QuintonC

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Definitely stay subscribed to the thread then

Also feel free to follow me on instagram @quinton_c

The plan is to cut a lot of the metal out of the car that doesn't need to be there, then I'll be putting in a custom cage and painting all of the interior.

Xonatron

QuintonC, sweet. I followed you up on Instagram!

QuintonC

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Give me a follow on my Instagram to see more about the build as well as other cool pics

QuintonC

iTrader: (2)

Update!

So, the car has been running super well. A few minor things, but no big deal of course. CMC will need replaced eventually I believe. I'll probably wait until the winter months to do this as the car will not be driven in the winter (Planning on picking up a truck to daily)

Additionally, the windshield will be getting replaced next Friday, and I'll also be ordering my steering wheel setup from TF Works next week.

I'll be running the OMP Velocita Superleggera with a Works Bell standard hub.

Also another thing that needs fixed are my ball joints, so I'll be doing those as well.

First track weekend for me is October 23-24. Super excited to be doing a track weekend in a cooler month where I shouldn't face any overheating issues. But we'll see how that goes because of the turbo.

Also a picture just for fun! Follow me on ig @quinton_c

MicVelo

Y'know, Quinton, it's people like you that just when I'd gotten all of the "I wanna do this" notions out of my head, you (and a few others here) update their builds and the longing starts all over.

Dang you.

Butt serious, your car makes me smile every time I come back to your build thread. Keep it up!

QuintonC

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Hahaha! That's seriously so kind of you. Thank you for the kind words, and I'm glad I can make you smile with my representation of the Z.

QuintonC

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Got my new oil last week as well as some ball joints from Z1. Russ hooked it up for me and got these to me in two days. I just got around to installing them however.

For those who haven't done the balljoint job yet, be prepared - it's gross haha. But really, it's not that bad. It would've been a lot smoother for me if the driver's side ball joint didn't seize halfway through the job. Had to press it back in and then press it out all the way, worked like a charm.



Today, I got my favorite steering wheel so far. I love the way this wheel feels and the simplicity of it. Super excited to get it in the car this week. Works Bell standard hub should be here Thursday I believe.

APTech

OMP is bae. Nice wheel.

QuintonC

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You're bae

Thanks! Should have some more photos of the bumper up soon and coming your way

APTech

That's how you get free parts sent your way lol.

QuintonC

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Haha! Did you see the sticker design ideas a few pages back? I think I might go with the last one... been waiting on my vinyl guy to get back for so long now.

Also, should have some track photos late October!

APTech

can't choose between #1 and #3 haha. Your call sir!

QuintonC

iTrader: (2)

Sounds good enough, I'll get the last ones cut out!

Excited to get you some cool track pictures to show your customers

QuintonC

iTrader: (2)

Just ordered a few more parts from Z1 thanks to Russ. Picked up some SPL endlinks, will need to do the rears eventually.. but the fronts are just screaming at the moment haha.

Also had to drop the car off to get the coolant drained and refilled. After doing my steering wheel install, I went under the car and tightened up all of the oil lines, etc. and I mistakenly pulled the filter coolant tube (not thinking, it was 3am at this point) and got an air pocket in there. It was about time to drain the coolant anyhow, so I just let a friend do it while I was at work/school (crazy semester). So huge thanks to Jericho for getting the coolant dialed, running zerex and engine ice at the moment.

Works Bell hub came in a while back, got around to mounting the wheel as well. In love with the new steering feel of the car.






Dem JDM instructions tho


Removed the bolts for the horn/wheel assembly.


Yank that old sucker off of there!


For anyone doing a wheel install in the future, make sure to bring these black tabs up before pulling the connectors out


Ta-da!


Also, getting started on a project with a friend. We're starting a small automotive group blog where we blog about our track days and tips/tricks for beginners or just the average dude who spends too much money on their cars. We've titled it Grip Junkies, here's a peek at our banner

QuintonC

iTrader: (2)

Got my 380RS pedal in today from Z1, huge thank you to the guys for getting this shipped out fast. They shipped it on Saturday, and it was here today.



