Project: Mavro Gato - 99 Turbo'd 3L

[FastCougar]

Yeah, seems that if it has 4 wheels, I will find a way to roll it

[FastCougar]

Update:

Well, I'm completely swamped at work. I have been working 10+ hr. days and with a 1 hour commute one way, that leaves me no time during the week to work on the car. I don't see my work schedule winding down to normal until late May! Because of this, I have spent the last few weekends with the family since they don't see me much as it is normally, much less with this crazy work schedule.

Also, since Joey & Tom have released thier turbo kit and are quickly delivering product, I have lost interest in producing my kit. However, this car will be turbo charged with a one-off kit made by me and tuned by Tom.

So, there you have it ... a formal announcement that my one-off will not see production. My decision to not produce the kit was influinced more by wanting to take more time to get the kit done and also by not being limited by space within the engine bay. What I mean by this is simple ... remove the A/C system. Although that was the original plan, this car is fast approaching the non-daily driver/track & weekend road warrior status. Not to mention, since I reinstalled the A/C system, It must have a leak as it blows warm air. So, I will be removing the A/C system yet again, which frees up TONS of space where the evaporator is located in order to run piping. So, if I where to produce my kit, it would involve removing the A/C system. I don't see much of a market for such a system.

[Clutch]

now....just get rid of that egr and it will be perfect.

[Blackcoog]

I don't blame you for focusing on your one off kit. I've seriously thought of doing the same with my supercharger kit. I bought a few things in bulk though so I'd still like to sell the kit, even if it is in low qtys to make back what I put into it. The 3L builds we have coming through our site take priority though.

[Gorman]

Originally Posted by Blackcoog

I don't blame you for focusing on your one off kit. I've seriously thought of doing the same with my supercharger kit. I bought a few things in bulk though so I'd still like to sell the kit, even if it is in low qtys to make back what I put into it. The 3L builds we have coming through our site take priority though.

don't you dare think about throwing in the towel.....lots of people are saving up for the big day...keep your faith ...G.

[FastCougar]

The gearing on this trans NEVER ceases to amaze me! I will need to pull a data log to confirm these numbers, but there are some rough ballpark figures quoted below. I finally found the time to pull apart all the connecting portions of the main wiring harness and then used electrical contact cleaner on them. There was quite a bit of corrosion on the "main 3" connectors (the ones that are attached to the plate that mounts to the valve cover on the passenger side). After cleaning and applying some dielectric grease to help insulate the connection from further corrosion, I noticed an immediate change in the car's idle. So, I took her for a spin on Saturday morning to drain the tank of gas (107 mile to E). I only physically drove about 30 miles and it was on 32 when I filled up ... if that is any indication of my driving style

Upon running the car up top (6,000+ RPM), the stumble that I have been trying to find was gone ... I was able to red-line 1st-3rd gear ... redlining 4th would be insanely fast, so for safety sake, I only red-lined 3rd. I can't honestly remember where 1st tops out, but 2nd is now over 73 MPH when I shifted at 7,500 RPM. 3rd was topping 113 MPH at nearly the same RPM. I will need to actually "bump" the limiter in my next round of testing.

So, I just need to get some final data logs for Tom before I continue with the kit's development. I'm hoping to do these runs next Saturday. Then sometime before I get the kit finished and fitted to the car, I need to do a "before" dyno run for comparison to the "after" dyno runs. Just seat of the pants, I would say the car is putting nearly 190+ hp down ... not bad for a roughly 8.8:1 CR 3L and a true testiment to Tom's tuning ability

[warmonger]

I'm glad you got that stumble fixed.

I know someone on CEG having an issue electrically so I'll recommend checking those plugs as well.
Great Job so far on your project.
You should be safe to go to the dyno now and just take a datalog at the same time you dyno so I can correlate the two pieces of information and it will make it much easier for me to check stuff out.

[FastCougar]

I really wish I would have taken a picture of the plug pins/sockets before and after ... the corosion was pretty bad on some pins because the rubber seal was misaligned, allowing moisture in. It reminded me of a trailer harness that has sat outside for months unused.

[pgtatx]

I had a problem like that with my ECU in my Cougar....

The engine bay was hosed out after I drove through some heavy muddy water. I had a shop do everything for mesince they had to some quick repairs too.

After I left, I noticed some interesting problems. I was getting a flashing and steady (swapping back and forth) CEL. Then I'd be driving and all of a sudden, all of the gauges would turn off, as if the car wasn't running... though I was going 60mph. The car was basically off...

No one could find the problem. Then a Contour SVT owner friend of mine told me to pull the ECU. Sure as heck, there was corrosion and moisture in there. I used compressed air to clean everything out and dry it. used Q-tips and electrical contact cleaner to clean each post... Then I used alcohol to also induce drying and to clean build up on the connectors, and then I dabbed each pin with dielectric grease.

This cured everything... A few weeks later I decided to check again, and found a little more moisture in there, and repeated all the previous steps again, and that was it. No more issues... no more problems... no more moisture... nothing at all.

I'll look for some pics I think I still have... (found them)... You can see the BAD corrosion in 2 of the pics, but you can also see some white haze around several pins, and actual water in there. Not a fun situation for me.

[FastCougar]

Yep, there is a gasket around the housing the main harness plugs into the ECU ... goes like so:

Main harness to engine -> gasket -> firewall -> ECU

If that gasket is misaligned or torn, you will get that. My problem was similar, but it was between the main harness connectors to the sub-harness connectors. If you unplug those three harness connectors, you will see a reddish orange rubber gasket inside the connector pigtail ... mine was all tweaked and pushed in, allowing moisture in, thus leading to corrosion.