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Greddy Water Temperature Gauge – Part II

August 11th, 2010 · the FC

Today (or yesterday since it’s about to hit midnight), I was able to work on the FC a bit more. Woke up to the thread I made on the rx7club forum and got two replies. One linking me to a Napa’s website to stock replacement water temp sensor. In the info, it says it had 28 threads, meaning it’s BPT. The other post, it was verifying that it indeed IS BPT, and not NPT. The guy even posted a link of an adapter that I should consider getting.

A female 1/8″ NPT to male 1/8″ BPT fitting. THE perfect adapter to use to have the Greddy sensor fit properly into the block… but since time and money are serious issues at this very moment, I decided to bite the bullet – leave the sensor where it is now. Plus, ilike2eatricers did the same thing I did. He assumed it was NPT thread pitch and put it in anyway in this post. Private messaged him and he replied back saying nothing happened. He just used Teflon tape and screwed it in. No leaks, no problems. Let’s just hope the same thing happens for me.

The day before, Rommel came by to drop off the gauge holder and an extra boost gauge he had lying around. Thought I’d put it to good use since my Autometer one was all sorts of ghetto with electric tape, trying to be a wanna-be black gauge. lol

Took off the piece of velcro from the other gauge and put it on the new gauge i got. Even used the same bulb and vacuum tube with fitting. Crossed-over that beezy.

Here’s the mock fitment of the gauge holder and Greddy water temp gauge. In this pic, the bracket wasn’t centered yet with the screws. Later on, I screwed the bracket under that area with two screws that fit perfectly under the instrument cluster surround. Pics of the final product will be seen towards the end of the blog of course.

Did some reading up on wiring the gauge as well since it’s electronic. Other than the sensor harness, the other harness was to power up the gauge with 4 different colored wires: red, orange, black, white. I read up on a couple threads on how to wire it up that orange and white can be wired easily to a light source/parking light source. Black is self-explanatory for being the ground wire. As for red, it had to be connected to continuous 12V source. Didn’t really know what was really meant by that but I guess it’s just “constant” power. Called Ken and he said exactly that. Ran into this website to follow how to find a source. I thought about it and realized that i could just easily splice it into the cigarette lighter.

Splicing the ground wire (I know, it’s green, not black. didn’t have any other color with me) for the boost gauge light to put it together with the Greddy harness.

Wrapped the wires together. Mickey-Mouse job FTL. Too bad I don’t have any wiring goods to join the wires together. Electric tape was definitely my best friend for this job.

Doing the power for the gauge now.

After routing the wires around and under stuff, here is the final product.

I’m pretty satisfied with everything. Only problem is that I won’t be able to see the temperature while driving straight. >___< I guess that gives me an excuse to rock an aftermarket steering wheel that doesn’t block it. =P

Here’s a pic of how it looks like with the lights. Seriously, the picture doesn’t do it justice but I personally think it’s a clean job. As for the boost gauge light bulb, I’ll probably try getting an orange mask or something to cover the bulb that way it matches with the orange and black theme. =P

Even with all this done, I still have yet to finish putting the UIM back together. After that, it’ll be putting the intercooler back on. Lastly, put the coolant and burp the hell out of it. Hopefully I’ll finish soon.

Until then, good night.

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Greddy Water Temperature Gauge – Part I

August 10th, 2010 · the FC

About a year ago, I got the Greddy water temperature gauge from Elnner as a gift. He calls it our “friendship gauge” since I already have on with Jaime. lol Anywho, I ordered the sensor and harness about a month ago and barely got it couple days ago.

There you have it. Wire harness, sensor and its harness. And the gauge of course.

After much debate on deciding where to put the water temp sensor with countless hours of research, I decided to put it where the stock water temp sensor was. With a 12mm deep socket, I was able to remove it with ease.

The sensor was located right beside the rear trailing spark plug.

After pulling the sensor out, I discovered that the plug was actually partly cracked. Could that been the reason why the water temperature gauge wasn’t reacting at all?

Some of the information I read up on the forum was mostly of fitment questions since I decided to use stock hole (instead of putting it between a coolant line to the throttle body, between the upper radiator hose, tapped into thermostat housing, etc). I even made a thread in the 2nd generation tech section to verify the plumbing pitch. According to RETed from and old thread post he said it was 1/8″ BPT – 28, not 1/8″ NPT – 27. BPT is supposed to have more threads than NPT. But since nobody replied to my thread and verified it, I took a trip to Home Depot to check it out myself.

