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Mike K's '79 242 Barn Car Revival

if it loses sync during cranking it'll turn off the fuel pump, but I don't think I saw any sign of that in the logs. I'll look closer at the timing of events to see if maybe it doesn't catch the cranking signal very well.

if the fuel pressure was whacky before I may have bumped everything out of boost to try and get the afrs back in order, that'd explain the creamy richness after the fact.

but I mean come on? who doesn't want their car idling around 10:1 afrs? ;)

haha makes for lots of smellz from the tailpipe! Interesting point on the sync loss, let me know if you need data. We'll see what probing the relay panel shows. I still need to ground the shield wire on my VR signal, but I've got a 4.7k resistor stuck into the back of the connector as a temp solution and I think I've hit ~5,500rpm so that seems to be cleaning up the high rpm loss.
 
yeah the cranking sync thing is back
it drops and picks up and drops and picks up during cranking

2 = missing tooth at wrong time

in the running and driving log, it was pegged at 2, but there were no sync losses during that log.

That helps explain it! on the CPS connector I've got:

1 - VR-
2 - VR+
3 - Shield wire

Think the ungrounded shield could cause that kind of signal loss? I've got that and try another CPS before I'm not sure what to do with it. 4.7k not a good value for the low rpm stuff?

"2 = missing tooth at wrong time

in the running and driving log, it was pegged at 2, but there were no sync losses during that log"

Could you expound on this a bit? Without a log in front of me I'm not sure what you're referencing when you say 2=missing tooth at wrong time. Is two an indicator somewhere?
 
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2 is the megasquirt sync error #, the idea being to give you a clue as to what's going on, in this case it's missing a tooth somewhere along the way where it shouldn't. Could be the sensor, could be the resistor, could be the shield, but since it doesn't do it while running (at least not in that last log, ever) I wouldn't immediately point to the shield.

could also be that the sensor is hooked up backwards (flip + and -), it's said that depending on polarity, it's more sensitive, but I've always used the middle wire as the vr+, so I dunno that I'd jump to change that right away either
 
2 is the megasquirt sync error #, the idea being to give you a clue as to what's going on, in this case it's missing a tooth somewhere along the way where it shouldn't. Could be the sensor, could be the resistor, could be the shield, but since it doesn't do it while running (at least not in that last log, ever) I wouldn't immediately point to the shield.

could also be that the sensor is hooked up backwards (flip + and -), it's said that depending on polarity, it's more sensitive, but I've always used the middle wire as the vr+, so I dunno that I'd jump to change that right away either

Thanks, this is very helpful as usual. I grounded the shield wire last night, I'll see what's up this weekend and probably shoot you an email.

Took the fuel pressure regulator off last night and did a little teardown analysis. Cosmo has no exploded views or piece part availability so it was mostly to satisfy curiosity about what went wrong with my mods to it. I'm still pretty confident that I put it back together the way it came apart, and while nothing was dramatically broken it seemed off. In the pic below from when I initially took it apart, you'll see a small cupped washer above the spring.

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When I took it apart last night that washer was deformed from spring pressure. It was at least some indicator that something wasn't right. We found a small piece of metal chip below the diaphragm, but not so much I'd attribute failure to it. My Dad focused in on the diaphragm itself, which isn't torn but was wrinkled and deformed. He explained that in his experience from working in an aerospace shop they'd never re-install a diaphragm that looked like that, as the wrinkles would prevent it from rolling/moving as it should. I was hoping for a big smoking gun, but there was enough to indicate something was off in the reg that I'm very hopeful a new unit is going to address some of my fueling issues. Aeromotive gets here on friday, so should know Saturday where I'm at.

I did do something kinda fun this weekend. I wanted to get the center console in which meant I needed to find a better place for the wideband than "shoved between things". I have the NGK Powerdex I pulled out of the gold car which I like, but presents a challenge because it's a rectangular gauge. It also has a nice, clear, easy to read digital display - but it is pretty bright with no ability to adjust. I'm really sensitive to lights inside the car at night (I may be the only person who uses the 'Night Panel' button in their SAAB on a regular basis...), so I didn't want it up in the upper DIN slot shining in my face all the time. I also found that when I was driving the car regularly last year, I'd take a glance at the wideband here and there, but once the tune was good I didn't drive around watching it every time I put boost into the car. I had been eyeballing the ashtray for a while and it's really a perfect spot for it.

