End of May...gauges and wax

In a break between thunderstorms I went for a spirited drive today and tested out the HUD GPS. Very pleased. Comments: would be nice to not have to plug it in to have the HUD working. Its A LOT brighter than it looks in the photos, and you see less other reflections in real life. Very nice, responsive, useful, inexpensive, easy to use. Polarized sunglasses reduce its visibility a BIT but not so much its unreadable at a glance.I have no night shots but its even better at night, it dims a bit or brightens depending on ambient lighting. I am going to route the wire inside the dash I think; and/or wire the adapter directly into the power inside the dash...

It mounts magnetically to a small metal piece you double-sided tape to the dash. You set it up so you can see the HUD in a desirable spot on the windshield, where you apply a small piece of reflective-ish tint stuff. It uses GPS satellite signals to give you a pretty nice readout in MPH or KPH as well as heading (N-S-W-E and the in-betweens).

Here's pics of it, and of my gauge install: boost and oil pressure (both mechanical) mounted in-dash, mini-tach in the place of the stock (useless) temp gauge in the cluster, and Water temp/Vols/Oil temp gauge (with fan controller option and alarms) fitted in by deleting the cruise control buttons and power mirror switches and moving around the anti-theft LED and dimmer switch. Beside the hazard lamp switch, on the left is the foglight switch and on the far right is a manual override for the cooling fan I wired in.










And I washed and did some claybar and waxing on my tired old paint yesterday, as well I used some pure silicone oil to treat all the rubber weatherstripping and the door handles and mirrors (it ran a little in the rain though....I wonder if it hurts clearcoat?) so some pics of the car as it stands...before I finish drilling for the hood pins and ruin that clean clean hood. Ah well. Rather have those pins than a wrecked hood and an accident.

Spring things..

Car is out of storage, returned home and driven again. Despite the near-crushing amounts of snow the little garage held...glad I didn't try to park it outside, the hood would definitely have been crushed.

Since back i got a speeding ticket, so I decided I have to get the speedo fixed...estimating with RPMs alone is not good enough! I am going with a GPS unit...with heads-up display. I am sick of trying to get the stock setup working again, I picked up an NX1600 tranny to install the LSD in and in disassembling I was dismayed to find the speed pinion was not the same length as the electric speedo I have on hand...I've spent enough $$ trying to get that crappy stock one online again. Benefit to no speedo connected = no ECU top speed limiter heheh

Getting the ticket and not getting harassed for modded car (which at that moment had the dash all gutted with wires hanging out) was a blessing in disguise...I decided to keep the cars low-key as I can, and as legal, so I put back my orange side markers and orange corner bulbs. And sprayed my muffler black ;)

In the meantime the turbo checklist is slowly getting checked off. I picked up some mechanical boost and oil pressure gauges, boost is connected now but only reads vac obviously. For the oil pressure, and for the turbo oil feed line soon, I picked up this inexpensive option from tunertoys: http://tunertoys.zoovy.com/product/OTODK/Oil_Take_Off__Dual_Outlet.html

I am in the process of (finally) drilling for the hood pins. I must say I prefer the clean look but the pins are for safety and cheap insurance for the hood to not fly up. With the suspension so stiff, bumps and all can do a good job shaking things around. I also put lock washers where the hood mounts to the stock hinges.

Anyways pics soon after the pins are in, and a wash n wax.