Greetings Earthlings
Apologies to any who may have taken an interest in this project, house repairs are demanding most of my energies.
When last heard from this Martian was pondering the complexities of adapting CH engine electrical bits on my 4G94 2 litre to my CE Mirage loom and the vibes were all bad.
Much thinking followed.....................
To recap, my build was about doing what I reckon Mitsubishi ought to have done if they cared about what the Aussie public would want engine wise if they were given a choice of engine in the CE.
In the spirit of cars like the Sigma 2.6, that showed Aussies love a big torquey engine in a compact package. I figured the tractable and torquey 2 litre 4G94 could provide the kinda effortless urge the dependable but sedate 4G15 fails to in the CE.
My 4G94 engine was, as far as was practical, to be kept in stock CH tune as it left the factory.
The full CH wiring loom was salvaged from the donor car and has been fitted to the Mirage with minimal mods.
I'm useless with electricals so my plan was to do as little cutting and splicing of electricals as I could get away with.
My build is also about a bare bones lightweight chassis with no thought for creature comforts nor Bling.
Its by no means finished as the pics show but the 2 litre is finally installed and although the car looks like a bomb hit it the motor STARTED after a little more cranking than usual (dry fuel system), yes I was bloody flabbergasted!!!!!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/93358098@N04/11184128066/
To limit electrical mods I have adapted the CH instruments to the CE dash and likewise the CH column stalks/combination switches.
Instrument cluster pic shows a beige line at the top which is an MDF trim strip which gets matte blacked. Ch cluster fits pretty well in CE dash as its a little smaller than the CE cluster. Mounting brackets needed.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/93358098@N04/11184241024/
At first I thought I would just use the CH alloy column bracket (similar to the CE) to mount the CH ignition switch and stalks to the CE column but I was hankering after the CH 4 spoke steering wheel and that's not adaptable to the CE column.
My solution was to adapt the whole CH column using modified CH lower mount and modified CE upper mount, looks promising anyway.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/93358098@N04/11184138545/
Mostly I'm only cutting and splicing wiring on simple items like light bulbs to make plugs compatible.
A sparkie will be needed to hook up a few things like the wiper motor.
Not surprisingly some branches of the CH loom are shorter than ideal but thankfully most are too long.
The most "FUN" electrical task has been the under dash fusebox (blue box on the right)
I first positioned the dash loom so that the branches leading to instruments, ignition/stalks would reach. This had the fusebox dangling over the throttle pedal. Not good.
The CE dash loom has a much longer branch leading to its smaller fusebox and this loops around the throttle assembly to keep it out of the way.
The CH loom has a short thick branch going to its bulkier fusebox, limited options.
I found I could get the fusebox to snuggle the A pillar by rotating it 180 degrees so it was not getting kicked now but the throttle pedal arm/cable rocks back towards the driver when you hit the gas and it was smacking the fusebox wiring branch, sigh.
The throttle pedal arm has several kinks in it and I unbent one of those kinks. That helped wire clearance but now the throttle cable geometry was shot to hell. Two custom brackets needed. One to extend the length of the throttle pedal arm (I can't weld) and another to mount the cable itself. Fabricated custom bracket to mount the fusebox to the A pillar assisted by a tensioned cord at the top because the upper fusebox mount in the CH is a horizontal peg and that was too hard to duplicate in the space I was working with.
Tidying up the wiring jumble is next task to be done in conjunction with dash trial fit.
The weight reduction calls for no aircon or sound so space under the dash might be best served by a custom duct to go from blower to heater.
Engine bay looms enter the cabin through the same firewall/bulkhead hole the CE left engine bay loom uses but I also found the bean shaped hole used for aircon pipes useful for the other.
CH engine bay fusebox repositioned where CE cannister goes and CH cannister now mounted down low on front left siderail.
New CH radiator fits well and expansion tank repositioned to Right front Siderail. No fans fitted yet but will get around to adapting one CE fan.
Start test was conducted using 4G93 engine pipe with CE Mirage Cat and catback. Expect to use modified 4G94 engine pipe (rear mounted O2 sensor) to get sump clearance needed with stock Mirage cat and custom 2 inch catback exhaust.
I elected to use the Mirage 4G15 tranny as this Mirage is a city car and I recalled Chowetime is a fan of this tranny.
4G94 clutch was found to be in good nick so was refitted with new release bearing.
4G94 was due for a timing belt so that was done whilst the motor was out.
The bulky aircleaner box will have to go as its trying to take over the engine bay. I think I will use a 3A racing enclosed pod filter.
Much weight saving has been done. The aim is to to have the finished car under 900kg.
Converted to manual rack and pinion steering which as some of you already know was a long term nightmare. I finally got a good complete rack from a friendly Ebayer over in Adelaide.
Special thanks to Chowetime for lots of accurate info and tips and thanks to supernOva for his thoughts on weight saving.
Now back to house renovating...........groan.