My fuse box relocation (project log)

[gofer]

Can you overlay that with your logs in ECMLink too?

 

[turbosax2]

Can you overlay that with your logs in ECMLink too?

Good question. I suppose it's possible but I haven't tried it. I'm really not sure what other information I would want to overlay that I didn't wire to the RaceCapture.

 

[turbosax2]

To fix the issue with the downpipe fasteners loosening, I changed out the M10 hardware for M12 hardware (factory size) and added Nord-lock washers to both sides.

The exhaust wrap on the downpipe was looking a bit rough so I put some new wrap on.

And we finally took delivery of and installed our Carbonetics V2 AB hoods with extra side vents. We used AeroCatch 120-4100 latches. Hopefully this is goodbye to overheating on the track. They ended up fitting pretty well, although we had to slot the holes in the hinges to bring the hood forward enough. The hood struts were too strong for the new 15 lb. hood so we're still working on getting the right struts for it. I can post more pictures of the hood from different angles if anybody wants them but it fits way better than all of the V1 hoods I've seen. Although it does get quite close to the timing cover, no trimming is required.

 

[turbosax2]

This has been on my list since 2011 but I just never got around to it: satin Grid SRP Racing pedals. I've never felt comfortable trying to heel/toe on the track since the pedals just didn't fit for me, so I'm hoping these will help. I may still have to bend the gas pedal rod a bit to get it perfect, but we'll see how it goes.

 

[gofer]

Paul Walker would be proud, Eric.

 

[Black95TSIawd]

What a dream build...

Forgive my laziness and not combing through the whole thread... Do you run a trans cooler?

 

[turbosax2]

What a dream build...

Forgive my laziness and not combing through the whole thread... Do you run a trans cooler?

No problem, it's getting to be quite a long thread at this point. No, I don't run a trans cooler and there's one main reason for that: I've never had a reason to crack open the case on the stock trans. If/when I ever have to, I will definitely install a temperature sender and provisions for a cooler, and likely install a cooler as well at that time.

 

[crash89]

I cannot believe this thread is still going after all this time!! That hood looks absolutely gorgeous, well the whole car still does!

 

[turbosax2]

We're heading down to the Shenandoah Circuit at Summit Point this weekend to have some fun with AutoInterests. This was the first track I was on back in 2013 and I haven't been back there since. This won't be the best test for the new hood since it's not a power track, but I have my fingers crossed anyway.

I also caught up with the times and finally created an Instagram account (@looseeric), so you can follow me there too. I'll still be posting updates to this thread, of course, because forums are better.

Plenty of corn juice is coming along

 

[turbosax2]

We headed down on Friday night to get ready for the weekend.

Unfortunately, the weekend didn't go quite as planned. I was the only one of about 20 of us in the Intermediate group that been to this track before, and my time here was six years ago. So we all started off pretty slowly. The track lacks a lot of grip compared to other tracks and my RS4's were howling the whole day. In the third session, I trail-braked a little too aggressively at T19 and found myself facing a wall. Luckily I didn't hit it, so I came right into the pits, they checked over the car to make sure nothing looked wrong, and sent me back out.

I was there with Brian in his GST, two friends with GT86's, and a friend with a Boss 302 Mustang. Brian followed me during most of the sessions and was able to keep up. He said he was pushing pretty good, so we were running right around the same lap times. My best was a 1:46.

Brian and I were the only ones in the Intermediate class so we all went out during the open session at the end of the day for some photo ops. It didn't quite work out as planned since we got some traffic in between us. But on the third lap of this, I just rounded T19 and started to get on the power in third gear when all of a sudden the car revved up quickly. Luckily, I was right near the pits so I came in, but while I was slowing down I noticed it was hard to put in gear. Turns out I lost third and fourth gears, so we loaded it up in the trailer and I sat out Sunday.

I was pretty bummed about this, but Brian was nice enough to let me drive his car during the remainder of the open session on Saturday. I've autocrossed his car before but never driven it on track. Given how identical the suspension setups on our cars are, it was amazing to feel how much tighter his car is and how it actually turns just as good or better than mine. I attribute this a few things:

• His Re71r tires were just gripping way better than mine.
• Non-sunroof chassis? I've read a lot that the chassis's without sunroofs are stiffer and it sure feels it.
• Solid front subframe bushings? I've had a set sitting around for a while, so I'm going to try to install them while I have the trans out.
• LSD front differential. I drove his car before and after this, and it helps immensely. I could really get his car to rotate without pushing like you would expect.

Sunday I just played cheerleader and went for a couple of rides. After riding/driving cars with Re71r's and R888r's, my RS4's just aren't cutting it. I'm ready to step up to a stickier tire, but these Hankooks last forever!

It was fun watching the cars on the skid pad, although I did not get a chance to try it. I'll be posting some videos soon.

This car was super nice.

