Things have progressed both forward an backward since the last post. The center console is in place and ready for the upholsterer. The seat mounting hardware has been altered to fit better and not interfere with the lap belt mounts and the cables to the shifter. The submarine mounts have been installed. While mounting the seats, I noticed the shoulder harness mounts with their 3 bar mount hardware, hit the seat and actually protruded into the slots in the seat. The RCI units that I have are actually replacements for the belts I originally had because they had expired. The company asked me when I sent them in if I wanted to go to the six point system at no charge other than the $20 refurbish fee. I agreed and they then informed me that the color would no longer be black but would be silver. I believe they were discontinuing the black units. I agreed and they sent them. They have sat in the shipping box for some time since and had not been mounted til now. The submarine straps are the cheaper version where they have the hardware sewn in(latch link setup). I tried them but did not like the fit. So they are going to be replaced with a Schroth, OMP or G-Force and a cam lock setup. In order to get the shoulder strap mount interference out of the way I may add a cross bar behind the seat to mount the belt using a wrap technique. Schroth has some neat hardware that eliminates almost all of the distance from the mount to the seat, allowing the seat to be back almost against the bar. They also use the 2" lap belt with a 3" sholder harness. The 2" lap belt is supposed to be superior in that the 2" stays below the crest of the hip bone(illiac crest). the 3" goes over the crest and can ride up over it putting the force on the abdominal contents. I am still looking into this.
So this is a bit of a setback in that the bar will have to be done carefully, and keep the sparks from shooting all over the place, and to get it painted without getting over spray on any of the leather that is already in the car.
Since the last start up, one would think the car would be up and running around. Well like all my projections, this one bit the dust as well.
The engine was running fine but a bit too fast around 1200 RPM. So I started working on getting the idle down. I noticed that as the idle got down below 1000 rpm, the engine would begin to labor and "knock" as if the timing had changed. I would pull the idle back up each time I tried and reported it to the builder and he said to leave the idle high til we set it up in his shop and we could check it out on the computer and the chassis dyno if need be since we plan to dyno the car anyway. The last time I cranked the car, the same thing happened after running the car for about 10 minutes. temps were normal, pressures were normal. Still running a bit rich. The idle was around 1500 so I worked it down to about 1000 and it began to labor again. Before I could adjust the idle screw up a bit the engine quit. Tried to crank it and the engine started spitting and popping, backfiring out the exhaust and up the injectors on at least three cylinders. If the ignition button were held while cranking it acted like it was flooded and the timing off with an erratic start. A couple of cylinders fired correctly but the others didn't fire at all or they backfired through the injectors and wouldn't start. When the builder showed up at the garage the next week end, the fuel pumps would not turn on. Tried everything I could think of, but they would not work. The only work that I had done while waiting for him to show up was to install the center console. In doing so I shorted a wire to the fuel pump safety switch. I checked all the fuses and replaced the one to the fuel pumps and repaired the wire. Silly me, I didn't turn them on to see if they would work after that. So he left to do some work in his shop. It took me two hours of searching and when I couldn't find anything, decided to check my wiring diagram and trace everything out to see if I had missed something. The builder was going to come back later that day and I was going to quickly wire the pumps directly bypassing the safety switch if I couldn't find anything. When I looked at the diagram the first wire from the battery goes to the inertia switch. I then saw I had tripped it . When it was set the pumps ran perfectly. On his return later on, we tried everything we could to sort the problem. We even went through the original start up routine to make sure the Hall sensor to the cam was correct, thinking that when the motor died, it had shifted the sensor somehow, even though the engine doesn't really need that sensor to run.
As a last resort we traced the wiring to each of the coils. I am running LS coils which are wired a little different than the Ford coils(one wire instead of two). We just had to wire the coils like the LS set up, but with the Ford firing order. What we found was that the #3 and #8 cylinders had been transposed when his shop personnel wired it. How it was running with it this way is beyond me. We cut the wires and reconnected them the way they should be. The engine stopped backfiring as bad but still acted like it was flooded and the timing was off with a hesitant starter and only 2-3 cylinders firing as they should. We pulled the plugs and replaced them with new units, but got the same results.
What didn't make sense was the engine running fine, it is spark knocking under 1000 rpm, and dies. Then won't crank and acts like it is flooded, and the timing is off. Our conclusion is that the computer is off. So we pulled both the XIM & XFI boxes and have sent them back to the factory to be inspected.We checked the wiring to the coils against the wiring diagram making sure they are going to the correct cylinders and have continuity.
My builder is an expert with Ford engines. He runs the worlds quickest Mustang and was first to break the 200 mph barrier on the drag strip in one. He does all the tuning for John Kasse who has won the Popular Hot Rodding Engine Masters series twice with Ford engines and got a third place this year with a Chevy Big Block.The competition is a points based set up. Numbers are based on an average of torque and horsepower from 2500 rpm to 6000 I believe, so raw horsepower won't win it. Each year they change the displacement of the engines. Small block one year, big block the next and so on. All of his motors use the FAST technology. So the builder knows his stuff. If FAST says the computer is O K we will have to get a new harness. Back when I had the valve to piston interference problem I shortened the harness as it was wired like it was a front engine setup. When I put it around the front of the engine it was a mile too long. So it was shortened. All cuts were soldered and shrink wrapped. All the wires were checked for continuity after they were completed. We did continuity checks on all the coils and they were perfect except for the two wires that were transposed. I even reset the butterfly valves.
So it will be a slow go for now. Hoefully we can get the boxes back in a week to ten days. The big snow has held us up this week. Atlanta has been paralyzed for the last 2 days with 4 inches of snow and 1-2 of ice. With temps below freezing all week and lows in the teens. it will be real slow.
Bill