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Stoked to be Stroked! – Part 4

Part 4 of the G4CS swap process.

Transmission Problems - January 18, 2010

Well with news my engine is going to be done this week from the machine shop, I had to start spending some cold nights out in the garage.

I started working on my transmission and shifting assembly. I started by jb welding the roller skate bearings together. I went ahead and did all 8 and figure I will either sell them or have them laying around as a DSM gift to a DSM buddy who helps me out :thumb: (should have thought of little gifts like that as stocking stuffers) :p

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Now I remember when I pulled my transmission off seeing small scratches in the bell housing. Well I figured since I was trying to put my transmission back on with the engine still in the car during my clutch swap, I am 100% sure I scratched it some trying to force it on there from under the car. But last night as I tried to start cleaning up the transmission, I noticed some of the black grime wasn't just dirt.

It looks like part of the retaining clip/washer holder/throw out bearing assembly was completely destroyed. The washer behind the throw out bearing was also damaged, it has huge gashes in it probably from little chunks of metal being stuck there. I wonder if that has anything to do with my clutch never feeling the same as the first week I drove it, and being squishy. I don't think I caused any permanent damage, but it is hard to imagine the only thing that happened were a few scratches; I am sure it could have been alot worse. If anyone knows that the part numbers for any of these pieces or what they are called, please let me know.

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Besides that, I discovered the bearing in my ebay short shifter crapped out on me. I don't know how, and I don't know why, but I don't think it is fixable and will probably end up having to buy another one. Just one more thing that is going to cost me money :D

G4CS Machined! - January 22, 2010

Well sooner than expected, the engine has been machined!!!

Rob's Machine Shop out in Hayward California pulled a fast one for me, having the block done in a little over 5 days. (two of which were weekend) Very satified with their work.

My crank only needed a polish, which was nice! :thumb:

Block and head were both decked for the Cometic HG.

Had it line honed with the girdle, bored with a torque plate, and the flux core prove everything was in working order! Even the head's valves were all seated properly already! I will lap them for good measure because I'm putting new springs in anyways, but this is all great great news!

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G4CS Short Block Assembly - January 24, 2010

While I had to wait for a friend with the tools to work on the pistons rings, I contemplated what I could work on. So I just began preparing the block.

First off I tried to get working on the Balance Shafts. The bearings are stuck in the block and I tried to get them out. I was told to use a 32mm socket, but when I used mine it was too small, it just barely fit through the bearing. I don't have any other ideas how I am gonna get it out of there, I am open to ideas folks..

So than I started working on installing the crank. Just to document, for my sake, the oil clearences for the crank, I decided to use some plastic gauge on the crank.

DO NOT PUT LUBE ON THE BACK OF THE BEARINGS!!! I SPENT THE FOLLOWING NIGHT REDOING MY CRANK BECAUSE OF THIS!!

I liberally applied red line assembly lube on the crank and mains and pressed in the standard bore ACL race bearings. Grooved bearings go into the block, non grooved go into the caps, and the bearing with the raised flanges went on bearing no. 3, or the middle one.

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Once those were put in, I drop the crank in WITHOUT lube, just a small piece of plastic gauge, than put on the caps. I tightened down the ARP main studs in the order the Factory Service Manual called for in 3 increments, 30 lbs, 45 lbs, and 60 lbs.

I than detorqued the arps nuts in a similar fashion and checked my results...

Perfect!!!ish!! .002 on all 5, with maybe one or two at .00175. On the tight side, but I think that will work for me.

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I than cleaned off all of the plastic gauge and than pulled the crank out. I lubed up the crank, the bearings, spun the crank and lubbed some more. I put the main caps back on with more lubs and made sure they were all level.

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I than tightened everything in the same three torqueing steps: 30 lbs, 45lbs, and 60 lbs. 60 lbs is what the ARP main called for in their instructions, I just followed the Factory Service manual in the order in which to tighten.

Once everything was together, I spun the crank for the first time with it all together, and like it was supposed to, it spun freely! :thumb:

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And tonight, I hope to finish up prepping the block for a fresh coat of paint, and hopefully a solution to the BS bearing removal.
 

Stoked to be Stroked! – Part 5

Part 5 of the G4CS swap process.

G4CS Short Block and More Complete - February 7, 2010

My first engine build is coming along pretty smoothly, aside from taking alot longer than expected. I had ALL 3 :p of the other local DSMers in Tracy come out and pitch in, they were working on my car, their cars, there was beer, music; its the atmosphere I been missing for a long time.

I already had redone the crank (thanks for the input last time dsmtuners!) and when my friends all showed up, we put our game face on. :hellyeah:

First, the night before with another car ethusiast, we spent a good 3 hours hand sanding the block the best we could to get a nicer base to paint the engine on. Trying to keep it civil, I just painted it a low gloss black with hi temp engine enamel. Per instructions and research, I used no primer, and did 2 light coats of paint, and one medium coat. The block was already black, so if nothing else this just freshened the 20 year old block up.

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After the block was drying for a good 24 hours, the gang showed up. He fixed up my ETS FMIC hole really good, no more leaks there :)

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With a huge set of size 20mm - 40mm sockets, getting the balance shaft bearings out was cake with the assortment of options we had. We popped those out and than put in the new ones in.

We tapped in the freeze plugs coated with some hi-temp RTV to ensure no leaks. It was at this time my friend had realized I didn't own a hammer.... We tapped them in with a crow bar, breaker bar, 1/2" ratchet, w/e was handy to get the job done :coy:

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Pistons were filed to have a top ring gap of .020 and a bottom ring of .022. By recommendations from my machinist, he said a normal top ring by specification and a tighter bottom ring. This process took entirely longer than I thought it would, but it is a very slow meticulous process, you can always remove more material from the rings but its real hard to put it back :p

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The piston's wrist pins were installed to the eagle rods and and the rings were installed on the pistons. Everything was going pretty smoothly until is came time to install the rod bearings. The caps all removed without too much fuss, all except one. We probably spent a good 30 mins trying to remove this cap off this rod!! :confused: In the end we shoved a beer bottle into the end of the rod with some shop towels for protection and that popped it off eventually. Layed the ACL bearings in there (without assembly lube behind them LOL) and coated the top side of the bearings with assembly lube.

