As you can see, not a big deal, the bracket is maybe 1/4” thick there. I used a dremel to make the cut. Another test fit of the intake (it’s just a strut off the back of the intake that is the problem) and I found I needed to go a little farther back towards the block. But in the end, I got it trimmed down and the intake fits great.

There it is bolted on. Although not pictured here, I found that I’ll need to bolt the thermostat housing onto the intake BEFORE bolting the intake to the engine. The timing belt cover blocks access to one of the bolts, it’s impossible to get one of the bolts in or out with the intake on. As you can see in this picture, the alternator JUST clears the intake. It’s a very close fit, but doesn’t look like it will be a problem. Yes, there is a belt on the alternator already and it’s tight.

So with the intake temporarily bolted to the engine, I decided to dig out the radiator and see how it fit. It’s obvious from the above pic that I have enough room now. Unfortunately, it’s still too tight to have the fan on the radiator. Luckily it’s an aftermarket reversible fan. There is enough room in front of the radiator for the fan, so that’s where I’ll put it.

The radiator I have is one I had custom made. I paid a small fortune for this radiator last summer. It’s modeled after a standard TBI Omni radiator (the plastic one), but one helluvalot thicker, and seriously heavy duty. As you can see from the pictures, the radiator inlet is way too close to the intake manifold. I might be able to make that turn, but the hose will forever rub the intake, and be leak prone due to that. So I’m going to take it back to the radiator shop and have them change that fitting to a tight 90 to the left, towards the outlet on the head.

That about covers the work I did on the car today. Now let me get back to showing off some of the new goodies.

I was a bit suprised to see the wideband O2 show up in an actual retail box. It’s one well built unit, an absolute steal for the price. $200 shipped. It’s going to make tuning soooo much more accurate, not to mention enable me to really lean the engine out on the freeway to scrape up every last MPG I can get out of the engine.

Last time I built a MS, it was still very young. You couldn’t buy a wire harness for it. It came with a plug and you were expected to build your own harness. Well that worked ok, but now that a harness is available, I’m more than happy to go with it. It was an extra $54 or so, but should make things simpler, especially now that I have a different job and don’t have ready access to automotive wire spools anymore. The best part about this harness is that every wire is labeled to tell you what the wire is. Very cool. It’s also some very high quality wire/insulation. Far better than the crap that Chrysler put in the Omni’s to begin with. (Bad memories of stiff wire insulation cracking instead of flexing, grrr!)

Yes, that is a 17” LCD. I bought my wife a 19” for her computer, and took her old one for my project. You see, this LCD runs off 12v DC. Hehehe, no inverter needed, just plug it straight into the cigarette lighter. I’m going to securely hang it off the dash. It’ll look really nice with the Megatune dashboard on the screen while driving.

 

So that covers everything I got this week. I’m still waiting on the bobble strut bracket to arrive from Polybushings. They don’t take any form of online payment, so I had to mail a money order. Kinda slows things down. Might keep me from starting the engine, since I have no front or rear mounts yet. That would have at least given me a rear mount.

This weekend I’ll probably be pretty tied up simply soldering the Megasquirt together. I’m also going to be working on stringing that wiring harness around the engine bay and getting everything hooked to it. And then there’s the fuel lines, now that I have a working intake manifold, I can plumb in the fuel lines/fuel pressure regulator. Should be a very busy weekend.