Thanks for sharing! (Re: TheSilverBuick's 1977 Skylark) Dear SilverBuick and V-8 Buick high-tech fans, Thanks for sharing the pic of you and your own trusty Buick! Sometimes need to see the overall view of the car - not just the engine compartment! Cheers, Edouard
I'm getting ready to send the car out to paint and have pulled almost all the trim off the car now. Good to see the base and corners of the rear window are nice. Plenty of dust piled up under the trim though. Also added this little chip to my MegaSquirt (in yellow). It's a VR sensor to trigger pulse signal. It was designed to make it possible to hook up a VR cam sensor to a MSII, but I'm going to use it for the vehicle speed sensor input. I've wired it up to a spare input JS7 on the mainboard, and have wired it to SPR3 and SPR4 spare inputs/output pins on the connector. I'll wire the speed sensor into the main wiring harness such that it doesn't have a special connector going to the megasquirt. Bottom of the board. Top of the board. The black and white wires are for the VSS. If you look at older pictures I've taken, I've removed the knock sensor stuff I had in there as well as some miscellaneous red wire I had installed for some reason that connected to nothing. The wiring routing with the MS3 and MS3X board installed. This is the connector that plugs into the megasquirt. This is one I bought from DIYautotune.com for the Relay Board, and I thought there would be connectors for the SPR3&4 but it turns out they were omitted from the setup (no point on the relay board for them). I've emailed DIYautotune to see if I can get just the pins I need, otherwise I'll have to make a new connector end for it. Here is where I set JS7 to be the speed sensor input in TunerStudio.
It's almost like you know what you're doing. Something about wire here and something there and stuff over there and other things that aren't quite right and stuff that's better now. Someday you should teach a course on this stuff so we know what you're talking about :laugh:
Just a giant Lego kit to me :laugh: Oh, I should note, that chip was $35, which I figured worth the cost to log mph, and I think I may be able to make the cruise control setup work off this. I think I got a bad VSS buffer and that's why my cruise control didn't work. Plus it will allow me to go to a full digital dash after I proof the half digital dash.
Again, I'm enjoying reading your posts, especially the MSII ones. I have a FAST XFI going in the car I'm currently working on, just because I have it and know it's easily tuneable. Afterwards, though, I would really like to put a MS on my 73 Century and do a low buck EFI conversion on it. I'm trying to corner the market on Poston Buick 350 intakes and I now have two slated for EFI conversions.
Got the wires and pins from DIYautotune. Put them in and got it back together. Unfortunately they were all orange =P So a little black electrical tape wrapped on one to identify it as the negative connection. Because I have the car stripped down for paint I haven't driven it around to try it out. The MSIII back in the car with the VR sensor wired in. I've installed an SD card for data logging too, so I need to hook up a toggle switch to start the logging.
Houston, I have shiny parts! Courtesy of Verne's Chrome Plating in Gardena, CA. But the "LOL" smiling Buick is still waiting on paint :*( Fired it up today though, and boy does it start nice and sound nice :yes:
It's progress! (Re: TheSilverBuick's 1977 Skylark) Dear SilverBuick and V-8 Buick lovers, Thanks for the update. The bumpers indeed look beautiful! Nothing quite like fresh chrome! Cheers, Edouard :beer
Made some progress on going to a half digital dash cluster. Trimmed up the cluster backing to fit the mini-monitor. In place. With the trim on it. I was experimenting with that trim piece so it's got a corner cut out of it. I can use the unmodified one currently in the car. A scratched up spare cluster lens. I had to cut a tab off the top right, but otherwise sets on there nicely. With a full dash over it. I may try and get another cluster backing and trim it up a bit nicer. This was kind of a practice run, it's functional and wouldn't be noticeable once install though. So we'll see. I do have to figure out what to do about the blinker and high beam indicator lights. I bought a variety pack of color LED's I'm looking at sliding between the monitor screen and the cluster trim. I also picked up 2.5amp 12v to 2 USB plugs adapter so I can power 2 monitors (in case I go full digital) and just have the computer sending the signal to the monitor and not powering it too. I'm now considering seeing what the cheapest car computer is that I can buy that will kick on when the car starts, has 4 USB ports and run Tunerstudio.
Maybe a PC104 board that you could boot from a Compact Flash or a newer MicroSD? I use them quite a bit in embedded applications.
