Monthly Archives: December 2011

bowtie6‘s Custom Wiring – Trunk

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The last post talked about the harness and fuse box under the hood.  Today’s post shows the wiring in the trunk.

Since we are far from “original”, I wired up bowtie6 in a practical way.  There is a fusebox in the engine compartment (as discussed previously), one in the cab compartment (to be discussed) and one in the trunk (discussed here). Why go through all this trouble?

Well, for starters I wanted to keep things simple.  But mainly because there was not enough room underneath the hood!  Besides, it makes sense to control things where they belong and in the trunk there are several things to control…

Battery

The Optima Red-Top dry cell battery in bowtie6 is mounted in an aluminium enclosure pictured above.  The B+ terminal has a welding machine cable attached to it and it runs inside the TR6’s cab and ties into the firewall post.  The ground terminal is also a welding machine cable going through the body and securely bolted to the frame.  In the engine compartment, there are two more welding machine cables grounding the body and the engine to the frame. Finally, there is a B+ lead from the battery to two circuit breakers mounted in a special mount that control the following:

  1. Fuel Pump
  2. Backup Lights
  3. Brake Lights

Fuel Pump

The ECOTEC needs a high pressure fuel supply.  This comes from a GM high pressure pump as fitted to late-model Corvettes.  We used that pump because it is very small, has a filter “sock” and can be mounted in a small enclosure.  In the picture above you can see the fuel pump enclosure – that is the aluminium box resting on the trunk’s floor.  I’ve written about this before but basically that is an external tank plumbed to the main custom made all aluminium fuel tank.  We have about a 300 mile range in city driving with this setup.  I am sure it will be more once we do a long, highway trip.

The picture above shows two circuit breakers and three relays.  The fuel pump has one of the relays and one of the circuit breakers.  The control side of the relay is fed from a signal from the ECM.  When done right, the ECM sends a 5 second signal and energizes the pump.  This primes the fuel rail and gets things ready for ignition.  Once the engine fires, the ECM re-energizes the relay and that keeps the pump running until the ignition switch is turned off.

Backup Lights

The AISIN 5 speed gearbox has a built in switch that makes ground when the stick engages reverse.  I took advantage of this to make the TR6’s backup lights work.  Basically since this is a switch and it makes ground, I wired this into the control circuit of a relay.  This minimizes wear on the switch and voilà, we have backup lights.

Brake Lights

Ah!  Brake lights!! As you had guessed, I used a relay to run the brake lights.  As with the fuel pump and backup lights there is a hard voltage circuit from B+ on the battery to the relay.  This is controlled by breaking ground on the brake pedal switch.  Simple.  Brakes work flawlessly and will be there forever – the brake switch breaks ground.

 In Summary

Once again, I realize this is borderline overkill.  However, this makes things very simple and easy to fix if need be.  Setting this back circuitry together took little time and works like a charm.  As with the engine compartment fuse box, I added red “booties” to the circuit breakers.  You can also see the trunk floor is fully covered in black carpet now.

Here is a closeup of the rear wiring:

If you look close enough you will see several things here…

  • The lid to the battery box.  The box is made from aluminium and bolted securely to the side floor of the trunk.  This is mounted on the passenger’s side to even out weight distribution.  As mentioned previously, the battery is a dry cell Red Top Optima battery.  They are very durable and although they are expensive, they are very worth the cost.
  • The black plastic background.  That is ABS material pre-bent and cut to fit the sides of the trunk.  There is one on all sides, including the inside back of the trunk.  I used this because it is very easy to work with and can be shaped with simple tools such as scissors and a break.  This stuff is also very durable and looks very clean.  Much superior to the crappy cardboard “trunk liner” kits sold by the Big Three vendors.
  • The aluminium plate holds three relays and two circuit breakers.  I’ve discussed these above.
  • Finally, if you really look close you can see two rubber hoses right behind the circuit breakers.  What is this all about?  Well, my bowtie6 is from the very fine 1972 vintage.  In 1972 a special “tank” was affixed to the inside of the passenger’s side trunk.  This tank had two lines attached to it.  The first line came from a vent on the fuel filler neck.  The other line was routed to the intake.  This ensured all fuel tank fumes get routed back to the engine.  This has been retained and is fully operational in bowtie6.