To make sure that the threading for stock sensor was the same for the Greddy sensor (someone on the forum said it was 1/8″ NPT. same goes with majority if not all Japanese/aftermarket company gauges). Took the matter in my own hands.

Used this guy (or girl since it’s female =P) to help me thread the sensors in. Mind you, I had in mind that the thread pitch for the stock sensor was 1/8″ NPT.

Because of the tapered threading style, it won’t screw anymore in without the extra force to torque it down. Threads it smoothly though. Looks good so far with the stock sensor.

Same goes for the Greddy sensor. So far, so good!

I go back home to prep the installation of the Greddy sensor. Wrapped it with some Teflon tape and used a 14mm open end wrench to torque it down. It was pretty hard to do the job since space was REALLY limited. On top of that, I had the spark plug, oil dipstick, and oil pedestal in the way. Along with the other wires and hoses around the area. Lastly, followed the wire that Yoshiya made for the stock water temp sensor… When I saw it on the passenger’s side, assuming it would be connected to the ECU, it was just exposed naked. The end of the wire wasn’t connected to anything.

Pulled it out anyway in disappointment. Could that ultimately be the reason why it complete stopped working? Guess I won’t ever know… -__-”

Retired after that since I had jazz accordion band practice that night.

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Slammed Stock

August 9th, 2010 · FAAAHHJOOOO, RX's

Was browsing through the forum and ran into this forum member with this S5 FC.

Reminds me of my FC. I’m really digging kitofuentes‘ FC. Good stuff!

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The Moeller Technique

August 5th, 2010 · Music

Never heard this of this technique before until now. Pretty cool. Time to practice a bit more on my rolls and even incorporating this in drum fills and what not.

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?uestlove Signature Drum Sticks

August 3rd, 2010 · Music, the Daily Steez

I’ve been drumming for a good 8 years now (I think? I kinda lost track already… but it started in middle school) and I’ve gone through different drum sticks. Started out with 7A’s then went to 5B’s then went to 5A’s. Stayed with the 5A’s for a good while then found out that Vic Firth offered the X5A, just a bit longer than the 5A drum sticks. It definitely helps with attack when hitting the drums. I tend to hold the drum stick near the butt part. Even at times, my hands are only grasping part of the stick. I later then got into my jazz accordion band and realized that the 5A’s weren’t suitable for light drumming so I found Dave Weckl’s signature sticks. Much like the 5A’s but has has ball tip for that light hit on the cymbals. Then one day, I decided to search on Vic Firth’s website to see what other drum signature sticks they had to offer and ran into the Roots’ drummer, ?uestlove’s signature sticks.

Quoted from Vic Firth’s website:

With 17″ of length and an extended taper‚ ?uestlove’s new stick can really crack! Finished in white‚ it features a black rendition of our anit-slip Vic Grip coating for a distinctive look and feel.

Yup. 17″ long. 1 ” longer than the normal sized 5A pair of drum sticks, 1/2″ longer than the Dave Weckl ones. I think I have found the ultimate pair of drum sticks. Swinging the stick to hit the drum will result in a bigger attack now since it’s longer. The reach is definitely gonna be easier since it is a bit longer too. The tip is of an acorn shape, but small enough to use for light drumming applications. Bonus would be the rubber grip as well. After finding out about it, I couldn’t help myself but to get a pair.

Pretty gnarly, I’d say. Went to Sam Ash while running my errands today and found out that they barely got it in stock. The guy working the drum section had to open the fresh pack of these drum sticks. FRESH! I was due for some new drum sticks anyway. I feel my Dave Weckl ones are in the verge of snapping within this year since the stick is already chewed up from extensive use. I do find myself buying more pairs, if not, the whole damn pack.

Thank you ?uestlove for being endorsed by Vic Firth. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be able to acquire such an awesome tool for drumming.

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“Champagne Life” – Ne-Yo

August 2nd, 2010 · Music

Ne-Yo’s new single for his upcoming album Libra Scale.

Intro/Verse/Chorus/Outro:
Fm9 – A#13 – Em7 – Am9

For Am9, you can also switch back and forth with Am7 (with the G on top).

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Onigiri 101.

July 30th, 2010 · Food

Since I really didn’t know what to do today, my sister convinced me to make some Spam musubi since she wanted to buy some from L&L’s. Rather than doing that, I told her we might as well make it since we had a can of Spam in the cabinet. But little did I know, she had these rotary shaped containers that she bought a while back that takes the shape of onigiri.

