[mnitetrain]

Liking those Recaro's.

 

[DjGreggieP]

Its actually really supportive, little on the harsh side for long drives (2 plus hours sitting) but its not bone jarring uncomfortable. When / if I get it reupholstered I may opt for a bit more lower back padding and seat padding.

 

[Scooter-Man]

I like "padding in the back",,,, wait,,, wrong thread.

 

[DjGreggieP]

A lil extra padding goes a long ways

 

[DjGreggieP]

My new harmonic balancer, Power steering pump, PS pump pulley and Belt have been taken home, next is the Timing component kit to purchase and a new shaft for the GT2860r and then I can rebuild the turbo and be closer to ready for the two weeksish of thrashing in the spring.

I cant wait!!

 

[DjGreggieP]

 

[RapidFireXVI]

That was pretty awesome.

 

[DjGreggieP]

Thanks, I am hoping to maybe pick up a second GoPro and mount it on the rear 1/4 panel and the dash to edit them together.

Just have a bit more things to tweak, should be a whole different animal in the spring.

 

[DjGreggieP]

The car is now sitting outside my second place of work (Deluxe Motorworks) This month the maintenance and fabrication for the turbo installation will begin. I can't wait.

 

[DjGreggieP]

*cough*

 

[Intrepid_runner]

Car got painted finally, but I forgot my password and whatever email I had attached to the old account.

What's up guys?

 

[Scooter-Man]

Welcome back!

Ask Dan to reset your PW.

 

[Intrepid_runner]

Pre paint photo

 

[Intrepid_runner]

I suppose some context is in order from the near 4 year hiatus.

So, the turbo DID get installed and it was a learning curve. Required a bunch of additional enhancements and modifications.
Including upgrades to the fuel system. We dropped the tank, pulled the pump and OEM regulator and installed a 255LPH pump into the OEM hanger/module and added a boost referencing fuel regulator by Aeromotive

Before:

After:

Required a bit of fiddling and setting the regulator to roughly 60psi (Spec called for 58psi +- 5 so we went on the high side)

The system works, there is an 'evap leak' code because we mounted the regulator to the vent canister filter. There is no issues in adding fuel, no smell of fuel around the rear of the car.

This added a new 'noise' to the car as you can hear the fuel pump working when the car is at idle and you stand at the rear of the car.

It works, and was working flawlessly for 2 years with zero fuel tank issues including adding fuel.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The intake from turbo to engine went through a few variations, started with the pipe to K&N tube, then same idea with a bov added and that greatly fixed the blowing apart issue under decel (when we finally got the BOV set decently) and then FINALLY after blowing out a few of the elbow boots to the throttle body it was upgraded to a steel tube that was later wrapped in reflect a gold tape to keep things cooler going into the engine which brings about the next 'modification' which was a simple hole cut in the hood to help let the heat from the turbo out of the engine bay.

(only photo I have with the gold wrap, shows the evolution of the hole in the hood)

The hole in the hood was to help excess heat exit the bay. After a normal drive home the hot side of the turbo would be around 500+* (Can't remember C or F of the top of my head) so I cut a baisc hole.

Car enjoyed relatively regular driving, eventually got it swapped over to a 3.2L ecm/tcm and had to space out the MAP sensor from seeing boost pressure (achieved with extended harness and vacuum hose with check valves.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Power wise, it was run on the dyno. But it was run on the dyno prior to making small adjustments to the way it was setup. Running a 3.5HO upper plenum meant it had a vacuum actuated center runner, so when I applied 'boost' to it, the runners opened, but under low throttle input the runners were closed having a 'long runner' for better low end torque.

Now, one thing to remember about the power it makes is that this is an unopened 3.5HO from a 2000 300M with well over 300,000kms on its stock internals

At the wheels it ran 142.3hp at 4600rpm and 171.3ft-lbs @ 4200rpm. Why so early in the power band? Injectors. With boost, the 21lb injectors can not fight with the additional 6psi I was attempting to stuff into the cylinders (math works out, atmospheric pressure is 14psi, + 6psi(boost) = 20psi vs 21psi injector cap) so there was a significant drop before 5000rpm as knock sensors started fighting to keep the engine alive.

There is definitely a lot more potential for the engine when I make the change over to the Holley Dominator setup when I have everything for that sorted 100% with the various required harnesses.