The opening to the ashtray is just barely a bit shorter than the Powerdex, and 1" wider altogether. I couldn't just shove the gauge in and put a hole in the back for the connector, so I had to cut the shape of the gauge into the top of the ashtray pocket.

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Like it was made to be there! I could have left it here, but the extra gaps on either side of the display still made it look like it was just jammed somewhere. I used to do a lot of scale modeling before this car absorbed all of my free time, so I was happy to bust out the modeling supplies to make the opening a custom fit for the gauge.

I had some syrene sheet which I cut to fit the shape of the ashtray opening. The sheet was actually too thin, so I cut four pieces and cemented two together for each side. Little bit of shaping after glueing and they were a nice fit.

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I wanted to blend this in a bit, so I used some Tamiya White Putty to fill and level. The Tamiya putty is great stuff, but it's actually pretty difficult to sand. I didn't want to kill myself trying to get it flat as a board so I just got it smoothed out and called it good. Also this yellow masking tape is Tamiya tape which they sell in various widths. It is THE BEST masking tape I've ever used. It's not cheap at all, but it's really great stuff for detail work.

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I hit the whole ashtray opening with Tamiya surface primer and then my old friend SEM Color Coat vinyl paint in Landau Black. You can see that another putty application would have gotten things more level, but this is starting to get into "no one will notice but me" territory, especially since this is down low and everything is dark. I was pretty pleased with this, it's a perfect fit for the gauge and gives a nice finished appearance. (requisite crappy low light photos from my awful s4 camera)

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I also separated the face plate from the ashtray itself. My plan is to sink some small magnets into either side to hold that face in place (I left the alignments tabs on). This will allow me to hide the gauge when I want to and have the whole console looking OEM.
 
Been spending a lot of time on the car lately. Most of which was agonizing over a laptop wondering why the damn thing won't start. But first...

We had confirmed the FPR wasn't R'ing, so I ordered an Aeromotive adjustable unit and fittings needed to drop it into the new fuel system. Drilling/tapping the Cosmo turned out to only delay spending the $150 on a new one I guess. Glad to have solved a problem though. The Aeromotive thankfully fit in without any problems, and was even able to stick the gauge from the Cosmo on the front of it. What purpose does a fuel pressure gauge under the hood serve after base pressure is set? none... but it looks cool.

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To offset some frustration with other things I polished more metal. The Moto-Lita that I'm "borrowing" from my Dad has a lot of cool nostalgia/heirloom value that I really dig, but it also had that "sitting in the basement for 25-years" thing going on. That makes for cool weathered leather and a crummy looking center. Spent some time and hand polished the spokes and beauty ring. It came out awesome!

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I really like that it is time-period correct, and that it has seen action in some other cool cars to go through the family. I grabbed a 6 hole to 9 hole adapter that someone had linked me to earlier. Originally the wheel came off of a rolled over K5 Blazer and was sold by Hickey Engineering. The Hickey horn button was really sticky and was going to take some work to function. I saw a Triumph/Sunbeam button on eBay for $17 shipped so I grabbed that as it was nice and clean without any effort. I'm thinking that I'd really like to get an enamel R Sport sticker made for the center. Have to ask Dave Barton if he can do custom sizes.

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In combination with the seats, the feel of the car has really significantly changed. Last year driving around it felt like an overpowered old Volvo, complete with folding chairs and school bus steering wheel. Now I'm sitting in a set of bolstered seats, holding a wheel that's under 27" in diameter and has more than .25" of meat to hold on to. It actually feels like it's meant to go fast. Love it.

OK on to the starting issues. With the FPR done I was kind of hoping that all my problems would magically go away. It turned out when I drove the car the first time it was EXACTLY the same, and I was bummed. I ran it around a bit and decided to play with VE Analyze. The analyzer corrected a lot of my absurdly rich idle/cruise very quickly. It also smoothed out a lot of the on-throttle lean spiking. It helped enough that I felt like things were moving in the right direction and sent some logs to Kenny for review. My big complaint at this point was it was like a lightning strike to get the car to start. It seemed to start easier without a resistor across the CPS (turned out to be placebo), but that also meant I was limited to ~4,500rpm before I lost sync.