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Put the crank with 2 and 3 dead center bottom to make sure we didn't nick anything with the rod on the way down. Coated the cylinder walls with some oil and put the piston in the ring compressor and carefully tapped them in. Put the rod cap on from underneath the engine and torque it down to eagle specs (forget off the top my head) Did the same to the crank for 1 and 4 and ... BAM short block assembled! :rocks:

But it didn't stop there! :nono:

We cleaned the threads on the block before inserting the ARP head studs. For good measure, we used some assemble lube on the block side while threading them in, as they were still pretty snug being finger tightened into the block.

The 1g head got some work too. Using a c clamp type spring compressor, we removed all of the lock pins and removed the springs from the head. I than carefully lapped all the valves. The shop said they were all seated properly, but I lapped them anyways to get a nice smooth silver ring around and between the valve and head mating surfaces. That took 10 seconds to type out, but it took 2 hours to actually complete. Very time consuming, and the lap suction cup kept popping off, probably because the valves themselves were pretty grimy. I will have to go back and dremel clean and polish them up good as new. I went ahead and decided to replace the valve stem seals; for 20 bucks I don't have to worry about it again; do it once and do it right... While I wait to finish collecting all the small parts I forgot to order the first time around, I couldn't put in my new beehive evo 8 springs and retainers, so that will have to wait for another day.

I did have an issue with my new ARP crank bolt. It doesn't thread into the crank. The 6 bolt crank donor bolt fits into the g4cs crank just fine, but this ARP does not. Has anyone had any issues with this? Do I ask for the vendor to send me a new one or what? I can finger thread the 6 bolt bolt, I shouldn't have to force my ARP right?

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Than I started preparing the timing side of the block. I have been waiting for this day for a while. I have had two medium sized blocks with 1g parts in them for months, and I couldn't wait to clean them up and put them back to work. HOWEVER, it appears by the time I got to the bolts on the front case, water pump, ect I started to get lazy (or if I remember correctly, my friends got impatient) and I stopped labeling plastic baggies and putting bolts into my box in an organized manner. So it took me a few hours of cleaning bolts and sizing them up to trying to match them with the factory service manual.

In between cleaning bolts and measuring, I worked on some of my other new shiny oem parts. The front case needed the BSE plug installed. Per my friend's experience, JBweld melts at that plug, and instead preferred to use again Hi-temp RTV to seal the plug in there. To be honest, the plug was plenty tight and I don't think it will back out, the RTV should seal any small oil trying to get through, I'm satisfied with the decision. I did however find that the front case I ordered did not come with the oil pump gears, drive or driven. EXTREMELY unhappy with finding that, it set the pace for the rest of the night that it was just going to be mock fitting everything.

The water pump was pretty self explanatory; the factory service manual said the bolts were marked with a 4 on the head on 4 of the bolts and a 7 on the 5th bolt. Well looking at all the bolts i had from the disassembly of the donor 6 bolt, there was no way I was going to be able to match it perfectly. I seriously doubt it matters what the markings are, I got bolts to length that threaded into the holes and ended up with 3 bolts with 7s on them and 2 with 4. Oh well; it’s not the end of the world.

I ported the oil filter housing as well. While mine wasn't as extreme as I've seen on tuners, I widen the hole more which is more than it is from the factory. Unless you guys think it is WAY to small, I am to assume I can just roll with it.

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Last part of the night was making adjustments to my 2g motor mount. I started to do it with the dremel, but after 3 cutting wheels got ate up, my friends showed me a whole new world..... AN ANGLE GRINDER!! Oh the joys of modern technology. Boy do I need to get me one of them. I said I need to cut here, he asked how much, I told him, he said ok, and bam.. it was done in 3-5 seconds. He cleaned it up with a die grinder, and oh god, I am in love. The mount looks amazing!

stock:
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Modded:
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My next goals are going to have to be making my sand blast box, because its time to pretty up the used parts some. :D

Well that's it for updates. see you guys next time! :thumb:

 

Stoked to be Stroked! – Part 6

Part 6 of the G4CS swap process.

G4CS Long Block and More Complete - February 11, 2010

Well I been cracking away at the build more silently lately, trying to knock this bad boy out! Well today I am a few accessories from completing the engine.

To catch you guys up, here are some pictures!

I worked on getting some of the accessories on the timing belt side while I was waiting for some assorted random oem parts to come in. One of the harder parts was taking my bag of bolts for the timing side of the engine and trying to match them up to where they go on the front case, ect.

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Without some of the on order parts, I spent a few days filling time by cleaning the engine bay better, installing my FP 255 fuel pump, and cleaning random 6 bolt parts. With the help of my trusty dremel, I cleaned up some old gasket material to ensure a perfect seal on things like thermostat housing, intake manifold, rear main seal, ect.

The plan was to sand blast and powder coat almost everything on the engine; well I am over budget need to finish this up. This is going to be a race car, so I guess looks should be second to performance.

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Part of the shipment came in, the non OEM stuff, which was just the spark plugs..... and the valve seals! I could finally finish my head and get it on the engine. I just following vfaq and used a sears valve spring compressor with socket cut out to get to retainers. I lapped the valves for like 3 hours, and assembled the head with the following parts:

Supertech Valve seals intake and exhaust
Evo 8 Valve springs
Topline 3G Lifters
Reused OEM valves and rockers
HKS 272/272

The half of the retaining clips going in was purely learning experience, and the second half of the head went much smoother by that time. They really are pretty tricky to get in there right. Pics!

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Head bolts in

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Head Gasket on

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I didn't have the usual spot to thread my knock sensor into, so I used this spot above the A/C bracket between two cylinders.

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And here it was after being torqued down with the ARP hardware. Sorry there isn't more in progress pictures, I been capturing this hole build via a HD camcorder ;)

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The next day I spent attaching the Intake manifold, 1G fuel rail, fabbing up my own EGR block off plate, and realizing the plug from the '90 Oil Filter Housing that I needed to remove to run oil to my turbo from it was a perfect fit into the hole in the upper Thermostat neck.

