used to glue the skin & reinforcement together. I glued them closer together with a resin that had Fiberglass in it.

Also, I had some bad torque steer, so I got underneath and found that the rear A-arm bolts were slightly loose. I tightened them, and put my underbody spoiler back on, but reinforced it first. It's also uuuugly, but works perfectly, and can't be seen. One day, I'll make one out of Aluminum.







It's made out of a campaign sign (coroplast), reinforced with a couple of Aluminum strips.
Now I don't cringe every time I hit a puddle on the freeway

[mx3autozam]

Must be a pain in the a-- to change the oil with that s--- under there.

[_-Night-Shade-_]

Must be a pain in the a-- to change the oil with that s--- under there.

Most people tune on a dyno but Jesse's too hardcore for that

[fowljesse]

When it comes time for the next oil change, I'm going to cut a small (probably circular) section out, and and clip it back in. I've got it figured out, but it would be hard to explain. I'll be making one for the back soon.

It's not so much that I'm hard core, as I'm hard poor It's running great, though! It feels like it's pulling at the ground, wanting to open up
I go to bed thinking about a glorious dyno day... I'd tune the fuel more, then do 4 pulls, 1 for each VRIS configuration, then set the VRIS accordingly, and then tune the fuel and spark rpm map bins to the VRIS, then tune the fuel more, then spark timing, then cam timing. Then I'd finally have printable bragging rights!

[_-Night-Shade-_]

Mannnnnnnn I can't wait to get MegaSquirt, one day...

[fowljesse]

It's perfect for me. I've always enjoyed fine tuning, and tuning on the fly. I had a '75 Chevy van that I rebuilt, and I made a lever, so I could adjust the spark timing while driving
I got the idea when a friend's van wasn't running right because of the timing, and we had a mountain bike race to go to, so I adjusted the timing on the freeway. It worked great, but one of my bike shoes fell into the exhaust manifold, and I had to carefully, but quickly reach down there and grab it without letting the bumpy road throw my into the engine.
Good times.

[fowljesse]

I did something about my losing rpm during shifting in traffic issue. I bent the tab that stops the clutch pedal forward, to just past the point of clutch disengagement, so I know the exact point, and don't lose time pushing the clutch in too far. I had to shim the safety switch, so the car would start. I don't have any pictures because they would be boring, and not helpful. The car feels alot more precise.
I also moved my rear mudguards forward, for a radiused look, and slightly better aerodynamics. When I put on the sideskirts, I moved them rearward for the same purpose. Just the other day, I finally finished moulding them in.
I had a great "DUH" moment today, too. I've been trying to get my idle to 700rpm for a little while, screwing with the TB, MegaSquirt, everything I could think of, to no avail. It finally hit me to check the torque on the IM nuts and bolts... They were not as tight as they should have been. I checked many times for vacuum leaks ever since I put on the bored TB Now my idle is perfect, and I have to go through all the tuning again, since it's tuned for the extra air sneaking in.

[WhiteFinish]

That's no effort wasted

Now you can tell the rest of us how you should tune for Idle with megasquirt

[Mooneggs]

I wish we knew how to fix your car.

[marcdh]

yea whats going on with it?! Long time no see :/

[Mooneggs]

Jesse and I were over at cjthor's house last night (where it has been parked for many months) and checked a few things. The timing is showing advanced on the MS screen by about 15 degrees. We physically checked the timing marks and they are all correct so we think it is something within MS that is messed up