Kenny told me quickly that the micro was losing sync during cranking. I put a LOT of time the past week into figuring this issue out. I don't think there's a thread on msextra about "#2 sync loss during cranking" I haven't read. I spent almost 4 hours on Monday trying every combination and permutation of resistors to try and drill down to a cause. I grounded my CPS shield wire to chassis, then to signal ground, cleaned up my engine ground and moved the uS ground to the same spot as the battery, grounded the head. Nothing made a lick of difference. Even with every relay pulled and just spinning the starter I was losing sync. Megasquirt guys love to say "noise noise noise!" so I got lost in that rabbit hole a bit. I was literally losing sleep thinking about pulling my new harness out of the car, or just giving up on the VR sensor altogether.

Finally, I tried one thing on the list I had pushed off: looking into how the crank sensor was wired up. Conveniently, Qwkswede wired his microsquirt to stock CPS first, so I copied him. His layout was in line with what Kenny had said - VR1+ in the middle (pin2), shield on pin 3, VR1- on pin 1. Since the car ran so well once started, and I only registered sync loss during cranking, I was pretty confident that the CPS signal was OK. Honestly part of the reason I left it to last was because I've found de-pinning the Bosch Timer Junior connectors to be a bitch for some reason - and I did destroy a terminal taking it back apart.

Anyways, I finally pulled the connector apart and swapped the polarity of the +/- signals. Leaned in the car, hit the key, VROOOM. Not a moment's hesitation. I took a few logs, everything was clean, re-started the car probably 12 times and did a little victory dance. So right now I have the stock Volvo CPS wired to the DIY microsquirt harness as follows:

VR1+ to pin 1
VR1- to pin 2
Shield to pin 3

I haven't driven it yet, but if the start and idle are any indication I'm in business. Getting this figured out was both a huge relief and reward. This is definitely the most involved I've gotten with the megasquirt/tunerstudio stuff, so it was a good experience to start understanding things more, and also to troubleshoot an issue with the ECU without throwing my hands up in frustration (well, that did happen a few times).

I'm also glad because this means I can take my car to eeuroparts on Sunday without fear of being stranded on the show lot with a non-starting car. I lost some time for my "show prep" stuff to all of this, so Sunday afternoon I decided I really didn't want to show the car with dead paint. The car looked OK, but it really was completely dead decade-in-a-barn oxidized paint. The car has about 6.5 feet of single stage on it, so no reason we can't shine it up.

Never wet sanded a car before, but a light colored car with a mile of paint is a good place to start. I just did one sanding step of 1500 grit and man, what a difference. I could see as I was sanding the layer of crap getting cut off the top. It was bringing a much brighter color out. I also sanded off a good bit of Rust Bullet overspray from when I did the bottom of the car. I went over it with the paper while sensior followed behind me running the wheel with a heavy cut compound. Yes we did it in the sun, yes we know how to detail cars. This was really done on a whim "let's see how it turns out" kind of thing. The car can and should be gone over again to get the best finish out of it, but we were both surprised and thrilled with how it came out.

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Have learned pretty fast that every job on this car is easier when you pick it up a bit. Thing is a back breaker.

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After the compound it was gone over once more with a foam pad and glaze to take some swirl out of it. We've spent two solid years working hard on the car and I feel like I spend so much of my time looking at it... it's SO NICE to have a shine on it. Kind of like the interior, it helps bring the car to life and takes it one step further away from barn car status. Only downside is that now I'll actually care about the finish, and it's really amplifying my desire to refinish the wheels.

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Before Sunday I'd like to drop the back seat in it and get the door panels on if I can pull it off.

The other exciting thing about getting the microsquirt tune closer is that besides driving it now, I can start thinking about the "hot" engine going in the car. Time to start buying studs/gaskets/seals etc. and start thinking about getting the long block assembled.
 
This thing is looking great! The Volvo beige really does pick up a lot more character after a good buffing. Glad to hear you're making progress with engine management as well.

In combination with the seats, the feel of the car has really significantly changed. Last year driving around it felt like an overpowered old Volvo, complete with folding chairs and school bus steering wheel. Now I'm sitting in a set of bolstered seats, holding a wheel that's under 27" in diameter and has more than .25" of meat to hold on to. It actually feels like it's meant to go fast. Love it.

