Whats changed ??

well its been almost a year since i posted up here,

so whats changed since then you say ??

well a LOT and a lot of nasties too

had a massive oil leak for about 3 months, and finally got it fixed last week - was leaking from the crankshaft seal.

my central locking stuffed up on my drivers side door so i re-located it to a better actuation angle, and then its fucked up my alarm somehow. it no longer beeps when its armed.

I currently have a loose connection in the wiring around my head unit (i have a suspicion that the mechanics pulled out my switch panel to see what it did) and now there is a short somewhere and my undercar lights don't work, and my head unit is no longer putting out signal on the right hand channel. I plan on fixing it all up when i install my recently purchased Bluetooth hands free kit. this will allow me to connect any phone to my car wirelessly !!

other than that, ive had a thermostat fail on me and a minor coolant leak from the water pump area.

Good things have also happened though !!!

I bought a parts car !!! its a u12 CA18DET converted series 3 EXA with all the good bits, and ive been trying to get them from one car to another.

Its been stolen and recovered, and has mojor panel and window damage, but the engine is in good nick.

I had the wheels off the parts car fitted with some faboo new goodyear tyers (Eagle f1 gts3)

I finally wired up the parts car ECU !!! with many long nights of soldering and labeling it was finally done! and the stock ECU is now up and running.

The engine turned over and runs nicely now that i rewired the coil packs to fire in the correct order. the Exhaust is a 3" monster, mandrel bent, and sounds soooo goooood.

Brian and I took the car for a spin or two around the paddock and up and down the road outside my house, it pulls hard and when it comes onto boost you are really thrown back in your seat, i think i'm gonna love this engine when i get it into KiTT!!

I'm aiming for 140 fwKw, and i think thats a reasonable target on the stock ECU and turbo. i'm considering an aftermarket one, but that won't be till after i have the engine in and running.

I also am planning on transferring the series 3 seats, the power windows and the rear disk brakes. the brakes will be next followed by the windows as they require a bit more electrical knowledge (they are not shown in the workshop manual i have) The seats will be re-upholstered in blue and black vinal, and thats not too far in the future yet - am gonna get quotes on that in the next few weeks.

and MrBoom off the EXA club boards has just come up with one of the best looking kits for the EXA to ever be produced, so i'm thinking of splashing out on one of those if i can afford it over summer, on top of the engine works

so yeh

will keep you posted

Mark

Headlights and other distractions

Just a quick update,

Put some Xeon blue headlights today after taking out the headlight switch and cleaning the contacts so they are no longer on High beam all the time. And they looked nice and orange... thats strange i thinks ... but then i take another look inside the headlight.

It looks like in the past someone has had both headlights explode on them and due to this the rear of the reflector has corroded and rusted. so no matter what globes i put in there they will look dull and slightly brown with the rust. The good thing is the blue-ish globes are a bit brighter so they do look brighter.

I also got a new alternator in place, after some liberal belting things with a hammer, and now luckily my belt tensioner works again. New alternator means that i'm now running on 14 volts the whole time not 11 .. yay.

I also started to install a sleepy eyes switch for the headlights, but only got halfway through the install due to breaking the contacts off the switch i had in mind. So at the moment i have 2 wires hanging out of the dash, that i have to touch together when i want the lights to go down !!

Well thats all i have time for folks,

Over and Out

Mark

Electricals, oh the electricals

Long time since i posted here, so i thought i better put in an update

At the moment i'm fighting with my alternator. It currently leaks 2 amps through the field winding when the car is switched off and flattens the battery in about 2 hours. Its been in this state for the past 2 weeks while i have been tracking down a replacement alternator. I finally got hold of a bosch one from a wreakers on monday. I'm planning on installing it tomorrow with the help of my mate Brian.

On the plus side its a more powerful one (17/70 amp not 12/60) so i hopefully won't have to see that voltage meter drop 2 volts every time i step on the brakes. If that keeps happening then i'm gonna have to go for a total LED light replacement including all the Indicators, Dash lights and Brake lights, to reduce some of the strain on the electrics at night.

