At some point I need to draw a line in the sand (and not on a Etch-a-sketch) and deem 'ok, this is enough' and quit adding new projects to this project.
Unrelated: I bought a '60 Sedan Deville that used to belong to a friend who passed rather suddenly. My friends are trying to talk me into keeping it but I don't want to take away time or funds from my hearse build.
I have most of the ECU wiring on my bench at the house right now. I have added an ECUMaster PMU-16 and a 12 button CAN keypad to the mix. If you have not played with one of these PMUs it is an absolute game changer of the highest order. The car will be almost completely devoid of fuses and relays now and the logic you can use with it is super rad. Because of this addition I had to rethink the overall wiring strategy for the car which means even more wiring. It has 10 x 25A channels and 6 x 15A channels that you control completely through CAN so I'm moving all of the following to it:
- Fans
- Starter solenoid
- Headlights low
- Headlights bright
- Wipers fast
- Wipers slow
- Turn signals left
- Turn signals right
- Fuel pump
- Water pump
- Brake lights
- Parking lights
- ECU/dashboard
- Car fuse block for interior lights
The astute observer will note 2 very important things on there. The starter solenoid will now be on a push button controlled by the computer. I can have it spin the motor if it is below some number and off when the RPM reaches a certain number indicating that it has cranked. I'm controlling the coils and injectors from the ECU directly already. The other thing is I'm moving to an electric water pump with the adapter plates. I chose a Proflo 7550 which is a SBC 55 gph pump that only pulls 6 amps!
Wellllll since that would only leave the alternator and the power steering pump attached to the front of the motor I then decided it was time to go after the power steering and I'm doing an electric pump out of a Mini Cooper (since that thing is like 80A by itself I am doing a 100A breaker and a 100A relay that I can trigger off of a high side out on the ECU). Nice thing about that is that if the car is off I can tell the computer to turn on power steering and moving it around will be a dream even with the car not running.
I am running a lower pulley off of a 3.0 Taurus and then just the 400A alternator.
When I talk about logic puzzles here is one for you: Lets say you have the headlights on (which means the parking lights are running), you have your foot on the brake, and you turn on the left turn signal. So that means you have to light up the front/rear left turn signals while also lighting up the right brake light but not the left so it will actually blink. Fun abound.
Fortunately I'm making good progress on the bench and I took a few classes on HPAcademy.com on CAN communications, wiring, and PDM configuration so that helped out A TON. If you haven't done a class there it is totally worth every single penny. I did find a coupon code through their podcast of 'podcast75' and it gets you $75 off if you are interested.