Street Build: 1995 GSX Build - Journey to a 450awhp daily driver

[Dyesuperman]

^Could have been much better considering my mods lol, thanks though




July 30, 2011-August 4, 2011 – Evo Brakes bought and in

Have another update!

I have been considering what I want to buy for my car this fall and have been back and forth on whether or not to buy motor parts or something else that I have been wanting done....these made up my mind. They were a decent price so I jumped on it.

Complete setup, front and rear:
DBA 4000 XS Rotors
Evo calipers with oem pads
Hawk pads

August 4, 2011

Got home today to see a couple of packages in my room...
I wonder what this could be?


Speedbleeders! For all four calipers and my clutch slave cylinder..also a speed bleeder bag to prevent a mess


Next package looked promising as well...


This one contained most of the good stuff! What could possibly have been in there...


Yup, four piston evo front calipers, 2 piston rear calipers, and Hawk pads all the way around. Those front calipers are freaking massive, much bigger than I thought they would be


Rotors will probably be here tomorrow and hopefully my order from extremepsi comes in as well so I can get these babies on

[Dyesuperman]

August 9, 2011 – Hit and Run


WARNING: What you see below may sadden you. If images of shredded metal and torn body parts concern you, please refrain from continuing further.



I woke up and started to leave my girlfriends house when I saw this. Notice the huge curb mark and that the tire is flat…you would think I would remember parking like that.


Thought it was odd that I didn't notice jumping the curb when I parked here, but I was pissed either way cause my wheel was curbed...then I walked around the car.


I can’t even describe the fury and pain that overwhelmed me. I couldn’t even speak. I just sat there thinking what piece of shit lowlife could hit my car this effing hard and not stop? I hope to this day that karma throws him under a bus.

I took the car by a body shop and got a quick estimate…$3700 in damages. Bumper got torn off on the way there because it was rubbing my tire.





At this point I had a decision to make. Keep the car or take my insurance money and run. I loved the car but it had its problems cosmetically. It had an aftermarket sunroof with no headliner so it will be nearly impossible to replace. The paint is only in so-so condition in a few areas. The wiring is a mess in some areas. The A/C was torn out of it. Just some small things that are hard to replace. Plus the fact that it is pretty much totaled. I searched for days looking for another car to swap parts over to and I found a spyder that I almost bought. I was oh so close to buying it and swapping it to AWD, but I didn’t.

Insurance gave me $3900 to fix the car after my deductible. I barely kept the car from being totaled though. First adjuster totaled it. I then sent them a list of all of the aftermarket parts and they decided to not total it. I had a quote to pull the panels out and repaint it for $2000 by a well-known shop. I kept the car. However, I didn’t go to the shop to do the repairs like I should have. I had the panels pulled at one place and then painted at another, which possibly wasn’t as good of a job. I will never know though.


Panels have been pulled.



Those of you that know my car, this is likely the stage of my build you have been waiting for as it leads to the newest look of my car most are familiar with.

I found an amazing deal on a set of red 18x9.5 +35 Advan RG1s.

I figured it was going to be a massive headache getting these things to fit with 255 wide tires…but nope

[Dyesuperman]

August 17, 2011 – Evo Brake Install

Since I decided to keep the car I figured I would go ahead and install the evo brakes finally.


I used brackets based off of kmv's design but made by Shane Steffens. Thought I had everything together but when I went to install the brackets I couldn't find the right size tap. So after driving around town for about 1-2 hours going to all of the parts stores, I randomly stopped by a shop right down the road from my house. I got lucky and they let me borrow the tap I needed! So the install proceeded as planned, but with a slight delay. I opted to grind more and clock them upwards because I think they look better like that and it was well worth it.

Caliper painted after being machined


Some pictures of what has to be grinded to clock them upwards




Old front rotors vs. New rear rotors

Old front rotors vs. New front rotors


Fronts installed


Rears installed


Also installed SS lines to give it a more firm pedal with the stock MC. Feels pretty good to me as is.