OEM pedal configuration for comparison.



I've been working on my heel-toe, and while I can do it with the OEM pedal - I would miss the pedal every so often. So I figured for $40, why not just upgrade. Haven't driven with it yet, but I did sit in the seat and attempt to heel-toe though and it was so much easier. Also, super simple swap... would recommend this to other owners.

QuintonC

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Drove the car super hard yesterday and fell in love with it all over again. Up until this point, it had just been a bit of a "eh, whatever.. it's just a car" type of thing.. But now it's back to "Yeah, I love this car" haha

Drove for about 3 hours straight on a really aggressive cruise that I had planned out with the local car club I run. Had all kinds of people in the group telling me how amazing the car sounds as well as people telling me they just couldn't keep up at all. This car is an animal, and I'm still learning to control it. I wasn't going 100% because I likely would've died haha

But, after the cruise, I found that I had sprung an oil leak. Not sure how it happened, but I do have a very tight clearance under my oil filter sandwich plate, so that may be the issue. I bottomed out going over a bump on the cruise, and I'm thinking I may have cracked an AN fitting on my oil cooler lines.

So, I just ordered a completely new oil cooler setup to piece together. (I needed to do this anyway because my current cooler was leaking a very little bit - enough to bother me..) I've also got a new turbo oil feed line that I'm going to throw on there because it could use that as well. Even picked up some new tires.

So this upcoming weekend should be busy for me...

Changing oil cooler setup, change turbo oil feed, double check all of the oil lines once again to see if it's leaking anywhere else. Also going to go ahead and pull off my downpipe and my crossover to shave the transmission case a bit so the crossover doesn't rattle anymore. Might even go ahead and put my new O2 plugs in there and tack a weld on the plugs so that they don't back out again -.-

Oh, one last thing I guess - still fighting with my oil temp sensor... it's just not reading for some reason. The sensor line is reporting voltage on both wires to the sensor (3V) each. Maybe that's the issue, not sure... but waiting on Tanabe to email back. I may just have to give them a call and see what's up.

Stay tuned for all of the updates to come! Should be a fun week/weekend.

QuintonC

iTrader: (2)

All of the parts are in (I think... I may have lost track tbh)

Lets start off with a parts list just to get everything straight:

• Earls Assembly Lube 8 oz. [P/N: 361-184004]
• Jegs Nylon Vise Jaw Protector (For assembling fittings/hoses) [P/N: 555-80548]
• 4x Jegs 90 Degree Hose End Gold/Black [P/N: 555-112023]
• Russell ProClassic Hose -10AN Black/Blue Tracer (10ft.) [P/N: 799-632173]
• Earl's 24 Row Oil Cooler Core (Wide / Black) [P/N: 361-42500A]
• 12x Amsoil Signature Series 5W-30 Synthetic Motor Oil [P/N: ASLQT-CA]
• 2x Amsoil Absolute Efficiency Oil Filter [P/N: EA15K12-EA]
• HANS Device Pro Series Post Anchor Kit - Polished Aluminum
• Federal 595 RS-RR 275/35/18 (coming from RS-R 265/35/18)
• Alpinestars 2016 Tech 1 Race Gloves

I've been contemplating a remote oil filter setup just to make things a little easier (thinking about going flat bottom in the future) but I'll wait on that for now.

So, unfortunately... they're no longer producing the RS-R, but from what I've heard - these are just as sticky, if not stickier. They're rater at a higher treadwear to comply with the Street regulations for SCCA though with a 200tw. These are also a bit wider, which I'm totally fine with because they didn't offer the RS-RR in 265/35. Oh well, should look good

Going to wait a few weeks before mounting these. Probably just a few days before my track day.


