12/19/06 - Back to Work on the Caterham
Health issues prevented me from working on the car from early July through early December but I am back at it. I have installed the ECU, main Miata relay box and and the MAP (Manifold Absolute Pressure, part of the Link ECU) sensor and have most of it wired up, hopefully correctly.
The flat silver box contains the ECU. The Miata relay and fuse box is mounted on the firewall above the ECU and to the left of the relay box is a yellow connector taped to the firewall for the fuel pump relay. The blue tags are labels for wires identified but not yet connected. As of this writing, there are only 6 of them left to connect.
A view of the ECU wiring loom. Not pretty now, but it will be cleaned up and wrapped and tucked out of the way once the car is running and the bugs are worked out.
The Link MAP sensor. This reads the pressure/vacuum in the intake manifold so the ECU knows how much fuel to add. It serves the same purpose as a mass air flow sensor without any restrictions in the intake plumbing.
Some of the parts for the exhaust system have arrived. The smaller part on the left is the catalytic converter, an all metal unit by Metal'Cat. It flows 30% more than a standard ceramic cat. The muffler is from Aero Turbine (thanks Jack!). It is essentially straight through but has a circular airfoil in it that spits the flow creating a low pressure area which helps scavenge exhaust. It also has a resonator built in this model as these are known to be rather raspy without a resonator. The exhaust will be 3" all the way except for the tailpipe which will probably be two 2" pipes side by side exiting on the left at the rear of the car. There is not enough clearance to run a 3" pipe under the rear of the car.
I got tired of seeing the car without the nosecone, headlights and bonnet so I installed them and took a few pictures. I then climbed in the cockpit, relaxed a bit, shifted a few gears and made Zoom Zoom noises. Helps keep me motivated.
A view of the dashboard.
The start of this project is here
