Well, I’ve only been working on it a little so far, but I suppose it’s good enough to post about at this point. The site is msqur.com, and it’s for Megasquirt ECU users to share their tunes (from the TunerStudio MS software). You can upload (multiple) .msq files, assign some engine information to them at upload, and share them with other people for troubleshooting or tuning help. The goal is to make something easier than attaching a file to a forum post that others have to download and fire up the full tuning software suite to just view it.

Over a year ago I got an Arduino Uno and a CAN-BUS Shield to try and make some kind of datalogger for my car. I was also interested in using the OpenXC library with it (which might need a port if there isn’t one already, since it uses the Digilent chipKIT Max32 development board). While OpenXC allows interfacing with Android stuff for phones, I’m more interested in a self-contained datalogging type deal.

Well, with less than a couple hundred miles on the rebuilt engine, it was time to really break-in the new VG33. I took it to an autocross. Things were going well until I shut it off after my second run. It didn’t want to restart after that. It appears that the culprit was low battery voltage, as the ECU was resetting and the fuel pump never even came on during cranking.

Continuing from part 1, this is the start of installation and results of the LED conversion. I ordered a small bunch of LEDs to get a feel for what brightness I’m looking at since the website I ordered from has somewhat confusing ‘relative intensity’, ‘brightness’, and ‘lumens’ listed for each bulb. Not to mention the prices seemed to fluctuate independently of any of those values so it wasn’t as simple as ‘find the most expensive ones’.

My 280Z isn’t what you could call “modern” in the electrical department. Originally, it came with an externally regulated alternator, fusible links, incandescent bulbs, and very few relays. The design inhereted a few things from Lucas eletronics, which is not a good thing. Regardless, it was fairly normal for the time. I’m glad there are no vacuum operated things, like some makes. The most electrically obtuse part of the design is the lack of relays.

So, am I the first? The first to put a VG33 in an S30? I have doubts but I’ve never heard of it before. After a bit of late night work and an unplanned oil event and a small unplanned fuel dump after removing and replacing the engine to fix the oil leak, it’s back in, running, and more importantly: not leaking. Here’s a late night in-progress shot:  All the work was worth it, I had to get it running for a scheduled photoshoot:

I acquired some Speedhut gauges a while back for a deal, and I just got a free 240Z wheel, so I decided to do all three. In this part I just remove and fit the Speedhut gauges in the old speedo and tachometer housings. In the next part I wire them up. A few people did this on HybridZ various different ways. I was too cheap to go out and get any other supplies, so I made it work with what I had.

The gauges I got are:

Speedometer: 4” Revolution GPS Speedo with integrated fuel gauge, turn signal LEDs, and high-beam LED

Tachometer: 4” Revolution 8,000RPM with programmable shift LEDs.

Both have red dials, and red illumination. The fuel gauge is there since I’ll be replacing the one in the 3 small dash gauges eventually, but don’t want to lose having a gas gauge.

I picked up a really cheap ThinkPad T410 from Craigslist. First-gen mobile Core i5, 4GB, 320GB drive and most importantly: 1440×900. A 40% increase in horizontal space (and 17% vertical). Finally I can tune without trying to get TunerStudio to fit. Installing Arch was quick, as usual. The laptop has a fingerprint reader, which works really well in Linux. Now I can log in with a finger swipe-although you have to press enter after swiping.

After searching for a simple GPS Speedometer app that provided a speed readout in more than just 2 units (a free one, of course), I thought it would be the perfect project for my first Android app. It took only a few hours to make it, the Eclipse ADT makes this pretty easy. Google Play link I’m glad I’ve gotten more familiar with the publishing process. It’ll help when I release a game I’ve been tinkering with for a few years.

Second autocross. This course was a bit more technical, and my car was definitely not setup for it. I was out of the power band most of the time, which was somewhat aggravating. At least I plumbed my wastegate back in, so it’s quiet at full throttle. Here’s my best run: