DIY Hydraulic Hand Brake

Forced myself to wake up early two days ago and at the end of the day, this was the result..

A 5th gen Civic clutch master cylinder was chosen as the hand brake's cylinder. This was chosen simply because the fluid reservoir was separated from the MC.

An adapter was fabricated to allow the brake hard line to bolt to the clutch MC input where the reservoir line used to go.

The original handbrake cover has to go to make room for the hydraulic one. You need to keep the original cable operated handbrake if you want to keep the car as daily driver. Hydraulic handbrakes shouldn't be used as parking brake as the extended pressure would damage the seals prematurely. Here you can see that i designed the hydraulic lever to sit above the original lever. Be very careful when you drill the holes on your chassis for the brake lines access and mounting bolts. You don't want to damage any existing brake lines or even fuel lines with the drill bit.

Hydraulic handbrakes are basically clutch master cylinder placed somewhere along the rear brake line before the T-branch on the rear axle where the fluid gets distributed to the left and right drum brakes. The line from the front brake MC is plugged into the clutch reservoir line input and the MC's output gets plugged to the T-branch.

This is a comparison diagram of the original brake line plumbing vs hydraulic handbrake plumbing. Note the Female to Female flexible line (blue color). I used the flexible hose that goes to a clutch slave cylinder, commonly found on Toyotas. This was needed because i need to extend the original brake hard line with another 100cm hard brake line to reach the hand brake's MC. I could only find male-to-male brake lines so the female-to-female flexible line is needed.

Bleeding the brake line after installation is done like normal brake fluid bleeding. You don't need to pull on the brake lever to help the bleeding process.

The HHB feels great as long as you bleed it properly. A quick yank on the lever will lock the rear wheels easily. Easier than locking with the stock cable e-brake. Best of all, you can adjust where you want the lever to be. I'm planning on extending the lever to end just next to my steering wheel, carefully avoiding the shifter. That way, reaching the HHB will be quick and effortless.

Megasquirt Boost Control

Having realized on the dyno that manual boost controls are not the most reliable way of managing boost levels, I decided to see if i could utilize the boost control feature in the Megasquirt. The conversion work seems minimal as there were only a handful of electronic parts to add and, in my case, no dissecting the original MS box necessary. The most important part, however, was not the easiest to find. I had to go back to Jakarta to find the solenoid valve, not even sure if i could find one for 12VDC. The horsepower gods must have smiled at me and let me get back home with this.

This being my first time fiddling with solenoid valves, i had no idea if the one i got would be applicable for PWM drive as that is how electronic boost controlling are done. For the price, however, i decided to just try it. Better than to get back empty handed, right?

Remember this?

That was my junction box for the Megasquirt, a similar idea to the official DIYautotune's relay board. The idea was eventually ditched as the terminals became gooey and melted from being placed too close to the turbo (which i have lately realized probably due to my AFRs being too low which increase exhaust gas temps, going 12.5-13 works surprisingly well in significantly reducing under hood temps). I decided to use the junction box to house the boost control electronics and, having learned my lesson, place it away from any heat source.

The drive circuit on MSExtra hardware manual page is using IRLZ44 for the PWM MOSFET. I couldn't find one locally but got IRFZ44 instead. Tried to google the differences and i couldn't find anyone mentioning that they shouldn't be equivalent for my application. I don't really understand MOSFETs as well as the old BJTs but i do know they're voltage controlled, unlike BJTs that are current controlled. Realizing this i was worried that MS CPU output being only 5V logic level isn't enough to drive the IRFZ as it was the IRLZ that was designed for logic controls. How did it go then? Read on.

Just a few notes on the transistor: a heatsink was not really necessary as Rds on the MOSFET was very low and with the current from the solenoid being less than 1 Amp, the dissipated heat was minimum. I add the heatsink just because there was enough room for one. Also, if you can't find the MOSFET, use TIP120/121/122 instead. The Darlington power BJT is being used to drive the idle PWM solenoid at 150Hz. Boost control PWM setting on the MS are only 39Hz max so it should be up to the task. You need a heatsink for this one though.

I was lucky the nipples from the manual boost controllers matched the solenoid threads.

The ugly strut bar serves me more than it was designed to, apparently. It was the best place i could find to mount the solenoid. Also, the world would crumble and die if zip tie isn't invented yet.

As mentioned, the box is now placed away from any heat source. It may seem a waste to house just four components inside the box but i decided to have the extra space as room for improvement later. Who knows later i'll use the water injection or knock sensing feature?

The five wires coming out of the box, from left to right, are designated as the following:

1. To MS pin 36 (known as X4/JS2 output)

2. To Solenoid Valve (-)

3. To Solenoid Valve (+)

4. Ground

5. Ignition Power Supply

Once the hardwares wired, the following need to be set on MS.