Attention to detail?  Hell yes.

There are so many small details on bowtie6 that get overlooked!  However, I know they are there and this makes the difference.  With this TR6, there is not only killer looks in the form of a very shiny paint job, a powerful engine and a great handling frame but there are also countless details that separate this from even “restored” examples…

 

bowtie6‘s Custom Wiring – Under the Hood

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After nearly 1,000 miles on bowtie6 since the ECOTEC conversion, I have a ton of stuff to detail out.  This is where you spend tons of time for little to show for.  Sure, I could just leave it “as is”, but there is no fun in that.  Sweating the details is what sets my car apart from all others.

Today, I spent some hours refining things in the main fuse box under the hood.  I’m not 100% done with it yet, but I figured I’d take a few pictures of it so far and write about it.  Maybe somebody might get some inspiration from all this work.

This is what the main engine-compartment fuse box looks like…

Big deal, huh?  Well the silver box is located in the area where the windshield washer bottle used to be and also the area where the dealer-installed air conditioning system was installed.  What is so special about this?  Well other than the fact this is all hand-made aluminium, take a look at what is inside the box…

Now it gets interesting…

  • Starting at the bottom of the picture are six circuit breakers.  Today, I added the little red “booties” to prevent any short circuits.  The middle breaker shows what they look like under the red “bootie”.  Two terminals stick out and this is what the “booties” protect.  Don’t want any electrical short circuits to happen here!
  • Above the circuit breakers are seven relays.  They control the most important basic functions underneath the hood.
  • Above that towards the right is a fuse panel with 8 modern spade type fuses.  These are used on the control side of the relays.  Basically they make the electromagnets in the relays trip when a switch makes ground.
  • The finned box with the three big connectors is the Engine Control Module (ECM) running the show on the ECOTEC.  This is “factory” supplied from the donor engine.
  • To the left of the ECM is the solid state electric fan controller.

Circuit Breakers

These guys act as fuses.  They feed the hard voltage from the B+ terminal through the firewall to the relays.  What B+ terminal?  Since the battery is located in the trunk, we ran a welding-machine cable from the battery’s B+ terminal through the firewall by means of an insulated bolt.  This is where we get voltage to the underhood fuse box and also to the inside of the cab (on the inside side of the bolt)

This is a close up of what this all looks like:

At the very left you see the post where full B+ voltage is supplied to the circuit breakers.  The body and frame is ground so how does this keep from shorting out?  The bolt is fully enclosed in a phenolic ring thus insulating the terminal.  On one side of the circuit breakers is the hot B+ terminal – this is the one nearest to the camera.  On the other terminal is the supply of power to the relays shown above.  On the middle of each circuit breaker you can see the little black dot that acts as a “reset” button.  I used circuit breakers because these are 100% essential to the electrical operation of the system.  If they trip a simple push of the black “reset” button has me back in business.

Relays

Seven relays run the show for the main switched hot lead, ECM, headlights switch, high/low beam, electric fan, horn, starter and ignition switch.  All the switches on bowtie6 break ground.  There is no hard voltage going through any switches.  The advantage of this is longevity.

So basically when a switch is activated, it “makes” ground.  This in turn causes the electromagnet in the relay to trip and that makes the circuit hot.  There is no hard voltage through any switch except for one:  ignition.  I am using an industrial strength switch for this, rated for much higher amperage than what the Optima battery delivers.  This will last past my lifetime.

Fuses

There are 8 fuses under the hood.  These supply power to the control side of the relays as well as to the ECM and the electric fan controller.  I used modern style fuse housings and bladed fuses.  Glass fuses are just too poorly made and prone to failure and that makes them very unreliable.  Not acceptable for bowtie6.

ECM and Engine Harness

The “brains” controlling the ECOTEC is the GM factory E67 ECM.  The wiring from the ECM to the multitude of sensors on the ECOTEC is basically a factory harness from a Chevy HHR, modified to act as a Pontiac Solstice.  We modified the harness by changing pin-outs and removing unnecessary circuits.  This makes the harness much simpler to work with.  Furthermore we cut many wires to make them shorter or longer depending on where they were located.  This is the beauty of doing it “yourself” as opposed to buying something.  Anybody can “buy” stuff…  It takes talent to make you own.