Carfest is coming up at the end of August at Pitt Race (my favorite track), so I'm working on figuring out what plan makes the most sense to get the car fixed.

 

[turbosax2]

I definitely left some time out there, but here is one of my faster laps from Saturday. Later in the day I got better at going deeper into the braking zones and getting on the throttle way earlier to account for the turbo lag, but I must have hit traffic more often since I didn't put down a better time than 1:46.

 

[turbosax2]

While the transmission was out, I installed my solid subframe bushings. I did this all just with a ball joint kit I rented from Advanced Auto Parts, no shop press needed, although it would have been nice! I gave it a fresh coat of paint but I forgot to take an "after" picture.

I picked up a transmission from TRE that he had mostly ready to go, just had to add in the Quaife on my request.
• EVO-III 1ST GEAR
• DOUBLE SYNCHRO 2ND GEAR
• DOUBLE SYNCHRO EVO-III 3RD GEAR
• DOUBLE SYNCHRO EVO-III 4TH GEAR (BILLET TYPE)
• OEM 5TH GEAR
• TRE 4 SPIDER LIMITED SLIP CENTER DIFF
• QUAIFE FRONT DIFF
• GEARS ARE FULLY DETAILED AND SHOT PEENED
• CASE IS POWDER COATED

I also requested TRE tap the case for a temperature sender but he forgot, so we had to rig it up on the engine hoist to be able to drill/tap facing upwards to keep the shavings out. Huge thanks to @twicks69 for his quick advice. Contrary to my answer to @Black95TSIawd since the case was already powdercoated, I couldn't add the fittings for a trans cooler. Oh well.

We got the transmission, subframe, and most of the suspension in last night. I'm hoping to finish it up tonight so I can drive it over the weekend for the break-in miles. With any luck, I'll be ready for Pitt Race next weekend. Crossing my fingers!

 

[turbosax2]

I finished buttoning everything up Friady night, we bled the P/S fluid on Saturday morning and I spent a good chunk of the weekend putting 501 miles on it of mixed city and backroad driving, with a little bit of highway mixed in. I shifted a lot during those miles to help speed up the process. Tonight I'll be flushing the trans fluid. Just need to check everything over, wash the car, and we'll be packing up for Pitt Race this weekend

 

[Black95TSIawd]

I get complimented a lot on how clean my DSM is. If only people knew what a clean DSM looks like. (Yours!)

 

[turbosax2]

Pitt Race this past weekend went pretty well, although I didn't get my goal of a sub-two minute lap time. The intermediate group had a lot of traffic so we got very few clean runs in. The best I could muster was a 2:01:50. I know the car has the lap time in it, I just need to keep improving! I also had the boost turned down to around 22psi so I was a little bit down on power from where I normally am. I was going to turn it up Sunday but decided not to tempt fate.

Since we couldn't get much clean track, Brian and I started playing around with off-line passes and cornering. We still have to give point-bys and are only allowed to pass in certain areas, but we treated it as much as we could like a W2W racing environment without getting close enough to get black-flagged. That was pretty fun to do and we learned some valuable lessons about track conditions in certain off-line areas. Some have lots of grip while others...not so much.

On Sunday we had rain for a couple sessions - our first time on track in the rain! We were taking it very easy, but were all impressed with how much grip there was in the wet. It had been so long since I had used the windshield wipers I fumbled on track trying to figure it out

Keeping the rain out of the engine bays between sessions. I'm trying to come up with a hood cover for this sort of situation, plus washing the car and trailering on an open-deck. Right now we just cover the vents with a trash bag when washing the car.

Overall the transmission did well. It's still not shifting like "butter" but I'm sure it will get there with more break in. I absolutely LOVE the Quaife front differential. It absolutely transformed the car on corner exit. I can put power down so much earlier it's crazy. In the past when I would start to put too much power down, the car would start pushing out and I could hear it slipping. Now, it just grabs and goes! I had to relearn how to exit some corners because of this and I still don't think I reached the limit of what it can help with. If I ever get in a RWD car, I'm going to have to remember my previous driving habits or I'm sure I'll get in trouble hah The shorter third and fourth gears did make a difference and I started running out of gear in some spots, getting a little closer to redline than I'd like (for this stock motor). I played around with shifting in some different spots than I'm used to but never quite landed on what I think worked best. I think the gears are still sufficient for a balls-out run approaching redline, but for lapping twenty minutes at a time I don't go balls-out like that every lap.

I couldn't tell any noticeable difference to attribute to the solid front subframe bushings.

If you look closely at the picture above, you'll see a 1g going by on a trailer. We talked to the owner for a while. Original owner, purchased it in 1989, 35k miles on it. It's basically stock with Outlander front brakes and wheels/tires. The interior is MINT. He just started doing track days with it last year - very cool to see!

