Merry Christmas! Happy New Year, Happy Hanukah, Happy Kwanza, Happy Weekend of partying... Whatever you want. We celebrate Christmas at the Graber household. It's a time when we
gather together to celebrate the birth of Christ, drink way too much, eat way too much and give an
obscene amount of gifts to the children. They probably don't deserve
them, but they're still so cute! Who can resist? In any case,
progress on all projects typically comes to a screeching halt until after the
debauchery is over. Which is about right now.
 I got a complete MegaSquirt kit as my big gift from Santa. MegaSquirt
is the OpenSource Fuel Injection Computer designed by Bowling and
Grippo. With a
few simple modifications it can be coaxed to control ignition, such as a Ford EDIS, as well
as trigger a number of outputs based on a large number of parameters.
My kit was ordered from Glens Garage.
Glen Hoag gathers all the parts from different sources and offers them
in complete easy to understand and order kits. It is one of the best
packaged and prepped kits I have ever seen. Every component is bagged
and labeled with its specification as well as the identifier number to
match to the circuit board. Everything is included, nothing is
overlooked and the price is fantastic. If anyone is thinking about
building a Megasquirt computer you should look no further than Glen
Hoag and Glens Garage.
If you look at the photo to the left you
can see that I already finished building the Stimulator and the
optional relay board. The main MS kit is in the labeled bags as
provided by Glen.
So what have I done on the car you say?
Just a little bit of re-arranging at the back. You might call it a
"butt-lift". I merely chopped away about 6" of the lower part of the
rear bumper. I'm still in the middle of this "renovation" so stay tuned over the next few weeks as I get it all cleaned up and the lines refined. I understand that this will push my mold pulling deadline out a bit, but I'd rather be 100% satisfied with the shape than rush to the finish line.
    The
suggestion and inspiration for renovating the rear end was provided by
Steve Turner of Turner LMP fame. Steve is an amazing designer and his LMP
is one of my favorite car shapes of all time. On top of being a
great designer, he is also a great guy and is always willing to share
ideas and design tips. Let's just say that if I weren't building
my own car... and I had the money.. there would be a Turner LMP in my
garage.
 As an update to Sunday (it's now 10:30pm); I managed to get some shaping done on the side of the car, at the bottom of the rocker panel. It went from being completely flat and featureless, to having an hourglass curve to the bottom of it. I have actually spent a lot of brain energy on this area, since it seemed the most plain and "kit-car" like of the shape. The mud is still drying tonight but by mid-week I'll have the shape more refined. In the photo to the left I have outlined the changed area in a thin red line. Once again, it's one of those shapes that's hard to understand from a flat photo. You really have to walk around it to see how it improves the marque.  Finished the Megasquirt tonight too. And upgraded it to the latest MSnS-Extra code. In this photo you can see the finished MS, the Stimulator (which fools the MS into thinking that it is attached to a car and is for testing only), and the Relay Kit, which is not required, but makes wiring in the car almost idiot-proof. And I will need THAT feature! Believe me! You may also notice in this photo that I have a desktop wallpaper of La Bala. If you guys think that I should but up some La Bala Wallpapers just drop me a line or mention it in a post on my general banter forum
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