Memorial Day 2015

I started this morning by cleaning the air inlet. The air inlet goes directly behind the blower motor on the interior side of the firewall. I had forgotten about this piece when I cleaned the rest of the heater box. Here are some pictures for reference.

Finishing The Sound Deadening

This morning we made a quick trip to Menards and then got started on the sound deadening. The first thing I did was get KITT's interior plastics down. We decided to put the plastics in KITT to see the exact area they will cover, and then sound deaden everything not covered by plastics. It is our intention right now to cover all the backs of the plastics with Ensolite prior to installation. This should achieve the same sound deadening as applying it directly to the RAAMmat BXT II. If that ends up not being the case, we can always still apply it to the areas behind the plastics.

A Little Bit Of Engine Bay And A Lot Of Sound Deadening

This morning we pushed KITT to the end of the garage so we could clean the engine bay without getting water all over the garage.

Heater Box Cleaning, Part 2

The parts I ordered for the heater box and blower housing arrived this week. I needed to compare them to make sure everything looked right. Here are pictures of new versus old.

A Picture From The Past

One of my coworkers brought me this picture from a car show he had attended in the 90s. He had the opportunity to see a screen used KITT. He said I could have the picture, so I hung it up in my office. Thanks Gary!

Heater Box Cleaning, Part 1

On Saturday afternoon, Sara attended a bridal shower, and I tackled dismantling and cleaning the heater box. One of the things I have discovered while looking back through my blog for reference pictures is that I did not take enough pictures. I have had trouble finding pictures of certain parts, fitment, sides, angles, etc. I have decided I cannot take too many pictures of this project, hence all the pictures of the heater box in this post.

This is all four sides of the heater box before I got started Saturday afternoon.

Return To Fenderland

Today we mounted the fenders! Up until now they have just been hanging on the frame of the car. First we located all the hardware for the fenders.

A Tale Of Two Bumpers

Sara and I spent Saturday mounting the front and rear bumpers back on KITT. I really do not need them on the car yet, but I also really do not need them off the car any longer. Plus, it will be nice not to have to store them any more.

Sara and I started by cleaning the nuts and washers for the front bumper. This is a fused nut and washer combo where the washer is allowed to freely spin.

Fog Light Pods, Part 2

This week I finished cleaning the rock shield for the steering shaft.

Here is a before picture of the rock shield covered in dirt and grease:

Fog Light Pods

It has been beautiful here the last two nights and I have made sure I was out in the garage taking advantage of it. I have been cleaning up a bit, and by cleaning I mean going through KITT's parts. Tonight I decided to work on the fog light pods. I have been wondering just how to approach cutting off the pods from the Camaro headlight mounting panel. I am thankful that I have a broken one to experiment with.

Differential Cover, Knight Pins And ECM Chips

I bought Permatex Ultra Black Gasket Maker so I could put the rear differential cover back on. 

Cross-Fire Injection Adapter

When I decided that I wanted to replace the wiring harness on KITT, I knew that I wanted to use a wiring harness from Painless Performance. They have some of the best wiring harnesses available. I have been gathering parts that will be needed in order to use their electronic fuel injection harness. Troy had the ECM #1227747 and I just recently found the 5.0 L EPROM #16139492 and Calpack #16060836 from a seller on eBay.

The last piece I would need to make the EFI harness functional with KITT's Cross-fire setup was the Painless Wiring Cross-fire Injection Adapter Part # 60112. Unfortunately, this part was discontinued by Painless Performance in 2011. I tried unsuccessfully to order this from five different online vendors that still showed it in stock on their websites. Each time I was informed that they could not fulfill the order as the manufacturer no longer stocked the part.

Feeling frustrated, I called Painless Performance and spoke with Mike in technical support. I explained that I wanted to use their EFI harness to power KITT's 1983 Cross-fire injection system, but that I could not without the adapter. I also explained how many stores I had contacted looking for the part. He said that he had one on the shelf behind him and that he would check with the powers that be to find out if he could just sell it to me. He took my number and promised to call back.

He called back about 15 minutes later and said that he could sell it to me for well below what I had found it online for! It arrived today. Thanks Mike!

I Love It When A Plan Comes Together

I titled this post for Sara, my A-Team fan. If you are not familiar with the show, Hannibal Smith often uses this catch phrase when things work out and go his way. It also sums up how I felt today when I stopped by Troy's shop.

I stopped in to ask him a few questions, and we got to talking about the EFI harness I plan to use for KITT. I mentioned I have been searching for the ECM the harness will require, but so far have not found one. He asked, "Which one is it? I have about fifty of them in the back." He went to the back of the shop, opened up a cupboard, and the first ECM he pulled out was SERV. NO. 1227747 - the exact one I needed! Thanks, Troy!! Now all I need to find is the PROM for the 5.0 L engine.

Painting The Differential Cover

One of the projects I have been putting off is cleaning up the intermediate steering shaft. The engine rock shield was particularly grimy. I started using Gojo wipes to cut through the grime. The plastic is actually shiny black underneath and will not need to be painted. You can see just how bad it was on the areas around the collar that I still need to work on.

Painting The Blower Housing

Our paint booth held up well in storage. We got it set up this afternoon in no time.

Prepping For Paint

I am feeling better today...well, at least I don't feel awful and I am not constantly coughing as I have been for the past two and a half weeks. I actually felt like getting out and working on KITT! 

I decided to repaint the differential cover because I am unhappy with how the finish turned out. I used a red caliper paint, and the finish did not end up smooth. It is very wavy and shows all the brush marks. I did a poll on the blog a while back asking whether I should paint the differential cover black along with the other red parts that ended up covered in grey primer. The poll results indicated I should keep it red.

Renegade Intake Manifold

The following was copied from Dynamic Cross-fire Solutions and is presented here for historical purposes. 

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...INTRODUCING FROM DCS...

THE ALL NEW RENEGADE MANIFOLD

Celebrating 1,250 Followers On Google+

1,250 people are now following Project: K.I.T.T.!

If you have not had a chance to check out the Project: K.I.T.T. page on Google+ you really should. It's a great way to stay updated, leave comments, or even ask questions about the Project. It will even notify you of new blog posts and videos.

KITT's Rockin' Red Engine!

I stopped down at Troy's today after work today because I had a couple of questions for him. I wanted to get his opinion on using a newer ECM along with the Painless EFI harness. In order to make the new harness work, I will need to use an ECM out of an 1986-1993 Firebird. I was a little concerned about being able to balance and tune the Cross-fire with a newer ECM. Troy said that it would not be an issue. 

The second thing I wanted to ask him about was the intake manifold. I am trying to decide whether to leave it stock, port it out, or purchase the Renegade manifold. Troy said I would definitely see a benefit by porting the manifold and even more by using the Renegade manifold. He was trying to explain just how restrictive the stock manifold was. He said it might be easier to just show me... also, they just finished painting the engine red! We went to the back of the shop to check it out.

Here is the engine:

KITT Has All 16 Wheels On The Ground

We decided to take advantage of the super nice weather and get KITT down off the jack stands.