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Stoked to be Stroked! – Part 7

Part 7 of the G4CS swap process.

G4CS Long Block and More Complete - February 11, 2010

To begin I pulled out all of the bolts on the timing side of the engine and put them back in all torqued to spec and using blue loctite. The only bolts that didn't get blue loctite were bolts that got red loctite, like the crank bolt and the oil sprocket nut.

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I was told a new ARP crankshaft bolt was on its way, but the vendor kind of dropped off the side of the earth, issued no tracking number, and I couldn't keep waiting around all month for it to magically show up. I used the original ARP crank bolt I had, cutting the bolt threads til the point I could get the bolt threaded in the crank. It was still very snug, but could now thread in and out of the crankshaft, and the stock bolt still threaded in just as easily as before.

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The crank key was tricky to get into its groove. I spent a good 10-15 mins trying to figure out how to fit the sucker in there, but eventually it slipped in. I got the BS sprocket removed and replaced with a spacer, than the trigger plate, and than the crank sprocket. Got that bad boy tightened down using the shop rag between the crank and block trick.

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I lubed up the head real good, and recoated the camshafts with some assembly lube. I put the cam gear seals with the flat side facing out. Everywhere I could read, forms, haynes, FSM, no where could I find how the seal was supposed to go in, they all just say, it goes in. Hopefully I am right thought; flat side facing away from the engine. I made sure the engine had Piston 1 at TDC, and than with dowel pins on camshafts facing 12:00, I tightened the camshafts down, again with all blue locktite.

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Now onto my first timing belt job. And boy was I in for a surprise. For the first 6 hours of the day, I tried to get my engine's timing belt on and get everything to line up. Every time it didn't line up, I just tried again from the beginning. I thought maybe I had the tensioner wrong, or I had one of the gears wrong, or something. Every time it seemed to be off by half a tooth or so.

Well after some heavy deliberating, searching the forums on how to do a timing belt, it occurred to me that something very important had slipped my mind...

G4CS is a 2.4 and the 2.0 gears have to be remarked!!

Well I am posting this as a statement, but would appreciate this answered as if presented as a question. Based off the ExtremePSI picture, the mark is off by half a tooth further in the clockwise position than it is on a 2.0 gear. (Different color Fidanza than I have, but you get the idea.)

2.4:
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2.0:
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I counted teeth and used that logic. When I set my exhaust camshaft free, it still wanted to rotate one tooth counter clockwise as mentioned in all the timing belt threads. ASSUMING I am right, I got the timing belt done, spun the engine 6 times and everything still lines up, no valves hit, everything is very smooth.

You can see on the close up of the exhaust and intake cam, half a tooth clockwise would be perfectly lined up, and parallel to the head. And the crankshaft and oil pump still line up perfectly as well. (I timed the oil pump just because, the perfectionist in me wouldn't not let it be)

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There is about 4.1mm protruding out on that tensioner, right in the middle of the fsm numbers of 3.8mm and 4.5mm. That took a few tries, I just used my hands, no tensioner pulley tool, to set the tensioner pulley. vfaq said I could, and as I had no way to thread the tensioner tool into the arm anyways, setting the tensioner pulley would have been double hard even with the tool. Assuming the tensioner protruding the right amount out is verification of being correct tension, I should have everything set right I believe. Again with the blue loctite, keeping that tensioner pulley set for years to come should be locked in place.

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Here is the completed long block.

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This doesn't really belong in this blog, but hey look at my 4g63 Oil pump pick up, pretty snazzy eh? I couldn't just cut off and leave half of a arm sticking out, so I did my best to grind it all down, leaving some there as to make sure I didn't put any holes in the pick up tube on accident. I like it though :rocks:

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Once I get verification on the base timing, I can look into the final steps and preparation for my engine. Wiring harness is at the point of needing the engine in the car to finish, and I got all the cool plugs for blocking up all the holes left from removed components from the vehicle. HUGE thanks goes out to Eric and Brian again for finding OEM plugs to tidy up the look.

The light!!! I CAN SEE THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL!!!! ROFL

 

Stoked to be Stroked! – Part 8

Part 8 of the G4CS swap process.

Into the DSM - March 22, 2010

Today is a great day in Atuca DSM History....

the G4CS is in its home, my DSM

Beginning this blog, I got myself a GM alternator from a junkyard car. It was the newest I could fine with the least amount of miles, there were ALOT of Saturns laying around LOL, I'd guess a couple dozen or so.

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Once I got back home I started the long grinding process with my dremel. It took longer than 20-30 mins, but it did eventually get grinded down right. I don't have a 1g Alternator bracket, and I think I was supposed to have one, however I was told to use all 2g accessories for a 6 bolt swap. Maybe I read wrong, but whatever. I made my own longer adjusting bolt, and it works just fine. I got it tensioned and it should be fine.

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I ended up redoing my cam degreeing and put my cams at 3.5* advance on both the intake and exhaust. I did as the tech article said with the solid lifters this time and still my opening and closing degrees were off by different amounts from the HKS cam card. All I could do was measure piston to valve clearances and call it a day, I'll have to do degreeing a 3rd time later.

You can see the timing belt cover on there now behind my fluidamper balancer. I painted my green top 92 CAS black by removing the cover and sanding down and spray painting. It just looked funny having everthing in my engine bay black piping and silver and having a green top CAS. Hopefully in the future I can score a real black top at a junkyard, but for now this works.

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I got the TB installed with the new gaskets and the tb elbow, just so I could blue locktite and torque to spec.

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I also had some issues with my thermostat housing. I didn't want to have to weld since I don't have access to a welder now, and really, I just want it to look clean as possible. What I settled with was a 90 non turbo 6 bolt thermostat housing. That housing doesn't have a nipple for oil cooler or turbo but still has spots for my sensors. Now since I am running and plan on swapping to a water cooled turbo, I used the FIAV coolant passage in the back of the housing for the turbo. HOWEVER, I am still running a FIAV for now until I can get a block off plate and decide if I want to keep the IAC if with DSMlink I can do without it. So the plug in the back of all 6 bolt housing was removed and I inserted a nipple in there, that way when I remove the coolant from the TB, I just reinsert the plug and bam! easy! done! I need to think more on it, and now is not the time to stop and think anymore, got to get done by Friday!!