I'll see if I can get any videos up, but for some reason the connection between the RaceCapture and the GoPro wasn't working well and it only recorded two of the nine sessions.

At this point, I don't have any more track days scheduled. I might try to fit one more in before the end of the year, but it's not likely. My front brake pads (Carbotech XP12) are around 3/32, so they absolutely must be replaced before it goes on track again. I got 13 track days out of those since 2015 so that's pretty good. I wish I could get out there more often!

 

[turbosax2]

It's been a while last my last update, so time to get caught up.

Before winter hit, I did a full paint correction on the car and glazed/waxed it again. I switched it over to E0 gas and replaced the water with coolant in preparation for hibernation (no pictures).

I picked up a used HTP 221 welder in October. I've been wanting one for a while and the right deal came along, so I jumped on it. The "welding table" is a SS cart that I salvaged from my previous job with this use in mind.

Although the hood definitely helped with the overheating issues, I still felt like it could be doing better. I have a hunch that too much water may be bypassing the radiator through the bypass hose from the lower thermostat housing to the water pipe. This is a 5/8" ID hose, so it's not small. I got a "1979-1993 Mustang 5.0 V8 Heater Core Supply Hose Flow Restrictor" and put it in the bypass hose. We'll see if this helps or hurts the next time at a track.

Right at the end of the season, I found a loose bolt from the turbine housing to O2 housing and the gasket was leaking badly (a piece of the gasket actually fell out). I took the whole turbo setup off the car to resurface the flanges and replace the gaskets. These are all OEM gaskets.

• I've already stated this, but I really can't recommend Swaintech coating, at least for this application. There was so much coating flaking off it was ridiculous. I ended up taking a brass wire brush to all of the pieces to clean off the loose coating. There are very few spots where the coating is completely off so that's good, but it hasn't lived up to my expectations. It's a little tough to tell from the pictures, but there was white dust all over the pieces.
  
• The blankets are from Turbo Performance Products. They're falling apart on the inside quite a bit at this point. I know from other experience they aren't expected to live forever. And admittedly, the leaking gaskets probably weren't helping. I cleaned them up as best I can and will continue to run them as-is for now. I did contact Levi at Turbo Performance Products about this and he didn't seem too concerned and said they should still function fine.
  
• The new heat wrap on the oil feed line started to wear through slightly, so I put another layer of wrap on that spot. This wrap is much better than the DEI stuff I had previously, though.
  
• While I had the wastegate off the car, I checked the diaphragm. It looked pretty good! I ended up replacing it anyway just for peace of mind, but I'm keeping the old one as a spare. The water cooling has definitely helped and was critical for my application. From left to right: without water cooling, with water cooling, brand new.
  
• I resurfaced all of the hot parts flanges on a belt sander. The O2 housing flange was pitted terribly.
  
• The exhaust manifold flanges were warped terribly as well. I think the head flange had like a 1/8" bow in it. Unfortunately..........while resurfacing the turbo flange on the manifold, I shaved too much off and accidentally changed the angle of the flange in the process. When I bolted it all back together, the turbo hit the block. So the manifold is scrap I had to get a new manifold and it's on its way to Detective Coating now for ceramic coating.
• I switched to Nordlock washers on the turbo and O2 housing bolts. I also safety wired the O2 housing bolts (the turbo bolts were previously done). Drilling the hole in the nut was particularly fun with a handheld drill.
  
  

A good chunk of time was spent designing and fabricating an oil cooler/power steering cooler duct. I think it turned out pretty decent for making the bends on a picnic table This was my first real project that I got to use the welder. I've become pretty reliant on Solidworks for design work.

We have a track weekend on April 25-26 at Shenandoah. Here's the to-do list of what I hope to accomplish before then:

• Reinstall the turbo and all accessories once I get the manifold back from ceramic coating.
• Boost leak test
• Replace sway bar bushings (front ones have started to wear through)
• Install and wire brake pressure sensor (more details to come once I confirm my plan works)
• Swap brake pads. After talking to Danny at G-Loc, he recommend stepping up to the R16 pads. I was previously on Carbotech XP12's.
• Bleed brakes
• Change oil
• Swap out coolant for water
• Finish fabrication of front tow hooks. More details and pictures to come, but I put some information here already: https://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/tow-strap-mounting.519984/#post-153755653
• Update PiLink, RaceCapture, maybe do some GoPro upgrades
• If time permits, fabricate a rear tow hook as well

Looking forward to getting back in the car for the season!

 

[EC17PSE]

Nice duct work on that cooler! Its tricky getting it to taper well and work right. I rusbed mine in 1 day for 2 coolers but yours looks soo much nicer and i like the take off for the PS cooler also. Is the back venting now you have all this air directed to it? Or even a plate at the back pusbing it down under?

Nice update on the car man.

