syntroniks' City Goblin - Pontiac G5 donor

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syntroniks

Member
The build began on a warm (ok, hot) May day in Austin, TX.
After scouring the web years and years prior, Syntroniks came upon a curious locost-style kit car. After watching the build videos thruogh 6-7 times, bidding and losing on auctions, lurking craigslist ads, fortune smiled upon the fellow 9 months later in the form of a suitable donor.

Syntroniks is an electrical engineer working for an aftermarket performance company. He likes anything technical. With the well-laid-out instructions (as opposed to ad-hoc musclecar resto), this is a project he could take on.

He plans to have an obnoxiously fun/fast (let's set 3.3s 0-60) street machine that can haul a bag or 2 of groceries. If he can beat a 718 Porsche in the 1/4, he is happy. Yes, he intends to test this.


The parts are in the garage. The frame is enqueued.
The frame will be coated in whatever BAR-AIR had, in order to approximate the factory Focus ST Ford Blue color. Other parts will be wrinkle black.

Look forward to cataloging and preparation of donor parts in the weeks to come.

Pictures once I figure out how I want to capture them.
 
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syntroniks

Member
To continue appeasing readers, pictures will be provided.

Here is some trickery performed to get clearance for max lift of the hoist.
20180225_161654.jpg

A human helper is a useful organizational tool.
20180225_161131.jpg

More to comensure with respect to electrical beautification.

Do any forum members have tips on cleaning and prepping the engine? The plan is to paint it cast aluminum. It is affected with mild aluminum corrosion all over, and gunk on the oil pan. Pressure washing may not be an option.
 
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syntroniks

Member
Today, the AC compressor, the intake manifold, some sensors, and the fuel rail were removed.
Also, some parts have been ordered:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XPDVER2/ - wiring harness tape
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003CT4AH0/ - cast aluminum paint
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0039ZBLEC/ - cleaner in a spray bottle
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003M8GMS6/ - small brushes

20180227_153620[1]

20180227_153620[1]

These wires came severed, any idea what they might go to? They're in the general starter area.
20180227_154428[1]

20180227_154428[1]

This plumbing that goes to the manual transmission is also unidentified (pressure relief??)
20180227_154211[1]

20180227_154211[1]

Oh, and this short little connector buddy (maybe the label will provide some clues) (crank position sensor?)
20180227_154337[1]

20180227_154337[1]

 
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Karter2026

Karter2026

Goblin Guru
The transmission plumbing is the clutch slave cylinder and bleeder.

For cleaning the engine I used wire brushes for the Dremel
 
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syntroniks

Member
Syntroniks concurs with the consortium. Knock sensor it is. A connector will be sourced and installed.

Today the engine received the slightest of cleanings while the engine harness was prepared for new clothes.
20180228_170214

20180228_170214


The wrapping tape can withstand heat, but may not be intended for engine compartment duty. It may be covered in some tech flex product (maybe f6 woven or a high coverage braid).

Man oh man the body harness is tentacular.
 
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syntroniks

Member
Dreamer said:
At the risk of being perceived as an ass, can I ask that you don't speak in 3rd person? Please. :confused:
Click to expand...
Sure thing! I don't want to be too confusing.

About 15 hours into work, the body harness diet has paid off. (you can do this on a 3'x6' table, it just isn't as comfortable)
20180305_202305[1]

20180305_202305[1]


Unfortunately (I attribute this to the Pontiac heritage) some of the wiring doesn't line up with the build videos. For the lighting, the green wires leading to a 3-wire junction are nowhere to be found on my wiring harness it seems. I have my green (not light green) lighting wire coming from one of the fuse block MPs.
20180305_202331[1]

20180305_202331[1]


Near where I cut some lighting connectors (the BCM end), however, there are 2 unterminated green wires. One goes to the red BCM plug, the other goes to the blue and white BCM plug. You can see some human fingers locating those.
Have a look:
20180305_202422[1]

20180305_202422[1]


This is probably the only thing stopping me from jumping to the reorganization phase. Additionally I kinda cut a bunch of brown wires and re-worked them. I'll see about connecting up a mock circuit to test functionality before final taping & covering. I'd rather only have to do the wiring once. (I thought I would be a smarty-pants and do the headlight harness without realizing that the washer plug and ground get cut :rolleyes:)
 
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syntroniks

Member
Seems like the green wire at the underhood fuse box is a washer/wiper motor thing and should be removed.

The green wire coming out of the white and blue BCM plug I'm pointing to looks like it might be low-speed GMLAN. I have not identified the green wire coming from the red BCM plug.

Looks like the low-speed communications wire needs to make its way all the way to the instrument panel.
I'll be using this image to do the investigation and repair work. I haven't found the splice pack yet... maybe one day I'll see it.
 
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Brian74

Brian74

Goblin Guru
syntroniks said:
Seems like the green wire at the underhood fuse box is a washer/wiper motor thing and should be removed.

The green wire coming out of the white and blue BCM plug I'm pointing to looks like it might be low-speed GMLAN. I have not identified the green wire coming from the red BCM plug.

Looks like the low-speed communications wire needs to make its way all the way to the instrument panel.
I'll be using this image to do the investigation and repair work. I haven't found the splice pack yet... maybe one day I'll see it.
Click to expand...
The low speed data splice pack is located on the dash harness, near the OBD connector. It joins the body harness at the C201 connector
 
Lonny

Lonny

Administrator
Staff member
I believe the green wires on the red plug is one of the brake/ turn signal lights. Maybe?
 
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syntroniks

Member
Thanks everyone, I just bought a Chilton online manual solely for the wiring information. I should have taken more thinning pictures. There didn't seem to be a green wire junction for lighting on the g5. I will post an update here if I find definitive evidence either way.
 
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syntroniks

Member
Geez, now I feel silly. Thanks for the info though, wish I could 'return' this digital product :rolleyes:

Haphazard wiring harness reorganization in progress. Cutting low-speed communications wires and not following instructions: check.
Soldering like a madman: Scheduled. If I'm diligent, I'll snap shots of all of the cut/depinned connectors after I verify functionality.

If building harnesses wasn't so expensive and time consuming I'd much rather just go full custom...
I won't finish the harness until a frame / electrical components arrive. I don't want to unwrap a harness just to add a wire or 2. I'm sure the DF harness rework service is WELL worth it. I'm just having too much fun/stress/challenge to go that route!

Next pictures may be donor part prep.
 
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syntroniks

Member
Next pictures are still electrical. I planned to finish this phase today. We'll see how much energy I have to finish combining the harnesses.

I've somewhat convinced myself that I've corrected my few wiring mistakes. I found it hard to route the fuse block multiplug exits from the fuse block as DF was able to in their videos. I do not suspect it will be an issue.

Here is how to do the longer harness run work on a 3' x 6' table (completed fuse block hangs off):
20180311_134810

20180311_134810


And the BCM end (before pulling the fuse block even further off -- the BCM rests on the far edge of the table now):
20180311_134833

20180311_134833


Some time through the process I decided not to have a brake reservoir signal. If this throws codes, I'll try to disable them when the time comes.

Wouldn't it be swell if running custom electrical wasn't so pricey? Darn megasquirt doesn't have good drive by wire support.
 
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Briann1177

Goblin Guru
I'm somewhat sure you're going to have a constant brake light on without your reservoir hooked up. Then when you run low on fluid you'll never know.

The only part I'm not real sure about is if the light will stay on anyways without the parking brake wire hooked up.

My service manual says if the park brake switch is shorted to ground then the brake light will come on. Since most people remove that wire, it shouldn't be shorted to ground.

This is all theoretically speaking.
 
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