The 2012 season was an unqualified success for the Turdbo Neon. I finished the year 2nd place in MF, picked up an MF win at an event in Indy, took the fastest overall time at one event, second-fastest at another, a handful of MF class wins, drove to Florida and back without needing a tow truck, and managed a 17th place finish at the GRM $2012 Challenge. Better yet, out of the 7 events I competed in, I had only two mechanical issues (and one of those wasn’t really the car breaking, but me leaving a loose bolt in the bell housing).
My second mechanical problem occurred at the last event of the WOR season and took the form of the car just dying out right after the start. Judging by the way the car was acting — It would turn over, but Megasquirt’s “squirt” lights weren’t flashing at all — I suspected that my crank position sensor signal wasn’t reaching Megasquirt. I attempted to fix it in the field, but I didn’t have any luck. Once I got it back home, I traced the wire and found that the CKP sensor signal wire had broken way way back in the original wiring harness.
That broken wire presented me with an opportunity, so I decided to pull apart the existing wiring harness as much as I could and start pulling out all of the wires that I no longer use and then fully document and re-wrap and re-route the remaining wires. My goal with this is to make the car easier to troubleshoot and to make it a little less affected by the rough terrain and weather.
At this point, I’ve compiled a binder with all of the various connectors and relevant wiring diagrams so I can trace out pretty much anything under the hood and I’ve clipped out the wires for some of the sensors that I don’t need, and for things like the A/C, airbags, and other such. I also was finally able to remove the rear section of a stock battery tray and bolt it to the inner frame rail so that the power distribution center can be mounted solid to the car, and I’ve re-routed all the wiring so that it goes from the PCM/Megasquirt/instrument cluster to the engine in one simple bundle. There are still a few things that need to be soldered up and taped together, but the job is nearing completion.
Other things on my list to get completed in the short term:
- Wire up a switch for the radiator fans. This should go from the cabin to a relay and then on to both fans and should also be equipped with an indicator light. I haven’t decided if I want the switch to be powered with the ignition off, but I’m leaning towards that.
- Replace the heater core. I sort of threw out the one that came with the car, and the one that was in the donor car was leaky and the patch isn’t holding. Obviously I need to take the dash apart to do that, and while I have that out, I will probably touch up a couple things behind the dash such as…
- Hook up the instrument lights to the oil and boost gauges so I can see them at night
- Add some sort of auxiliary lighting to the cabin for use as map lights
- Examine the feasibility of re-routing the turbo water connection. I suspect that the way I have the coolant connected, there may be a bit of a flow restriction that could cause problems. I already know that I’m not getting real strong heat in the car. If I can change the way the plumbing goes, I could have a nicer looking engine compartment with less rubbing and more room for the air intake.
- Change up the air intake tube. I might try to replace the metal pipe with a plastic one that doesn’t weigh as much, and I would like to secure it so that it doesn’t bang around.
- Attempt to build some securing brackets for the charge pipes. These are also banging around a bit.
- Hook up the oil pressure sender. Being ignorant on oil pressure is not a good long-term prospect.
- And I’d really like to get the windows back in their tracks!