The first couple of weeks in Ohio was eventful as work was pretty steady. But, there were many times where I was at the house we stay at and wished I had Poison Ivy there with me to play with on my down time. The house we stay at is a 4 bedroom, two bath house and there just happens to be an empty, big, one car garage attached to it. So the next time I went back home to PA, I prepped Ivy for the long 350 mile trip to Ohio.
Words By: AJ Hunsinger | Images By: AJ Hunsinger
Before heading back to Ohio, I was determined to drive one of my cars down there whether it was Poison Ivy or Charlotte, I just wanted something to keep me occupied when I wasn’t driving a truck. Something I could just hop in and cruise around. I ended up choosing Ivy to take down. Either car could have broken down on the drive. The daily should make it, it has yet to let me down, but the race car…well the race car is maintenance more than the daily…because race car.
So, I drove Ivy down- and she made it! Of course I babied the hell out of her. Since she’s been in Ohio, she has found a new home in the empty garage that I have now claimed my own as I have all of my tools, parts, etc. stored in there. It’s a pretty sweet setup.
In my free time, I have been tinkering on her quite a bit. I ripped out most of the wiring on the interior and completely re-routed things and rewired all of my wiring for my aftermarket stuff- my gauges, fans, push button start, all of it.
Now that all of the wiring was taken care of, I will be deleting the gauge cluster and making a sheet metal dash. Which will consist of all new aftermarket gauges like the speedometer, tach, and fuel level gauge. The biggest hassle of deleting the gauge cluster will be adding the speedometer.
As we all know, the 1G speedo is mechanical, driven by a wire. The ECU receives the speed via the gauge cluster. So if I just simply deleted the speedo, antilag and launch control will not work properly. So, what I am going to do is use a 2G speedo sensor and wire it to the ECU myself along with an electronic speedometer. Other than that, it should be a straight forward job.
Kurt Barnes will be working with me and will be riding down to Ohio with me as I drive Charlotte down. Once we are down there, I will have both of my DSM’s down there. I plan on driving Charlotte back and forth from here on out. So, I am going to be doing some maintenance to her, starting with a new timing belt and water pump. And soon, Kurt will have #Sapphire down there as well.
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