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I don't want to talk about it too much, but it took me literally 3 days to get out exhaust manifold studs stuck in my head. I don't even know how you break those bolts, I really don't, but the idiot who did, GOOD FU(KING JOB!!! I had to drill through the harden metal that are those studs and "easy out" them. (yea not easy).. I can document 12 hours working on those bolts, I had 3 to get out, you do the math >.<

In between fighting with that though I was working on putting the water pipe on, power steering bracket, and ect stuff like that to keep my sanity between drilling those stupid things. FFS, anyways, new studs installed and the FP Exhaust manifold set up. I reused a RRE 4 layer copper gasket, sprayed with Copper Spray.

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I don't have pictures, but mocking up my water lines and oil lines has been a little harder than I expected, to put it gently. I am running an old ebay 16g for break in period. It doesn't have much shaft play, so should be good to rock and roll for the purposes I have for it, but I feel like getting the water lines and oil lines for it shouldn't be so difficult. The turbo came off a 2g, so the lines are all pre bent for it, and when I went to bend them for a 1g motor, the lines just kinked on me. I'll have it figured out for the first start up, but I'll be doing a much cleaner prettier job for the 3052.

Oh new cherry picker.

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I got the motor up on the engine hoist and started fitting the flywheel setup on. I realized that I had an auto bushing. OH SHEEEET!!! Search DSMtuners and just look at all the threads where people b!tched about that little bastard from hell. People would rather have teeth pulled without anesthesia than have to work on this bushing. However, after pulling on it with pliers for 15 minutes or so, I tried the tactic I read before. Because I didn't understand how it worked didn't try it originally, but let me just share with you once again how it works:


Shove wet toilet paper into the hole, and using a socket with attached extension, start banging it it. Great!

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The toilet paper gets smashed in and than nothing happens, amazing. It either gets stuck in the hole, or in your socket. That is ok, just shove more toilet paper into the hole and start pounding again. You'll hear the difference between hitting toilet paper in and hitting the crank with your socket. When you hear metal on metal, pull your socket out and add more toilet paper. And just like black ninja magic:

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The bushing pops out and the toilet paper you been bashing in there is now hard as a rock and replaced your bushing. Lucky you scraping out toilet paper is easier than scraping out that bushing.

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With that out of the way, I bolted up my new 6 bolt ACT streetlite flywheel. I reused my old ACT 2900 Pressure plate and street disc. Its all banged up on the surface from the old ACT ToB destruction, but the inside disc surfaces is fine.

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Moments before setting up the motor mounts...

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and as the sun went down....

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Now lets see if I can meet my Friday dealine to get the car rewired and on the road. I have a feeling I won't be updating until the car is started or I am stuck paying to have it towed 100+ miles to its new home.

Either way, until next time!

Its ALIVE – April 6, 2010


The car was first turned on Monday night, March 29, 2010.

There were almost absolutely no problems.

The only problems were problems that had I been given more time to complete, would not have been issues. The battery relocation ended short, at the passengers' feet using the stock battery cables. I had already sold the bracket and tie down months before, so for the cars maiden voyage, the battery had to rest there.

The wiring/fuse box relocation I was very worried about. Once the engine was in the car, it took only a week to get it completed. The wires that need to be cut shorter are still not, but the wires the needed lengthened were done, taking wire from the plenty of extra I had. I still want to finish the wiring and with the time I have now, I will soon.

The new Aeromotive AFPR and FP 255 fuel pump worked out very well. No leaks, steady fuel pressures, and unexpectedly, fuel pressure is held a few minutes after the car is turned off, the next day 20 lbs can still be read off the pressure gauge.

I hooked up DSMlink and started to set all the settings I needed for first turn on (fuel injectors are pte1000s, idle, ect) Everything seemed to work just fine.

I primed the engine for 30 seconds with the engine fuse pulled, and power went everywhere it was supposed to. Headlights worked, brakes, interior switches, all good. With the camera rolling, I went to turn it on for the first time...

All power in the car gone, no lights, nothing.

My stomach sunk into the depths of my shoes, I shot the wiring. I checked all the fuses, nothing blew. So what went wrong?

I hit up snowborder asked if he had any ideas. He suggested I check grounds, and suddenly a gleam of hope. In the rush I was in setting up the battery, I didn't attach the grounding cable at the intake manifold, nor did I ground the second ground cable to the chassis, I only attached to the engine block.

Thinking little of it, I went ahead and grounded the battery properly, had to reset DSMlink (I am so glad v3 has the memory board, can't wait to upgrade..) and went for start attempt number 2...

ITS ALIVE!!!!!

The 2.4 G4CS was running and really thinking back, quite flawlessly. It initially idled at about 2k for about 5 mins, the lifters were very loud and ticked for about 10 minutes, but after its initial start, the car has been very consistent.

My check list of things to fix include:

oil leak at the oil return line form turbo.. (FFS that is why I wanted to weld the AN fitting...) and an undetermined oil leak at the bottom/back of the engine block. Its possible it is a leak from the oil pan seal, or it could just be the oil leak from the turbo return line and it just ran back there from the wind on its first drive.

Exhaust leak at o2 housing to downpipe (I expected that.. no gasket used. However i did read that a race team somewhere on tuners claims they never use exhaust gaskets and just a clean flat mating surface is all you need. Wish I could find who they were again)

Wrap wiring up and route it through "permanent" zip tie mounts

Install intake (the coolant hoses from the water pipe had holes in them from being bent, probably by me. I had to uses rubber houses on what was left of the hard lines. No leaks, but the wide turns and bends the coolant hoses created made it impossible to install the intake pipe.

There are a dozen other things that need to be done still, but nothing more than I expected. Tuesday, the next day, I drove the eclipse 50 miles on its first trip to its new home.

The butt dyno results are in...., this thing is a torque monster.

It was hard to drive without being in boost. Its first drive had a lot of freeway. Since I was breaking it in on this drive, I just revved it to about 5k rpm, and then let it decelerate all in 3rd gear. I changed it up to 4th and 5th throughout the drive for some cool down, but overall I was very happy.

