The Belgian Wonder - Joshua Brown's 1984 242ti

Madvillan said:

Dumb question but do you mean both the FI and body harnesses are damaged (RE: Lights), or something else? Just asking for clarification as questionable electronics are why I passed on a 242 recently despite having a really solid body. (Signal to make a right? Well I hope you like your cautions flashing instead... stuff like that.)

In for progress

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I'm not sure what's going on with the factory underhood harness. The under dash stuff is just scary. Universal turn/flasher relays are cheap and easy to wire in. That's what I'll use there.

In reality, I'm sure I could make the existing wiring work. Josh was pretty methodical with the disassembly, but there's just no real reason to given the direction the car is taking. Simplicity is king.

Lord_Athlon said:

http://www.efisource.com/shop/ms3-lsx-plug-and-play/

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That's neat and all, but more than I want to spend. This is either going to get a Micro or a stripped out truck harness and PCM.

Most if not all of the k-jet wiring is gone.
The engine harness is toast, biodegradable wiring insulation and all that.
I think I had started wiring up a new multi pin molex connector to replace the gray multi pin bullet connector thing that was falling apart.

Most of that is moot anyway since you have the babby LS.

I think describing my disassembly work as methodical is probably a bit on the generous side of things.
Work on that car largely consisted of me waking up and realizing it was Saturday, grabbing a cup of coffee and a flask of scotch and wandering outside to see if I could figure out anything else I didn't want on the car.

I was trying to be nice

Well, it's not much progress, but it is a little progress.

Got the original motor pulled out today. The bottom end is rusted solid. Oh well. It went to a good home and Patrick might be able to make something out of nothing.

I dropped the motor in this afternoon just to get a little motivation going. Truck pan and truck intake appear to clear. I'll probably gain another half inch or so of ground clearance when I make the mounts permanent. I'm thinking of taking the legs off the $69 "Universal" Ebay LS mounts I have, extending them 2-1/8", and welding it to the frame horns. Some sort of gusset down to the crossmember will probably be required.

Couple photos.

Late to the party here... but are your headlights half-full of water?

I'd put the mounts more up-n-down than side-to-side. Not sure how thick the framerail is there, but not hard to imagine it twisting under load.

And FWIW, OEM harness/ECU is not that hard, at least the 1990 Mustang wasn't. Cheap and time consuming. That's my speed.

Yeah, I'm mocking up another mount now.

Yeah, it looks like a quick and dirty pedestal mount is gonna be the winner here. It won't be bushed/isolated, but that really won't matter in this car.

I dropped off some drawings and material at the waterjet shop yesterday. Should have something in my hands in the next day or three.

Planning something like this...

It's not much, but I did get these tacked up last night. The baseplate is going to take a little adjusment. I'm thinking of using 1/2" plate and installing press-in studs in the baseplate. I dunno...still some work to do there.

I haven't forgotten I own this thing, just been ridiculously busy the past few months. Whatever down time I do have seems to get taken up by house work or something else.

I'm into version 3.0 of motor mounts now. They bolt in. No more of that welded square tubing. They're still solid mounts.

I did manage to find a Powerglide trans for this thing. I also scrounged up an 8.8, but the jury is still out on whether that will get swapped in or if I'll just weld the crap out of the open diff and carry spare axles to the track. Probably welding/spare axles.

At this point, I need to crack the glide open, install the shift kit, buy a converter, and light a fire under the waterjet shop that's supposed to be cutting my mounts. I'm still not sure if I'm going to use the 4.8 I have or wait for something better to pop up at a reasonable price. I'd like to use something else, because this 4.8 had a miss in it that was attributed to low compression, but I can't see anything that would cause low compression. Very strange.

I did manage to find time to take 350lbs of junk out of the car this past weekend. Saved what was worth saving, everything else went to the dump. Anything with foam or cloth had to go. It was baaaaaad after all these years.

Mounts are cut. I should have time to weld them up tomorrow.

Also picked up $500+ worth of stuff for $150.

20' of 8an braided line
10 gallon fuel cell
40 micron filter
Bunch of AN fittings
Truck PCM (So I guess that means I'm cutting up a truck harness instead of going microsquirt)
.625 single beehive valve springs

Yay progress

http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=236159

What?

Oh sorry. I just thought that's the project you meant to be working on

I don't think I own that car anymore. I think you're mistaking the laundry table in my basement for a Volvo.