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Back with another redblock

What an unfortunate end of the day

Got everything reinstalled, fired her up to let it idle and make sure I didn't have any fuel leaks. Sat there idling for 10-15 minutes without issue. Shut it off and took a shower, came back out to go for a drive and no start. She cranks, but has a very weak spark coming from the coil. Also noticed no tach movement while cranking. Changed the CPS and coil with spares I have with no change. Gave all the wiring under the hood a wiggle while cranking, and still no tach movement. Same thing while tapping on the amplifier while cranking. My guess is wiring, but it will have to wait for now as I am leaving town tomorrow morning again
 
Update! I had another thread going trying to trace down my no start, after a long time diagnosing it, turns out it was my ignition switch.

That needs to be replaced, but it can be driven in the mean time. I've been playing with my electric boost controller to try and get the best settings possible. As it was, I was hitting and maintaining my target boost level, but the spool was atrocious. I've since got that much more lined out. Between better boost control, plus the 4.11's, acceleration is noticeably stronger.

Once I order and replace the ignition switch, focus will be back on the t5 trans swap
 
Well, definitely been making some strides as far as collecting parts goes...

I managed to find a used relay panel, and the trim piece that holds it from underneath, that showed up at the house. I bought the TOB and adapters from BNE. I just need my flywheel machined for 2.4 trigger, and dowel pins moved for my pressure plate. I also went ahead and ordered a custom clutch disc that is currently being made.

I am hoping my issues with stalling and not wanting to start just by turning the key is from something in or around the fuse tray. Mine is broken and needs replaced anyway, so it will be a good opportunity to do some electrical checks going to and from it. This is priority 1

Priority 2 is up in the air right now. I am having issues getting a response from anyone that can do my flywheel machine work I need done. I also bought a new, unused ms3pro mini with the 8ft harness which is also brand new. 360$ is all I have for it. Once my current batch of electrical problems are resolved, I will be installing this as well. I bought a used laptop, and the paid 70$ version of tuner studio. I just need to download it and megalog viewer onto the lap top, and I should be set. I am aware of having the swap the tps to a potentiometer style switch, as well as adding an intake air temperature sensor. These two speed bumps won't be an issue. I'm excited to feel like I am going to have control over a car that I haven't been able to quite get under control
 
Wesdunns70t5m said:
I am having issues getting a response from anyone that can do my flywheel machine work I need done.
Click to expand...
I had trouble finding a shop that'd resurface my 240's flywheel. Maybe it's a dying service since manuals are disappearing?
Good progress on your car!
 
TouzinFish said:
I had trouble finding a shop that'd resurface my 240's flywheel. Maybe it's a dying service since manuals are disappearing?
Good progress on your car!
Click to expand...
I absolutely agree. There was a listing on eBay for adding the crank triggers, but I asked about changing dowel pin locations as well, and it kind of started getting shady. They kept telling me to send in my flywheel and they would see what they can do. I didn't trust it because, you can accurately machine in a 60-2 pattern, but arent confident in changing dowel locations, just felt off to me. Especially since it felt like they were only worried about me sending in my flywheel. May have been legit, but I didn't want to risk it

I did get it figured out though. I called stsmachining yesterday and talked to someone. Basically, I'll be sending them my flat flywheel as a core charge. Once their 4th of July sale hits, they will send me an invoice for one of their billet flywheels, with my core and the sale discounts applied. Once he offered this as a solution, pretty much turned into a no brainer for me. I'll be getting the billet flywheel for close to what the machine work would've costed me anyway
 
I guess I never did update this here, but I also ordered a custom clutch disc. That's been about 3 weeks ago now, so I'm hoping to hear something soon on that. Once the flywheel and disc lands on my doorstep, I guess really the only other thing I'll need is a rear main seal, just since I'll be in there and I'll be ready to start this swap!
 
More progress, and a very hopeful upgrade that should allow me more time to work on the car!

Ill save the hopeful upgrade for the end, as it isn't specific to this car, just my situation...

I'm expecting my flywheel to arrive Thursday coming up. I did just get the billet sts unit, as it made the most sense. I am excited for that to come even though the t5 swap has been pushed back...

I'm going forward with the ms3 swap. I've done almost all the leg work for the swap to make it as easy as possible, without really touching the car too much yet. I verified which ms wires/pins I'll be using, separated the harness and isolated the unused wires in the harness. I wrote a cheat sheet with the pins, functions, and wire colors, as well as labeled the wires with little number stickers. I installed the yoshifab tps and adapter onto a spare throttle body I had, and installed the iac sensor in the intercooler piping just before the tb. I wired up the pigtails to the ms harness, powered it up, connected it to the laptop, and verified an accurate iac reading, and an accurate enough TPS sweep (I didn't calibrate it since it is not installed yet, just wanted to check the general voltage readings). After this, I got a 12v power supply so I don't have to sit by a running cars radiator in this terrible heat. I then took the spare yoshifabbed tb apart, as I want to change the shaft seal before moving forward, it's just a valve husher, and I already have the original removed.