I can't wait to put the new turbo in it, fix these issues, and really get some track time with it. I should note I moved to a county IN CALIFORNIA, without smog requirements. The possibility of a weekend drive are not out of the question, and has gotten me very happy to be back behind the wheel of a DSM.

1999 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX - GSseX Season 3 - YouTube

I am very grateful for dsmtuners to be here to help like it has; it turned someone who couldn't change their own oil 3 years ago into what you see today. I appreciate all the help dsmtuners has given me and can't wait to start giving back more with the knowledge I gained during this build!

I'll spare this blog of the sappy individual "thank yous" (for now) but to everyone who helped, THANK YOU!!

BOOST ON!

 
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Shifting to Georgia

After I lost my job, for almost 2 years the DSM sat at my parents' house neglected while I was unemployed. I got contract jobs here and there, but nothing steady enough to continue the expensive hobby that is a DSM race car.

I did do many of the free "to-do" things on my list after it got to my parents' house. Redid the wiring some, cleaned things up, changed oil, ect, but for the most part it just sat. Pretty depressing...

Through a friend, I was offered a job in Atlanta, GA. I took the job and soon as I felt comfortable, I shipped the DSM to me.

These are their stories.

The Move to GA - March 16, 2012

I shopped around trying to find a reputable shipping company. There are dozens and dozens, and I found that generally speaking, they are all brokers and the truck that ships the vehicle is contracted through the company I place my order.

For 900 bucks I was able to ship the DSM from California to Georgia. I had a friend in California drive my DSM to the meeting place. Coming from a 140 hp Saturn, the experience he had driving my DSM had blown him away. I expect him to be a new DSM owner very shortly haha.

Of course the truck driver couldn't drive my car. He stalled it 5 times getting it onto his truck, but... not much I could do. When he got it to GA, it was the same story, he got no better driving manual (or ACT 2900), but at least rolling off the truck when it died he could just let it roll back in neutral.

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Whatever, the car was in GA at least, and after months apart from it, was very happy to see my car again. I registered the car and with no smog, was able to drive the vehicle on the street. With a cost of only 40 dollars for new tags, even if it wasn't a DD, can hardly beat that!

Sloppy Shifter - May 31, 2012

I had meant to fix my shifter for quite some time. The bearing had collapsed and needed to be replaced, and the 6 bolt swap 2g transmission counter weight was still there, so all in all I had sloppy feel in my shifter, and required "effort" to get it to stay in some gears.

I started to resolve this issue with a MachV Symborski Shift Kit. I wanted to go straight to the source of the one distributor the kit was authorized to be sold through, and pay the man his money. There was plenty of knock offs, eBay, ect but there are some things, like this engineered piece, that I felt needed to have dues paid. As a designer of a DSM part myself, I have even more respect for people that put their time and effort into making something for the community and do not want to undermine it by going the cheap route or paying someone for unauthorized duplication of the part. Sorry for the rant.

The shifter base bushings and the new cylinder supplied with the kit were installed and let me tell you, this is something that DSMs should have come with from the factory. Go ahead Mitsubishi; put the rubber bushings in... but there is no excuse for the amount of slack there is in the stock shifter cylinder, the revised piece supplied with the Symborski kit tightens up that slop and makes any shifter movement actually move the shifter cables. Cannot say anything bad about the kit, A+++++++++!!

While I was in there, I went ahead and cleaned up the shifter plate. I'm planning on powder coating everything at some point, just not... this point.

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Shifter Bearing - June 14, 2012

I could find no markings on the bearing in the B&M shifter pivot to know what bearing to replace it with, so I went to EBay to buy a replica shifter in hopes the bearing from it would A) fit my B&M and B) have some indication of the bearing type.

For 30 bucks, it was a cheap gamble. Well... go figure. The kit was shipped to me with holes in the packaging, missing the bearing and some other assorted bolts, the shifter arm had (I'm guessing) standard threads, the throw reduction holes were not clean and caused the bolt to seize, and then strip. Terrible terrible terrible. I was happy the seller was willing to send me another, and the second kit came complete, but man... with ebay, you get what you pay for.

After all was said and done I did end up with a bearing that had identifiable markings so I could buy another, and sold the second kit for what I paid. The gamble paid off, even if it was a bit of a head ache...


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The part number as seen here is: SCE610PP

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The bearing can be bought online from Amazon (among other places). It is called a Needle Roller Bearing, and can be found here:

INA SCE610PP Needle Roller Bearing, Steel Cage, Open End, Double Sealed, Inch, 3/8" ID, 9/16" OD, 5/8" Width, 20000rpm Maximum Rotational Speed: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific

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This picture poorly shows the difference in the thread pitch.

The last step in this process of fixing my shifter feel was cutting the transmission mounted counter weight. I used an angle grinder, and a die grinder to make the nub left on the transmission nice and unobtrusive.

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I actually did the counter weight removal in the middle of my next project, since there wasn't a turbo in the way.... :sneaky:

 

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Big Boy Boost - Part 1

You know my story a bit, I've been through several DSMs by this point, but strangely enough, I've only owned one non stock turbo, which is a stock turbo off an evo, the Evo 3 16g. A great turbo, smogable, streetable, great great great.

This is a race car though, I needed a turbo upgrade. I needed Big Boy Boost!

Forced Performance 3052 - June 14, 2012

After years of owning these cars, I finally pulled the trigger and decided on the FP3052, a turbo that after much debate, was finally chosen for its great 500 HP power potential and great spooling characteristics.

Forced Performance stopped making these though in light of their new HTA center contridge offering of the DSM76. 1500 bucks though, and thats just for the turbo.

I wasn't against paying money for quality, and tbh I will probably end up with a new turbo down the line once I figure out the HP i need for the weight my car is ect ect all depending on what class I settle into when I am classified. So I went to the classifieds to find some used DSM goodness, talked to a couple turbo owners selling their 3052s, and found a nice package that included the turbo, 3" v-band o2 housing, tial wastegate, dump tube, 4" intake coupler, and 3" v-band downpipe flange, FP turbo oil filter/oil restrictor, all the water lines and oil lines, an EXTRA Vband turbine housing, oh and a brand new knock sensor, get this: all for 1k! Now you can't hardly beat that. The seller promised of a turbo with less then 3k miles and no track time, and while I doubt that in every way especially after receiving the turbo and inspecting the blades, but for the price I still was satisfied.