[Dyesuperman]

September 2, 2011 – Photoshoot

Now is a good time to show how the car has looked over the months I have owned it.

Its first look

Then I made the HD lip and put my Drag DR-31s on


Then the car was fixed after the hit and run and now had new wheels and brakes as well

[ohyeah]

your car is bada**

[mustard95tsi]

clean build

[Dyesuperman]

^^Thanks guys




Mid October, 2011 – Clutch install and track times


The last venture I had was a clutch install. I have had clutch problems for a while with dragging and a high engagment point so I figured the clutch was shot and the flywheel stepped improperly. I had bought a used southbend 6 puck and act 2600 pressure plate from a friend nearly a year ago for my old car and finally put it to use. Dropped the transmission and swapped the clutch, replaced the tob with oem, shimmed the pivot ball with another washer, had the flywheel stepped to .610 and put it all back together. I thought my issues were finally over when it didn't drag, but the engagement is still high after adjusting the pedal any such way...so I think my slave is shot again.

Went to the track after 100 miles of sort of break in (was told it didn't need a break-in period since it was a used disk and pressure plate) and first pass ran a new best of 12.6@115...but with a 2.1 60'...blah. I either spun extremely badly or the clutch was slipping. The next pass the clutch slipped all through 1-2-3 and then I let off and coasted to the line. Let it sit for a bit then went for another run. It slipped again so I was done for the night and not happy to say the least.

I wanted to see if it would slip on the highway and nothing, except for the shower of sparks behind my car so it was slipping, just not enough to notice apparently. Since then I have just been taking it easy and staying out of WOT to give it a little break-in period at the advice of a vendor on tuners. Not sure went wrong with it but if it still won't hold the trans will be coming back out this winter.

Oh, almost forgot but I also replaced the rear main seal with a new oem one and replaced my oil pan so I could put my -16AN drain line on for when I finally get my holset on. That thing is massive haha. Also installed my new modified downpipe..i need to get a few pictures of these. And I replaced my passenger axle because the boot was torn. I was doing something with my car a couple days ago and now the driver side one is torn though, so looks like I will have to replace that one soon too.

Here's a picture of the clutch disk and pp

And this one shows how much my car hates me..

Clutch fork position

[DSM Chase]

good to see you got her back fresh after that hit n run!

[Dyesuperman]

Me too! But then this happened -_-




October 27, 2011 – Hit and run…again. Old wheel test fit with brembos

You have got to be kidding me…around 2-3 weeks after I get the car back from being painted one of my jackass hick neighbors hits it while pulling out of their parallel parking spot. I am pretty sure I know who it was but I have no proof so it will just be scraped up for a while. The best part? It was the last night the car would ever be parked outside overnight as the next day I moved into a new house with a garage.






In other news, test fitted my other wheels.

Gram Lights aren’t going to clear without a 17mm spacer…


Drags fit fine though, my new winter wheels

[Dyesuperman]

November 18, 2011 – Moved. Black interior, vented hood, misc acquired

Moved into a new house since the last update Car now has a new home and will be garaged every night

Meanwhile, I worked out some trades with a couple friends

I traded an aeromotive afpr I had lying around from my previous build for this

I then traded the NOS parts to a friend that has a GTO and plans to spray it. It pays having good friends


Hey these are pretty nice

Oh but what's this?

Noo...could it be?


Why yes, yes it could full black interior!!!! Well, almost...it's everything that will work in my car from a spyder. Also, a few more goodies...

Fog lights, covers, clear turn signals, reverse lights, other random crap


Also getting a pretty beat up evo style carbon fiber hood I'll be sanding it down back to the carbon fiber and see if I can work with the current hood pin locations (they are uneven, I'm hoping I can even it up with aerocatch latches)


I have the dash too, just haven't picked it up yet. Literally everything black that was in his car I took. Plus the other random goodies.

Now for the best part...I paid $15....for all of it!!

