Build thread

[FDEEZ]

Well I may have spoken too soon. She's barely talking to me now, so she might be losing interest already. I won't know for sure until she gets back next week, but I'm pretty much giving up already and hoping for the opposite lol. Either way, I'm pretty bummed these days.

I've definitely had my share of deployment flings. Hopefully she's more than that though...so stay optimistic. But if it doesn't work out...move on. Be thankful you had someone to keep you company while deployed.

[speedjunkie]

Oh there was no fling while I was deployed. First, I was in her chain of command, so that would have been WAY inappropriate, but we didn't even know that we liked each other until I was about to leave. So basically the last week I was there we just talked about maybe seeing each other after we got back stateside since we don't work together over here. We talked a lot more today and have plans for after she gets back, so we'll see what happens. I'm trying not to get my hopes up though just in case.

I have a rule to not date anyone that I work with, and so far I've been able to keep to that rule. And it works out this time because we don't really work together, but we had that time to get to know each other a little, and after she gets back we can get to know each other better without having people breathe down our necks and get in our business, and we know we're not doing anything wrong.

[lOOkatme]

Oh there was no fling while I was deployed. First, I was in her chain of command, so that would have been WAY inappropriate, but we didn't even know that we liked each other until I was about to leave. So basically the last week I was there we just talked about maybe seeing each other after we got back stateside since we don't work together over here. We talked a lot more today and have plans for after she gets back, so we'll see what happens. I'm trying not to get my hopes up though just in case.

I have a rule to not date anyone that I work with, and so far I've been able to keep to that rule. And it works out this time because we don't really work together, but we had that time to get to know each other a little, and after she gets back we can get to know each other better without having people breathe down our necks and get in our business, and we know we're not doing anything wrong.

[coLOR="Red"]Yet[/color]


you will part with the ohlins after you break up with your future ex wife that you are meeting soon;)

[speedjunkie]

Well, I thought that was self-explanatory lol. But after she gets here it won't be wrong lol, not with work anyway haha. Although I'm still not getting my hopes up. We talked a lot today and tonight, but still...

You really want those Ohlins huh? LOL

I cleaned the garage a little tonight, and I plan to clean the house again tomorrow morning and then go to work again tomorrow afternoon to work on my EPR that I just was told on Thursday is due on the 15th YAY! Wasn't supposed to be due until Sept. Anyway, it's nice going to work while you're on R&R. Then I'm going to see Get Hard tomorrow night. Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart, two of my favorite comedians.

As for the car, tomorrow night I plan to remove the fuel lines and then Wed take them to Whisler Bearing so they can remake them with Teflon lines. Ugh, I really don't want to do all that lol. While I'm there I'll pick up some fittings to make the hard lines for the wastegates. The battery should be here tomorrow so I can make the new battery tray at some point. And hopefully I'll get the fuel rail back from Tom tomorrow so I can drop it and the other rail and piece off at Ximpak for hard anodizing. There is quite a bit more, but it's hard keeping it all together in my head lol.

[speedjunkie]

My battery and fuel pumps came in today. Those fuel pumps are tiny! And the battery fits through the hole in the bin WOOHOO! So tomorrow I'll make the battery box and possibly install the pumps. I'm about to pull the fuel lines out right now so I can take them to Whisler Bearing tomorrow. Although I'd rather just go to bed lol.

[lOOkatme]

Have you tested your ignition coils? I was reading threads over in the RX8 forums and most of those guys slowly had starting issues with bad coils. just wondering if your car has a bad lead coil or something?

starter?

[speedjunkie]

I've tried different coils and I replaced the starter. I haven't tested the coils this time, but I figured between two or three different sets I should find a good set lol.

I've gotten some work done but I don't remember everything haha. I took the fuel lines to Whisler Bearing the other day and they quoted me $666.66 to make them out of teflon with SS hose ends. Ummmmmmm, I'll pass, for a couple reasons lol. I emailed Chris to see what kind of price he could do for me and he said he'd work up a quote for me. Whisler is still holding onto my list just in case I call back and have them make them.

I swapped the pumps and had to reuse my old terminals in the CJ Motorsports pump hanger connectors, so Jesse hooked that up for me.

