It begins....

docwyte wrote: the hood scoop actually sits down inside the hood some and I just don't have the clearance with my intake.

I trimmed the back lower piece to accommodate the intake. Then paint the intake black and you don't really see it.

Figure I'll see how much of a difference the hood vents and larger oil cooler core make, then go from there....

How about some pics of the carbon fibre porn mounted?

Still working on punching the holes in the hood!

Finally found that wire that needs to get hooked up to the alternator so the ABS will work. Rich was a great help in letting me know where it should be and what color it is.

Turns out somebody in the past not only cut the connector off, but cut the wires off flush to where they head into the wiring loom, so they were almost invisible.

Looking forward to finally getting the ABS working in the car!

Getting there!  Hood vents are done.  I'm going to have to paint the bolt and heim joint on the strut brace black, it's showing through on the drivers side vent...

Currently working on the fabrication to mount the much larger Fluidyne oil cooler, plus making proper shrouding for the radiator.  

Then it's finally wiring up the ABS trigger wire from the alternator, wiring past the alarm so the rear hatch key lock will work, rebuilding the rear brake calipers and getting the car through smog testing.  Whew!

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Looking good!

Thanks! Hopefully they'll lower water temps some...

Turn your radiator fan on, if you can feel the air being pushed out, you can pretty much be assured it will help.

Progress!  Alarm is wired past, need to get the car off the lift to see if the key works in the rear hatch lock now.  Rebuilt the rear calipers, seals looked like they were originals.

Oil cooler is mounted and getting plumbed today.  Templates are made for the custom ducting.  After that it's wiring the one wire for the ABS to the alternator, then getting the car through smog.

Does that red/black striped ABS wire need 12V constant or 12V switched from the alternator

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Car is hopefully going through emissions today, should be ready for pick up this Friday. Not sure if the ABS brakes work yet, but the warning light is no longer illuminated, so I have my fingers crossed...

First track day of the season is April 18th, so I need to get some street miles on the car to make sure all the off season work is fettled properly.

Car fast passed on the smog test, was on the rollers under a minute! Then I had to spend 90 minutes (Argh!) at the DMV to get new registration stickers for the car.

Attempted to wire past the alarm ecu I'd removed, so the rear hatch key lock would work. Wired it like Clarks Garage said and the jumper wires basically burned up. Awesome. I looked all over for the alarm ecu in my garage, can't find it. Lart to the rescue! Will hopefully get a "new" alarm ecu delivered from him next weekend.

Wiring up the alternator trigger wire for the ABS now, hopefully get that going. Everything else is working as intended....

That is the one thing I wont mess with... Wiring... Ive fixed burned harness's in the past and I will never do it again!

Luckily it was the jumper wires that got hot, the main harness was fine. I think the issue is you're supposed to jumper the alarm ECU with it in place, plugged in. Since I don't have one, that caused the problem. I have one on the way from Lart.

Car passed emissions easily.
HC 0.1916, Limit 1.2
CO 5.2203 Limit 15
NOx 0.644 Limit 1.5

This is with two large, dual core Magnaflow 3" cats. I only run them for smog tests, I put them in right before the test and remove them right afterwards. That way they stay fresh and I don't burn them up on track.

I don't know why this surprises me, but my car is still trying to kick me in the nuts.

So in addition to not being able to wire past the alarm ala Clarks Garage since I have an '89, we also discovered that when I had that engine fire and replaced the wiring harness, the guy who was in charge of labeling the fusebox wiring and relays mislabeled things.

So the ABS relay isn't in the correct spot and it looks like I'm missing a few relays, probably the ones related to the alarm.  Which is another reason why the ABS and other things in my car haven't been working.  

So, plan is to figure out which relay is which, where it's supposed to go, put it BACK to where it's supposed to go.  Then figure out which relays I'm missing, buy them then plug them in along with the alarm ECU.

Then figure out how to wire the alternator properly to the ABS trigger wire and the D+ charge wire, THEN hopefully the alternator will charge the battery, ABS will work (F'ing FINALLY) and the rear hatch key lock will work with the key again.

I'm sure all of this will finally get figured out and done just in time for the car to either burn to the ground, get stolen or get rear ended by a quad cab 1 ton diesel dually.

I can appreciate your pain with the wiring. Glad to hear you may have finally found your way back to the source. At least going forward should give some real progress.

I hope so. Anyone who says swapping a car is easy needs a swift kick in the testicles.

I've had this swap together for 5 years. FIVE YEARS. I'm still ironing out issues.

Bummer you're having so much trouble, Doc. But I think the problem is the multiple different shops that you've had to different parts of the work. One guy wires the engine originally, then another replaces the harness, then a third tries to add ABS. It's no wonder things aren't working right.