Instead of Spam musubi, I made my attempt to make it for the first time (after checking out a website of how to make it).

Initially cut the seaweed/nori for Spam musubi. as you can see, I had no idea how to incorporate the nori before looking up that website. lol

Here is the container that does the magic.

You put rice in there and leave in indent spot to put your food goodies in the middle.

Throw in your main ingredient. In this case, it’s fried Spam for me.

Cover your contents with more rice then put the cap on top then press.

After doing so, you flip it the other way and use this little flap to push the onigiri out.

Once done with that, you have this – Voilà! Perfect! =] Not done just yet though…

After that, you’re supposed to wrap it in the nori. Since the nori I cut earlier was for the Spam musubi, the size of the cuts weren’t appropriate for the onigiri. Well, I made an attempt to bust a make-shift version of it. Successful? I’d say, more of failure than anything. It definitely wasn’t coming out the way i wanted it to. I was really aiming to make mine look like this…

Of course, it didn’t.

I honestly felt like Homer Simpson when he made an attempt to make a BBQ grill.

But I didn’t give up just yet. I tried different ways to make it. Rather than putting the nori after making it, I tried to put it in the container and tried making the onigiri. That didn’t work out. Tried actually calculating the perfect shape of nori that’ll sit flush inside the container too.

Didn’t really go with that though… But then an idea popped into my head. Perhaps, might as well dice up the seaweed and just mix it with the rice? Gave that a try and and came out pretty cool. THEN I realized another style of how it was made.

I remember watching Pokemon where Ash and Brock tried to lure the Pokemon, Manky, some onigiri as bait. Used that episode to base the look off of.

BAM! Done and done.

After a good hour, I just made a total of 4 “perfect” onigiri’s. On the bottom, you see my failures and wannabe Spam musubi’s without the musubi maker. At least I now know how to make these and will definitely make these for rotary events since they’re triangle shaped. Perhaps use other type of meat instead of Spam. And next time, I will most certainly use calrose rice and better type of nori.

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“Lucky 7″ – Greg Howe, Dennis Chambers, & Victor Wooten

July 30th, 2010 · Music

One of my favorite fusion/jazz guitarists, Greg Howe, jams out with drummer Dennis Chambers and bassist Victor Wooten. Funky much.

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Rear Derailleur & Shift Cable: Complete.

July 29th, 2010 · Bike

Finished up the job this morning after making an attempt last night. Got too late so I decided to resume today. All i was able to do yesterday was clean the chain again and cut the cable and housing to its the proper size.

Old one is on top, while the newer one is on the bottom. I guess i’m going with a black housing cable theme to match the brake cable housings. lol

Finally the morning came and it was time to finish the shift cable installation. Routed it through the downtube shifters, under the bike, through the cable housing then through the rear derailleur cable clamp that pinches down the shift cable. Right when I thought i was done with everything, tested the shifting while the bike was sitting upside-down on the floor, the rear derailleur kept moving back to it’s neutral position (the spring in the derailleur brings it towards the smallest sprocket). Took some time to inspect around the bike because something needed to be tightened to keep the shifter moving back down. Soon enough, found out it was the shifter. It wasn’t tightened down enough to keep the derailleur from shifting to the high gear by itself.

The finished product. Black cable housing and shiny new steel cable.

The shifter and cable. That little handle that’s sticking up is what tightens/loosens the tension of the shifter. Thanks to that, I was able to solve that little issue I had. *whew*

Bike is now chilling back on the bike hooks. If you got a good eye, you notice that my front derailleur isn’t even on. I decided to refrain from remounting it due to the intense damage it had. =T

The front derailleur taken apart. I don’t think super glue alone will be able to fix this. or at least in general can’t be used again. Then again, this is only if i plan on not using the limit screws.

For the time being, I’ll be searching for a new front derailleur to use. Definitely gonna keep this “SunTour” derailleur themed to match the original one that was in there. And if possible, replace it with another Cyclone trimmed derailleur. Other than that, there’s not much left on the bike other than finding that stem screw that sits flush and try to hammer the derailleur hanger just a bit more to make it just a tad bit straighter. At least the jockey pulleys are a bit straighter now that i hammered the hangar.

Until next time…

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Hip-Hop 101

July 28th, 2010 · Funny

I honestly have nothing to say but to watch this video. Thanks JP for the link. LOL

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