Putting in my electromotive FINALLY!

I thought about T-ing off the brake booster but I was concerned about the vacuum modulation by the use of the brakes, or is this not an issue?

The carb cars also have tiny vacuum lines from the carbs that connect to the vapor recovery system (at least I think that's what they are). Would those work??

I can't seem to find any specs or pictures of the MAP sensor on the internet so I can get a feel for what might be involved in hooking it up. (It's just two wires from the XDI brain plus a ground so the electrical part is a no brainer).

Birdman

 

Here's a couple more pics showing where and how I'm mounting the various pieces. The wiring at this point is not clean and mounted, I'm just getting everything pre-wired for functionality.

Birdman
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Paul,
Thanks! I have not looked at the manual RE: MAP sensors yet. I assume that the settings for the MAP are somewhat user settable. Can you suggest settings? Nick, are you reading this? Do you have the sensors?

Birdman

 

No, I bought it from Durable1. Be sure to get the right one. There is a smaller one for the older Electromotive and a larger one for the new style XDI with the larger coil packs. I had to mod it a little to fit by bending it a tad. It will not fit a carb car with the distributors in place. You need to remove them first. I had intended to leave the distributors and most of the parts of the old ignition in place (except coils of course) until I knew the XDI was working right, but that turned out to be impossible.

Birdman

 

Hey Jwise,
Thanks man, but what you are seeing is the red hose is actually going around a corner and a little kinked. I put that hose in last year when the part of the old hose connected to the engine was bulging. I haven't gotten around to pulling a whole new hose through the car to the front, so I cheesed out and spliced a new section. The red hose is pretty new.

I had to re-route the hose to get the coil packs in, so now it's not in the position it was, hence the kink. (I knew when I took this pic that someone was going to give me some crap about my spliced heater hose!)

Birdman

 

OK, so here's where it stands today. I had some time and I built the plates to block off the giant holes where the distributors went. I got my hands on some 1/4" thick T-6061 aluminum plate, and traced the outline of the distributor base on it with a marker. Then I used a bandsaw to cut them out. After some cleaning up with a big file (can't grind aluminum well) to make the edge nice and clean, I bolted them in. Now the distributors are truly gone. I also went down to NAPA and got a roll of gasket material and made new gaskets by tracing the old one so I didn't have to pay the big bucks for paper stampings from Ferrari.

I also got the wiring finished so everything has power. The way it works is the old wiring for the coils is not used. The existing switched power for the ignition runs the XDI brain and a pair of relays which turn on the big current for the coil packs, which need up to 10 amps each. So those are now on a seperate set of 10 A fuses and their own power line, coming directly from the big fat power line that feeds the starter. This is convenient because it's right at the bottom of the engine. Added bonus, I don't need to snake a wire all the way to the battery or, God forbid, into the dash someplace to pick up a good electrical feed. The fire hose-sized wire to the starter will be great for this.

Tomorrow with luck I'll have the spark plug wires finished and I'll be able to fire it up. Keep your fingers crossed. Next I need to get some cooler plugs and look into the MAP sensor. But first, let's get it running! I just watched "Overhaulin" so now I'm all pumped up to finish this!

Birdman
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Going back to post #7, I would like to review and correct something I said that is not quite accurate. The end of the cam where the distributor plugs in is not actually the end of the cam. In looking at the exploded diagrams, this piece is actually pinned into the end of the cam. If you were to pull the cam covers, you could unpin this piece, and then actually plug the cam end. Kermits's plugs would probably fit there, and that's where it must be designed to go. The only thing this would gain you is that the distributor end of the cam would no longer protrude through the cam seal and you could eliminate one more piece of stuff (the plate that holds the cam seal which is between the distributor and the head). But you would still need to block off the hole where the distributor went because, cam-end sealed or not, oil would get in that area from the head. So it seems easier to leave the end that drives the distributor pinned in place, leave the cam seal, and put the plate on the end. In this case, if the cam seal has integrity, the plate on the end is only a dust cover. It doesn't need to keep oil in, because it can't get past the cam seal. (I still used a gasket anyway).

If the cam seal were to leak, it can't get out anyway.

Finally, this is the easiest way to do it so that another owner could <shudder> go back to points and distributors. Just pull the plates, bolt the dizzies back on, and hook it up.

Confused yet?

It is my understanding that on the injected cars, the design is a little different, so this is carb cars only info.

Birdman

 

Today's update:

I finished the spark plug wires and then realized that even though the wheels aren't on and the car is on the lift, I could test start the car. Imagine my reluctance....what would happen?

So with complete confidence in my electrical skills, I carefully squirmed into the car (doors don't open far on the lift), put the key in the ignition, let the fuel pump prime, gave it a couple pumps of the gas, and turned the key. It started! Stone cold, hasn't been started in 3 months or so, and it settled down to a perfect idle. All is right in the world.

OK, so I haven't driven it, but it runs, and it idles way better than it did before. (The cold fast idle device has been removed by a PO so the car tended to idle slow when cold, then speed up to 900 RPM when warm. In this case, the car idles much better when cold, but I haven't warmed it up to test what happens when it gets warm. I want to put a timing light on it first to verify the timing.) No other observations to report at this time.

Now the bad news. No tach. So I guess I have a little troubleshooting to do. There is very little to test. If the XDI is putting out a tach signal, then either my black box is dead, or I have a bad connection. I'll have to pull out the ocilloscope and check it out.

Stand by for more reports...

Birdman

 

No, that's the one that goes in the tailpipe....

I think I found the problem--looks like your basic doofus move...I had a connector not plugged in all the way. I'll wait until tomorrow to test again because I have to put in new plugs anyway.

Looks like this thing will be ready for a test drive tomorrow if the weather ever improves here!

Birdman

 

I have to clean the engine bay before posting a pic, for fear I will be banished from the site for my unforgivably filthy engine. What can I say, every time I clean it, it gets dirty again, so unless I don't drive it, I can't see the point in cleaning it!

Let me tell ya, I was nervous when I turned that key.

Birdman

 

OK, here's what I did.

1. Remove the accessory belts and put the trigger wheel on the balancer. Do not tighten the mounting screws on the wheel. Let it just rest loosely on there.
2. Replace the belts and tension properly.
3. Hold the sensor in position so it is at a 90 degree angle to the trigger wheel and the right distance away.
4. Mark the rear cam belt cover for the position of the sensor bracket.
5. Remove the cam belt cover and use the marks you made to mount the sensor bracket.
6. Install the cam belt cover.
7. Put the engine at TDC using the P-M 1-4 marks on the flywheel.
8. Move the still loose trigger wheel to the right alignment with the sensor (trailing edge of 11th tooth).
9. Tighten the set screws on the trigger wheel to lock it down in place. Use loctite. You may have to rotate the engine with a big socket on the balancer bolt in order to be able to reach all the set screws on the trigger wheel. Rotating the engine is much easier with no spark plugs in the engine.
10. Put the engine back at TDC and check the trigger wheel to be sure it didn't move while you tighened the set screws.

That's it, the sensor is mounted. Took me about 4 hours to do all this from start to finish, but I have done a few majors on 308s so I'm pretty familiar with that wheel well and how to get things on and off the engine.

I can't remember what screw size I used on the mounting screws. Just pick one that fits the bracket. Harbor Freight has a decent little metric tap/die set for about $15 that has every size you will ever need. Next time I'm in the garage I'll try to remember to look up which size I used.

The Electromotive manual doesn't say what gap to use between the sensor and the wheel. Nick told me 0.060". Seems awfully close to me, so I backed it up a smidge more and it works fine.

Birdman