The swap was straight forward like any other turbo swap, so here are the pictures!



Well.. it was actually a little more expsnvie that I first thought. Doing the swap required me to buy a new intercooler pipe. That is easy enough. Bolt everything together and then what is a DSMer to do after a turbo swap? He is to do a boost leak test!

I had no air tank though and I was new to GA with no DSM friends. Well, now I had to go spend couple hundred bucks on an air compressor. Go to put my boost leak tester on and realize my tester was 2" to fit a 16g inlet., I'm TWICE that size now, so I get to make a new boost leak tester.

Ok NOW i get to test, and.. GD it! Boost leaks everywhere! Most were easy enough to fix, but one that I knew was going to be a headache was the throttle body. Got to get it fixed though; I couldn't hold more then 20 lbs for a few seconds, so rebuild kit here I come!

While that was en route, I had the Megan racing downpipe flange cut off, and welded on the included vband. While I was at an exhaust shop, I had him weld my wideband at the 1 o clock of my downpipe, instead of using the rear o2 sensor outlet in the car back. Little more responsive, and picks up better at idle.

This little swap took a couple weeks to gather parts, find an exhaust shop willing to weld on a catless exhaust, and to rebuild the TB, but by 7-6-12 I was ready to rock and roll. I ran out of space for pictures so next post will have images of the cool rebuild kit I got that remedied those pesty throttle body shaft seals.

 

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Great story! Can't wait to see the next season of your car build. Good luck car is amazing!
 

Big Boy Boost

I The seller promised of a turbo with less then 3k miles and no track time, and while I doubt that in every way especially after receiving the turbo and inspecting the blades, but for the price I still was satisfied.

Sure no track time. Just drifted down a gravel road with no filter for 2500 miles. :banghead:
 

Big Boy Boost - Part 2

I had to finish getting the vehicle ready to test out the new turbo, which meant fixing more boost leaks and other unexpected issues. Issues I didn't think I would be having..

Throttle Body Rebuild - June 26, 2012

Well those shaft seals.. for anyone who has pulled a junkyard throttle body, or anyone who has a 1g TB with more than 100k, more than likely has had to deal with the TB shaft seal replacement.

This was something I hadn't done before so I figure warranted pictures and documentation in my blog.

Here is my shout out to Brian (snowborder714) who sells an awesome TB rebuild kit. I originally opted to use o rings from the hardware store.. but after much deliberation, and some persuasion from Brian, I actually went with some mil spec shaft seals, and while I was at it, did the FIAV block off. I had been planning on blocking it off for a while and got a thermostat housing with less water provisions (I think it was a non turbo 1g tb housing, or maybe it was a turbo with air cooled oil cooler? I forget now..) when I built the 6 bolt.

I mean once again this wasn't an innovating project, just general maintenance with upgraded seals. Block off plate cleaned up the finished look installed and aside from holding the gas for maybe 15-20 seconds a bit, I don't even notice it gone. Engine (for me in non freezing areas) idles once the car has been on a little bit, doesn't even have to be at operating temperature to keep itself running. Obviously it gets better the warmer it gets, but nothing to want me to install water lines again for. Then the known benefit of no heat soaked TB :)

It me about 2 minutes to get the old shaft seals scraped out. Just sucks it took me like 2 hours to get the new seals in.

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Here is a picture of the home depot O-ring I was going to use...

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The old casing for the O-rings.

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Using the included plastic BISS screw, but I kept the metal one incase I find out metal > plastic.

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Bypass plate and gasket.

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2 hours of bending and banging to get these in.. so much hardre than you might think...

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Finished!

Testing The Turbo- July 15, 2012

I took the car out after getting the idle adjusted back to normal. Boost leaks were all fixed; my knock sensor was reading something aside from 3.2 I think I am ready to go. The boost controller is still set for the 14 psi the 16g was set at for break in.

I get to the freeway, and I floor it. OMG

Now remember the point of this blog. I am someone who has never been in a high horse power car, I don't have friends with fast cars, and this was just something I got into. I was absolutely giddy with delight! Now it scared the crap out of me and I didn’t hold it floored for long.

DSMlink was flashing my knock sensor at me and I knew not how bad it was. I had set up my air flow calibration for idle and the lower hertz, and the turbo was spooling just like the 16g at the lower throttle runs I did just to check to make sure everything was good, but when that thing pegged 14.9 lbs post, it was not the same 16g anymore.

DSMlink estimated 425 hp with a full weight DSM, and I know full well that my car not anywhere close to full weight anymore. Coming from 275ish with my 16g, this was pretty neat! :)

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I would have turned the wick up and saw what it could really do, but after the run, and doing a little cool down, I noticed a little problem.

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DIP STICK GO BOOM! I'm not sure why, but for some reason it did. And accompanied by the stick coming out, is the lovely mess that the oil makes. So after cleaning the oil up best I could, I did another run, and once again the dip stick came out. So it’s apparent now I will need a proper catch can. Compression is fine but the pvc valve, even after a brand new one went in, is not keeping my crank case pressures under control. I'll probably go with a catch can made by Calan.

Anyways because of the dip stick problem I have not turned the boost up to the 20+ psi I was counting on, but I am sure this turbo is going to be more then enough to do HPDE in :) It's been almost 3 years since the engine build and I STILL have yet to see it really shine. This is some of what I mean by I always seem to not be ready for the track, always something coming up.

Oh well :) My next project will probably put me behind even further! More on that next time :D

 

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Looking the Part

This may come as a surprise to many people, it may not. The argument of to body kit or not to body kit. Truth is I don't mind body kits, or at least the concept of it. When I look at race car version of a stock body car, it has aero changes made to it, in the shape of a "body kit". The problem was there was no functional body kit available for the DSM, so like everyone else, I just accepted that the stock body was the best look for a DSM.

