Over the last couple days I have taken care of a handful of small tasks.

The driver dash pod vinyl had to be re-glued after pulling it back to trim the fiber glass back. Got that taken care of. The pod is ready for reinstall once I get the wiring straightened out for the dash.

Organized and loomed up the reverse/backup switch wiring and license plate LED light wiring. I used standard 14-16ga bullet connectors for the reverse switch, but I used a small screwdriver to widen out the sides of the connector so it created a snug fit with the Porsche reverse switch. Tested the reverse lights and backup camera auto-activation – good to go.

Soldered the turn signals and high-beam LED indicators on the gauge face. All the gauge face wiring runs through a pair of weatherpack connectors now for easy plug-n-play. I wired the speedo and tach up as well. The speedo and tach are a bit trickier as you need to use a resistor for each. In a nutshell, you need to place a 1/4 or 1/2watt resistor on the +12v power wire that the tach and speedo use. After the resistor the 12v wire Y’s off – one wire goes to the gauge, the other goes to the computer. With the gauge face all wired up I plugged in the weatherpacks and gave the gauge face a quick test. Looks like everything is a go. I need one more weatherpack connector pin for one of the connectors – after that is in I can install the dash pod. I will also be installing a trans oil cooler LED that will illuminate when the oil cooler is on, so I extended the wires for that so they are easy to solder to the LED when that arrives. Picked up a few switches for interior lighting and front-camera/video activation (so no need to pull the e-brake to allow for video viewing). These will probably go in the driver dash pod on the left side.

I also trimmed the hood release mounting plate so it looked cleaner than just a big clunky square.

Today I finished up bolting the passenger seat in, and then wired up the license plate LED lights. The seat was a chore, as it took forever to get the bolts to line up perfectly with the rivnuts at the front of the seat. Also, since rivnuts and I get along so well, I ended up having to re-tap the rivnuts at one point since they got scuffed up trying to line up the bolts blindly. All good though, as the passenger seat is rock solid.

Afterwards, I soldered up the LED wires and connected them to some quick disconnect plugs and spliced those into the taillight wiring.

Tackled the passenger seat tonight. To determine where to drill the holes for the seat I taped intersecting lines across the bottom of the seat where I wanted to mount the bolts (flat surfaces at the front and rear of the seat), then set the seat in the car and marked the carpet with more tape where the tape on the seat met the carpet. Pulled the seat, connected the lines, and then knew where I needed to drill the frame out. After some trial and error, I got the mounting points just right, then installed some rivnuts in the seat and set it in the car. I only had one bolt on hand long enough to bolt the seat down, so I will have to pick up some more at the hardware store later.

This should have been a straight forward 30-minute task, but it ended up taking quite a bit longer. The manual doesn’t have you mount the handle to the supplied bracket aluminum until you run the cables. In reality, it is much easier to mount the handle first, then run the cables. It also took a while to figure out how to use the bracket, as it is not pictured in the manual and they do not tell you where to  mount it or how to use it.  I ended up mounting it in the corner by the door hinge, putting it well out of the way of everything. To use the bracket you need to bend the ‘tabs’ back, and then press the handle onto them. Once the cables were ran, it took a while to figure out how to clamp them out of the way without the hood latches being pulled open too much by the tightened cables.

Knocked out a few quick and easy tasks. The rear view camera, which is really a complete license plate bracket, was mounted. Just have to solder the lighting wires for the license plate led lights that hold the bracket on and this will be done. After this I riveted the e-brake trim plate into place, then set to doing the front wheel well closeouts for the driver side. Straight forward stuff without any surprises.

With the radio installed, shift box re-welded into place, wiring organized, and console trim plate prepped, I felt it was finally time to get the center console and passenger dash in.

First thing I had to do was rivet the passenger dash pod to the center console. It was previously held in place with clecko pins. With the passenger pod joined to the console, I then attached the trim plate to the console.  Before getting started on installing the console/dash I vacuumed out the passenger footbox, cleaned the aluminum panels that will be underneath the dash, and secured the wiper closeout box in place.

Everything cleaned up, I set the console into place and set to attaching the air ducts to the dash vents. Two above the radio, one on the passenger pod, and two defrost ducts. I found the trick to doing the dash vents is to pull off the foam that is glued around the outer edge of the vent that you have to push the duct hose over, and cut a line down the middle of the duct hose through 2-3 wire rings so that it can be pulled over the vent easier. With the hose in place, I pulled on some zip ties to secure it. Defrost ducts are a little easier to attach the hoses to. After attaching all the hosing I connected up the hazard and fog lights switches, plugged in the climate control wire harness, and mounted the ignition switch and window switches.  The console/dash was then pushed down into place and secured at the base with a single 1/4-20″ screw on each side. Tested all the switches and climate controls with success.

All that is left to do with the interior at this point is mount the driver’s dash pod, interior lighting, mirror (when windshield is in), gauges, and seats.

I finally decided to tackle installing the mesh for the hood cutouts. These took a while as a lot of patience is required to get the  mesh cut and bent just right for a nice secure, flush fit. Once they were cut and formed I was ready to install them. Lots of silicone, tape, and random supports propped up to put pressure on the mesh and 12 hours of curing and they were done.  I’m pleased.

The Kooks exhaust is finally centered. An inch of piping had to be cut off the driver’s side cat pipe to get it to center properly. We are still working on mounts for the exhaust. The Kooks system comes with a set of mounts that are meant to connect to the trans (you create a bracket for them), but they fasten around the nice polished mufflers, and I’m not a fan of that.

The transmission overflow tank was completed with the fitment of the barb connector into the transmission case, and then connecting it to the tank.

To make the door liners a bit more rigid without installing bolts across the top of the door liner, I decided to give velcro a try. I picked up some heavy duty 3m Fastener Tape (ie: velcro) and applied two strips across the top of the door liner. This stuff works pretty well – very grippy and the door liner feels sturdier and looks nice.

Starting to get ready to install the console and dash, so I prepped the console trim plate. The hazards and fog light switches were installed, and then the shift boot was riveted into place.  Pretty straight forward – pull about an inch of fabric underneath the trim plate on the ‘bottom side’ of the trim plate cutout, drill a 1/8″ hole and rivet into place through the boot fabric into a flat nut. With the first rivet in place it is quite easy to work around the boot, riveting into place. The trim plate is ready to be installed onto the console.

Josh made up some radio mounts to secure the radio to the tunnel. The mounts screw into mounting holes on the side of the head unit, and to the tunnel itself. I must have had the complete dash on/off 10-15 times to get a proper fitment so that the radio face can slide out and back in without any interference from the dash cutout, but I finally got it. With the radio in place and console trim plate ready, I am just about ready to install the dash ‘for good’. After the radio was mounted I secured the antenna under the front of the body beneath the windshield edge. I used a powered internal antenna from Dakota Digital, and it works great.

Shane @ VRaptor Speedworks made up a nice tunnel closeout panel for those of us that include radios in our builds. The FFR supplied aluminum closes the tunnel off, but does not allow for a radio to be installed at the same time. Shane’s closeout piece works great. To get it to fit with my double-din unit I had to cut out a square for the wiring harness to pass through, and a few holes for the antenna and camera inputs to plug in through. The camera/antenna holes were protected with grommets, while I covered the wiring harness hole with duct tape, then put some slits in it so the wires can pass through, while still keeping things somewhat sealed. With everything set in place, the closeout was screwed into the frame and the radio was plugged in. I then test fit the dash to make sure the radio fit well and actuated open/shut without interference from the closeout panel. Good to go!

Ryan also stopped out and re-welded the shift box into place so now I can get the switches and everything in without interference.