Like I said before, the harness came from an HHR.  GM went through a lot of work in making a very durable and well engineered harness.  In my opinion, the quality of the wire is superb and the connectors are not only expensive but of very high quality.  The harness is basically divided into three “plugs” (you can see them in the picture above).  One has 56 pins; the other two have 73 pins.  Not all are needed though and having a Factory Service Manual will be instrumental in determining what circuits are kept and which need to go.

To make the ECM work outside of the “factory” setup, one must remove the VATS.  This is the “Vehicle Anti-Theft System”.  You do this either sending the ECM out to somebody or by using a software package such as HP Tuners.  We used HP Tuners.  This also enabled us to tune the ECM.

Speaking of the ECM:  make sure you get the right one.  The ECM’s come in two varieties depending upon the type of gearbox used.  An automatic gearbox ECM will not work on a 5 speed gearbox.  Also, there are certain E67’s that will just won’t work.  You will need to make sure you get the one with the right OS, otherwise it won’t work.  This is why it is very important to get the ECM that came from the donor vehicle.

Solid State Fan Controller

This little device is trick.  It has a built in relay and has B+, ground and a wire hooked up to the temp sensor on the block.  This is where the device gets its temp signal.  Here is the beauty of this device:  on 99.99% of all street rods I see, folks stick a nasty looking probe in the middle of the radiator core.  This not only looks awful but eventually wears a spot in the radiator’s core causing it to leak.  I think this way to wire a controller not only looks crappy as hell but is very sloppy.  The controller we use is not cheap, but it has a fully adjustable rotary knob that enables setting the proper temp to kick the fan on.   In the photo above the controller sits on top of the ECM but I am planning to move it to a different location to make it look a little more elegant.  Again, it is the details that count!

In Summary

I realize this is not everybody’s cup of tea (a polite way of saying “I don’t like it”) but once again this works for me and the car has been built to suit me not anyone else.  I wired the thing, I know each circuit and quite frankly I am proud to say it is bullet proof.  I blew a fuse one time, but that was my dumbass-self making a mistake.  Again, one can source a ready made wiring harness but what do you learn by doing that?  I spent a lot of time learning about circuits and how relays, fuses and circuit breakers work.  This takes time but the result is very rewarding.

If you do decide to undertake something like this, there are a few things I would highly recommend:

  • Every single terminal (and there are many) is soldered – nothing just crimped.  This is extremely time consuming but worth every moment you spend on it.  Soldering ensures a perfect connection and if you are going to spend this much time, you want it to be dead-nuts-accurate.
  • I used the expensive shrink wrap that has the sticky stuff inside of it on every joint, every terminal and every splice.  Why?  This makes the connection water and moisture proof.
  • Anytime I had to join parts of the harness, I used Weather Pack connectors.  They are not cheap, take a long time to crimp and assemble but they are water and moisture proof and last forever.  This is the only way to go.  By doing the harness this way you can ensure certain parts can be take apart without removing the whole shebang.  There is a bit of strategy to play here but you will be very happy with the result.
  • I spent quite a bit of resources on only the best quality wire.  All my wire came from an industrial supplier, not from a home-improvement store.  This is industrial strength. The real-deal.  I did this the first time with the V6 and it lasted flawlessly for 5 years.  This time around I expect it to last much longer since we are braking ground instead of switching hard voltage.
  • Relays – buy only the best (mine are Bosch) and don’t be stingy.  Relays are the way to go.  Once you get the basic principle of how they work they are fantastic.  This folks, is not rocket science and is not black magic.  Relays work and if you do it right, they last forever.
  • Use the proper tools.  I say again:  use the proper tools  I used good quality nippers, soldering gun, heat gun and crimping pliers.  The Weather Pack connectors require a special crimper.  Use the best you can afford.  Otherwise you will have crappy connectors and this will lead to electrical problems and the dreaded “Lucas Syndrome” where wiring turns into very expensive blue smoke.

