I took my youngest for a ride on the south end of the island. There's some fun terrain, dunes, mud, sand, and lots of stuck full size vehicles to pull out.  I also park for a while and let home play in the soft sand for until it starts to get dark.

On the way back I noticed that my front blinkers and my rear driver side blinker are not working correctly. It is most likely a ground or a connector full of salt. All the connectors up front are full.of dielectric grease. I didn't do the connectors in the back.  My daytime running lights aren't working either, but I am not sure if they ever were on the new rig.

I also replaced my belt tensioner. It was hopping a little more than I thought it should. I could also feel a vibration sometimes. That is gone now.

The header makes no significant power difference. I originally bought it to replace the severely cracked exhaust manifold on my old rig. The cracks made it loud and gave me an EGR error code sometimes.

The header makes no power difference. I originally bought it to replace the severely cracked exhaust manifold on my old rig. The cracks made it loud and gave me an EGR error code sometimes.

Yesterday I was looking at the pictures of the original manifold alongside the header and thinking that the manifold was a fairly decent design - between the 1.8 Sport & the 2.0 Vitaras, Suzuki has I think three different manifolds that will fit, and the one you had would appear to be the "mid performance" one ( visually, I haven't tested them) the header has longer tubes so any performance enhancement will be towards the high end of rpm range.

Fordem - It does seem to bring power on a little sooner than before.  It may even have a little more power all the way up.  It's hard to say without having real numbers to work with.  I want to say it feels faster, but you know how accurate seat if the pants feel is.... 

In addition to tracking down an electrical gremlin, I started working on a new temp switch for my electric cooling fan.  I was originally going to mount it in the small lower tube (J18), but I was concerned about the trigger wire running behind the header.  Unfortunately, I had already painted the upper tube, when I decided to use it instead.

I took a piece of brass stock, center drilled and tapped the end to match the temp switch, then rounded the edges with a random form tool.

I then set a boring head up to radius the end of the brass fitting to fit on the overhead coolant tube.  I didn't get a good pic of the boring operation.

I cleaned the paint back then soldered the new part to the coolant tube. The pic is before repainting.  I won't have time to install it until late next week.

That is similar to what I did for the temp gauge in "Trouble" race car with the 2.3 motor.  I just installed a temp switch 200 -185 by tapping the aluminum outlet housing on my 2.7L.  This switch will ground a relay for my fan.  I am installing another temp switch 185-160 in my transmission cooling outlet line that will also ground the same fan relay.  I think these temperature switches are more reliable than the probe stuck through radiator fins going to a control box.

I believe this one is on at 180F and off at 165F.  Like you said, it will ground a relay to turn the fan on. I went overboard on the fan. It's a 16" Spal HP fan with their HP controller.  I had fried a few standard automotive relays on the last rig, so I went with the big relay setup powered directly from the battery.   The big Spal fan is too noisy. 

I guess I should look at doing the same for my trans line.  Are you running a separate trans cooler?

Yes I have a separate cooler, that I have positioned directly in front of the 16" fan.
First I ran the Trans cooling lines through the radiator, but found that I didn't have enough cooling capacity.  Then I put a Trans cooler on before the radiator, using the radiator to keep Trans oil warm.  That mostly worked, but the trans cooler on radiator is directly above the radiator oltlet line to my motor, so I am thinking under load it warms up the motor cooling water.  So I am not going to run it through the radiator but put a temp switch in the line so it will turn on the cooling fan.  If motor water is cool, the thermostat will keep it warm, so with the fan running if Trans temp is high, it won't matter.  I may put a temp probe on the outlet line also later.  The temp switch I got for trans cooling line uses AN8 fittings, and sthey are a litle bigger than necessary.  AN6 would probably be adequate.

I spent a little time chasing down my turn signal issue and decided to finish an upgrade that had been waiting for a long time.  I have had the battery tray from Low Range for a few years.  The AGM battery that i had in my old rig had flanges at the bottom that didn't allow it to fit properly in the new holder.  That battery was destroyed in wreck and the new rig came with a brand new battery that was too tall for the holder.

Several parts were added or reworked; battery holder, aux fuse panel, ground disconnect, battery maintainer. 

The factory battery tray is bolted in, so i used the same locations, but with countersunk bolts.  I used the hole dimensions from the factory tray to locate new holes in the Low Range battery holder and countersunk the holes.  Countersinking the holes was necessary to keep the bottom of the holder flat.  The factory tray has recessed areas to keep the hex bolts away from the battery.

My new rig doesn't have ABS, so there was an unused fuse location in the main fuse panel under the hood.  I had planned for this project and had cut the ABS power wire from the old rig's harness.  The wire came with the right connector and was sized for the 50 amp fuse I had also pulled.  All new connectors received crimp terminals, anti-ox, and heat shrink.  I added a battery ground disconnect also.  A wire was run from the ground disconnect to the aux panel ground bus.  My battery maintainer is wired directly to the battery terminals, before the ground disconnect.  I have to leave the rig for several weeks at a time and try to keep the maintainer plugged in when I do.