I don't know anything about PC104's and the wikipedia article made my head explode ou: I'm thinking something like this for $300 or maybe find something one e-bay, which might still require an additional power supply for a car. http://store.mp3car.com/Habey_BIS_6620_I_Intel_Embedded_Z510_Based_Ultra_L_p/ccc-212.htm Or I'm thinking of seeing if I could score a deal on a netbook and install one of these to automatically kick it on and off when the car starts. http://store.mp3car.com/Micro_Shutdown_Controller_p/pwr-007.htm
That Habey embedded PC is pretty cool; that's basically the same as the PC104 modules in capability, although the PC104 form factor lets you stack other cards on top, which is nice if you need to add something like a weird interface (CAN bus?). I have a complete PC104 stack running Linux that boots from a compact flash that is powered by a 2A, 5V laptop wall transformer. Powering that from a 12v supply would be a piece of cake. The Habey or similar ones give you a nice enclosure and would require less cabling. The last thing that would concern me would be boot time. Imagine starting your car and waiting 3 minutes for your dash to boot... Booting a small Linux installation from Compact Flash only takes about 15 seconds, though. Edit: how about something like this? http://www.emacinc.com/sbc_pc_compatible/pcm_3343.htm
On the boot time, I'm hoping to try a couple things. Namely with the programmable power supply. If I use a netbook with a built in battery is to let it remained powered off the car battery (at low power, and why I want to power the monitors separately) for an hour or so after shut down, then run off it's battery for an hour or so, then in standby mode from there, eventually hibernating if the battery expires. That way if I'm making short trips around where I'm stopped for no more than an hour or two it comes right back on and I'm only booting first thing in the morning, and hopefully only from hibernation. With this setup I'd have a secondary power button that I could click it off at the end of the day to perserve the battery charge. If I run just the computer, that one I posted I believe can be booted from an SD card and hopefully run a hibernation system that quick boots. Likewise on this one with the programmable power supply I'd have it run off the car battery for an hour or two or until it senses voltage drop below a threshold (like ~12.3v). Likewise I'll probably have a button to shut it down for the night just to preserve battery charge. With the half dash, the critical things are still hard gauges, namely fuel and speedometer. The hard thing to give up if I go to a full digital dash is the odometer, and I may run an aftermarket one tucked away hidden under the dash or something, in which case will be more accurate than the dash one that is currently about 4% off. ---------- Post added at 09:41 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:47 AM ---------- For all my megasquirt stuff, I'm really not that good of a computer guy. That's why I'm always saying if I can do it, then any one can. My requirements are 4 USB ports and to run a JVM (java) program. That's pretty much it. I figure I'd plug a USB wireless mouse and keyboard into it when I need to make adjustments, 2 USB ports for two monitors, and a USB port to link up to the MegaSquirt (or serial port). The link looks like just the board, all the connectors and a case would still have to be added?
Pushing the envelope!! (Re: TheSilverBuick's 1977 Skylark) Dear SilverBuick and V-8 Buick leading edge types . . . . If you're not - who around here is!! :eek2: I'm sure glad there are people like you really pushing the limit of the technology. I sure hope some aftermarket vendors cruise this forum every now and then and will decide to pick up on some of things you are trying to do! :TU: Too bad the economy is cruising about as well as a big-block Buick engine with a single-jet carburetor. :af: Otherwise sure is a lot of technology out there that could be coming in to enhance our classic cars. Cheers, Edouard :beer
Rumor has it I may get my car back from body shop jail next week :eek2: The Silver Buick may be Silver once again :eek2: I'm hoping. It's been down and apart since early June and it's killing me. Last year was all engine shop issues/delays and this year it's body and paint delays. I still have to install a new clutch and scattershield too.... But I have been driving my Centurion regularly to get my Buick fix :TU:
I've been there brother!! (Re: TheSilverBuick's 1977 Skylark) Dear SilverBuick and V-8 Buick body-shop "widows" . . . . Sympathies . . . . All work on cars seems to take longer than you'd prefer but somehow body-shop work is especially . . . . . Any sort of surface work seems more problematic than replacing parts. Just refinishing a wooden table seems to take forever and you just can't "bolt on" a new paint-job! Hope your car will finally get some time off for "good behavior"!! ray: Cheers, Edouard :beer
Getting closer! Can't do anything about the bent hood, but all else is looking good! The Silver Buick is SILVER once more!