1. Set X4 (JS2) function under Codebase and Outputs function to Boost Control

Note: you can test your wiring by temporarily set this to Output1 and somehow play with the setting so that Output1 is triggered by TPS. This way, you can check if the solenoid clicks by playing with the throttle with the engine off. A click on the solenoid tells you sure that the wiring is correct.

2. Set the Boost Controller Parameters

The numbers shown works in my case. You need to find one that works for your solenoid. Focus on getting the right PWM rate first. Typical ambient pressure can only be set if you disable Baro Correction on the Constants window. You need to set this to the value of the MAP sensor reading when the engine is off. This is the threshold to activate the Boost Control which is basically the turn point between vacuum and boost.

3. Put low numbers on Boost KPA Target table

This is deliberately set so that it defaults to open loop boost control all the time. MS1 CPU is said to be iffy on closed loop boost control as it tends to overshoot the target which is very dangerous to the engine. That's why it's better to use open loop which is what most electronic boost controllers are using. To make sure you get open loop all the time, set Closed loop kpa limit (kPa) on number 2 above to low numbers as well. The way i set it, MS already goes to open loop mode at 80 kPa (70 + 10) and even at this reading, the boost control is not active yet as it's still below the Typical Ambient Pressure value!

Also, since you're doing open loop all the time, the Proportional and Differential gains are now irrelevant.

4. Start with low numbers on the Duty Cycle table

This is the open loop table. The higher the Duty Cycle, in my case, the higher the boost as the solenoid leaks more air out from the wastegate actuator line. You need to start with low numbers and rise slowly until you reach your target kPa. Once you find the relation between DC and boost level, you can alter the DC table so that the turbo spools faster. You can do this by setting the DC to 100 just before the RPM where your turbo spools.

I haven't really tuned my Duty Cycle table yet but from a test ride yesterday, it seems the conversion was a success. I managed to reach higher boost level than the stock wastegate setting. All there's left to do is to find a time to tune the Duty Cycle safely at night. Choosing Megasquirt was really one of the best decisions i made on this project!

Kitchen Panel

My new favorite item for DIY projects: plastic kitchen chopping board! These stuff are sturdy yet soft enough to cut easily, heat-resistant and can be quite flexible when needed. Love it so much, girlfriend was laughing at me for piling up so many of these boards.

I used one to mount the engine cut off switch for the EFI system, as shown below. As a reminder, when doing DIYs, always "measure twice, cut once", never the other way around. These pictures are self-explanatory enough, i won't put any write-up to clutter this post.

Notice the space above the panel where the audio head unit was? Will use another cutting board to mount some gauges there.

Just a note on lovely boards, the thinnest i could find was 7mm and this is still a bit too thick to mount switches or warning lamps. If you could find one of 5mm, get it. Usually, the thinner the board, the smaller the size as well.

SLC DIY Wideband Lambda Installation

On the last day of my work leave period, my SLC DIY Wideband Lambda was installed and running successfully. Glad there was no drama on the installation process. I guess i haven't lost my soldering skill after all.

First thing i did was to get a steel nut that fits the Bosch O2 sensor as there was no bung supplied with the kit. From there, it was only 30 minutes at the exhaust shop to get the bung welded on the downpipe, just below the front passenger floor deck. One thing to make sure is that the sensor has to sit at an angle from vertical, preferably around 45 degrees. This is said will help reduce sensor damage from thermal shock due to condensation on cold starts.

Not exactly 45 degrees from vertical, but good enough i guess.

Fiddled around with some wires, plugged in the connectors, zipties for neatness, applied power, executed hardward calibration and VOILA!

Just make sure to use the latest SLC software to allow communication with the controller. I didn't and had to redownload the latest one. From there, everything went smooth. Here's a capture of my SLC Config software.

It's not yet wired to my Megasquirt but it should be very easy with just one wire to connect.

Back With A Bang

I'm back! My long-awaited work leave was finally approved and since last week, i got lots of things done to The Dog. Some of them were minors and shall be noted here for my record. The major ones will have their own dedicated post. So, without further ado, the following are the minor things i got done:

1. Rerouted Clutch Line near the Slave Cylinder

I wasn't lucky enough to have a JDM T50 bellhousing that has the clutch slave on the intake side so previously the clutch line went under the extractors before terminating at the slave cylinder. Should the exhaust decides to crack and fall, it'd take the clutch line with it. Now it's routed on the other side of the extractors, the same side as the slave cylinder. This was before:

No after shot but it should be obvious.