Goodies from Amsoil and Jegs. I decided to redo my oil cooler setup completely. Earls had a black oil cooler that I had originally wanted, but they didn't have it in stock when I ordered the first iteration of my cooler setup. I also should've done these style of fittings from the beginning, and I most definitely could've been more thoughtful the first time doing my setup. It resulted in me cracking a fitting when bottoming out on a spirited drive -.-





Some lube to help with the installation of the AN fittings onto the hose.



Vise Jaw for helping with installation as well. Keeps the fittings pretty when assembling everything. This was a HUGE help, would definitely recommend this to those of you tackling this job in the future.



These black/gold fittings ended up looking better than I had thought they would based off of the pictures. Definitely not cheap, but very high quality. I was unsure how they would look with the black hose with blue tracers, but it ended up looking really good I think.



Kind of difficult to see the blue tracers here, but better seen in the second picture. This was some high quality hose, no lie.





And here is the new oil cooler. I'll definitely be more careful to make sure that this one doesn't leak as well. I'm trying to get my oil temp sensor working so I can monitor my temps... hopefully it ends up working out for me haha



Was also able to get my HANS anchors installed on my Shoei RF-1200 helmet thanks to a local shop here, Jericho Motorsport. The installer is actually the tech inspector for the PCA regional club here, so it's all good

Safety first!





I also picked these up. Wanted to stick with the mostly black theme of course. Love these things so far, super comfortable and great grip on the steering wheel.





I'll have more pics of the oil cooler install this time around whenever I go for it again. Stay tuned for more pics from this weekend when I get everything dialed in (hopefully).

QuintonC

iTrader: (2)

A few oil cooler pics, as well as more information on the oil cooler install/change.

So with the oil cooler install, I wanted to rotate the sandwich plate a bit more so that the AN fittings weren't as low as they had been on my first iteration (AKA why I'm replacing this in the first place *oops*). In doing so, I needed to unscrew the oil feed tee from the block. Well, I found the design flaw in Momentum's kit... they supplied the kit with a brass tee. Brass... c'mon. So I had to overnight a new steel fitting from TrackSpeed. Thanks to the guys over there for getting me sorted out. Threw the new fitting in with some RTV on the threads, same with the oil pressure sensor and the adapter for the oil feed line.





Thankfully this was super easy to get out of the block. This could've been FAR worse than it was haha.



And after that, I was able to get everything else assembled and buttoned up. Fits just right!



After getting everything fitted up and the car cleaned, went for a shakedown. NO oil leaks, and oil pressure is HOLDING right where it needs to be. Need to get my oil temp sensor working still, need to measure the ohms from the sensor itself and get back to Tanabe about that, probably this weekend.

Went out with my buddy/roommate Justin yesterday and snapped some pics of Monica.



This is what we came up with.













In the last picture, you can see that the wave on the front bumper is a bit off center, and that my car was excited that it's fall (nom, leaves). Going to try and fix the front bumper insert this weekend with a buddy, as well as shave down the thickness of the bumper that sits on the core support in order to run my diversion plate again. Tried to shave it a little bit and run the plate, but the hood wouldn't close :/

So dremeling that down tomorrow evening and should get everything where I want it for the most part. Two weeks until I change tires over for more tire and then that weekend I'll be hitting the track. Fingers crossed.

QuintonC

iTrader: (2)

Threw on some support rods to the bumper this past sunday in order to even out the curve in the middle of the bumper. Gives it a great appearance imo, and fixed the issue I was having.



Got my new tires mounted today, and had the brakes bled over once more to ensure everything was perfect. They managed to get a bit more air out of the fluid, and the pedal response is so much better than it previously was. These new tires are SO noisy, but I'm excited to see how they handle on the track. Federal 595 RS-RR 275/35/18 on a 18x9.5 et12. Looking at getting the car aligned this weekend, planning to adjust the front to -2.5 since the new tires are so much thicker. They rub when I hit a bump, so not wanting to deal with the tires rubbing when there's a load on the suspension in a corner. Also adjusting the rear to -1.5 (so jumping back a half a degree) to give a bit more contact for the rear of the car.

IIQuickSilverII

iTrader: (13)

It's lookin real good my friend!