The new battery has the terminals towards the front, which caused an interference issue.  I had to move the positive cable to side with a post adapter.  The factory cable had a fitting that allowed it fit over the side post, without modification.  I just had to remove the factory terminal.

It's hard to see the fuse panel on the far right of the battery tray in this picture.  I will get a better photo of the fuse panel later.  The black box in front of the battery holder is the maintainer (label long since came off).  The 12ga. black wire connected to the battery side of the ground disconnect goes to the maintainer.  The positive side of the maintainer is connected to the positive bus of the fuse box.  This may be an issue if I have a parasitic drain.  The clear and blue piece sticking up behind the battery is the fuse for my cooling fan controller.

It is frustrating because we used to be able to leave a hunting rig setting all year and then go and crank it over (maybe a shot of starting fluid) and start it up.  Now our rigs won't set for a month without the battery going dead.  The computers in our vehicles, and the newer the more computers, all take just a little juice for memory and a little for the indicator, ect. until it can't set for a week without a battery boost.  A voltage draw of 0.1 amps is 2.5 amps in 1 day, and 25 amps in 10 days, or 225 amps in 3 months, which is half the battery on a lot of vehicles.  Of course we all buy bigger batteries so we don't have this problem.
Finding these amp drains is usually a long slow solution, and so we go with battery disconnects and trickle charges.

I was surprised about how much my auto dimming rear view mirror pulls when the rig isn't being used.  Combine the mirror with the stereo, ECU, alarm, etc and I have a significant amount of draw, even without a wiring problem.  My F150 has a relay that opens the circuit for several electrical items, if the voltage drops to XX Volts.  I found a 12V / 30A relay on eBay that will open its circuit, if the battery drops to 10 Volts.  The problem is that the relay uses 0.85 mA.  It would be fine for short term use, but not for parking at the airport for 2 weeks.

I had a solar panel in my old rig that kept my battery charged, but it was broken in the wreck also. 

Why would you not wire the auto dimming mirror to either the accessory or ignition switched feeds?

Why would you not wire the auto dimming mirror to either the accessory or ignition switched feeds?

There are maps lights under the mirror, which are nice because this rig doesn't have the factory map lights that my JLX had.  I thought the always on wiring would only be used for the map lights, but it was pulling nearly an amp with not lights on.  I have it disconnected to verify the diagram that was online.

It has wires for always hot, ignition hot, door switch (to ground), and the reverse light which overrides the dimming for better visibility when backing.

I can't help but wonder if that mirror isn't defective - I don't see any auto manufacturer intentionally designing a product to draw one amp continuously - that would "flatten" the average battery over a weekend, and I'm pretty certain I'm not the only person who will sometimes have a vehicle parked in the driveway for a couple of days without starting it.

It's not uncommon for my wife's car (a 2013 Mitsubishi Lancer, with all the bells & whistles, including auto dimming mirror) to sit untouched between Friday evening and Monday morning, and there have been occasions when she travelling where it will sit for as long as a week.

Fordem - I agree.  I have more checking to do, but will verify the issue when I return. I will be gone for the next three weeks.

I hope to get the mirror sorted out and trace the turn signal issue down, when I return.   I have a few other projects to finish after those two. 

Unfortunately, my AC is acting up now also.  It seems to be intermittent.  The AC didn't work today, the engine would rev up a couple of hundred rpm, then drop back. The net result was the engine pulsing.  It was as if the actions of starting the AC were happening, but one of the requirements wasn't meant and it canceled, then starting again.  I will probe the AC amp when I get back also. I think some of these issues are related.  Maybe some bare wires somewhere, that got water and salts in the the loom.

I am back home for a little while and took a little time to mess with the Sport. I installed the upper coolant hard line with the new fan switch. It comes on at 180F and shuts off at 165F.  It seems to work well, although my Bluetooth OBD2 isn't connecting, so I can't verify it with my Torque app. My handheld OBD2 unit is loaned out, so I may take it to one of the local stores tomorrow, to see if they can see anything on my OBD2.

The AC issue may just be the AC amplifier. I went through all the inputs to verify voltages, etc.  I pulled the amp apart and found a smoked resistor. I ordered a handful of replacement resistors, but they won't be here for a while.

I would like to swap a section of the under dash wiring harness out, so I can finish the cruise control swap. The wiring harness is very difficult to get to, without pulling the dash. Pulling the dash is something I really dread doing. I wasn't able to pull the dash out on my wrecked Sport, even when I didn't have to worry about damaging it.  There were some screws / bolts that would not break free. It wasn't a rusty vehicle either.