2. Studied my Megasquirt

Mine was built by someone else and he said it's 75% different from the original schematic. I called BS and decided to check it myself. Unsurprisingly it wasn't that much different. Indeed his MS schematic was not exact the copy of v2.2 from B&G's but only because he added some options such as secondary trigger input capability. Why bother doing this? I need to know if the options like boost controller and wideband lambda input shown on MS EFI websites are still applicable to mine to further plan the next step.

3. Picked up my Ultra Racing AE86 Fender Bars

Finally got the time to pick up this item i ordered months ago at the seller's workshop.

The plan is to take the car to a sprayshop and get these installed with the Ebay FMIC intercooler in one go since getting the fenders off to install these means the grill and front bumper is removed as well.

4. Alternator Rebuild

Opened my alternator and swapped the regulator with the spare from my 4A-C (which was already converted to internally regulated when i bought the car. Original Charmant is a stone age external cut-out system). I did this because previously the battery would lose it's charge overnight and i suspect it was a blown alternator. Later i found out it was only due to incorrect ignition key positioning. *sigh*

5. Bride Pros Installation

Custom brackets which still allow the stock seat to be put back.

6. Built a Junction Box for MS

The wiring on mine was previously a spaghetti carnage. I decided a junction box is best to solve this and make the engine bay neater. Here's the box in progress.

See the wire terminal strips? These are where the sensors, ignition and power wires will be connected. The relays will be housed inside the box to reduce engine bay clusterf*ck.

Here's the box in action. It's on the firewall next to the wiper motor. A DB25 serial cable connects the box to the MS.

Notice anything missing from the engine? Yes, i ditched the leak prone distributor and finally got the Ford EDIS kit running. There will be a dedicated post on how to do this later.

Below is the junction box terminal designation for my own record purpose should later i lost the labels on the box. You can ignore this.

7. Starter Motor Rebuild

Used the original starter motor that came with the 4A-C. It struggled to turn the engine on cold starts and, even worse, won't crank on hot starts. Previously i thought it was heat soak since the starter is unfortunately placed on the same side as the exhaust manifolds and so i made a custom heat cover from a thin steel plate. This didn't help. I also installed a relay before the starter solenoid line and this too yielded no success. I then thought it was normal for the 4A-C starter to struggle to crank a smallport 4A-GE considering the higher compression the starter motor has to fight. I was apparently wrong. After finding out that it was the starter solenoid dying and some soldering points on the starter were fried, the necessary actions were taken and now i'm confident the engine will crank on start ups anytime i do it. So, take a note here, a 4A-C starter motor has no problem mated to a high compression smallport 4A-GE. If you find similar problem, now at least you know what could be the culprit. By the way, the starter solenoid on the 4A-C starter is same as Hijet 1000's.

DIY Megasquirt Junction Box Pt.1: The Idea

Found this little gem a few months ago and have been planning on having one for my Megasquirt setup ever since. This is a Relay Board kit. The idea behind it is to simplify wiring and ease troubleshooting on any Megasquirt kit. Here's a block diagram of the basic MS system and my current setup.

Above MS block diagram shows that you're wiring the stuff under the hood directly to MS. There's nothing wrong about this but take a look at our little Relay Board, or Junction Box as i'd like to call it, in action below.

As the name implies, a Junction Box serves as the junction point for all the wires from a MS system. Best advantage would be easy troubleshooting and neat wiring. There's only one cable harness from MS to the box and all the fuses and relays are centralized in one spot. Also if you're on the phase of installation, a Junction Box would also reduce the chance of miswiring.

My version of Junction Box will be a bit different from the kit on the link above. This is because the guy making my MS kit decided to use DB25 connector and a 4-pin round connector, instead of using DB37 like your usual MS kit.

The 4-pin connector handles large current applications like injectors and main power supply and the rest like sensor input is handled by DB25. Good idea actually.

I am currently gathering the parts i need to assemble this Junction Box and some of the stuff have just arrived this week.

I'll be housing the relays inside an aluminum case, unlike MS Relay Board which is exposed. The DB25 connector will be the interface to MS via a straight DB25 cable. As for wiring to the sensors and injectors, a screw-on terminal strip will be used. I bought extra DB25 connectors since i might also need it if i decided to connect the SLC WB Controller to the Junction Box also.

SLC DIY Wideband Lambda Assembly

Got some spare time today and decided to assemble the SLC DIY Wideband Lambda Controller that was delivered two or three weeks ago. Excited to do it, to be honest, since soldering stuff and electronic kits are my hobbies since junior high. Now, i've got the chance to apply these hobbies for my other one: working on The Dog.

Since i'm assembling this away from Jakarta (and my car), i'll only focus on the electronic part first and skip the wiring and welding of the O2 sensor bung later. These are some photos of the build in process.

The kit supplied is pretty neat and easy for DIYers to work on. Every component is wrapped and labelled individually so you'll save a lot of time from having to identify them one by one.

