New project. 1987 Lamborghini Jalpa. There's no easy way out.

I'm a weird state of anxiety and excitement. Anxious about dyno day coming up. Excited as well. I had a very odd dream that for some reason the swat team broke into my house because I had a cat that was an international spy. The cat spoke english. Then they fined me $80,000 a year and I couldn't finish my car. Weirdest dream ever.

Anyway... I've been working on some wiring diagrams for my harness and also joining it to the stock harness so that it's a mixture of factory, functional, etc.

A friend sent me a link to some msextra forum threads about some arduino micro projects. One of which was a GPS speedometer and datalogger that feeds into ms3. I've got all the components to make it, and since my speedo is broken (and I can't find anyone who fixes jaeger euro gauges), I'm thinking of gutting it out and putting that inside of it, which would be powered by a step motor instead of a standard speedo. Then i have a functional speedo, datalogging, and gps accuracy, and could even probably put a separate tiny little led display where the gear driven mileage is for my mileage.

In reply to corsepervita:

You could add a sequential shift light to the dash/tach:

DIY Sequential shift light

Why would I want a shift light though?

Have you tried Mo-ma in regards to the speedo? Mo-Ma Or Palo Alto Palo Alto . From what I recall, Moma was started by a husband and wife, she kept Moma and he started Palo Alto.

I'm somewhat in the same boat with my build. I have a functioning speedo, but I don't have an easy way of making it work with the transaxle I have. I'm most likely going to adapt a speedo sensor and run it through an Arduino and a stepper motor in the speedo case.

I'd bet Seattle Speedometer would happily take on your non-functional speedo.

Meawnwhile, make something cool with Arduino to fill the hole in the dash. Then choose to put repaired speedo in, or stick with your custom creation and sell the valuable Jaeger speedo.

RoddyMac17 wrote: Have you tried Mo-ma in regards to the speedo? Mo-Ma I'm somewhat in the same boat with my build. I have a functioning speedo, but I don't have an easy way of making it work with the transaxle I have. I'm most likely going to adapt a speedo sensor and run it through an Arduino and a stepper motor in the speedo case.

I've called a lot of places, I haven't called there. I've already invested in the GPS antenna, the controller, the arduino bits, everything necessary to do it. It's just a matter of doing it.

An easier visual indicator for when to shift so you don't have to look at the tach or rely solely on your ear which could be drowned out by another vehicle or other competing noise.

You could set the green LED at the most fuel efficient and the orange and red at torque peak and redline respectively.

There's also this product, which is more or less standalone and acts as a performance analyzer as well:

Trac-Pac Sequential Shift Light

North Hollywood Speedometer & Clock Co. (818) 761-5136. They are the best. I'd send it out for repair anyway. Having the odo working is a good thing for you and the next caretaker.

Soooooooooooo I ordered more fasteners and the rest of my gaskets and the last of my stuff should be here tomorrow and wednesday. The machinist sounds like he's in a bit of panic mode. I said, "So we're on for dyno day this weekend right?" and he sounded uncertain. My concern is, he's moving end of this month... I'm going to be pissed as hell if we do all of this and I don't get to do dyno day after all this work.

Frustrated, anxious, nervous.

turboswede wrote: Group shot:

Hey, what kind of car is that champagne colored one 2nd in from the right, next to the 968 is it?

nullcell wrote:

turboswede wrote: Group shot:

Hey, what kind of car is that champagne colored one 2nd in from the right, next to the 968 is it?

That's a question for Turboswede. That's a 944 turbo, I don't recall the year but I recall it having a special color and package i think.

Stefan wrote: An easier visual indicator for when to shift so you don't have to look at the tach or rely solely on your ear which could be drowned out by another vehicle or other competing noise. You could set the green LED at the most fuel efficient and the orange and red at torque peak and redline respectively. There's also this product, which is more or less standalone and acts as a performance analyzer as well: Trac-Pac Sequential Shift Light

I run sequential shift lights in a number of cars. They're basically LED tachs. Really easy to see what's going on. You need 8-12 lights for them to work properly, 3-4 doesn't cut it.

I've used Revlight (very small, low profile, no longer available) and Shift-I.

Thanks, sorry to derail... I sat in a black and tan Jalpa once many years ago, and can't wait to see some video of this one screaming.

corsepervita wrote:

nullcell wrote:

turboswede wrote: Group shot:

Hey, what kind of car is that champagne colored one 2nd in from the right, next to the 968 is it?

That's a question for Turboswede. That's a 944 turbo, I don't recall the year but I recall it having a special color and package i think.

Yeah, that was my brief foray into 944 Turbo ownership. Its a 1988 944 Turbo S Silver Rose, a very rare model/color combo. The Silver Rose cars had a special metallic paint color that looked a bit pink in the right light. The interior was a Red/pink tartan as well. This particular car was also highly modified with a large ball bearing turbo, 4" exhaust, header, aftermarket ECU (no MAF!), aluminum flywheel, aftermarket clutch (annoying POS), huge oil cooler, vented hood, 18" wheels and a few other tweaks. It wasn't an enjoyable car for me to own, way too much deferred maintenance to do and the mods made it rather miserable to drive on the street thanks to the exhaust noise and the fuel mileage. I have a build thread on it around here.