I'm not going to say the swap was "easy", but I did it all myself and it's not been a battle. Best of luck getting it sorted out. It'll be great when it's all fixed.

Rich

Well, one shop did the initial install. Pretty sure the ABS wasn't working at that point and the charge light on the cluster wasn't hooked up. Don't know about the charge light though as some previous owner had removed all the warning light bulbs from the cluster.

The same shop that rewired the car did the Boxster ABS. However, since they haven't worked on any of these swaps but my car, they only had what was already in my car to go by. So they wired up the alternator exactly the way they found it.

It was one of their past employees that screwed up the labeling of the fuse box relays. When he did that, somehow two relays went missing, I think both the alarm relays are gone.

It's not until now, digging into the car looking for the ABS trigger wire that we also discovered that the charge light wire wasn't hooked up as well. With further digging I've found that the alternator wasn't hooked up properly at all. So now I'm trying to discover how to properly hook up an F body 4 wire alternator.

Plus I didn't help matters by pulling the alarm ecu. So it's a bunch of different things stirring the pot on this wiring issue. Car runs fine, if I hadn't been so insistent on getting the ABS working none of this other stuff would've come to light.

Wiring can be a nightmare. But everybody else shouldn't be scared off from doing a conversion because of this. I was really worried about wiring when planning my conversion but it was all very straight forward. I guess it all depends on the car's "history".

The alarm is long gone from my car, removed by the shop that stripped and caged it. There's a bundle of wires and a relay or two taped up and zipped under the dash. But I have a mechanical hatch release with the electric motor removed. So lucky there I guess.

Anyway, I'd bet it's all about your alternator wiring. Do you now have a bulb in your dash? Does it light up when you key over before hitting the starter? I'll send you this other pigtail I have. I bet if you wire that up right, things will start working better. Although it won't help your hatch...

Rich

Yeah, some monkey owned my car before me and lots of things were screwed up. Some that I'm still discovering, like clipping the harness that had the alternator trigger wire etc.

I've gotten a factory 4 wire connector for the alternator from the local Chevy dealer, so I'm ok there. I need to get the alarm ecu and relays proper, as that cluster charge light wire runs through the alarm ecu harness.

Right now I do have the bulb in the cluster but I don't see the charge light on the cluster at all, a combination of not having it hooked up as well as having pulled the alarm ecu.

So multiple things going on with my car regarding the alternator wiring, some caused by ignorance, some caused by previous owners, some caused by the previous shop employee, some caused by me, when I removed the alarm ecu and didn't realize it would effect several other systems.

Talked to Rich yesterday (Thanks btw!) and got much clarity on the wiring situation.

Turns out the wire I thought was the ABS trigger wire is actually the starter trigger wire. So now we'll just grab the ABS trigger wire from the passenger foot well instead. Rich also let me know that it needs to have +12v switched to it, so we'll either splice in wire and go to the alternator with it, or do what Tim did and jump it to the +12v switched power at that same plug in the passenger foot well.

As far as wiring the alternator, Rich also helped out there. I'm not sure I want to give my alternator 12v the way he is, as others seem to have had regulator problems doing that, but I'll put an inline resistor in place to give the alternator +5v and probably hit the Red Pin #15 off the PCM. Then hook up the blue cluster wire and finally know whether the alternator is charging properly.

Need to still deal with the alarm situation, as that charge wire goes through the alarm circuit and who knows what else does too. Need to figure out what relays I need to buy, purchase them, install them along with the "new" alarm ecu and hopefully that'll do it.

You're very welcome. I hope you get it sorted for your first track day.

I hear you on the 12v / 5v thing. Was reading about that yesterday after we talked and am a little nervous about my setup now. I've kinda grafted the ls1 alternator into the 944 harness. But I'm sure it's working. What you're describing is replicating the Camaro/Vette wiring, which might be a better solution for making the alternator last. I'll be very interested in your results.

Rich

The wiring will get done in time, just found out which alarm relay I need. So as long as the alarm ECU/relay pop in and everything works on that end, we should be ok.

As long as the ABS cooperates with us and there aren't any curve balls...

Well, looks like all the research on the alarm ecu, alternator and ABS wiring have finally paid off!

Everything works! Even the ABS brakes work. Holy crap. I think I put in the Boxster ABS stuff over a year and a half ago and now they finally are working.

Shop did mention that the pulse rate on the ABS is a little slower than they expected, so I might still have some work to do there, but they WORK. That means everything is hooked up properly and if I need another Boxster ABS unit I can it for $50 shipped and just swap it in there.

Picking up the car tomorrow am, shake it down this coming week for my first track day of the season April 18th.

whos the source for the boxster abs unit? I need to get one also.