I have also made the fortuitous purchase of a Viper 791XV alarm and remote start system, this when coupled with my central locking system (generously gifted by Brian) will be installed sometime in the next 2 weeks, and with any luck - and a working alternator - should finally get rid of my having to constantly unlock the passenger side door manually all the time.

I finally fixed my drivers side door problem that meant my door light was on all the time. It turns out that the latch that the door fits into is only held on by two screws and those screws were slightly loose, meaning that the door was out further from the side of the car that normal. And its been that way ever since i bought it! well luckily it was only a 15 min job with a screwdriver to fix it up. and good that i didn't have to pay the alarm installer guy some extra $$ to fix that on top of the install.

I "Finished" my audio setup about a month after making the previous post, however the following things need to be done still

- Re wire drivers side sub's blue neon - as it went out about a week after it was installed.

- Soundproofing of the entire boot area using both the silver and tar stuff for the metal work and some couch padding for between the plastic and the metal surfaces.

- The second redesigned boxes are too big for the speakers which i bought (too much literage) so i'm planning on putting some white styrene foam in the top of the boxes and painting it black to fill up some of the extra room. Hopefully this will restore the loss of deep bass response.

- Still wanna replace the fronts 2 ways with some Jaycar 6 inch splits but don't have the $$

With any luck and a bit of $$ i should be able to have all of the above ready for EXA Australia in less than 2 months time.

- Mark

Audio Installation

Missed a couple of days here - actually more like a few weeks.

Lets start back at Easter. After buying all my audio junk and letting it lie around in my bedroom for over a week, i decided - This easter i will attack the problem and install everything. I planned on using my entire week off work to take the back of my car apart - build a sub box, rewire the car, install the lot. Saturday i took off to go on a cruise with the EXA club which was awesome, then on sunday i had a lot of chocolate.

Monday i actually started work -

• Ripped out the back seat
• Measured up and decided my amps were just too damn big to put on top of the box.
• Redesigned the entire setup to mount the amps in between the subs.
• Sliced up some chipboard with a circular saw, for the base and replacement back seat of the car.
• Played around till I got the right angle for the sub boxes and then cut the sides of the boxes out of chipboard too.
• Drilled some mounting holes and got the replacement seat back to hinge on the seat bolts.

Tuesday

• Went shopping again.
• This time i went to a wreakers, got myself a set of '88 Pulsar rear seat back locks, a handful or nissan relays and a replacement globe for my blown parker
• Went back to Jaycar and spent the rest of my birthday money on some speaker box terminals, a Digital speedo, an LED fuel mix display and a Digital readout battery terminal !! (i swapped the other one)
• Bought some piano hinge for the second part of the flooring and some wood and sheetmetal screws to put it all together

Wednesday

• Spent the whole day drilling 4 holes and trying to get the 88 Pulsar locks to fit on the EXA brackets
• got out the angle grinder and made some drastic changes to the locks. still couldn't salvage them
• Made an entirely new seat back becuase the one i cut on monday was too small.
• cursed a lot
• cut my finger

Thursday

• Decided enough was enough, it was get the back of seat in or bust.
• Made up some aluiminum brackets and mounted the origional EXA locks onto my replacement seat back
• pulled out the wood glue and screws and assembled the majority of the box.
• Broke half a dozen small drill bits
• Got almost everything together only to find that the boxes were too close together and the amps didn't fit in.
• Sanded the sides of the boxes back
• made up a couple of angled mounting rails for the amps
• was reasonably satisfied with my progress

Friday

• my mate Anthony came round to help me wire up the amps and everything - but they weren't mounted yet !!
• focused on what we could do instead
• removed the head unit
• did a proper job of wiring the RCS'a and remote wires
• Pulled the 4G cable through the firewall and laid it down the passenger side
• Laid the signal and remote wires down the drivers side
• ripped all the plastic out of the interior at the back to run the cables and found $2.10 in small change
• Wired up the Positive terminal on the battery and the 200A fuse holder
• Made up some earthing tags for the equipment in the rear when it will finally be installed.
• put as much of it back to normal as we could

The weekend

• Spent some more time and money on mirror - and it's a pain in the ass!! Bought the proper tool to cut it along with another sheet.
• Practiced on the shards of the old one, managed to cut one relativly perfect piece, cut another exactly the same, but then it split in half.
  
