Our custom, debadged Zunsport grille for the MX-5e arrived in the post today 😎
Spent most of the morning applying the Buzzweld WAR black underseal to the underside of the MX-5e, so we can get the front subframe back on. We also filled in all the holes in the front bumper that were created by the previous owner screwing the number plate to it in various locations!
The 5mm steel toothed sensor ring to drive our speedometer arrived this afternoon.
The V1.1 prototype board for our Tesla water pump speed controller project arrived and can now be tested. This initial version allows us to check the ATtiny85 has been programmed correctly and behaves as expected. We have already designed the final version for manufacturing, V2.0.
We tested it and it is all working as planned 😎
We are currently investigating the options for the throttle on our MX-5e, using the throttle sensor we bought from ThunderStruck Motors. We have designed a throttle cable pulley that fit the sensor for 3D printing, to check the position and working, based on using a cable routed from the MX-5 throttle pedal, through the bulkhead and to the sensor in the engine bay.
We have designed and 3D printed a test mount for the throttle sensor.
This weekend, we are fabricating the radiator and fan mount for the cooling in our MX-5e. We started by using two existing fixing points to bolt in some aluminium angle along the top of the radiator location. This then allowed us to mount a cardboard template to get the radiator and fan in roughly the right location. We then used this to fabricate a mounting plate from 3mm chipboard and this will then be replaced by aluminium plate/shroud once we have everything in the right place.
The fan mounts to the mounting plate/shroud and this ducts the cool air goes through the radiator.
The clevis that came with the iBooster is just too wide and has an 8mm mounting thread and a 10mm pivot bolt hole. The Eunos clevis is the right size but has an 10mm mounting thread and an 8mm pivot hole. Fortunately, it is easy to buy a clevis that works for our installation.
The weather has been bad, so we have been progressing stuff we can do inside. There are two interior lights in the MX-5e which we are converting to RGB ambient lighting using addressable LEDs. We have fitted an opaque window behind the existing lens and disabled the switch. We have then 3D printed a mount for the LEDs and will wire them up along with the footwell and door card light tubes.
Having started to look at the pedal box and iBooster wiring, we wondered if we could make life a bit easier and modify the existing pedal box from the MX-5e. You can't just re-drill the holes because it has four spacers welded to the mounting face. These are simply welded on using two tack welds on each one though, so we thought we could just cut these welds using a multi-tool and then move the spacers as well as the holes. It turned out to be easier than we thought! 😎
As you can see, the pedal box is a bit rusty even though it is inside the car. All old MX-5's are rusty. Anyone that claims they have one that isn't, just hasn't stripped it down enough yet 🤣 The pedal box will be cleaned up, strengthened in a few places and then powder coated.
Having removed the spacers and opened out the holes, we bolted the pedal box to the iBooster. This approach is going to work well. We just need a slightly smaller clevis on the iBooster push rod.
The Tesla pump comes with a chunky rubber mount that weighs 142g. These are overkill for our MX-5e. We are removing these and using a rubber-lined, stainless-steel p-clip instead (possibly two per pump) and these weigh just 32g each. Rob used these a lot in his Fisher Fury R1 and they work brilliantly and were 100% reliable, even in the super harsh environment of a BEC.
Zunsport make the best looking grille for the front of the MX-5 NA in our opinion and it is a high quality product too, made from stainless-steel. They are making us a custom 'debadged' version as we are looking at mounting the number plate on this grille and their logo might prevent this.
We have designed a PCB that enables two pumps to be independently controlled. This has been sent off to be manufactured.
Making loads of progress with the Tesla water pump speed controller project. We have all the code written to do the speed control and monitor the two pumps we are using, with error condition detection too. We have also programmed the ATtiny85 processors and tested them as far as we can. We are now designing the PCB to support two pumps.
A toothed ring made from a ferrous metal is required for the speed sensor that interfaces to our chosen speedometer. This generates the pulses to measure the vehicle speed and will be bolted through to the reduction gearbox output flange and uses the same four M10 bolts on a 96mm PCD.
We have designed this and generated the STL file, so that it can be laser cut from 5mm steel plate and the STL file is available to download.
Another delivery whilst Rob was away was oil for the reduction gearbox and differential from Opie Oils.
Rob is off skiing in Austria today with his mates and is back on the 9th. A few parts have ben ordered to arrive whilst he is away.
The ATtiny85 processors arrived for the Tesla water pump speed controller project. Rob will complete this when he gets back from skiing.
These tiny 5, 8-pin ICs are one of the smallest Arduino processors you can buy and are they are perfect for our Driver Control Unit (DCU) to off-load the PWM timing and rotation speed monitoring to.