As many of you my dad came out to visit back in early April. One of the first things we did - after getting the car registered with the state of Washington (and getting plates!), was to throw a party.
A bunch of the guys I know from the Factory Five forums and Club Cobra made it over to the house and we all had a great time.
The next few days were spent putting it all together and making it somewhat legal. Here we are getting ready for the first (somewhat stressful) drive outside of the immediate neighborhood. No major problems, but we had to wire-tie up the clutch cable to keep it off the headers, and cut the ride short becuase the ride-height was too low and we had a bit of tire rub on the body.
Finally, we've been struggling with tuning on the EFI motor. Logically, I know the tuning can go on after the car is complete, but it's really been bugging me and I (typically) can't let it go. Symptoms include a rolling & hunting idle, big stumble when applying > 50% throttle under load, and bucking at lower (cruising) RPMs (yes, it has a E303 cam with 1.7 ratio lifters, but it should be better than this...)
So we've since looked for vacuum leaks, reset the throttle-position sensor (TPS), replaced the plug wires, pulled & regapped the plugs, looked for vacuum leaks, replaced the idle-air controller (IAC), tried to pull the computer (EEC) codes, and checked for vaccum leaks. The computer wasn't activating the check-engine light, or outputting any codes. So, rather than keep firing parts at the problem without being able to pull codes, we decided to replace the computer.
Today the new/old computer showed up, and (knock wood), I think it works (pending a test drive once it stops raining). Check it out:
I'm jazzed that it seems to be working and excited to get it out on the road.
More to come!
--Joe
This Page:
http://garage.caropepe.com/home/ffr_cobra_project/FFR_Build_Diary/2009-05-03_party_first_drive_new_computer.html
All Photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/caropepe/tags/mybuild