I could write about this forever but then again, I would bore the hell out of you.  If you have any specific questions let me know and I can address them in a separate post.

Go do some wiring!  It is not as complicated as the harness “makers” make you believe it is…  🙂

 

bowtie6‘s Tilt Steering

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Aside from the Ecotec, coilover suspension and new frame the most anticipated improvement made on bowtie6 has been the new tilt steering mechanism.  On the first iteration with the V6, the steering wheel just did not feel 100% perfect for me.  It was very close, but it sure would have been nice to make it dead nuts accurate.  Solution:  tilt steering.

This one is going to be very hard to replicate using the factory steering.  In our case, the entire steering column was replaced with a much simpler design (click here for more).  This allowed freedom to pretty much do anything.

So basically what we have is a new aluminium  tube with bearings on either end.  Inside that is a shaft with a threaded end where the steering wheel gets bolted on.  On the firewall is a fixed bearing that allows a pivot.  The steering rod goes through it and that eventually ends up at the rack.  Along the way are two stainless Borgeson “U” joints – one even has a built in shock absorbing element that keeps road vibration out.  We used the u-joints, not the “rag” joints because the u-joints are more durable.  This is what it looks like:

At first, I guess the question is “what is the big deal”.  Well the aluminium tube I mentioned above can be seen going through the dash.  It is fixed and the actual steering shaft is inside the tube.  On the right side, behind the turn signal housing is a little lever.  Pull down on the lever releases the mechanism and the steering shaft glides along the two tracks you can see in the opening in the dash.  Here is a side view:

The wheel hub is on the left, you can see a brass spacer followed by a Nylatron spacer.  These are made to allow a smooth movement and durability.  Then is the turn signal housing and inside the dash opening the adjustment lever and the “tracks” where the steering shaft travels on.  The tracks are bolted to the original dash mounting screws on the body.  It is hard to describe but believe me it works!

My cousin Jim designed this entire steering shaft and built it from scratch.  The idea here is for making this as simple as possible – however this has many challenges!  Among them, how do you get a turn signal switch and have it operate as “original”?  Well, here is the solution:  inside the steering tube, on the steering shaft the factory TR6 turn signal activator ring was retained.  This is a clamp-on affair with a little ridge that causes the turn signal leg to trip when it is in either the “left” or “right” direction.  The switch itself is stock TR6 except that it has been modified to fit inside that little aluminium box.  There are two screws that hold the switch in place.  This is all wired up to my custom wiring harness and includes fully functional “left” and “right” turn signal indicator on the dash (you can see them at the top of the instruments above).

This is what the firewall side looks like, seen from the inside.  You can see the Borgeson joint, just above the firewall bearing.  The Borgeson joint is what enables the “bend” to happen when the steering shaft tilts up or down.

This shows the steering shaft under the hood:

This is the stainless shaft that resides inside of the aluminium tube on the inside of the cab looks like.  All this eventually ties into the steering rack.

In the final analysis several concessions had to be made in order to have “tilt” steering.  The most severe was cutting the dash as shown in the photos above.  This really hurt because I have been very proud of just how nice it is.  But, it has been a great tradeoff.  Being able to adjust the steering has been priceless.  Now, I have the 13″ leather Mountney steering wheel in the exact position I like.

Is this something that can be replicated?  With the original steering it would be very difficult.  I guess an option would be to somehow graft a donor car steering column but that not only takes up space but looks very cluttered.  But, to each his own.  I like the simplicity of mine, and it is very easy to service.

Hope this sparks some ideas…  🙂

Carpet Kit for a TR6

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One of the many things that gets overlooked when doing an engine transplant like mine is figuring out how to handle a small issue such as carpet.  In order to fit the Ecotec, we had to modify the transmission tunnel and made a few alterations to the floor.  You can see more about that by clicking here.  That link shows pictures of the body work done long ago when we first did the V6 conversion.

With all this work as well including the new all aluminium transmission tunnel, any “original” carpet kit simply does not work.  So how do we solve this issue?  Some folks wold perhaps send the car off to somebody that would do a custom interiors.  That would be too easy.  We made our own.

