The Talk with ISIS Power

Just got off the phone with ISIS Power's Jay Harris.

Like I mentioned Earlier ISIS Power makes an Intelligent Multiplex System, which what I gather is a fancy term to say that the wiring harness is distributed throughout the car and not necessarily centralized.

All the switches are connected to the brain which they call the master-cell.  The master-cell then sends the commands to the muscle, which they call the power-cells.  Usually in a standard configuration there are 2 power-cells and 1 master-cell.  This type of wiring solution is more of a computer than a traditional wiring harness in essence.  There are additional options that the harness allows for that you could not get away with, or get away with easily in a regular harness.

Jay Harris of ISIS Power

Like what you say??!?
Well the system allows for a greater variety of switches, and what kind of switches you can use...If you even want switches.  ISIS has a system known as INTouch which can essentially turn your iPhone or iPad into the switches for your car.  And thats just 1 example.

Anyways back to the telephone conversation

Jay and I had a nice chat regarding K.I.T.T and what I had planned for him. What was surprising was how much he knew about the car.  When I talked to most people about K.I.T.T their like oh yeah I remember that car.  He even knew what the acronym stood for and mentioned it right off the bat, so I was assuming he was a fan. I told Jay that I had already looked at Project Snowball from gmhightechperformance.com and had questions regarding the power windows and headlight motors (because they use polarity shifting in order to reverse motor direction).  He gave me 2 solutions to the problem.  I knew already about 1 of them but not the other.  Naturally, I told him I wanted the solution that gives me more control.  Nothing quite playing with K.I.T.T in a parking lot while sitting at a Starbucks having people think that K.I.T.T is real.

Master & Power Cells

I also asked him how easy is it to add additional functions later on, and Jay told me that it was as easy as plug and play, and perhaps a slim, slim chance of a software update to the master-cell.

During the conversation I also had my laptop in front of me and he walked me through a sample of the wiring instructions for a car, which were really straight forward; this color wire goes here, and this plugs into here kinda deal.  I'd bet $5 that my mom could figure it out.

At the end of the conversation Jay asked what step of the build I am on, and I am pretty much still in the planning stages, but am really wanting the system.
So now its just a matter of planning, time, and oh yeh that little thing called $$$$.

 

Knight Rider Stuff

Hiya,

I'm still waiting to talk to ISIS Power today.  I'll give them a call after this post; if they don't call me first.  For this afternoon I thought I would throw in some pictures of the Knight Rider Conversion Parts that I currently have.

Before I begin I just like to give a shout out to Rob Louisell and Brenon Fulbright, and their people who helped make these parts.

First up is the Gull Wing steering wheel.  Looks real fancy.  I wouldn't want to drive on the Jackie Robinson with it but it looks great and feels great....Just not when you have to make sharp turns; that just feels awkward.

 Next up on the list is the infamous switch pod.  It changed during the beginning of season 3 of the show, personally I like the season 1 & 2 look better.

The switch pod contained many of the cool functions that K.I.T.T had including the "Turbo Boost."

My "Turbo Boost"

"Turbo Boost" allowed K.I.T.T to jump over obstacles and would also give the car short bursts of speed when needed.  

Original "Turbo Boost"!

On the right is a pic of my switch pod with the "Turbo Boost" button.  

On the left is a pic of Michael Knight just about to press "Turbo Boost" from the show.

Onto more of the In dash stuff...

Mine

From the Show

 On the left we have my K.I.T.T voice box.  Again that also went through revisions in the show.  During the early half of the first season it was a red box, then it went to the 3 Light setup later on in the first season, and wouldn't be touched again until season 3.  Again personal preference I prefer the the earlier look.  The Bezel cover is not on on mine.

Other parts of the car include the Speedo, Tach, and fuel gauge, what is not pictured is the dash and 2 small TVs that I have to take pictures of yet.

All put together I am hoping to have this:

The First Post!!

Hey everyone,

Figured for the first post I'd throw in the origin story as well as some updates from last weekend and today.






Back in the late 80's and early 90's on the weekends I used to watch the action block on channel 9 (WWOR) here in NYC, which included A-team, Airwolf, and Knight Rider. Each show had an awesome vehicle. A-Team had their van, Airwolf was a futuristic helicopter, and K.I.T.T was a talking car that could drive itself.

K.I.T.T from Knight Rider

Needless to say growing up watching these shows at an early age made me a scifi nut.  However I don't have an airstrip or bay for an Airwolf, so it came down to the A-team van and K.I.T.T.  Suffice to say....K.I.T.T won and probably more on the basis that Knight Rider was a show for both kids and adults. K.I.T.T and Michael Knight (the Hoff) were fighting criminals who operated above the law, and had quite a few episodes with kids in them, either helping out or needing help. Being a kid myself at the time I thought the show was just awesome.


Couple of years back when I graduated college I got my hands on a 1982 Firebird off of eBay, same year, and pretty sure the same model that the original car was based on.

1982 Trans Am

Needless to say I wanted the job done right.  At the time I didn't really have that much time or knowledge to do most of the work. And I trusted some people to do the jobs I either didn't know how to do or just couldn't do.  And that worked well for quite some time. K.I.T.T got an awesome rebuilt LT1 out of a 1994 descendant.

However, the shop owner I trusted in to help me with the rest of the job was. . . Not as trustworthy. And that leads us to today and these adventures.

I got the car back from the shop around April. Just had enough with the dude who obviously didn't know wiring for anything, and that the car got moved so many times that body work had to be done in order to repair dings from God only knows what.

After I got K.I.T.T home I started by documenting everything about the car that I could, since I did not get all that much information about what went into the car from the shop owner once I decided to pull the car out.  He could not even tell me what transmission the car had, or if it had been swapped as well.

After crap loads of pictures and documentation I started to gut the interior.  I finished taking out the old body harness as well as the old HVAC system yesterday. I'll try and get some pics tonight when I can.

Today I emailed Vintage Air and Isis Power about their products. Vintage Air makes awesome HVAC systems, and Isis Power makes a multiplex wiring harness solution ( basically everything is distributed where it's needed and removes that rat's nest that's a traditional wiring harness).
Isis power also has some neat options like iPad and iPhone control, which for K.I.T.T is must have.
Hopefully they can get back to me soon.

Anyways, when I get some time tonight I'll get some pics up of the stuff that I already have.

Old wiring harness AKA The Rat's Nest

Updates:    

• Got a call from Jay Harris himself from ISIS Power.  Going to have a chat with tomorrow at noon!! 
• Heres a pic of the old wiring harness I removed yesterday.  What a hot mess!