The Quarky Engineer

I pulled a few cars out of the garage to do some cleaning. Each of these cars has a special place in my heart. All modified in some unique way. I took each out for a drive … and damn that R35GTR is fast. 🙂

I put together a new hose for the oil drain. It is a -10AN line now. It was a very tight fit, and I had to redo the hose three times to get it the perfect length that didn’t bind up and allowed the threads to engage on the 90 degree fitting.

I also got the alternator and power steering pump on so I can figure out the other side fuel routing. Next up I’ll install the wire harness, and start on the sensor harness.

I think I’m going to put the fuel pressure regulator here. One thing I really like about this regulator (Perrin) is you have both in and out for each rail, so no need to use AN Y fittings.

I’m getting happier with my Suburban setup. The water can ( the sand colored Jerry can) won’t stay there all the time, but will be good when I need it. I have some adapters for a side mount shovel coming in, and they I’ll work on some LED light bars.

I’m excited to get my overland setup and head out with Eric Bryant to do some astrophotography in some dark far away from civilization places. ( Steens mountains, etc).

I did a test fit of the oil drain and coolant drain lines. I’m using an adapter that converts the head oil drain into an AN fitting, and I have the same of the turbo side. Coolant as well, although that is already an M10 in the head.

Yes, that blue fitting is temporary. Even though you can’t see it, it’s existence would slowly kill me. Black banjo should be here tomorrow.

I also have an additional reflective shield wrap to put around the oil line since it is a bit closer to the uppipe.

Getting closer.

HF now installed. I don’t often do HF while actually driving, so I opted to put the mobile HF radio (706mkiig) ,antenna tuner, and interface under the rear floor. The front display on the HF radio does come off and can be used remotely, but most of the time I’m using it I’ll be sitting somewhere. I still need to mount a Raspberry PI back there to run Direwolf so I can do APRS over HF. 100W is plenty in a limited rig like this, and I also carry a wire antenna and a superantenna for remote site setup.

I did run a dedicate power from the battery to the rear tray, so plenty of capacity there.

VHF radio is also installed now and connected to the front antenna. That Yaesu has a nice display, and is very easy to read and use. Built in GPS and APRS is nice too.

Day 1 – Install some radio gear. 1/2 done.

2m/440 w/APRS upfront, 20m and 40m HF in the back.

Now that is a ladder.

Bigger meat for the Suburban.