With so many components and parts involved, i was worried that there might be some parts missing. However, as the build progressed, my worries too gradually dissipated. Truly everything you need is included in the kit. Here's the resistors and diodes soldered in place.

The kit didn't include any manuals or documentations. However, those can be downloaded on their website. You can find them here. The guide itself was very clear and helpful. It minimizes possible mistakes and gives you warnings before you do something you might regret. You can actually "feel" the guide was written from actually working on the kit. For example, it'll warn you to cut off leads of the 7-segments since it might cause short to the main board. You can't see this if you don't build the kit yourself.

I also bought the optional boost sensor with the kit but i decided to not install it yet. With no boost sensor soldered to the board, i also didn't install the switch which toggles the display between AFR, boost and EGT. For now, i'll only use the display for AFR reading. Installing the boost sensor can be done later.

I started building the kit at 11.00AM and finished by 18.00PM. Yeah, i took my time. Besides, i had to pause as The Incredibles was showing on Star Movies.. lol. Here's the kit all done, front and rear view.

As i said, everything you need to build what you see above, is included in the kit. Even the screws to hold the main board to the case (which i earlier thought they forgot). Final check as informed by the guide seems to show no problem. Let's hope it actually runs when i get to install it on The Dog later.

By the way, the kit i'm building is the SLC DIY 1 which is now no longer offered on the website. A bit shame actually as the successor, SLC DIY 2, is more expensive. Even the boost sensor is no longer available but this is more of a good news as now they supply the remote version, meaning you don't have to solder the sensor to the board (and drill a hole on the display case for the air pressure line). Instead, you can bolt the sensor to the firewall, close to the engine. Just like most MAP sensors.

If you're good with soldering, this the best bang-for-buck solution for Wideband Lambda Controllers. I highly recommend this. It's simple and everything just integrates nicely for that professionally built look. Your friends won't realize this is DIY!

Custom 4-Links Installation and Wheel Alignment

Last weekend, The Dog had finally got full spherical rod-end suspension links on her rear-end. After the installation of the lateral rod a few weeks ago, the 4-links were in. Everything went smoothly as planned, a sign that i did my measurements correct.

I decided to keep the stock diff angle for now so the custom 4-links were set to have the same lengths as the stock ones. With the Dog now lower than stock height, a diff angle adjustment should be in order.

Here's a comparison of the stock and custom link. The red Prothane bushings were only a few kilometers old but i'm swapping them anyway.

Here's the lower link installed.

Verdict? Except for the extra noise in the cabin, can't say that i notice any difference on normal driving. My previous polyurethane bushings were still new so that's expected. I wasn't surprised with the extra noise as metal is worse than rubber in damping differential noise. Anyway, albeit small, improvements are improvements. Let's see how long those rod-ends last.

Next was the pending wheel alignment. I changed my steering links months ago so i've been driving without proper wheel alignment ever since.

Usually, we can only adjust the toe and caster on Charmants but with the T3 plates, cambers are also adjustable on mine. I did a search on wheel alignments settings used by most AE86 owners and based on that decided to have mine something like this:

Front Toe: 0 deg

Front Camber: -2 deg

Front Caster: 3.5 deg

I left the rears as they were although with the 4 links, i can at least adjust the toe.

I learned later that i can only get to 2 deg of caster on the front. I already ran out of the threads on my strut rods so it couldn't be shifted further for more caster. I don't know why but maybe my RCA prevents the extra Caster.

Confused with the terms? Here's good depiction taken from Hayne's manual.

So why did i choose the preferred settings? A zero toe would guarantee my tires last longer, a moderate negative camber would help on cornering while minimizing impact on inner tire wear and finally maximum caster helps on straight highway drive as it stabilizes the steering better. Compare a Harley Davidson with Suzuki Hayabusa. The extra rake angle on the Harley helps to minimize move on straight roads compared to the sporty Hayabusa right? Well that's just about what extra caster do on your steering.

Here's the comparison before and after the alignment.

Notice what it says on the upper right corner? Yup AE86 P/S. The wheel alignment computer had no database for Charmants so i told the aligner to set it as Power Steering equipped AE86. Should be the same right?

Other than those, finally found the culprit of my cranking problem. It was the battery all along. Changed to new battery and starting the engine has never been easier. With this solved, i am confident that i can take The Dog to my workplace so i'll get to see her everyday.

Other than that, i also get to install some Hella horns in and fixed the door lock. It's the small things that makes the car more enjoyable to drive. The more minor problems you fix compared to the major ones, the more it tells you that your car's doing great.

Last thing, how about a new look on my OG Axis Oldskool wheels? Yeah, the Equip cap certainly helped to improve the looks, i'd say!