That was until Andrew Brilliant created his aero kit based off real CFD data. Like many others, I am a huge admirer of his work. From the moment I saw his car I wanted it; it was because of him in fact that I decided to road race instead of drag race.

Seemingly out of nowhere, he offered a potential limited run of his kit to the public:

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/hangout/367304-high-downforce-eclipse-body-kit-gauging-interest.html

I however, at the time, was in no position to purchase the kit. In fact, I was unemployed at this point in time, and wasn't even on DSMtuners much as it was just depressing to look at other people enjoying their DSM :sosad: I didn't even know there was a thread or an intention to sale 5 copies of the kit. Needless to say, the only kit I would have bought, I missed my opportunity.

When I got my car to GA and started getting myself back in the loop in the DSM world, I found out about the kit sale, and had found that someone in GA purchased the kit. Kevin and John had already posted on their kit installation progress, but Tony from GA had not. I sent him a message introducing myself and wanted to know how his progress was. If I couldn't have the kit, I wanted to at least see it! He said he hadn't gotten around to doing the immense amount of work involved with installing it. I let him know if he wanted any help with it I would love to be a part of the install, maybe I could learn from the experience. Nothing came of it though.

Months passed and out of desperation I made a plea to Andrew trying to convince him to make me one. As much time as it takes someone to install, he may have to support. The kit is not simply bolting on in place or over your stock parts; there is a whole slew of modifications to the car that are required not only for just installing the kit, but then utilizing it. For this reason, he could not sale me one. Unfortunate, but I understood.

I went to the drawing board: maybe there was a way I could create my own wide body kit. Started doing some research on how to go about doing that, and realized I was way in over my head. A few days passed since that plea, and I received a new PM from Tony. After years being unable to install the kit for various reasons outlined above, he asked if I would be interested in taking possession of the kit from him.

I spoke with Andrew some and explained I would be utilizing John and Kevin as much as I could, and asked if only if he would provide me the original promise of replacement parts if the need arises. With approval of Andrew, the transferred commenced.

AMB Aero Design :: 95-99 Eclipse GT300 Aero Kit - July 16, 2012

With the back story out of the way, there isn't much to say at this point. I paid the same full price Tony did when he got it originally, so it took me a few months to save up for it, the offer to buy it came up right after I spent all the car money on the turbo swap.

So I have pictures of it while it was still in his possession, and then I have photos of picking it up, and pictures of it with me. I can't get over how excited I am to be one of Andrew's clones; his army was growing! The man and car that inspired me now had his designed kit on my car, and I couldn't be more proud!

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Now you should all be proud of me: After being a series of unfortunate events with my arranged "preferred" pick up meathod with a co-worker (truck and trailer), I was left to get the kit by means of my DD. That right, I was able to transfer all of the exterior pieces of a car (essentially) into.. and onto.. my Civic. Ahhhhh ya! :hellyeah:

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Taking possession of the kit in itself I felt deserved a post of its own. The long process of installing it will be several others though ROFL

For the few people that may NOT know about this kit, I included a finished installed picture of it on Andrew's car, or you can view the dozen pages on the thread where he offered it for sale where you will find pictures of John's and Kevin's cars.

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When it Rains it Pours - November 21, 2012

I noticed I made mention of the point my girlfriend at some point became my fianc&#233; during the course of this build, and then wife in 2010. Well (unofficially) she became an ex-wife at the end September. Life sucks huh? Obviously a little upset with that for a while, but I continued work on the rear diffuser project I had started few months prior to that and I stayed living same house and everything; nothing had changed really but the new silence in the house.

October went by ever so slowly but I got through it, and then November comes. Diffuser project is finally ready for testers and I set a date for it, everything seemingly going according to plan.

I walk into work, and out of nowhere, I'm let go. No two week notice. No severance package. No money for rent because I just dropped it on a body kit I made final payment on the week before, expecting my regular paycheck from work to come in as usual.

I had absolutely nothing to lose at that point; no family in GA, no job, and soon no house. The next day I put a U-Haul on a credit card and headed west back home to California with my DSM on board.

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I can say now looking back that I am in a better situation now than I was then, back with family, friends, and a new job that pays more I interviewed and started within just two weeks of getting here.

It seems once again I had failed my plans to race the car with the new turbo in 2012. However, once again I am now looking forward to next year, 2013, with high expectations. I am setting the attainable goal of qualifying for NASA TT competition by means of HPDE-4 certification by the end of 2013.

The purchase of the expensive aero kit was something that was a once in a lifetime opportunity that I felt was worth putting off other race car purchases, i.e. the ones I needed to do to be track ready. That purchase is done now so I focus my future financial assets on the things I need to finish. I'll be creating that list, and documenting what I do step by step as I have the last 3 years with my car.

Life keeps bringing me down, but who said life was easy? This is the build of a GSX race car by a normal man, all the crap that happens to me just proves how ordinary I am! I just hope someone out there can be inspired by my journey!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! :rocks:

 

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No More "Turbo" bump

With the removal of the stock body panels, one of the funny aspects aesthetically about the car was removed: the "Turbo" bump in the hood that was the signature of a DSM hood til the 3g came along.

This also marks the start of my build journal being caught up to today, so updates may come in slow or fast depending how busy I am with other stuff and/or projects real time.

AMB Aero Design :: 95-99 Eclipse GT300 Aero Kit - Hood Installation - January 10, 2013

The DSM as you know is with me at my parents temporarily. After living with a garage and being able to work on the car whenever I wanted, not having one sucks.. I couldn't take not working on it though. There are several pieces of the kit I could install without having to crawl around in the mud.

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As if the kit was agreeing with me as shipped, a carbon fiber hood I think looks best with aerocatch hood latches. Andrew had the kit hood already setup to accept the latches.

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Complete with fixing plates?

Aerocatch panel fixing

New for 2013 - AeroCatch 120 & 125 Series will be supplied with 2 fixing plates

Apparently starting this year aerocatch latches will be coming with molded plastic fixing plates, which to me look to do the same job in every way that the metal fixing plates from aerocatch would do, with the exception you place nuts into the plastic, instead of the nuts being part of the fixing plate.