Fist, the entire floor and new transmission tunnel were generously covered with DynamatExtreme.  This stuff is not exactly cheap, but it does the job very nicely.  There are several less expensive ways to cut corners here, but I am partial to the real-deal so that is what I used.

Next step is to get a nice base to the carpet.  Fortunately, there is an industrial automotive carpet supply warehouse not far from my house.  They have any carpet material imaginable.  I bought several yards of this backing material for about five bucks per yard.  This is 36″ wide material so you have to plan accordingly but for the price it is hard to beat.  I’ve lined all the inside of the cab and trunk.  This is what the cab looks like:

Installing this is not a real problem.  Get a pair of sharp scissors and a box cutter blade and you will be in business.  I used contact upholstery glue to hold the stuff in place.  Word of caution:  there are several types of glue.  You can go to Home Depot or Lowe’s and spend big bucks on 3M contact cement – that stuff will set you back about $14 per can.  Or, do like I did and get the adhesive at the carpet supply warehouse.  They had this stuff for about $7 bucks a can.  Can’t beat that.  This takes a little time to get cut and glued down, but the result turns out nice and this helps keep noise and heat out.

Next comes the actual carpet.  I bought a non-woven material that can be cut and shaped very easily.  Best of all, it won’t “unravel” like regular carpet does.  The material I bought comes in 72″ width and is not too terribly expensive either.  Why go with this?  Well, for one it is easy to install and best of all since it is cheap it can be replaced when it gets worn or looks bad.  I used this material the first time I did the interior and that was five years ago.  It held up extremely well.

The picture above shows several things (sorry for it looking “dark”).  The carpet is now covering the transmission tunnel.  The handbrake boot came from an “original” carpet kit.  That was about the only decent piece in the set.  At any rate, I saved and used this piece because it covers the handbrake handle.  Basically I cut the section and placed that on the tunnel.  Then on the new carpet I cut a square hole big enough to allow the boot to fit through.  Glue it down and voila!  It looks “factory”.

The shifter boot is straight out of Street Rod 101.  You can get these at any street rot speedshop.  It has four countersunk screws and the boot is vinyl.  The shifter knob however is special.  My cousin chucked on the lathe a solid piece of brass barstock and shaped it on the fly.  This thing is heavy, but there is a valid reason for this:  it helps shifting.  Yeah, I’m sure you’re calling bullshit but this thing does work!

The seats are covered in “stock” foam and fine, exotic vinyl.  Not exactly the fanciest or the most fancy but they do the trick.  My good friend Mike was kind enough to cover them for me and they have held up quite well after 5 years of use.  I reckon I could have sprung for leather but those are pricey and questionable in the durability department.  Maybe one day I’ll have one of those “professional” outfits do the seats.  For the time being, these will do just fine, thank you.

Finally on the floor are my trick sisal mats.  Those were custom made for me by a South Carolina based company and they did an excellent job.  And yes, those are little red dots woven in.  They match quite nicely the exterior of bowtie6.  These mats are extremely easy to keep clean and look awesome.  Yes, they might be a little “retro” but it fits the personality of my car.

So there you have it.  I still have some work to do on the firewall and I’ll have an update on that soon.  The point I’m trying to make here is that if you think outside of the box you can get a real cool look and feel.  It might not be “original” but who cares?  I made this myself, it looks great and it did not cost a bunch of money.

ECOTEC Drive by Wire

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All modern GM engines (LSx’s, Vortec’s, Ecotec’s, etc.) use the so called “drive by wire” or “fly by wire” throttle bodies.  Long gone are the days of actuating the throttle butterfly by mechanical means – ie, a cable – from the accelerator pedal to the throttle body.  Instead, the throttle butterfly is now controlled by a servo motor actuated by inputs from an electronic accelerator pedal attached to the ECM.  If you Google any of these terms, you will get plenty of info on how it works so I won’t go into the details.  This hangs up a lot of folks doing conversions and they end up using a throttle body with a cable.  We did not want to go that route.  What I do want to show here is how we solved some of these problems on bowtie6 while still retaining all the electronics.