That gets the 'turbo' mostly sorted, next update later will be the paint and body work update.

 

[peva]

Impressive work and stick-to-it-iveness!

 

[Intrepid_runner]

Impressive work and stick-to-it-iveness!

Thanks! It's been a journey. Slowly getting things fleshed out completely. Still a long arduous journey to go yet as well.

 

[Intrepid_runner]

Perhaps videos of living with the turbo are needed.

Firstly, every car should have an exhaust run

Skip in to about the 2 minute mark to skip my talking.

Exhaust is routed to the turbo, then follows the previously existing exhaust that consisted of a Magnaflow muffler in the center of the car and the BORLA 'Spitfire' at the rear of the car exiting out the passenger side as I have had for many many years.

Secondly, how about some footage of the car driven in controlled anger? Its a short tight course that usually runs go-karts so not exactly the best place but its a lot of fun.

Next update will probably include some of the behind the scenes of the 2 years of paint and body work.

 

[Intrepid_runner]

A 'low' natural light and 'mid' natural light look at the colour

 

[Intrepid_runner]

So for mirrors, I wanted something different. I had a pair of painted folding mirrors, but just wasn't happy with them.

So, I bought some mirrors because I have always wanted these mirrors.

And there may be a small difference in size...

So I had to see how they would look.

Obviously, cardboard will not be structural at all, so...

Transfer the shape to steel

(spare door at the shop to replace my rusted passenger side door)

Test fit the shape.

From there, I wanted to see how they would look on the car, still taped to the template because I was still determining mounting and didn't want to use the nyloc nuts that came with the mirrors yet.

Obviously the template won't fit nicely, so I had to purchase some aluminum and transfer the markings, only messed up a little bit...

I think they will look good in the end. After filing and sanding, they were sent to be wrapped in carbon fibre vinyl. I will need to weigh the old mirrors and these to see what the number is between them. The wide angle viewing will be really nice. I do have stainless steel Allan head bolts that are counter sunk to mount them to the door.

The basic shape was 'cut' out with an angle grinder, the fine details were filed off until the line disappeared.

This was not a fun process of filing and sanding trying to get them perfect. I think I spent about 8 hours per side filing, grinding and sanding smooth. BUT, I think it was so very worth it in the end.

In the end I did counter sink a bit to far, and I was 99% square on one hole so it looks a bit off and the fitment isn't 100% perfect in the top corner. I 'brushed' the aluminum but still decided to have them wrapped in a Carbon wrap at the shop we use. He took pictures of the mirrors to match the weave so if someone walks by they will never know. Will will clear them after so they will have a high gloss shine afterwards as well. The hardware will remain stainless and exposed, much like the mirror hardware.

Next time I will post all the pictures of the Hood. That was another long arduous process to get it perfect.

 

[Intrepid_runner]

Maybe some space dedicated to the hood would be a good idea?

If you have made it this far, you may have noticed there is mildly a 'functional' aspect to a lot of what happens, so the hood modifications stemmed from a functionality stand point.

As previously seen, I had cut a rudimentary hole shaped by the underhood bracing design. Rough yes, but proved the concept that getting excess heat 'out' of the engine bay was a positive thing, so an idea was born.

Originally, I had designed in my head a naca style duct with a ridge at the front in hopes to create a 'vacuum' to assist in pulling the hot slower moving air out, but without having access to 3D modelling to get the design right, and needing to mirror the idea for both sides of the hood for symmetry, I opted for louvers.

We started with both a new (to the car) hood and a set of louvers from an online source. No turning back now!

and finally, in primer, I believe this is the second coat of primer. There was a lot of metal working after the first coat of primer trying to get it perfect,

And a final shot of the louvers close up in stage 1.5 of primer.

We spent a long long time making sure the lines of the hood remained original. Lots of hammering and a bit of body fill to make it smooth.

I think it was well worth the trouble. On a major bonus, when sitting and at temperature, the OEM fans are strong enough to push the air out the vents, so keeping underhood temps down will be a lot easier now, even with a 500* turbo housing, and 'may' add a small (re: insignificant) aerodynamic advantage of allowing the air in the engine bay somewhere to escape to.

In the final picture, you may notice the washer fluid reservoir is missing, but that will be a story for another day as it is still being finished.