• Rolled out the carpet to get a rough idea of what size i would need.
• Cut out the two wiring slots so i can get to the other end of the samplifiers.
• Put the whole installation on the "maybe later" shelf, only to realize that the rear of my car was still in pieces.
  

Procurement Success !!

This weekend has been one big buying spree for Project KiTT

Thursday night - bought a bunch of fuses etc at JB Hi-Fi at chadstone, including the following
- a big 200A fuse for my amplifier wiring
- an inline fuse holder for the above
- a packet of 80A fuses with blue LED indicators
- two big 4G cable terminals for my capacitor.

Friday night - thought that i might as well purchase the rest of my gear as i'd been paid earlier in the week. Went down to Jaycar after work and bought
- 2 channel 150W(rms) power amplifer
- 2 x 250W subwoofers with dual coils and cool looking blue flashing
- 4 way fuse block for power distribution
- 8G red and black power cable for the amplifier wiring
- a few random lugs for earthing and connections

Sunday - spent most of the day in my workshop;

- tested my DC/DC converter and it was a total failure, apparently all it does is lose the voltage drop across the diodes and dosen't charge the caps so instead of 12/24 volts it converts 12 volts to 11.2 volts. I'll try modelling the circuit on my simulation software this week and see whats going wrong. Its possible that by changing the capacitors i have ruined the oscilator circuit. But then its equally possible that i need a complete extra stage on the converter because i didn't read the schematic right.

- Built my time flux capacitor!! i woke up in the morning and rolled over and said to myself - Today i build a time flux capacitor!! and i did !! used a wooden craft box, my lightning plate lamp, several bits of an old PC power supply, a motherboard from an AMSTRAD personal computer (Pre PC era) and several bits of clear pipe. Painted the craft box black and cut a hole in it for the lam at the rear. Chopped up the motherboard with an elecric jigsaw and plated the inside of the box with it and various other electronic parts using hot melt glue. built the capacitor itself out of clear plastic piping, some hose fittings and a little EL wire for looks. Now i just have to make a wiring loom to get the power and control inputs to it. prehaps some more LED's too, as its a little plain for the centerpiece of my conversion.

Monday night -
went shopping to bunnings warehouse and bought 10m of RED 12V ropelight for my charging circuits. I still havent decided if im going to run this in chain style wiring duct over the interior roof or just use it as and accenting brakelight for my "BakToTheFuture" either way at $1.50 per meter it is by far the cheapest ropelight around and if i don't ever use it i'm not going to be out of pocket.

Over and out

Mark

Expedition sucess

Spent most of Sunday working on KiTT is various ways.

Rewired my amplifier (again) as some of the crimp terminations had come loose. Fitted my new blue accessories - rear speaker grilles, window A/C vents etc, and painted some more plastics that i had from before (instrument pods from the dash etc.) Went shopping for parts, and found out that the only decent sized wreckers near my place "Pick pay and go" has no Exa's or parts thereof. Might go back later to look for Mag wheels as i have as good as decided that i'm gonna get some. What type of wheel is still up for debate. Also went on a tour of Pete's Bargian center and picked up (among other things) -

• 5 meters of 4G power cable for my new amp setup (thats the big stuff from the batery to the distribution block in the back)
  
• An old slide project cannister that will serve as the top of my fusion reactor
• Some braided steel hose that i will have to cut to fit for the reactor hoses

Still a lot of basic parts that i have to source from somewhere. Things like cap cans and the mesh, piping and brackets for the rear flux dispersal rails. I'm going to try and make up a rail for the front of the car as well, although this will be a later addition and may require a lot of fiddling around, as i'll want this to detach as easily as the rear hatch will.

