Noob with a new mx5 Saturn build.

[norton]

Nearly ready to go in.



I'm hoping to get it down from the stand in the next few days and into the car. Then I can really get motoring...

[Rosco]

Dont get to excited! Youve got wiring to do yet!

[Ianr]

Originally Posted by Rosco

Dont get to excited! Youve got wiring to do yet!

Arrrgh! Wiring! Just taken me 8 weeks to sort the gremlins out with my wiring!
Good luck with yours

[norton]

Originally Posted by Rosco

The wiring was the easiest part!

That's what I want to hear!

[norton]

I'm gonna get The car fitted up first and leave the wiring until last but before the body work. I don't have an ecu yet so that needs building. The front of the car is currently sat high on stands waiting to receive the engine which, frustratingly is only waiting for a rubber sump seal otherwise it'd be in already

[CTWV50]

Originally Posted by norton

I'm gonna get The car fitted up first and leave the wiring until last but before the body work. I don't have an ecu yet so that needs building. The front of the car is currently sat high on stands waiting to receive the engine which, frustratingly is only waiting for a rubber sump seal otherwise it'd be in already

So many annoying little things to order/remember. As for the wiring, you might enjoy it! It takes a while to settle into it but by dealing with one wire at a time whilst working hard to ignore the spaghetti wiring nightmare around you is key!

I perversely, get a kick out of it, a bit like a giant stringy jigsaw puzzle!

Having good wiring diagrams helps too.

But your going straight to microsquirt are you not? A challenge I have yet to rise too! Nice engine btw?

[norton]

Yes ms for me. I've fitted one before which went well. Wiring it up was easy compared to setting it up then mapping it... Never a whole car though. I'm not dreading it but I'll be giving it the most attention I can muster.

[norton]

So I've had another go at zinc plating some bolts.

I tried a tumbler to help cleaning them but I failed miserably

I need the correct media rather than the aquarium sand I had to hand.

Here's the plating kit.



You have to derust/everything the part to be played. It really does have to be spotless! Then it gets a dip in an alkaline cleaner, then a water rinse, then a dip in hydrochloric acid, water rinse, plating tank, water rinse, another acid dip to activate the zinc plating, water rinse, blues passivate, water rinse, yellow passivate, water rinse theeeeeen you hang it out to dry.

There's an art to knowing the anode to part to be plated ratio. The surface area of each needs to be close to equal I believe. If not, it goes wrong...



Or it can go well!



Like painting it's all about the prep, but more so. You can paint over things but you cant plate over a poor surface. They really do need to be perfectly spotless. Sand blasting to prepare the part would be good. So far I've been using wire wheels in drills, grinders and bench grinders which is fine for basic shapes but I can't imagine I'll have much fun prepping say a fuel rail with these.

I'll take some more pics showing the stages of plating tonight or tomorrow.