keep at it; i'm so glad someone is working on this.

if you get it working nobody will give a flying crap what kind of hardware it requires (as long as it isn't too complicated for the average guy to put together).

you should also consider that most LS1 tuners don't even know what a pull-up resistor or optocoupler is, and will probably do a messy job soldering these PCBs together, making the project hard to spread to the masses. perhaps consider having some chinese electronics manufacturer build 500 of them or something, then sell them for super cheap to support the project (software free, hardware cheap). it would be pretty easy to do.