As soon as my next paycheck clears then i'm going to go and by my new amp and subs. I've decided on them a long time ago and i think that i should capitolise on this rare decision (I don't make many of them) Plus i need them to start designing and building my replacement sub box, and until that is in then i can't put in all my new wiring etc.

Looks like i'm going to have to source a 12vDC to 12vAC power invterter to run my time flux capacitor display as well as a 12to24v DC to DC converter for my fusion reactor fog machine (i decided that this was a must have item, hopefully i can build it into the back of the reactor so it dosent have to be out in the elements) I'm also looking at smoke machines for the two vents and a way to light up the outside rails. I'm actually wondering if there is a case for another battery in the car after all these mods - or at least a bigger alternator, we'll see if i can afford it !!

Mark

LED Lighting Update

Bad news,

Last sunday i was playing around with my LED underbody light kit for the car and a multimeter and managed to blow the power transistors for one channel of the controller. Its a pain in the arse because all the pretty patterns are ruined by one set of lights which is now always on. But i was going to design my own controller anyway and this has just kicked me in the pants to get on with it. Pirated some digital logic software and set about making up a circuit model. Got just far enough into it to decide that i should just use a programmable microcontroller instead of a logic circuit because i want too much variety in light patterns. Will have to see what parts i can scrounge because i want it not only to be on/off switching but also fading in and out - so i might have to use analogue outputs - which means an expensive micro. Other option is to try and Rig up RC circuits that i can switch in and out with relays or better with transistors - don't know enough about circuit design to do it yet. Oh well i'm back to uni next semester so i'll learn it then.

Mark

BaktotheFuture

Below post has been lifted from my personal blog to make that blog more readable and so people will know what the photo's are of

I dropped in on a wreckers on my way home, cause there are a few little placky bits in the Exa which have been annoying me and i want to replace them. "Got any n13 Exa's" I ask - "Sure, we've got 2 in fact - one black and one red" hmmm well colours all wrong for starters - but the interiors are identical in all, so i grabbed the parts that i was after. Then my eyes got the better of me and before i knew it i was helping the wreckers lackey carry the entire rear hatch off the black exa out of the yard. Its not that i need a replacement but i have been looking for a second hatch - preferably a gunmetal grey one, and this one was in better nick than the white one that i have on the Exa at the moment. In fact it looks good enough to go straight on - but if i wanted to do that then i should have taken the black targas as well and gone for the whole black and white panda look.

Anyway $300 worth of parts later and i had the fun job of trying to fit the back of an Exa into the back of an Exa. Me and the wreckers lackey managed to violate several laws of geometery and fold space enough to make it fit. I drove home with my knees up near my ears. So now i have my "Baktothefuture" project to get my teeth (and bank account) stuck into. (note: the technical term Nissan uses for the rear hatch of an Exa is a 'HatchBak' as opposed to the 'SportsBak' which makes it into a wagon)

Wednesday night i got to work on my rear hatch, Starting by cleaning all the wreckers yard dust off. I removed the tiny Exa spoiler and made up a cardboard and masking tape mockup of the iconic delorean rear vents - it looks good. Will be even better when i have a mockup of the fusion reactor to build around. I'm thinking of using the inner hub of an old alloy wheel, as i'm going for a BTTF 1 conversion without the MrFusion on top; we'll see how that looks before i try and start mounting any Soda-fountains on the rear of my car. If the wheel hub is too heavy then i might have to cut up Sytrene foam and make it like a proper model maker - but it won't be as durable. I've been studying the design from pictures (like ones on the gallery page, and from a 1:18 scale model i have) and i know which parts i need to source now. If anyone has access to some old steel braided hoses then please let me know otherwise i'm gonna have to organise another expedition to Pete's Bargian center - or maybe back to a local wrecker.

Mark