[ezspooling]

Damn good deal! I'm jealous lol

[boostwhipped24]

Sick build man i just read the whole thing lol. I just posted my build thread on here also today, you should check it out. I live down here in columbia we should meet up sometime. Also you should check out our local missouri car website. Its midwestce.net

[Dyesuperman]

Originally Posted by boostwhipped24

Sick build man i just read the whole thing lol. I just posted my build thread on here also today, you should check it out. I live down here in columbia we should meet up sometime. Also you should check out our local missouri car website. Its midwestce.net

Cool cool, just created an account there. My sister goes to school at Mizzou so maybe I could use a meet up there as an excuse to visit her





November 29, 2011 – Stripping the vented hood

As I mentioned and posted earlier, I got a vented hood in the trade so started stripping it down back to the carbon fiber. I started sanding at about 3:30 with a fine grit sponge (not sure what grit, I would guess 300 ish). Well that was taking forever so I switched to 150grit sand paper..that took forever too so I switched to 60grit. That worked a little better but at this rate it will still take me a good week to get this thing stripped down to the carbon fiber. And that isn't even including if its salvageable and I have to strip the gel off too.

Here is the hood

After 1.5 hours of sanding...


I will be cutting out the middle divider in the vent and seeing if an actual evo's mesh will fit in the hole with some trimming… (it doesn’t for those that are curious)

I scrapped the sanding idea and got some advice about using paint stripper...so I have half the hood stripped and no ill affects yet. I need to smooth out the part I began sanding on with the coarse sandpaper but that's not too involved either. I will finish up with 500 grit sandpaper to take out any deep scratches in the hood and then go from there.

Here is the progress so far!
Bought this

Tested it on the piece I'll be cutting out

Looks good to me! Except or the cracks and sanding marks from when it was painted..

So I covered a big portion of the hood..after first coat

Second coat


I had to leave for work so I wiped the stripper off and will continue tonight. It seems to eat the paint and make it bubble up, then the second coat makes the primer turn to liquid and easy to scrape off..it's messy though! I’ll be working on this at various times throughout the winter so updates will be sporadic :P

[Sebba]

I love the DR31s. What's the size/offset and tire size?

[Dyesuperman]

Originally Posted by Sebba

I love the DR31s. What's the size/offset and tire size?

Thanks The DR31s were 18x8 +35 with a 235/40/18 tire





December 30, 2011 – Parts hoarding, master/slave cylinder replaced and no cutting required intake ducting


Well first off, I replaced the slave cylinder and master cylinder the 3rd of this month but it didn’t seem like it was a big enough update to put in a separate post since it is nothing special. I put in full SS line from master to slave and bled it using my speed bleeder. Put in an Autozone master at first then just went ahead and bought an OEM master to be safe so that is what is in it now. Clutch still engages at the top of the pedal and with the rod adjusted all the way out the clutch fork can still be pressed in…beats me what the heck is up with it.



I picked up a few more parts to go on the car over my winter break from class. I should be putting this on before summer sometime but no idea when.

Complete low-mile AC setup - $125 shipped
OEM composite headgasket - 30 shipped
Picked up the following for 120 shipped
-OEM water pump with 2k on it
-OEM timing tensioner with 8k on it
-OEM tensioner and idle pulley, new

Parts collection is building up (to be put on the car, you don’t even want to see what’s in the attic)




Now onto the intake ducting…

Home Depot is at it again My intake temps were extremely high during the summer so I fabbed up some intake ducting to help out for the upcoming summer. I have yet to seal off the filter to the ducting as I am trying to decide the cleanest way to do so, but this should help as is nonetheless.

First of all, I had to compare prices. Lowes and Home Depot were very close in pricing so I just went to the one that was most convenient at the time, in this case Lowes. The pictures are from Home Depot but they are the same parts.