Like I said, most of the legwork is done, I just have really one or 2 more tests to do, and place an order for some parts still. I need to order that valve husher, a relay and some fuses for the wiring, and some connectors. I don't really want to cut and reuse the stock connectors, at this point, it's just a couple more dollars for the new connectors and more peace of mind

The car does run pretty good though, as I moved and drove it 25 minutes to the new place, and did some highway pulls. She still won't start with the key, and sometimes stalls when coming to a stop. I really hope whatever wiring issue(s) is causing this, will be deleted with lh2.4

The hopeful upgrade is this new house. It is much smaller than our old one, but the garage is much bigger. I agreed to use half the garage as a living room since the house is so much smaller, and I get to use the other half to work on my cars. The great news here is since that garage is half a living room, it's been justified to leave the door open into the house and let the garage be air conditioned! I will have much more motivation to work on this thing now that I won't be in a terribly hot, Arkansas garage lol
 
Little bit more done today with it.

I made the five and cut the pigtail off for the crank sensor and wired it to my new harness. I bolted the throttle body back onto the manifold with the sensor installed. Still need to order the valve husher shaft seal and reassemble it, and then calibrate the tps. I verified polarity on my dc power supply and hooked it up to the ms. I connected to the laptop, and checked for crank signal while cranking with my fuel pump relay removed. We got signal!

Now I wanted to check for sync loss while cranking. I got about 1 for every engine rotation. I checked ignition settings (for the first time) and found it was set up for a different tooth pattern. I fixed that along with other ignition settings, and only had 1 sync loss. Not a problem, as it happened when I stopped cranking, so it is completely normal.

Tomorrow I will work on wiring up the main relay. I am probably going to use a blank relay spot in the stock relay tray
 
I need to get some good open barrel crimp connectors for my wiring. I am really trying my hardest to do this the right, clean way. Especially hard for me because I'm usually kind of sloppy, function over form. I'm going for both this time. But, open barrel splices with good adhesive heat shrink is the way I'm wanting to go with my wiring connections.

Because of this, the main relay didn't really get messed with. On the positive side, I did disconnect the wiring on the driver side strut tower, I labeled all the wires first because my connector there is deleted.

I pulled my unused ms wires back out of the split loom, taped them off, and have them bundled in a couple zipties on the driver's side floor neatly. These will be tucked out of the way under the dash. I also pulled the 4 wires back that will stay in the cabin, but aren't secured with the unused wires. Finally, I pulled the wiring and split loom thru the firewall, and then separated the crank sensor wiring right when it comes out of the firewall.

Not too much really, but sorting the wires to make it look good took some time, and passing it thru the firewall is a hurdle I'm glad is done
 
I got my flywheel in today, and more harness stuff done. I stacked my flywheel, disc, and pressure plate on the ground today, and measure the flywheel, to pressure plate gap. It came in at 8mm, so I believe I will need to add 2mm shims all the way around. I believe this means my pivot ball will also need to be shimmed out. This is all coming after the ms install
 
Slowly cracking away at this. My valve husher/throttle shaft seal arrived today finally. I got a lot of the engine bay wiring connected to the ms harness. Really all that is left with wiring is a ground or two, my fused power wires and relay set up for everything. I believe all of my ignition and injector settings are good to go. Ive also been doing some thinking on my relay situation.

I plan on running 1 main relay that will feed the ECU. I will use the ms3 fuel pump relay output to control 2 separate relays. One for the fuel pump, and one for a fuse block that will feed my injectors, iac valve, boost solenoid, etc. My thinking here is that if the ECU ever loses power, everything else will be de energized as well
 
Got my throttle body reassembled earlier today. Got some more wiring done today too. I plan on going thru and setting the butterfly and throttle stop before reattaching the intercooler pipe, just because really. I also have done some research, and dont believe that I need to power each device with its own separate feed wire. Now I just plan on running one power wire from my accessory relay out to the components, with an appropriate fuse in(25-30a should be plenty). The ECU will be on its own feed with likely a 5-10a fuse
 
More progress, and revisions to my relay plans.

I've been back and fourth between the cars harness, wiring diagram, and ms harness. I believe I have my mind fully wrapped around everything going on.

The big 8 pin plugs at each strut tower, do carry a few important wires, that I am now having to reconnect, though it is not a big deal at all. I figured id list the wires here, for the few following along with this.

