Blog Title: GreenGSX
Getting ready for Beaverun
Posted 03-22-2009 at 06:31 PM by GreenGSX
We had a full house to day with Mike, Steve, Sean, and myself working to get the car ready for testing at Beaverun. Last Wednesday Steve prepped the trailer hitch by working it over with a wire wheel on the grinder. What started out looking like a lost boat anchor turned out pretty well with some hard work and paint.
The day started out with Mike working on getting the rear bumper off so we could install the trailer hitch. Anybody who's tried to get one of these off will understand how frustrating this can be. Even with a factory service manual finding all the little bolts can be a challenge.
While Mike was working on the back of the car I worked on replacing the leaking front passenger half-shaft and installing the brake cooling ducts. To finish the hitch A little welding and lots of sailor talk was needed.
Sean was the last one show up today and he got the task of installing the new radiator. He didn't get to far before we hit a snag. The inlet and outlet on the new AFCO radiator are 1.25" while the VR4 uses 1.5" so we would either have to fab up adaptors or custom hoses both of which we can't do on a Sunday. Lucky for us my daily driver is a Galant VR4 (#255) and it uses a Evo FMIC and a Griffen radiator. We decided to harvest the radiator and use it in the OLOA VR4. While we were at it we also swapped hoods so the OLOA VR4 will have the a stock white hood and my VR4 will use the carbon fiber hood temporarily. There's nothing wrong with the carbon fiber hood it just doesn't fit with the graphics we want to run and I don't think we have the time to screw around painting the carbon fiber one.
After the radiator was installed and the hood latch reinforced Steve and Mike to her for a test drive. It was my first time seeing it driven by somebody else. Even though its Steve's car after housing it and working on it for the last couple of months it felt a bit odd. It did sound cool and it just looks like it can carve a corner with those big 255's on her. Steve didn't push her to hard but he did emerge from the test drive with a smile. That's a good thing.
On paper it should have been an easy day but when you're out in 40F weather working on a car that just turned 190K miles lots and lots of little things can slow you down. But we were happy to get the one of the brake cooling ducts done, the passenger half-shaft replaced, the trailer hitch installed, the hoods swapped, and the radiator installed. Right now I am happy with the car and its about 95% ready to go. We have one more night this week to whatever we need done before we hit the track.
The day started out with Mike working on getting the rear bumper off so we could install the trailer hitch. Anybody who's tried to get one of these off will understand how frustrating this can be. Even with a factory service manual finding all the little bolts can be a challenge.
While Mike was working on the back of the car I worked on replacing the leaking front passenger half-shaft and installing the brake cooling ducts. To finish the hitch A little welding and lots of sailor talk was needed.
Sean was the last one show up today and he got the task of installing the new radiator. He didn't get to far before we hit a snag. The inlet and outlet on the new AFCO radiator are 1.25" while the VR4 uses 1.5" so we would either have to fab up adaptors or custom hoses both of which we can't do on a Sunday. Lucky for us my daily driver is a Galant VR4 (#255) and it uses a Evo FMIC and a Griffen radiator. We decided to harvest the radiator and use it in the OLOA VR4. While we were at it we also swapped hoods so the OLOA VR4 will have the a stock white hood and my VR4 will use the carbon fiber hood temporarily. There's nothing wrong with the carbon fiber hood it just doesn't fit with the graphics we want to run and I don't think we have the time to screw around painting the carbon fiber one.
After the radiator was installed and the hood latch reinforced Steve and Mike to her for a test drive. It was my first time seeing it driven by somebody else. Even though its Steve's car after housing it and working on it for the last couple of months it felt a bit odd. It did sound cool and it just looks like it can carve a corner with those big 255's on her. Steve didn't push her to hard but he did emerge from the test drive with a smile. That's a good thing.
On paper it should have been an easy day but when you're out in 40F weather working on a car that just turned 190K miles lots and lots of little things can slow you down. But we were happy to get the one of the brake cooling ducts done, the passenger half-shaft replaced, the trailer hitch installed, the hoods swapped, and the radiator installed. Right now I am happy with the car and its about 95% ready to go. We have one more night this week to whatever we need done before we hit the track.
Total Comments 4
Comments
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are you doing autocross or test and tune on the north track, i live 10 min awayPosted 03-23-2009 at 06:37 PM by iron bird
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We are scheduled for two days on the track but if they have the skid pad open or an autocross track to play around on we will do that as well. This trip is all about sorting the car out and getting seat time for the drivers.Posted 03-23-2009 at 06:46 PM by GreenGSX
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did you install the new turbo yet?Posted 03-23-2009 at 09:32 PM by costas14
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We are a bit behind schedule so we decided to do the testing with the L1R so no, the new turbo isn't on the car yet. We have to fab up a new downpipe for the FP3052 and the parts to do that have not come in yet. Getting the new turbo on and the car tuned is first on our list when we get back from testing.Posted 03-24-2009 at 05:03 AM by GreenGSX