The following pictures show what the throttle body looks like.  Since we are running a completely different intake manifold from the Solstice, the throttle body is bolted on a special flange on the new intake.  We could have used the plastic intake, but that would have been a major hassle with the steering mechanism.  In front of all this is flexible rubber tubing recycled from the Solstice.  The silver tube midways is the special housing for the MAF sensor and ahead of that (hidden by the radiator and ahead of the rubber bend tubing) is a K&N air filter.  On bowtie6, the air filter sits ahead of the radiator, right behind the factory grille allowing the coldest air to be pulled in.  However, this all comes at a price:  the MAF must be re-calibrated because of all the bends in the airflow.

This is what the whole shebang looks like…

Here is a closeup of the throttle body…

This is the stock throttle body as found in the Pontiac Solstice/Saturn Sky.  The grey plastic cover hides the stepper motor and the rest of the mechanism that opens and closes the butterfly activated by the ECM.  Here is another picture from the back of the throttle body showing the connector plug with the wires coming from the ECM.

Finally, here is what the inside of the throttle body looks like.  I reckon this all could eventually be fully polished, however I have doubts on how great that idea would be and whether there would be any benefit in that.  At any rate, it is what it is…

As you can see, there is no cable.  This is all controlled electronically.  Right before ignition, the engine does a “test” of the throttle body and yes, there is a split second delay.  If you pay attention, one can actually hear the stepper motor in the throttle body opening the butterfly to WOT and then back to the closed position.  Then ignition occurs.

If you are looking at all this and wondering where the traditional Idle Air Motor is then you are correct:  it is not here.  Idle is handled by the ECM and TPS.  From there, the butterfly opens to control idle.

Controlling all this requires the special matching throttle pedal.  Here is where things get interesting.  There are quite a few versions of these throttle pedals.  For example, Vortec engines have a certain version, GTO has another and Vette’s have yet another.  Along with that, some are all plastic, others are plastic with metal arms, some have 6 wires and some have 8 wires.  In our case, we used a throttle pedal used in the 2.4 Ecotec powered HHR.  The advantage of this pedal is that the actuator arm is metal, and thus can be cut and shaped to fit the location where it is mounted in.  This is what the one in bowtie6 looks like:

Sorry for the boring gray background (this is a sound insulating material glued to the Dynamat Extreme prepared body) but thought it be best to take this picture before I install the black carpet.  Otherwise we won’t be able to tell squat of what this looks like.  Some things to keep in mind about what you see above:

  • The pedal is still a little “crude”, if you will.  This is version 1.0 of the pedal.  So far even though it works perfectly there is some issue with the exact angle of the plastic pedal itself.  As you can see it is still a bit too straight.  I am planning to fine tune it by angling it a bit – the top needs to be brought down a little and the bottom needs to come up.  I just need to make up my mind on how far to make the angle.  It is also a bit long.  As you can see the top is rounded somewhat.  I need to make the bottom rounded as well.
  • The “travel” takes some getting used to.  This is a small compromise but this has to be retained because this is the way the ECM is expecting the signal to be sent.  If you look closely, there is a plug at the top with some wires going into a housing.  This is where the potentiometer that translates pedal movement into a signal resides.  This is what tells the ECM what throttle angle is being requested.
  • Looking at the picture above would lead you to believe the metal “arm” hits the red body of the car at the top, right?  Nope.  The travel is not great at all and the arm does not touch the body at WOT.  I also own a 2.4 Ecotec powered HHR and the throttle travel there is equally short.  However, believe me – this is not a problem at all when driving the car.  The throttle has the same “look and feel” as a mechanical system does.  It just takes a little getting used to.

For those of you considering an Ecotec conversion, this is going to be a very important issue to figure out.  Like I said before, there are many different varieties of thottle pedals.  I have read where there are some that are actually meant for the V8’s.  Once you settle on the correct pedal to use, placement will require some adjustments.  Mine is close but not quite 100% perfect yet.

There is yet another alternative and that is to use a Lokar fly-by-wire system.  I think these were introduced at SEMA earlier this year.  I have done some reading about them but I have not seen one in person and have no idea how helpful it would be.  On the downside too is the price – they are quite price.  The stock GM stuff can be had for a few bucks at your junkyard or from auction on eBay.