The joys of owning an FC...

[Prof]

I have gears!  GEARS I tell you !  :Talking1

Seems my spiggot / pilot bearing thingy crumbled and left the car without the facility of seleting gears - although it was intermittent.  Chaps from Rotechnics could\'nt understand why I had brought it in, until he got to the end of the dual carriage way and found himself in the same situation...

Still it\'s sorted now, so me and the missus went for a test run  :3gears-rh

Engine is running really well, seems as if the mix of Tesco \'99 and Optimax has \'come to\' in the tank over the week it was off the road. :Giggle

Well happy now, only 2 tyres to buy and the hi beam to fix on the passenger side (dodgy wire on the bulb) and it should make the MOT in May.  Going to try and get it through with the LED/HID/Halogen combination.

Time to get on with my custom gauge thingy...

[grinder]

all sounds well and good matey

where are you mounting your gauges then ?

[Prof]

In a 3 gauge DIN holder.  I got it off ebay for about £10 - looks home made. but does the trick -

See thread  http://www.mazdarotaryclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3368

although the picture could be better.  

The gauges are stealth - I want to paint the bezels black eventually, so a casual glance into the car does not reveal too much...

The hole in the middle will be the custom one.  Basically the idea is to capture some useful info like battery voltage, max boost, turbo temp (so  you can see how hard the car is being driven).  Unit will also function as a start warmup timer, and intelligent turbo timer (using either or both the boost signal and turbo temp)  :Typing

[grinder]

how will you get boost reading , turbo temp etc..

that im interested in

[Prof]

The boost signal is coming from the stock pressure gauge - I\'m taking a feed off the ECU for that one.

Turbo temp is a bit more involved.  For this I need a thermocouple, and then a small amplifier box in the engine bay will amplify the signal to something usable.  I am feeding the amp with 12v and taking the output back using some heat resistant cable that\'s meant for sensors.  I should get a voltage proportional to the themocouple temp.  The one I\'m going to use comes from Farnell, and is rated upto 1400 C or something like that, so the exhaust will melt before the temp probe.  Going to crimp the end to a washer and tie this onto a bolt on the hot side of the turbo.

This would work better than EGT sensor, as the turbo timer needs to run the engine long enough to cool the turbo off, and the EGT sensor would drop quickly when the engine is on idle.  

I can\'t claim this is my idea - I saw it first here:

http://homepages.picknowl.com.au/pkl/turbotimer/picproject1.html

Basically the idea behind this is that if you\'ve been caning the car, the amount of time the boost signal has been up will be increased.  You can get a chip to count whenever the boost is up, and count faster for more boost.  As you come off the boost, the count goes down.  Then at the end of the day, you have a value to add to the default timer.  In theory, the more you cane it, the longer the timer will run.  The idea behind the turbo temp monitor is too not allow the timer to shut off until it cools down enough to be \'safe\'.  :cool

It also allows you to see what sort of temps you are getting down there

Usual handbrake failsafe will be on, so that if someone tries to drive off it will cut the engine.  :Nono!

The meter is basically an A/F meter, that I have butchered.  I changed the leds as well, as I wanted blue down one end.  In the middle of the display will be a 4 character text display that will let you know what the meter is doing, and will show peek boost values etc.

Idea is as follows:

Key in ignition - meter will show battery voltage and also during cranking.

As soon as the engine is running, the meter will monitor the turbo temp.  If its cold, then the engine was started cold, and the warmup timer will be on.  This will prevent the engine being turned off until its warmed through (this can be disabled).

Meter will flip between reading battery volts (to show charging) and turbo temp.

Once the handbrake is released, the meter switches between turbo temp and boost, but will always show boost when the boost is up, including indicating the peak value (frozen dot on the led gauge, peak value shown on the char display).

Come off the boost and it shows turbo temp again

Once you\'ve finished, and the handbrake is on, the turbo timer will be engaged as soon as the key is removed.  Releasing the handbrake will cut the engine immediately....   ...at least that\'s the idea!

Now all I\'ve got to do is write some code for all of this !   :Typing  :eek

[grinder]

BLIMEY !!!!!!!!!!

if you get made - then well done matey

make 2 will you - one would look nice in my car aswell !! LOL