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Called three places today, all reccommendations from friends and on the hotgemini forums - Bryant Engineering (Brisbane), Donnelly Engineering(Gold coast) and Precise Engine Rebuilds(Gold coast).

I was looking to get the engine bored, hot tanked and crack tested and decked. The crank needs to be ground to the next bearing size, crack tested and cleaned up, the rods checked for cracks, straightness and then resized if need be. After all that was done, I wanted the entire engine balanced as a unit, to make sure I’m not going to have issues on that front.

Well, I finished the first stage of the build of the megasquirt yesterday - soldering up the main PCB. I’d finished the relay board the day before, but that was only a minor achievement, since it’s basically a big group of connectors. The megasquirt itself seems to be working fine - tests ok on the PC hookup and so forth. I guess the test will be when I actually get the proper stimulator - the one I made ended up being a piece of junk and not work, so I gave up, because it’s only a few days until the person that has the real stim comes back and we can use that to test the ECU properly. I’m rather proud of myself - it’s a rather complex little pcb, with a LOT of parts to solder on, and for it to work seemingly fine first go is quite an achievement for me. Normally complex things that I make/solder/otherwise have a tendency to blow up. More information soon - I’m going to be pulling the crank out of the engine, and taking the block somewhere to be bored out a little so the piston packages can be sourced, the crank reinstalled with new bearings, and then the engine can be put back together. I’m quite excited!

Ok, so there are some modifications that I want to make to my MegaSquirt - it’s pretty cool to start with - but I want injection control and a few other goodies.

The first one I want is “switchable tables” which means I can choose between two boost/fuel/spark maps by flicking a switch. Another option is single or sequential shift lights - either a single “set off when at this rpm” or sequential ones, hitting green at mid-normal rpm, orange/yellow at shift, and red at over-rev. This is all user-selectable and so forth, and I’ll probably hide it somewhere in a modified section of my dash, with a switch to turn it off when I’m not using it. Using the extra outputs, I’ll also be able to setup an automatic switch based on engine parameters for the thermofans I want to use, and possibly some other things.

The Internet is for porn.

Oh, and send some free operator logos on behalf of Mazda!

Finally, I received my package from the United States! Purchasing things over the internet is always a worry, but even more so when it’s ~700USD and you don’t know the people you’re buying from. But never fear, the package arrived! Bought from DIYAutoTune, my two Innovate Motorsports LC-1 Wideband Oxygen sensors, my MegaSquirt Kit and Relay Board kits arrived today, in a big box that had been opened by customs already (stickers saying “ooh, we ruined your fun and had a look inside” included!) I just got home, and pulled all the stuff out - looking at how the pcb’s are laid out, and how everything seems to fit together. I don’t have a soldering iron here or a stimulator (borrowing one off a friend, since it’s basically a while-you’re-building-only sort of thing) so I was just test fitting things that I can (no components, things like the relay board’s big connectors and fuse holders etc) and generally marvelling at what came in the package.

So, the van was annoying me (I drive a 1980 Holden panel van as my daily driver) and I was looking for something to do - I’m notorious for needing “projects” to keep me occupied, as my coding and so forth doesn’t really make me do anything physical. A mate was moving to Perth and his car was most likely going to a wreckers because the engine block had a hole in the side of it. I ended up buying it for a grand total of $300, which isn’t bad for a rolling car that needed a new bottom end in its motor, a new steering arm, and a bit of bodywork. Once that’s all done, it’ll obviously need registration etc, but that’s just part of the fun!

I guess this is a little backwards, putting an update about a project up before I put information up about the actual project, but that’s what I’m doing. My project is building up a Holden TF Gemini as my new daily driver. It’ll have all sorts of fun things, like EFI, a carputer, and eventually a supercharger on it. There’s plenty more information that I’m going to have to post up, but here’s what I need to say today… The ECU is on its way! I’m using a MegaSquirt bought from DIYAutoTune.com along with a bunch of other things. I’m just about to leave for work, so I’ll put up a proper post with pictures etc tonight when I have more time.

Well, we in the channel #rice, where some friends and I dwell, have a thing for “fundies.” Fundies are those people that wake us up on weekend mornings, spreading their religious ideals, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. They don’t come around to the street (or at least our house) where my parents live, since such events as me removing their bikes from the poles they were chained to (by lifting them over the top of the 7 foot plus tall pole) and moving them down a block or two. This “thing” that we have isn’t a love for fundies, nor a common interest in their ideals - it’s more a “we know you, we hate you, we have to ridicule you at every turn.” This is probably bred from our dislike for religion, and helped along by such fora as Fark and SomethingAwful. The real reason for this post - as you may have guessed from the topic - is the fact that I got my first spam from a fundie today! Click on the “read more” link to continue on this journey of religious self-discovery! 🙂 This is the full text of the email that I received:

Well, it’s 7:04am, and I’m awake. Training for service coach starts at 9am, and I’ve been awake for an hour or so - hooray for being a crazy insomniac *sigh* I guess I’m excited - I’ve wanted to be something more than just a call center agent for a while, having a bigger part to play in the running of a company, and helping people where I can. It means a lot more responsibility, and dealing with a lot of escalated issues, but I’ve already been doing the correspondence side of things, and the escalated calls - that’s just more people yelling, and more telling them that yes, you did sign that contract, and no, we can’t do anything about it.

Well, I work in a call center - Orange Mobile customer care. I’m one of those people you yell at when you’re having a bad day, and you can’t accept the fact that sometimes, a mobile phone doesn’t work. They are terribly made little pieces of plastic, and you expect them to work perfectly all the time, and it’s never your fault - or your responsibility - when they break. So now I’ve been in the position of “agent” for a while - being the monkey on the phone - I’m moving up to “service coach” which allows me to talk to the A-grade annoying customers with problems that they won’t accept can be fixed by the mere mortals that are the agents. Service coach is basically supervisor - doing the hard things, making sure the rules are followed etc. It’s a little bit of a payrise, and it’s a lot more responsibility, but it’ll be worth it, and I’ve already been basically doing it for a while now 🙂