I've had a few oversights that I've been working around, all sensor and sending unit related.
When I had the motor out and the oil pan off I completely neglected to have a bung for the Autometer oil temp sensor welded into place. I twiddled my thumbs for a few months, not really wanting to take things apart just to get the pan back off. Eventually I decided that to do it right I was going to have to go that route. No big deal I thought; I'll get everything apart, the pan out and prepped, have my dad weld it up, touch up the area with some Rustoleum, and put it back together. I got as far as taking off the serpentine belt, pulling the crank pulley, removing the lower dogbone and bracket, dropping the trans-to-engine brace, and loosening every oil pan bolt except for one. This last one rounded over on me and, unfortunately, it was in the worst place it could be; one of the two furthest to drivers side between the pan and the flywheel. Here there was no room to get anything to it, not unless I were to remove the transaxle. That definitely wasn't going to happen! So, defeated, I put everything back together. While I had the crank pulley off I did scuff and reshoot it. I wasn't careful enough when we were dropping the motor back in and the finish was a little beaten. It looks premium again!
The fuel pressure sending unit has been a headache for awhile. I was on the hunt for a fitting to go between the fuel rail and line but was having an impossible time finding something in spec that wasn't terribly bulky. My dad proposed we just weld a fitting right to the hardline. The fitting was something he whipped up at work, a piece of hex stock machined down and through-drilled with a threaded bung welded to the top of it. He brought it home and I set it up on the drill press to through-drill it horizontally for the fuel line to pass through. After some eyeballing I pulled the hardline (thank you Justin for the fuel filter disconnect tool) and split it with a tube cutter. A few more dry fits, some trimming, some markings, and it was all set to be TIG welded. Once back I set the assembly up in the vice to add the fuel pressure sender before reinstalled it in the car. I have held off on reconnecting the fuel filter. The existing one, to my knowledge, has 210k on it and this would be a convenient time for replacement.
Lastly is a quick project, my solution for securing the weatherpack connection for the radiator fans. I scooped up some nylon cable holders at the local hardware store, the larger plastic clip with the threaded hex insert is a leftover from the mounting solutions that came with the fans, and the button-head hardware is from the surplus leftover from my gauge cluster build. The fan had mounting provisions for the clips at the 10 and 2 o'clock positions around the fan where I installed clips with the cable holders to simply hold my wiring in place. In the event I need to unplug that connection there is still enough slack to do so. None of this really looks like much but I should have more interesting updates soon. Last night I placed an order with Verocious Motorsports for some 304 stainless steel 3" Mandrel Bends (180 and 15 degree), 304 stainless Vibrant Flexpipe, and a V-Band Clamp Set. More odds and ends should be following from Summit Racing shortly.
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