The first one worth mentioning is the coil - wire. At first it doesn't seem worth leaving, but remember, this wire also connects and controls the tach. I know volvos and the wiring colors aren't supposed to be the most repeatable, but on my car this is a blue red/white wire, at the coil, power stage, and strut tower connector

The next one is the actual starter solenoid wire. That one is self explanatory

Next up is the alternator exciter wire. This is the small red wire that attaches to the alternator with a regular spade style connection

Finally, is the 2 wires for the coolant temp gauge. Only thing worth mentioning here, is the emphasis on it being for the gauge and not the ECU (hint, this is the easier one to access, not the one more buried under the intake)

So far, this is all of the factory lh2.4 wiring remaining. Also, these are about the only wires I actually have to hook back up, with the exception of the coil/tach wire, that is already reattached. Once these are done, and my 2 fused power feeds for my 2 relays are ran, I will be "finished" under the hood, and moving onto in the cabin work.

I feel like I am finally at a point where this is an MSd car. It is closer to running on the ms3 than it is to running on the lh2.4 system, so I would say the operating system has officially changed, even though it is lacking the operating part right now lol

I've ordered most of what I still need to complete this install. I've ordered 2 rl44 relays, which are rated at 40A. I feel like I got an awesome deal on some heat shrink. 7 different diameters, 3m long for each one, adhesive lined, with a 4:1 shrink ratio for 10$ from the Walmart app. I also ordered some open barreled and u shaped crimp connectors. This is all the actual final install stuff

So far I have been leaving a lot of extra wire at all my connection points. These have been connected using a crimp sleeve, and 2 layers of non adhesive heat shrink. The way I am doing it now is a temporary deal. I want to order all new pigtails for everything one at a time once the car is running good enough. That will be when the good connectors, and heat shrink, will be used and the wires trimmed down to final length

Speaking of which, I did run a single dedicated 12v feed wire thru the firewall and along the engine. I've connected injectors, boost solenoid, iacv, coil, and power stahe all to this wire and will be what my wideband connects to as well. Yes this wire will be fused, and as I tidy up the wiring, just may run a distribution block for everything vs one wire snaked around the engine with a bunch of jumper wires lol. Again, this is the quick install, and it will get cleaned up later

All very exciting for me, and as a checklist for myself, I believe this is all of the actual install work remaining...

Connect stock wiring for coolant gauge, starter solenoid, and alternator Exciter wire
Relocate ground for fuel pump relay to the correct ms wire
Connect wideband power to 12v acc power wire
Connect wideband and power stage ground to same location as the ms power ground
Wire in my main and ACC relays
Ensure acc relay is also tied to the same ground as the fuel pump relay on ms. This way if the ECU loses power, everything else will as well.
 
One out of my 2 relay power wires are ran. I also made up my jumper wires to go between the fuse for each wire, and the battery. So I need to run 1 more power wire for the second relay, fuse both, and they will be done. I still have the 4 factory wires to reattach as well.

My 2 relays, and adhesive heat shrink came in today. Sadly I will have to wait until the open barrel crimps come in. For the time being, wires are being left long. In other words, now that I have the relays in hand I will save the adhesive heat shrink, but continue with my install as is. I am hoping that by Sunday night, the wiring will be completed and I will finally be hooked up to a laptop trying to start it
 
Alright, definitely more progress again. I have completed all underhood wiring. I've ordered a replacement wideband as mine was fried. I ran out of crimp connectors last night, but got more today. I will probably be finishing up with the wiring tonight. I believe I may have about 6 more connections to make.

I also removed the ms3 from the harness, hooked up my bench power supply, and configured a bunch of different settings. I am using the help of 2 separate AI models, and Google Fu of course. This is my first time doing anything quite like this.

I am feeling really good at this point. I did get to use some of that bargain adhesive heat shrink in a couple spots, and it seems to be good quality. Good enough for me anyway lol. I've got several wires placed in a few different split looms. I will definitely do some cleaning up when my good connectors arrive, especially the rats nest area of wiring under the intake manifold.

I feel like I am a few wires, and a few sanity checks and I'll be ready to turn that key
 
Wish me luck in the morning, as I will attempt my first real crank with the key. Wiring is all done, new wideband sensor installed, hopefully it's go time. This will just be a short test, I still need to get a timing light to verify Ms and the engine agree on timing
 
Welp it didn't go quite as planned, but I have a plan going forward lol. Definitely more good news than bad news id say though.

At the first key turn to run, I confirmed my fuel pump now only primes for a few seconds, vs just running like it did before when I had it grounded regularly. This was a good sign. I also could smell fuel after several cranking attempts, which makes me think the injectors are happy as well. Rpm in tunerstudio was good, and no sync losses. No spark though...

I messed up the power stage wiring. I looked at a diagram and saw pin 3 and 5 connection at the plug, so I cut the single wire farther towards the firewall and spliced in there. This basically made my trigger wire also connect to the shield, no go. I also didn't realize the power stage grounds on one of the black wires at the intake manifold bundle. This was removed, so I also need to reground that wire as well. Once this is done, should be good to go
 
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