I bought:
6" 90' Adjustable Ducting

6" to 4" Reducer Ducting

4" 90' Adjustable Ducting (I know it says 3" but it looks exactly like this)

And the last piece I didn't get a picture of at the store because I found it last minute but it is just a 4" piece that has slots already cut in one end to folder over in a non-circular hole. I believe it said circle to square adapter or something like that. You will see what it is in the pictures later.

So began the fabbing up.
I attached the circle-square adapter piece to the factory smic piping hole. I had to kind of work with it to get the tabs up far enough but it will work with some force and coercing. Once you have it up far enough just grab some pliers or something and start bending the tabs over like such.

At this point you should have this


So now you want to take off two of the slidable adjusting pieces on the 6" ducting. No pictures of this but you can just bend the piece in and it will pop out. The pieces aren't held in by anything. You want to take off the pieces on the opposite side of the reduced end so it can slide into your 6"-4" reducer...hard to explain but you will understand once you look at it. These pieces are taken off so the ducting will fit.

At this point I attached the 6" adjustable piece to the 6"-4" reducer, and the reducer to the 90' 4" adjustable piece like so.


The 6" piece slides over the side vent on the front bumper perfectly. I slid it over the vent (with everything together) then manuevered the ducting with the adjustable 4" piece to attach it to the circle-square adapter that was put on earlier. I pushed all of the attachments together as hard as I could so they didn't separate and sat back and enjoyed the easiness of the project. Total cost was $21 I believe. I coated it in some cheapo black paint for now so it isn't as obvious.

[Sebba]

Thanks for the fast reply! I like your duct it's simple, cheap, and most likely very effective.

[Dyesuperman]

January 3, 2012 - Road trip pictures over the holidays

And it isn't even that dirty! Most of my family lives in Arkansas so I traveled down there for Christmas. The roads were a little wet/dirty going down highway 7 but I figured I would stop and take a few pictures of the scenery anyhow. Enjoy :-D

[tametalon92]

probably one of the most enjoying build threads ive followed, and ive read alot of 65+ page ones with lots of pics. very nice car, the red on black pops nice, and the fixing of the car impresses me and tells me: you, sir, are a true enthusiast and passionate about your car. long live your GSX, and remember, NVRLFT.

[Dyesuperman]

Thanks man



January 4, 2012 – Black Interior Install

As I said earlier, I acquired most of the pieces for a black interior and I finally got around to swapping out the dash. Sorry for the crappy pictures, my iPhone seems to have crapped out that day lol. New updates as of February 21, 2012 will contain nice pictures taken with a dslr

Center console removed, gray dash still in

Airbag removed and other such things

Let's get this thing outta here!

....This looks like crap...time for rewiring...

So much wiring...

Dash out

Encountered a small problem...dash harnesses were different :/

Time to swap them out

Got the wiring swapped out and realized I didn't like how crappy the roof looked without headliner and the aftermarket sunroof wires running everywhere (NOT my doing)..didn't work anyways



Manual sunroof conversion done Much cleaner...for what it is anyways


Ok, so in with the black dash. Had to swap out the VIN plates as well

Its in!

[KNIGHT132]

I would wipe that hood down with acetone and let it set out in the sun or in the booth for a while before spraying it.. That stripper is bad news when being used on fiberglass or cf because its fairly porous and the stripper will soak into it.. Acetone is a very quick evaporating cleaner, esp good for prepping fiberglass and cf.

Looks good.. Is that metallic black a factory color? or from a different car? I am spraying mine Cosmos black from the BMW which has a very similar flop

[Dyesuperman]

Originally Posted by KNIGHT132

I would wipe that hood down with acetone and let it set out in the sun or in the booth for a while before spraying it.. That stripper is bad news when being used on fiberglass or cf because its fairly porous and the stripper will soak into it.. Acetone is a very quick evaporating cleaner, esp good for prepping fiberglass and cf.