Here's some video from one of the last autocross I went to with it:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Thkr5R30_ok

Anyway, the new owner replaced the turbo with a smaller unit to make slightly less peak power (down to 350-380 from 450), but the power curve is much more reasonable and tractable. He replaced the transaxle I installed with one that has a limited slip and it doesn't have a screwed up 2nd gear syncro). He's also widened a set of those wheels to 11 and 12" respectively and is currently installing a set of flares to fit the larger tires he's going to run in hillclimb and autocross.

I'll try to embed a video from the new owner here:

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https://www.facebook.com/p11skater/videos/vb.30901120/10100113499533130/?type=3&show_text=0&width=560

The 968 next to it is also a SOHC 2.5L Turbo that was built and modified by a friend of ours. On the other side is a 944S that unfortunately met its demise on a nearby mountain road while being hooned about. Its 16V motor and other parts lives on in another friend's 924S.

Corse's 931 is still the coolest car there IMO, and he drove it home from Portland to Redmond, OR with a his girlfriend in the passenger seat and set of wheels and tires in the back along with a bunch of other parts. Gotta love hatchbacky goodness :)

Alright, spoke to the machinist. He's extended the time he needs to move and told me we will absolutely be doing dyno day before he takes off and moves. However, it doesn't sound like it's going to be this weekend. Heads are almost finished though and I'm dropping off what should be the last bit of hardware tomorrow.

At this point we just need to finish the heads, route water lines and oil lines, get the fuel system hooked up with the ignition system and we should be good. Only issue right now is a few custom tools he needed to make to deal with the heads, hence the delay.

But at least he has reduced my anxiety by guaranteeing that he isn't going anywhere till we finish the motor.

Did you bring him whiskey or donuts? I find that always helps things along.

Stampie wrote: Did you bring him whiskey or donuts? I find that always helps things along.

Neither of these are bad suggestions. I shall bring some with me tomorrow.

Alright, spoke to the machinist. He's extended the time he needs to move and told me we will absolutely be doing dyno day before he takes off and moves. However, it doesn't sound like it's going to be this weekend. Heads are almost finished though and I'm dropping off what should be the last bit of hardware tomorrow.

At this point we just need to finish the heads, route water lines and oil lines, get the fuel system hooked up with the ignition system and we should be good. Only issue right now is a few custom tools he needed to make to deal with the heads, hence the delay.

But at least he has reduced my anxiety by guaranteeing that he isn't going anywhere till we finish the motor.

Snag: We are prepping to get the heads cleared and finished. The blending on the heads is done. The guy that repaired the heads didn't add tons of extra material, so what blending could be done is done. As well, the new guides have also been shaved to provide better flow. The snag is that JE pistons cut the valve relief wrong on all of my pistons for the intake and it's off by 1mm. In the world of standard eyeballing, that may not seem like a lot, but in the world of engine clearances that's the difference between space in the chamber, and valves kissing pistons.

My machinist can fix it, but dyno day will not be this weekend because of this snag. It sounds like next weekend is going to be dyno day.

That said.... everything else is fitting. New hardware throughout the head, the block, all new fasteners ordered and in place. Things are going incredibly smoothly aside from the piston snag. I've emailed JE pistons and hope they'll be willing to help me, or at least make it right. On top of this, originally the pistons were the wrong weight, costing me rebalancing the entire bottom end. That ended up being fine since we did reduce mass, and now it's balanced better than it ever was at the factory.... but at the additional push of the engine build lagging behind, and machinist costs.

Still stressed. Slightly annoyed. In the end, still a first world problem, and this is still going to happen.

What blending could be done given the porosity of these heads and the little material added.

valve guides looking beautiful.

starting to look more like a complete engine! The water pump was a PAIN IN THE ASS.

Why reverse alternator? Because .... the AC is ran off of a vbelt on the crank. So make room, the cam on the far side uses a timing belt to turn the water pump, which turns the distributor, and also turns the alternator. The displacement of this motor is small, but the engine itself is huge.

More blending.

valves getting checked, seated checked and head ready for final skim.

In reply to corsepervita:

Better to have snags now than later once it's together. I'm old enough to have learned when E36 M3 happens all you can do is move forward. Time doesn't let you put it in reverse. Looking great and I'm loving the Italian engine porn you're posting.

You probably don't want to do this to new pistons just for the cringe factor, but we have clearanced more than a couple sets of pistons with a belt sander.

The porosity in those heads! Did Luigi cast them in his backyard?

Its gorgeous! Sorry about the pistons, but I am glad to hear its fixable. Pushing back a weekend is not the end of the world on a project of this magnitude!

BA5 wrote: The porosity in those heads! Did Luigi cast them in his backyard?

Probably.

TheV8Kid wrote: You probably don't want to do this to new pistons just for the cringe factor, but we have clearanced more than a couple sets of pistons with a belt sander.

Yowza! Well that did the trick though!