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I had already ordered metal fixing plates and they are in route still, but unless someone provides some amazing reason why I should swap to the metal back plates, I feel these supplies plastic ones will be more then sufficient, and maybe a little lighter haha. If anyone wants the metal ones, PM me.

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Why would you not use the fixing plate is beyond me.. would you want all the pressure of the latches on 6 little points or a whole plate?

Wrong:

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Right:

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And the finished product:

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With the Aerocatch latches installed, I began installing the hood.

First mounted it in place of the stock hood:

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I knew the hood was light, but I was not ready for the weight of the stock hood. I had to get help getting that sucker off, the stock hood is not light!

Once that was on, I had to figure out how to do the pin install. To get the right height, and to be sure I was straight, I had to have the fenders on. So temporarily mounted, I put them on so I could line up the hood.

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With the hood being held on by the hood pins, the stock mechanism was dead weight, so that was removed. I know in the future I will be messing with this little piece of metal some, but for today.. it lives...

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Next I cut the pin so it wouldn't run into the headlight, and adjusted the fenders, hood, and got everything level and straight. Then I adjusted the pin and cut the rubber stopper.

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And then done! Hood installed!

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So you can see I am in the middle of no where, chickens.. horses.. dogs.. cats.. birds.. it is a zoo at my folks house. You can see the white barn next to the car in some of the pictures, and that is where I am taking over to do fiberglass work I may need to do to the kit and my side diffuser project.

Until I get my own place... but if I keep spending money on my car I can't move haha.. such a catch 22! ROFL

 

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I was given no ultimate reason why she left.

Maybe she could chime in my DSM build thread and enlighten us all ROFL

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

I think even if my car vanished or turned to dust, I would just get another and keep building one. I love working on the car so much. If it provided emotional support I'd marry it; it already costs me money all the time and provides me with physical stimulation :sneaky:
 
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Yea.. being left without any answers lets alot of things kind of go through your mind.. maybe the car added to "it", whatever "it" was. I'll never know, but I as you can see I'm not too down about it (it has been 4 months so its easier to say this now), and no matter how good a person I was, am, or will be, nothing will change what happened so I tend not to linger on it.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

I'll never forget what happened (because that is just silly!), and in my future relations with people I will already have an edge! I know now I shouldn't wash my dirty car clothes with her nice white blouses, and I know now that you can't use regular dish soap in the dishwasher. See? I have already saved an argument and headache from my next relationship! ROFL

At the end of the day I can't let the negativity of one person change who I am, hense me continuing to do what I love.

I thought a good bit about whether I even mentioned this bit of my personal life in the build thread, and my reasoning was really just as simple as goal of this thread:

Chase what you love, and don't let anything stop you from achieving your goals.

"BIATCH"es will come and go in your life; I just didn't figure mine out before I got married.
 
This took all day to do (both sides, and remeber I work day light hours without a garage :p). Took so long trying to line everything up, triple check everything a million times (thats three million times!) Had to remove my rear bumper to get the rear quarter panel over fenders to make sure everything was straight as well, hense all the tape here.

Basicly this is just a quick "sneak peak" to my next build update and a shout out to Greengoblin for all his help and suggestions on what to buy to help get this together.

Also wanted to say I sold my Recaros and put in some stock seats just to have seats in there to drive onto a car trailer.. move it around my parents house if I needed to, ect. The Recaros out of the Evo IX are really heavy and not what I was after in a race seat, so I'll address that at some point in the future.

I have been working with Brian aka "Snowy McSnowboarder 6498748" some on NASA classification. This is probably more then a year off from now, but since I like talking about it, here is my plan:

http://949racing.com/server/tech/NASA_ST_Class_Calculator_2013_v0_01.xlsx

If I chose to stay in the NASA racing circuit, I need to get through HPDE 4. That might be a year of moving up the ranks there and learning how to drive, and hopefully learning how to handle this car and kit. The following year, I would like to do a year of TT1, one class under TTU ( not to be confused with 2012 TTU. TTU this year 2013 is the new name for the unlimited anything goes class.) I believe TT1 would be a good place for me under the circumstances, because of the extensive modifications done to the car already. To stay over the 5.50:1 maximum weight/HP ratio, assuming my car is at 2800 lbs race weight, my HP could be no more then 410 HP with any tire size.

My questions would be what race weights do some of your fully gutted car guys have? I can add up to 150 lbs of solid ballast, but I am worried I might be even lower then 2800 if I keep reducing weight everywhere.

Also, I could choose to go with a Non-DOT tire Size of up to 267mm or a DOT-approved tire width of up to 275, and that would allow me a HP of 438HP.

I don't know for sure, but I think giving up 28HP is worth not having a tire restriction of ~275. I guess that depends what tires and wheels I run, at this point I am planning to just go big or go home. I hear these guys can pretty much get me any wheel demensions I want with what ever offset I desire:

Complete Custom Wheel - Home

I plan to keep with my Evolution brembos for now, and after some track hours I can decide if a brake upgrade is needed. Having the galant knuckles will make that swap easy, just need to make sure I have rims that have plenty of room to clear anything bigger then the stock evo brakes.

The other option is just go Redline Time Attack and not worry about all the petty rules of NASA.

https://www.redlinetimeattack.com/images/2013RedlineTimeAttackRulesV3D1.9.pdf

I just want to be on the track racing against the clock with other like minded people; why's there gotta be so many choices!?! :banghead:

Hopefully that is some info to get a little conversation going here to help with the future of my build.
 

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Looking good sir. Cleco clips kickass don't them? :)

I had never heard of them before, but jesus are they ever. They make lining everything up so much easier, and.. they hold on STRONG! I mean I think two would hold that whole side skirt up and I would feel safe driving with it. They are deffinately kickass.

My dad hadn't heard of them before either, so thanks for the advice. He loves them too! I think I mentioned I was not a car guy before the DSM, so I never worked on cars with my dad (who is/was a car guy). He has helped me the last few days, and wants to help with my diffuser project too. It's like he's getting a second chance to have a son; last time I lived at home I was just glued to the Nintendo :p
 
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