They're made from 3mm steel strip, 3mm plate, and some round tubes from an old bed frame :)
They mount to the top ball joint and one of the caliper mounting bolts:
Saturday, 27 April 2013
Front Wing Stays
Knocked up a couple of wing stays / brackets for the front cycle wings recently.
They're made from 3mm steel strip, 3mm plate, and some round tubes from an old bed frame :)
They mount to the top ball joint and one of the caliper mounting bolts:
They're made from 3mm steel strip, 3mm plate, and some round tubes from an old bed frame :)
They mount to the top ball joint and one of the caliper mounting bolts:
Lock Stops Mk2
My first attempt at limiting the steering travel failed miserably.
The jubilee clips took a battering and broke before the car even left my garage!
My second attempt is a little more robust and uses a pair of shaft clamps from RS components (part no 691-8124):
Hopefully these will last a bit longer!
---------
UPDATE: I had to ditch the stop on the drivers side as it restricted the steering far too much.
Ended up just laying down a couple of carefully placed welds on the rack instead...
The jubilee clips took a battering and broke before the car even left my garage!
My second attempt is a little more robust and uses a pair of shaft clamps from RS components (part no 691-8124):
Hopefully these will last a bit longer!
---------
UPDATE: I had to ditch the stop on the drivers side as it restricted the steering far too much.
Ended up just laying down a couple of carefully placed welds on the rack instead...
Sunday, 14 April 2013
Nearly done?
Just a little progress pic:
I think I might be getting dangerously close to being ready for IVA now.
Just need to make the front wingstays, paint the bonnet, and add a load of trim!
I even made myself a temporary plate out of cardboard for test day :)
I think I might be getting dangerously close to being ready for IVA now.
Just need to make the front wingstays, paint the bonnet, and add a load of trim!
I even made myself a temporary plate out of cardboard for test day :)
Flasher Modification
One thing I noticed when checking the dash lights is that my indicators were flashing too fast for IVA.
This is due to my indicators drawing less current than the MX5 ones and cauing the flasher to think one of the lights had blown.
The usual solution is to add ballast resistors, but it's not particularly elegant, and by the time I noticed I'd already taped up my wiring loom and didn't fancy chopping into it again.
After a bit of googling I found this site which details how to modify the MX5 flasher to work with LED indicators:
http://forum.miata.net/vb/showthread.php?t=335534
All it involves is swapping a resistor (hope the guy doesn't mind me nicking his picture):
In fact the mod was even simpler than that; all I did was remove the resistor and not bother replacing it at all.
I figured a 1Meg resistor probably wasn't doing much anyway so tried without and it worked just fine :)
This is due to my indicators drawing less current than the MX5 ones and cauing the flasher to think one of the lights had blown.
The usual solution is to add ballast resistors, but it's not particularly elegant, and by the time I noticed I'd already taped up my wiring loom and didn't fancy chopping into it again.
After a bit of googling I found this site which details how to modify the MX5 flasher to work with LED indicators:
http://forum.miata.net/vb/showthread.php?t=335534
All it involves is swapping a resistor (hope the guy doesn't mind me nicking his picture):
In fact the mod was even simpler than that; all I did was remove the resistor and not bother replacing it at all.
I figured a 1Meg resistor probably wasn't doing much anyway so tried without and it worked just fine :)
Saturday, 30 March 2013
Dash Wiring
I got my dash wired up over the last couple of evenings:
The wires are all wrapped in self amalgamating tape, and held in place with cable-tie saddles screwed to the dash with self tappers.
In the middle of the dash are the mini clocks.
Just below them is my VRS-to-digital interface for the speed signal.
To the left are the hazard and fog switches, and a relay I had to add to invert the hazard signal.
To the right are my CAN interface modules to take the various signals from the car and generate CAN messages for the mini clocks.
Plugged it into the car and most things seem to work!
Need to do a small tweak to the RPM, as currently it's displying twice the engine speed!
The brake warning isn't quite working. Turns out the brake sensor is 500 Ohms when off - hadn't expected it to be anything like that, so will need to reduce the value of my pull-up resistor for that input.
Haven't tested the speed yet, but don't expect the scaling to be anything like correct!
The only other thing I'm not sure about is the fuel level. It's currently displaying as 1% full with about 10l of fuel in the tank, so that might need some futher investigation.
---------
UPDATE:
I spent some more time on this over the bank holiday weekend, and all the dash functions now work :) (except possibly vehicle speed which I haven't yet checked).
Adding a 1k pull-up to 12V to the brake warning signal fixed that problem.
Tweaked the code to fix the double RPM issue.
I've left the fuel level as is for now. It sort of works, in that it's fairly accurate at full tank and empty tank. The problem is that my code assumes a linear voltage from empty to full, but in reality it's curved. I might add some code to linearise the signal at some point, but it'll do for now.
Whilst testing I spotted that my indicator tell-tales weren't keeping up with the indicators, but just sending the CAN messages to the clocks more frequently fixed that.
Also noticed my charge warning light was permanently on. That needed a 120 Ohm pull-up with a diode in series adding. Not sure why, but it appears that alternators need quite a strong pull-up resistor on the charging light wire to actually initiate charging.
The wires are all wrapped in self amalgamating tape, and held in place with cable-tie saddles screwed to the dash with self tappers.
In the middle of the dash are the mini clocks.
Just below them is my VRS-to-digital interface for the speed signal.
To the left are the hazard and fog switches, and a relay I had to add to invert the hazard signal.
To the right are my CAN interface modules to take the various signals from the car and generate CAN messages for the mini clocks.
Plugged it into the car and most things seem to work!
Need to do a small tweak to the RPM, as currently it's displying twice the engine speed!
The brake warning isn't quite working. Turns out the brake sensor is 500 Ohms when off - hadn't expected it to be anything like that, so will need to reduce the value of my pull-up resistor for that input.
Haven't tested the speed yet, but don't expect the scaling to be anything like correct!
The only other thing I'm not sure about is the fuel level. It's currently displaying as 1% full with about 10l of fuel in the tank, so that might need some futher investigation.
---------
UPDATE:
I spent some more time on this over the bank holiday weekend, and all the dash functions now work :) (except possibly vehicle speed which I haven't yet checked).
Adding a 1k pull-up to 12V to the brake warning signal fixed that problem.
Tweaked the code to fix the double RPM issue.
I've left the fuel level as is for now. It sort of works, in that it's fairly accurate at full tank and empty tank. The problem is that my code assumes a linear voltage from empty to full, but in reality it's curved. I might add some code to linearise the signal at some point, but it'll do for now.
Whilst testing I spotted that my indicator tell-tales weren't keeping up with the indicators, but just sending the CAN messages to the clocks more frequently fixed that.
Also noticed my charge warning light was permanently on. That needed a 120 Ohm pull-up with a diode in series adding. Not sure why, but it appears that alternators need quite a strong pull-up resistor on the charging light wire to actually initiate charging.
Saturday, 23 March 2013
Fuse Box Cover
More sewing. This time to cover my fuse box and relays.
Using my usual method of vinyl, scrim foam, and bias binding.
Using my usual method of vinyl, scrim foam, and bias binding.
IVA seat belt end/nut covers
Whipped these up on the sewing machine for IVA:
They're vinyl with scrim foam glued on the back and a bit of bias binding around the edges.
They're held on with a single press stud.
They're vinyl with scrim foam glued on the back and a bit of bias binding around the edges.
They're held on with a single press stud.
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