Project No-Flight Update
April 2007
I decided to make the dash panel a black wrinkle finish, as I thought the polished carbon fiber might have too much glare. I took black fiberglass to make the basic panels so that if it ever gets a scratch in the paint it will be less noticeable. Here is the drivers panel with the gauges installed, except for the mechanical oil pressure gauge which is hooked to the oil line in the car and will be installed when the dash insert goes in. The gauges are all Autometer C2 series, as I wanted the full sweep electric gauges.
The one down side to the C2 gauges is they are designed to each have their own 22 gauge wire harness that plugs into the gauge. I terminated all the supplied gauge harness leads into another Deustch connector so they would connect into the already installed wire harness leads. The turn and high beam lights got their own connector. The wiring isn't as neat as I would like as you can't route the small gauge wires and get them to stay in place like the 18 gauge leads from older gauges with individual plugs for each lead would.
Here is the final under dash wiring. I terminated all the unused leads (and pulled the fuses feeding them), and installed the connectors to mate to the dash gauge insert. The light switch, wiper switch, and ignition switch are just hanging loose and will be installed into the dash with their wiring in place as it is easier than getting behind the dash to install the leads and connectors. If you read my thread on CF, I had quite a time tracing an "almost short" from the neutral safety switch through the shifter cover. The "short" had .5 ohms resistance, the starter solenoid 1.2 ohms. The difference was just enough that the leads would test as having a good connection, but when I tried to crank the motor most of the current would follow the short, leaving only 1.5 VDC at the solenoid, which was not enough to trigger it. When I jumped the solenoid but with the harness still attached the jumped current also went along the lower resistance path. It wasn't until I pulled the harness lead and jumped the solenoid that I was able to confirm the starter was fine and knew where to begin tracing the harness lead problem. Lots of Fun !!
After quite a bit of debate I decided to use the small Odyssey racing battery. It is easier to get into the space behind the right rear wheel, and is fully sealed with it's own vapor handling system. I need to fabricate and install a new hold-down that will accommodate the battery size. The battery is rated for starting up to a 500 cu in 15:1 compression race motor.
The trans cooler has it's own fan and thermostat switch (just in the image on the top left) and is controlled by a relay the same as the main engine cooling fan.
Although not part of the No Flight project, I thought getting this was memorable as well.