EXACTLY the revelation I had after swapping steering wheel & seats in my car, and driving it with no further changes. It has the same old squishy suspension but is so much more engaging to drive. Turns out the haptic feedback devices really matter...
 
Your car is an inspiration, wonderful meeting you today, hope to see you at Swedish Car Day.

Mike

Thanks again, and it was nice to get a chance to talk with you guys. I'm aiming for Swedish Car Day, better get my state inspection worked out before then!

Mike really put me to the test on Sunday when he asked me to start the car in front of a crowd of people :lol: Pressure was on but thankfully I was spared any re-start embarassments. Actually the drive home was great, timing and mixture aren't dialed in but I didn't experience any sync loss and the car was running/idling quite smoothly.

On the sync loss issue: I drove the car to work on Thursday and was disapointed to find that it started missing intermittently while cruising about 10 minutes into the ride. This continued, and was a sporadic but frequent sync loss happening at various revs just cruising as I was driving the car very gently. I spent a bunch more time on Thursday evening playing with the laptop and trying to get a composite log of the issue (impossible when TS only let's me capture a sub-10 revolution long tooth log, is there a way around this???). This is with my "flipped" CPS wiring and a 4.7k resistor across the signal. Eventually I pulled the resistor out of the connector and voila drove for five minutes and saw 6300rpm without issue. Good sign!

Saturday was a looong day getting the car ready for the eeuroparts.com show on Sunday. Most of it consisted of just generally cleaning up the car after months of sitting and being worked on. Didn't take pictures of anything, but took some steps which are helping to get the car a little more put together. I spent some time tucking all of my harness looms into Roundit 2000 which is a nice split braid loom - this stuff is great! Full Banana turned me on to it and it's a nice dressing to neaten things up. Also swapped over a set of nice clean unbroken mirrors I've had in the parts bin for a while, and put the BMC airbox back on with a temporary inlet routing. All the stainless got a polish, put some of the interior back together and it was ready to go. I wanted to get my door panels on, but starting that project at 4:30 saturday afternoon was probably a bad idea. I made some quick and dirty vapor barriers with greenhouse plastic and tried to get the panels on. They fit the door, but the keyholes for the clips in the bottom (now fiberglassed) portions of the panel were off. I just hung the panels from the top for the show, but I'll have to pull them off and spend the time to do it properly. I was working in a rush and broke a bunch of the clips I had just bought :grrr:

The eeuro show was a lot of fun and it was very rewarding to get the car there, I wasn't so sure I'd make it a week ago. I think the effort put into some of the "finishing touches" made the car show a lot better, and certainly the time spent on the paint last week made a HUGE difference. It was also the first time I've had the car around a bunch of Volvo guys, so the reaction and enthusiasm was a lot nicer than my disinterested fiancee saying "that's nice honey, are you done working yet?". I was really happy people were liking the car, and it's great to share it with people who "get it".

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Centasons pictures:

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I finally got the back seat in the car again. I really just needed the thing to be black instead of this dirty faded brown/purple business it had going on.

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Rather than spend on upholstery work right now, I just bought three cans of my favorite elixer - SEM Color Coat in Landau Black. It took many many many many coats, but it ended up coming out great. I'm not sure how it would work with other colors, but for brown to black it's a win. I got a nice even black finish to it without it getting "crispy" from the paint. I would do a light coat and then brush the seat with a nylon bristle brush to try and distribute the paint a bit. It's a little stiffer but certainly doesn't look or feel like something that was sprayed.

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Interior is definitely BLACK now. I kept thinking of This Is Spinal Tap - "It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black."

The car is certainly running well enough now that I can start thinking about getting the other block assembled and preparing for the swap. I imagine that motor is going to make quite a difference over the tired 230ft in there now. Can't wait to see what I get from the head and cam combo. Concurrently I'd like to keep trying to get the interior together, door panels, aux gauges, trim plastic etc.

I think the only other thing I may do in the engine bay before I get to swapping is to work out eFan control with Microsquirt and get the Nissens HD/efan combo in. I do feel like some weight has been lifted since I can at least get out and enjoy the car now!

