More solid progress today along with a slight disappointment.
The pair of slim-line cooling fans arrived. I was hoping to just use the zip-tie method to attach them directly to the radiator and then just deal with the wiring. Unfortunately, the little plastic parts are complete garbage and every single one of them broke through just the act of trying to push the zip tie through.
So instead of doing it that way, I’m working on fabricating mounting brackets from some leftover steel bits I’ve got laying about. The bottom of the radiator has slots for the fans to slide in to and then there are two bolt holes at the top of the radiator for each fan. I’m going to make four brackets like the one below and bolt them to the fans to hold the bottom in place. Then I’ll make a bracket that will go across the top with the fan bolted to the metal and then the bracket bolted to the radiator. It should work okay, but it’s just more work that I didn’t expect to have to do.
Here’s one of the fans with the one lower bracket attached.
I did a little more organizing and wrapping of the wiring harness and I’m really liking the way it’s turning out. The only way that it could look better is if it had that real tight protective weave sheath around it, but I’ll take what I’ve got:
The TPS and IAC are installed in the throttle body and the throttle body is installed on the manifold. It’s a tight fit, but it works:
One problem-that’s-not-really-a-problem is that the TPS pin outs are slightly different. Orange should be the +5VREF, the black-blue should be sensor ground, and the purple-white should be the signal. The connector on the left is the connector that came with the TPS while the one on the right is the original DOHC one. Pins 1 and 3 are swapped. Rather than try to swap the pins, I’m going to cut off the DOHC connector and wire in the pigtail from the Caravan that donated the TPS, and that works out well because with the new position, the old connector doesn’t quite reach.
With the new position of the throttle body comes a need for a new cold side pipe. The IAT sensor needs to be installed in that tube yet, but the old section of silicone piping that used to be on the air filter just happens to be a perfect fit! It’s actually a piece of the hot side pipe from a PT Cruiser – I tend to collect those when I see turbo PTs in junkyards since it’s the right size and material and super cheap.
The throttle cable is definitely not long enough so I’ll need to install the one from the Stratus. I’m working the wiring back and it’s starting to look much cleaner. The upper radiator hose is resting against the hump for the MAP sensor, so I need to do something about that still. Hopefully tomorrow night will be spent finishing up some brackets – I need to get the cooling fan brackets made as well as make a bracket for the throttle cable.