Interesting thing on the brake pads! Why did he say go 16? He suggested to me keeping my 10's. I always wonder why the same chassis is told different outcomes from the same person. Could it be your more full weight or alot more power?

 

[Atuca]

I just wanted to chime in and say I appreciate every second of time you spent with safety wiring bolts. Not sure if Brian told you, but I had bolts coming undone during really short easy shake down laps; I imagine at full tilt it would get pretty spicy. I know you know, but definitely worth the time it took for you to drill and wire. Great update; hopefully your track day remains open during this crazy time!

p.s. Nice welding machine!

 

[turbosax2]

Nice duct work on that cooler! Its tricky getting it to taper well and work right. I rusbed mine in 1 day for 2 coolers but yours looks soo much nicer and i like the take off for the PS cooler also. Is the back venting now you have all this air directed to it? Or even a plate at the back pusbing it down under?

Nice update on the car man.

Interesting thing on the brake pads! Why did he say go 16? He suggested to me keeping my 10's. I always wonder why the same chassis is told different outcomes from the same person. Could it be your more full weight or alot more power?

Thanks! It was tricky to figure it out all out, but Solidworks helped with that so I didn't have to waste any material (except some cardboard). I cut out the little vents on the wheel well liner when I first installed the oil cooler (like they are on the passenger side).

Brian spoke with Danny and described the setups on both of our cars and he said go with the 16's for the 200TW tires we have and with plans to go more aggressive in the future. My car is 3000 lbs, maybe around 350-400 hp. Brian's is around 2650 I think with probably 300 hp. I have the XP10's in the rear and have been happy with the 10/12 combo, but time to try something more aggressive in the front.

I just wanted to chime in and say I appreciate every second of time you spent with safety wiring bolts. Not sure if Brian told you, but I had bolts coming undone during really short easy shake down laps; I imagine at full tilt it would get pretty spicy. I know you know, but definitely worth the time it took for you to drill and wire. Great update; hopefully your track day remains open during this crazy time!

p.s. Nice welding machine!

Luckily, I haven't had many problems in the past, but nearly everything gets blue Loctite. When I was on the stock brakes, the caliper bolts did loosen up over a track weekend. I didn't find it until much later and it didn't cause any harm, but ever since then I've been cautious. I safety wire the brake caliper brackets, turbo bolts, O2 housing bolts, and the oil filter. I mark critical fasteners like suspension pieces with torque seal.

This welder should be all I ever need for my skill level

 

[turbosax2]

The adapter fittings for the brake pressure sender came in today, so I got that installed and configured in RaceCapture. No leaks during testing with the car off and standing on the brakes, but I'll be sure to keep an eye on it to make sure everything's OK.

Parts list:

• This would only work with a 3g MC which I already had. I also already had the brass bubble to inverted flare adapter due to the mismatch between the stock flare and the MC flare.
• Bosch 0261545059 sensor. As best I can tell, this is a PSS-140 sensor but with a connector for VW/Audi applications (high pressure fuel sensor). There's also a 260 bar sensor for Fords available for cheap, but 140 bar should be plenty for the brakes. http://www.bosch-motorsport.de/content/downloads/Raceparts/en-GB/52877195118518411.html $30 from Amazon is a good price for this sensor.
• Since I got the VW/Audi version of the sensor, the mating plug is 4D0 971 993. $14 from Amazon.
• The adapters are from old Porsche's. After all the ideas we considered for how to add this sensor, this was by far the most elegant solution and I'm happy these fittings exist. 999-215-027-03, 999-135-002-02, and two N-013-806-2. $53 from AASE Sales. The first banjo bolt I got was actually machined incorrectly from Porsche and didn't fit in the ring fitting, but AASE was great to deal with getting me a replacement quickly.

 

[turbosax2]

The front tow straps are done. It feels good to finish a project that has been on my list for a long time, as simple as it sounds.

Check out this thread more more info and pictures:
https://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/tow-strap-mounting.519984/#post-153755653

 

[gofer]

That's a long time coming, I remember you and Craig making SolidWorks rendering showing strain tests/drawings 8+ years ago.

 

[turbosax2]

That's a long time coming, I remember you and Craig making SolidWorks rendering showing strain tests/drawings 8+ years ago.

Good memory!

 

[gofer]

Good memory!

Found it! Sorry, Brian, for not giving you credit too. Metal Front Bumper Tow Hook Mount

Really like what you two came up with this time around, hopefully you never have to test the theory in the real world though.

 

[snowborder714]

Found it! Sorry, Brian, for not giving you credit too. Metal Front Bumper Tow Hook Mount

Really like what you two came up with this time around, hopefully you never have to test the theory in the real world though.

Not giving me credit AND a broken link? Sheesh. (I fixed it for you.)

No worries, Corey. This project has taken way too long for sure. The solution is probably about as elegant and simple as we could have made it while still having the most solid tow point possible.