charles......can't wait to see the coolant plubing you have coming up..

also, funny how you chose a fuel rail extrusion......that's exactly what I made my first vacuum manifold out of.

When you are done, you are going to have a very nice & clean engine bay with none of the ugliness of a stock setup. can't wait to see more good stuff.

 

This makes me want to keep the VQ in my car

 

in for pics and updates, thats a pretty badass plenum

 

I finished up all the wiring in my engine bay and also removed and depinned roughly 20 wires going all the way back to the ECU or various gound and power junctions. I actually did this a while ago but I havent started to explain what I did with my engine harness in detail yet. I will eventually when I have a boring night at home.

i did the last of my vacuum lines to my wastegate by putting a -4 T bulkhead fitting on the firewall and running AQP hose to each wastegate.

we have finished the coolant pipes, i have installed the air intakes... unfortunately I am getting inpatient and have NOT yet built the 3" intakes, im running the Greddy kit ones for now to get the car on the road.... getting tired of building pipes on this car right now so ill make intakes later on.

the twin pump is in the car but i currently only have one pump wired to the stock wiring, need to run a power cable and do a relay setup.

ive installed the aerocatch hood pins since the latch is gone now... also have a brace across the core support where the hood latch used to be.

I am jumping through the final hoops right now, the car will be road worthy this week. Then I will begin making the new list of things to do before I can race the car, and things that need to be upgraded before I can turn up the power all the way.

oh, currently making a new charge pipe from turbo to IC on the drivers side... I decided to run the stock fan shroud setup and the previous pipe would have never fit with it.

i am too exhaust right now to add anything to the first page sections... i have several hours of work to do there to get the thread caught up, i have been working on the car a lot more than i have been updating this thread... so i will just put a few pictures here for now.

i keep cardboard on the intercooler and oil cooler cores until the car is actually driving. the oil cooler gets pretty good exposure there on the pass side of the intercooler core. front bumper is not bolted up, i put it on before i leave at night to keep it safe.




some core support bracing... made it sturdy enough to run. probably will add more later.


aluminum coolant pipe to replace ugly steel one with all the ports i no longer need.


pic taken during aerocatch hood pic install.

 

Top notch work Charles...can't wait to see it at zdayz...

 

Looking great!

 

what is that tow hook attached to? i need to have a new tubular bumper brace built, but need to figure a tow hook in the mean time

 

rich, my guess is probably attached to the factory bolts of the oem crash bar. Ive seen some people do this. I could be wrong though.

 

ahhh so little time lately.

i have been driving the car, i had it professionally detailed and cleaned up... done quite a bit more in the engine bay, and last night i have started really boosting it also with 100 octane fuel for now while i check on things.

having an overboost issue... my 1bar springs in the tials are letting me hit 18-19psi. ****! i have some thinking to do here.

 

haha, my 1bar springs are 17-18psi as well. LOL

 

Hmm I get around 13psi base pressure with those springs.

 

ya i went over everything and isolated the issue to just the wastegate springs alone. so for now until i have a chance to change them i raised the boost fuel cut to 19psi and have done a little tuning so that i can run this with 100 octane. the tune is working out OK. I think i have hit the end of the single fuel pump... good thing i have our twin pump in there, now its time to wire it so BOTH pumps work lol.

 

Ah I forgot you are running the MVS wg's now. We the spings they use are a new learning curve since the couple cars we have used them on make completely different base boost then what the spring is rated for.

 

holy crap charles, i so want those coolant pipes! Hook me up!

My pipes are 10x worse than your stock pipes shown. Mine just looks pathetic.

 

ive put over 500 miles on the car the last 2 weeks taking it out for some racing and abuse etc. i have done very mild street tuning and its running 14.5-16.5psi with the boost controller off. still only at the 7000rpm redline.

its making decent power but i can tell its not where my math says it should be at this boost. i did *inch* away from my friends 601rwhp cobra while i had a passenger... it was pretty much an even race.... at this boost i should have pulled him decent but this intake really wants to rev out and it feels like im short shifting to shift at 7000... power is still in the middle of climbing.

also not helping is my 5 year old short block. i did some leakdown tests on it and let me tell you, years of abuse have taken its toll and im now preparing to sort out a new short block... my leakdown numbers on 3 cylinders are exceptionally high and definately contributing to a loss of power and an issue where the car is burning oil on hot starts. this was no surprise as i was already suspect to this before the teardown and new setup.

anyone got some 9:1 pistons to trade? this should also make a good time for me to finally install my BC2 cams. I will keep my car running while I get another block ready on the side, that way i can do a "quick" swapover... and I can still enjoy this car for now. But i dont see myself bothering to turn up the boost right now.

 

i have some 9:1's charles but you'll have to pry them from my cold dead hands! hahaha, they are in the car and working well.

My last leakdown over easter weekend was less than 3% leakdown from each cylinder! This engine is nice and tight.

so, you gonna throw some of those pipes in for me? just toss them in with those fuel rails

 

Ive got a set of 8.5:1 sitting around

 

Charles, what ems are you using?

 

binder: we could probably work out something with coolant pipes if you are really interested. we have talked about jigging up the coolant pipe, adding a support bracket to the timing chain cover like the stock one, and then adding the heater hose barb so other people can use it without having to add the barb to their rear pipe like i did.

however, at that point, there would still be no barb for the stock water/oil heat exchanger, radiator bypass pipe, and whatever else the little ones were for, cant even remember now. so it would be a product that is really only for the tech guys that are ok with moving and eliminating stuff.

the other concern is if we would use alum if we made it a product... i am not sure if i can expect this part to last very long or not with all the heat cycling it will experience and being right above the exhaust manifolds. perhaps SS would be better for a product... i just wanted aluminum for the weight.

I will have to look up what that costs. If you wanted a modified rear cast pipe also... that is an option but what i did on that pipe other than adding the heater hose barb, is pretty easy for anyone to do. just some grinding and welding shut 2 ports.

 

for now i am holding out for the 9:1... while its highly unlikely i would feel the difference driving around town... the idea of the higher compression appeals to me. you know how rediculous car guys are with what they want