GreenGSX
DSM Wiseman
- 371
- 5
- May 13, 2002
-
Rochester,
New York
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.
