It's been such a long time since I have posted an update to the diary. It's just a matter of finding the time to sit down and reflect on what has happened in the world of grabercars. Summertime should be a season when things slow down around me, leaving more time to work on the car. But it's just the opposite! Time is such a fleeting comodity these days so there is not much time to reflect, just time enough to forge ahead with the plan. So on with the plan! The plan was to have the car done by now. But that hasn't happened. Mostly due to the fact that the bodywork phase seems to be stuck on perma-hold. John hasn't been able to work on the body for a number of weeks and it has really put us behind schedule. To his defense his family has been beset with illness and death so it's hard to be too upset at John personally. Yet my project suffers because of these issues and that is upsetting on another level. So much time, effort and money has been focused on this project and still no finished bodywork. 

 It's been such slow-going on the bodywork that I decided to get the car 'street legalized' without the bodywork, so that I can at least continue with my chassis testing phase. In mid-July the AZClubRacing organization hosted a huge track/drift event down at Firebird International Raceway. Jason has a connection with the director and managed to secure a space in the vendor area so that we could display the car.  I felt it was the perfect opportunity to give the project some well deserved (non-Internet) attention and to let the drivers and spectators see the car in action.  To that end Jim, Jason, Robert and I spent a huge amount of hours in the week preceeding the event installing the MegaSquirt, the turbo/intercooler, the lighting, the wiring, and so many other small, yet time-consuming issues. Jason almost single-handedly built the new wiring harness out of the old MR2 wiring harness that I had saved so many years ago. Huge effort and perfectly implemented. Robert has come up from Tucson twice just to work on the car and his skills as a fabricator and mechanic 

The night prior to the event we still hadn't fired up the car but we were getting close. The only items missing were the most basic of engine running issues. Such as calibrating the wideband O2 sensor, setting the timing and refining the megasquirt fuel maps to a most basic state of tune. Luck ran out for us at around 10:00am. First issue we encountered was a dead cell in the racing battery. This of course prevented the wideband from heating properly, the starter from turning over and the megasquirt from functioning. Even when we jumpered the battery, we continued to have problems. By 4pm the event was starting and we were still just on the trailer at the shop. So the decision was made to take the car to the show in a non-running condtion. At least people could sit in the car, talk about the concept of light-weight low cost and get a feel for the dimensions.

We made it to Firebird at around 5:30 and there was a huge wind storm blowing, rain pelting and people running frantically to get out of the storm. But as quickly as it blew in, it was gone, leaving behind 20 degree cooler temperatures and slightly overcast skies. Sweet! As the trailer pulled through the paddock over to the vendor area I felt like La Bala was the pied piper and the people in the parking lot were the children of the town! She drew the crowd from across the paddock. It was fun to be there and all my fears of people laughing and pointing were vanished as people continued to talk highly of the car throughout the night. Even in the world of racers and performance cars you don't see too many guys bringing completely scratch-built cars out. The love-fest continued until around 10pm when I was all talked out, my business cards depleted and throat sore from talking. Jim, Robert, Jason and I pushed her back onto the trailer and dissapeared into the night. That was a fun event and I hope to make it to all of them.  I took my camera to the event, but in all the action I neglected to take even one photograph. I'll make sure not to let that happen again.

Since the Firebird event jason and I have spent some time trying to get the car running. There simply was no spark on the #1 plug wire. Assuming it was a wiring issue with the Edis, we re-worked the wiring, several times, checked online for troubleshooting tips and spent hours and hours (8) attempting to get the ignition to fire on the #1 wire. Finally it was decided to check for spark on one of the other wires and wouldn't you know it, the 3 other wires were firing away just fine. Chalk it up to the one item that we thought was bullet-proof, the coil-pack.... 

Found a new coil pack on ebay and it arrived yesterday. Last night I put it on the car and.... Viola! Engine started right up! She was running pig-rich, but was definitely running under her own power. After about 30 minutes of idling in the garage and not making any progress I gave up for the night. Today I went back out for another go, changed some parameters relating to the o2 sensor, changed some fueling parameters and started the car up again. Now she is idling very VERY nicely with a stoich a/f ratio.  Tonight Jason and I will put a few more hours into tuning, see if we can drive it up and down the neighborhood with the MegaTune datalogging.

The weekend also saw some progress on the dash, the light housings and the wiper layout. Those are the last items that need to be addressed before inspection for registration and titling.