Looks good.. Is that metallic black a factory color? or from a different car? I am spraying mine Cosmos black from the BMW which has a very similar flop

It is fiberglass safe stripper so it should be ok but I do plan to clean it well before painting it. Thanks for the advice

The color is pxr (Dodge/Chrysler color, brilliant black metallic) with a little bit of gold pearl mixed in. I love it






January 6, 2012 – Removed wheel spacers, solid carrier bushings, solid motor mount


I still need to fix the SRS light that came on after the dash swap but I did a few more things to the car.

First of all, I have a strange grinding/rattling sound from my drivetrain. I jacked the car up to see if the carrier bearings may be torn or sagging or anything and they looked fine. Decided to go ahead and install my solid carrier bearing bushings though.


I am tired of my tires rubbing on the outer fender so I wanted to double check that the spacer was needed before I tried to roll the fenders some more. Seems that these tires are a little less wide than my other ones because I have plenty of clearance without the spacers! I should have less rubbing problems now :fyeah



Goodbye spacer


Went around to take the other spacer off and noticed something odd with the caliper and rotor...the edge of the rotor was a little rusty (the other side is shiny). Can anyone see the problem with the caliper?


What about now? This is after I fixed it


If you guessed that the pins were out, you are correct! I don't know how they backed out but I am glad that I caught this now before something worse happened.


And last but definitely not least, I installed a solid front motor mount.


I wasn't really expecting it to make too much of a difference, but wow. Shifts feel sooo much better just driving to work and it doesn't seem like there is any slop. And this is only with the front one installed! I don't even know if I will proceed to install the rear one because it may not be needed. I can't even tell a difference in vibrations as I already had the front prothane insert in and prothane side mounts. This is a very good mod though

[boostwhipped24]

this car is definatly sick man. I cant wait to hopefully see this thing come may

[Dyesuperman]

Originally Posted by boostwhipped24

this car is definatly sick man. I cant wait to hopefully see this thing come may

I'm planning on making it to the meet if the weekend lines up for me so count on me being there :P





January 11, 2012 – More work on the hood


Got bored last night and decided to work on my hood again. Decided to bring a new weapon to attack the paint with...


So yet again, put on the stripper and let it sit


Let it sit for a while and then scraped/wiped off the paint and primer. Did that 2 more times and still didn't get it all off


Started working on it this morning and decided to use the stripper again so I could just wipe off the primer


Finally got it to this point after wet sanding and then taking it outside for some more regular sanding. The filler still needs to be sanded off and then inside of the side vents but it's almost there





I am probably just going to spray it with plasti dip until I save up money for paint. I would rather do something temporary than attempt to paint it myself and have to do this process all over again

[meliketoball]

I say keep the stock hood.

[Dyesuperman]

Originally Posted by meliketoball

I say keep the stock hood.

I would if I didn't overheat last summer WITHOUT a/c...I am putting the a/c back in for this summer so I have to have vents of some kind or else it will be a sure thing that I will overheat

Oh, and it isn't my most preferred hood of choice but it was free so why not. And I cut out that center divider, never liked it

[95eclipser]

love this build history

[sypherzero]

Very impressive build! Its actually one that gives people like myself hope that my car will eventually be finished. One day...

[Dyesuperman]

^^Good to hear!


January 12, 2012 – Snow Pictures



SSNNNOOOOOWWWWWW!!!!!!!
Nothing too special, just took some pictures out in the snow before it disappeared.

Good thing it was tucked away all night

[shampoo]

Holy smokes your car is low. If you drove it in the winter up here in Toronto, you'd be plowing the streets!

Fantastic ride man. So sleek. I am so damn jealous. Haha.

I'm just hoping to get my rust bucket up and running before spring.

Have someone working on it for me.

[Dyesuperman]

Haha this winter was very very mild around here so what you see there is the most snow that we got pretty much. It snowed last week but was gone the next day as well. Next winter it will be raised and have winter wheels on it but I just never bothered this winter since snow was never in the forecast haha.



January 20, 2012 – Turbonetics Housing Machined for Holset


Housing has been machined for the holset exhaust wheel




Fits perfectly!