May '04 - Gocarting and More Wiring

5/09/04

I got the 20" Lobak mufflers welded into the pipes, and they've mellowed out the sound a little. Nice, deep, loud throaty sound. Also got the rollbar, sidepipes and quickjacks all ceramic coated with 'Cermachrome,' not quite chrome, but still looks pretty good. I also got my first set of nasty burns on the side of my leg on the sidepipes getting out, and again leaning over to check something in the engine compartment. Gotta watch those things climbing in and out!

The brakes seem to work much better now that the seat is bolted down and I'm not just pushing myself and the seat back in the cockpit. I replaced the Edelbrock foam triangular air filter with a normal round style...a good thing too. When I was first starting things up, a couple of nice backfires would likely have caught the thing on fire. The seat mounts are from Breeze, and work perfectly.

Goofy grins after a quick (and I mean quick) run around the neighborhood.

Some of the trunk wiring all nice and routed before I put the aluminum panels in. Yeeha.

And the front left side wiring neatly loomed and routed, with nifty connectors from Breeze installed to make hooking the lights up a cinch once the body is on.

From last week, Rena the Riveter helping with the rivets on the upper trunk floor...

And the trunk panels finished. I'm using more rivets than I probably need to...but them I'm making more power than I probably need to, too. Whaddyagonnado? You can see the big coiled bundle of wires at the front edge of the trunk for the stereo amp and woofer that'll take up most of the upper shelf, and the trunk/license/optional third brake wiring coiled on the curved frame piece. The battery box from FFMetal works nicely...I highly recommend it.

5/23/04

Been working on wiring off and on for the last two weeks when I can, trying to think of every last little accessory I'll want in the car. I decided to put some courtesy lights in the cockpit, as well as a power outlet for cellphone, etc.

Last week I got all the wiring hooked up and attached the headlights, parking lights and taillights so I could get everything connected and make sure the flashers and signals worked properly. It was pretty straightforward, just took modifying the GM turn signal plug harness, since I'm just using an on-off-on toggle for my turn signals. I referenced John Hudson's excellent wiring diagrams at my427sc.com to get things connected right.

Here's what I started with for cleaning up the dash wiring, now that I have just about everything connected and working properly: Spaghetti, anyone?

I added the wiring for the heater and wiper switches, and after getting the guage lights bundled and starting on the guage power connections, it's starting to tidy up just a little...

And how it looked when I was done for the weekend.

I have all the radio/heater/wiper wires routed across toward the passenger side of the dash, and all the guage lights/signal wires and the starter switch wires bundled. I've got quick-disconnects in there to make removing and working on the dash and guages easier down the road. Still have a ways to go, but I'm getting there.