Oh, also going to buy tires soon. I think I'm going to stick with a 225/45/16 in the back as I don't think a 245 will fit without more work. That's a tough tire size to find, so I'm basically choosing between the Dunlop Direzza ZII and the Toyo R1R. The Dunlop seems to be more popular but is a special order. I'm going to try and complicate that whole deal by using the tire swap as an excuse to break the wheels down and refurb them. Would like to have the centers redone (keep em black?), get a perfect polish on the lips, get center caps, and either new hardware or have the hardware plated locally. I'll have to see how I can coordinate everything so there's minimal downtime during peak driving season.

I love this car :-D
 
It's beautiful!

Btw, that coolant bottle bracket...did you make it or is it factory?

Thank you much! Pat244 is correct, that was a snag from Jordan

:) They are great cars in the right hands.

If you need anything to help finish the interior/exterior ask and I'll dig through my stuff and check the local yards.

Appreciate the offer, will definitely keep it in mind. Old 240s, and 240s in general are getting sparse out here. This is my first 240 and I've gotten a lot more into it than I expected. My favorite takeaway from the show Sunday was talking to an old family friend about my car and his lemons cars I said that I had probably gone a little crazy with it, he answered "all of this stuff is crazy, if you try to rationalize it to yourself you're playing the wrong game". Spot on.

I think he got it from Jordan [among other things], I only say that because his engine bay looks extremely similar to Jordans old car.

whole thing looks great though!

Yup! A decent amount of stuff made it out here onto the car. I only bought the bracket, RSI2 cam and my hood latch directly from him. The big contributor is the entire hot side setup is from that car, passed through another tbricker. His thread turned me on to the air filter setup as well. There has really been 3 main turbobricks projects that I hoovered up and the car benefited from.

Car is really a product of this forum, both in parts and knowledge.
 
Just wanted to pop in and say I dig this 242. Looks like a well put together project that turned really nice. Look forward to updates down the road.
 
Just wanted to pop in and say I dig this 242. Looks like a well put together project that turned really nice. Look forward to updates down the road.

Thank you, still plenty left to do but it's definitely taking shape.

I just want to say its awesome that you retrofitted the ABS stuff.

Thanks, glad you said that :) I see a lot of people pulling the system out so I feel like an odd duck carrying it over in a '79. I like having ABS for a street car, and it doesn't intrude on any fun. Certainly helps to have a fully functioning system on the donor car! The only place I don't like ABS is in the snow - not an issue for this car.

~~

I'm still getting some instances of sync loss #2 during cranking with the new CPS wiring. It's all clean while driving, but I had a little trouble getting it started after filling the tank this morning. Getting to the point where I'm at a loss with what to try for it. This is certainly the best it's been, and doesn't prevent me from using the car but it's an annoyance. Have to see what I can do, there will be some point where I may cut my losses and consider a different crank signal method altogether.

I'm running it on the 14psi wastegate spring right now, since I don't have timing and mixture dialed in yet. Even so, it's definitely spooling faster with the addition of the intake manifold.
 
I'm using a "cherry" hall sensor (similar to the one DIY sells but doesnt have in stock) and I got it from ebay for about 30.00$. It should read the 60-2 pattern, and runs off 4-24 volts. Right now I'm running it off a feed from the fuse panel that is a running/start hot. Works great, and it was crimp and go.
 
I'm using a "cherry" hall sensor (similar to the one DIY sells but doesnt have in stock) and I got it from ebay for about 30.00$. It should read the 60-2 pattern, and runs off 4-24 volts. Right now I'm running it off a feed from the fuse panel that is a running/start hot. Works great, and it was crimp and go.

Fits in the stock bellhousing location or did you need an adapter? I seem to remember talking to Mueller about some adapter for a different sensor. I also think I read that the micro3 VR circuit can take input from a Hall sensor so that could be an option without even having to change which input I have run in the harness.
 
Fits in the stock bellhousing location or did you need an adapter? I seem to remember talking to Mueller about some adapter for a different sensor. I also think I read that the micro3 VR circuit can take input from a Hall sensor so that could be an option without even having to change which input I have run in the harness.

fits in the hole, but its a 1" long threaded rod with 3 wires coming out. So it needs a bracket, and someone on here was CNCing brackets for the bellhousing mount.
 
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