I made the hardlines for the boost controller solenoid/wastegates. I was going to make them out of SS hardline but I didn't feel like waiting for an order to come in, plus I had some aluminum hardline left over and couldn't see why I couldn't use it on this. I also wrapped them in heat barrier tape like the coolant lines. The two lines that need to accept the hoses were too big for the hoses, so I found some brass barbed nipples that I modified to fit on the ends of the lines and I hope they won't leak haha. They fit pretty tight on there and they don't leak with just lung capacity, but I haven't tried 30psi yet. I tried to tap and die both pieces so they would thread together, but the line kept collapsing, so the brass fitting is just pressed on pretty tight. I might try to use a larger size tap and die to see if I can still get that to work, at least for the assurance that it won't blow off with boost pressure. I'll take a pic of those and post it.

The new chassis harness came in today and I noticed that one of the wires for the passenger side ABS sensor connector had been clipped or something, and another wire was missing altogether. I took my old harness and the new one to Jesse's and we got it all fixed up. Hopefully anyway. I plan to install it tomorrow and maybe start getting the dash back in.

While I was at Jesse's we also pulled the unneeded vacuum nipples from the JDM UIM I'm going to use. I'm going to tap the holes and install setscrews. I have a brass barbed nipple that I should be able to put into the larger nipple we took out, and I found the right plug on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/ ... dition=new), but I need to find the right tap. One forum says that you can use a regular 1/8 NPT tap, but I need to verify that first. I may just put a regular setscrew in there since I don't ever plan to use it again.

Tom called this afternoon to say my secondary fuel rail and LIM are ready for pickup. I still need to take the fuel rails to Ximpak to get hard anodized, but they were closed by the time Tom called me, so I guess that'll be Monday. At least I'll be able to reinstall the turbo, LIM, UIM, etc, and get the end tanks mocked up for the new IC. I'll have to call Mitch to see if he can come over this weekend.

I got new EGT sensors (upgraded extreme duty racing versions) because Tom messed up one of the fittings on the old ones when he was welding the hole on the turbo manifold lol. I ran the new sensors last night and put the K-type ends on them.

I also plan to build the battery tray tomorrow and install that and the new battery. Busy day tomorrow, I'm stoked! I'd say we should do another maintenance day, but I won't get anything done if we do that lol. As much as I'd love to see everyone.

[speedjunkie]

I got a little more work done today, along with getting the fuel rail and LIM back from Tom. I forgot to take a pic of the rail. I had to use a file to clean out a couple places in the new injector ports, and I'm going to drop off all the pieces to Ximpak on Monday.

Also, after looking at the harness again today, I realized I forgot a couple things that still need to be fixed before I install it. I also got the new battery box almost completed. I'll finish that up tomorrow, and Mitch is supposed to stop by tomorrow afternoon to do the end tanks on the IC.

I plugged the holes in the UIM left by the nipples we pulled out. I was able to find a plug at ACE Hardware for a couple bucks so I didn't have to order it from Amazon for $16+ WOOHOO! And this way I can put a nipple back in if I need to use that port again.


This is the line I made the other day, and I made another one tonight but I don't have a pic of the line itself, just where the nipple ends up, and a pic for where this one ends up too. You can barely make out where it is in the third pic though. The one for the UIM needs to have a way to stabilize it during driving, it's just going to flop around. So I still have to work on that.




Bobby brought his 8374 over the other night so I could see how it fit in the engine bay, but I forgot I didn't have the LIM in there to check haha. I took a pic comparing the two though. I didn't realize the 8374 was so much bigger than the 7670.


Here is a pic of the new pump setup.


Here are all the lines I need to have made for Flex Fuel...these are just the ones I made last year for pump gas.


Here are pics of the first draft of the CAD Alvin is doing for the wheels. I took some measurements of the angles on my wheels and sent them to him and he's going to refine the design.

[Dwduc]

How did you seal the brass hose barb to the aluminum tubing?
Did I misunderstand or are you having some custom 34" wheel faces made?!?!
I'm ready for your car to be done, too much suspense, I've been on this site for over a year now reading about this thing!!

[speedjunkie]

How did you seal the brass hose barb to the aluminum tubing?
Did I misunderstand or are you having some custom 34" wheel faces made?!?!
I'm ready for your car to be done, too much suspense, I've been on this site for over a year now reading about this thing!!

I didn't seal it, which is one thing I'm somewhat concerned about. However, it's REALLY on there. I'm going to leak test them at a higher psi just to make sure they don't fly off. But so far they seem like they seal pretty well.

Yep, I'm bout dat DONK SON! lol I'm not sure why it says 17 right there, but it's a 17" face overall, for an 18" step lip modular wheel.

Yeah me too lol. It's been about 1.5-2 years and I'm REALLY ready to drive it again.

[FDEEZ]

Nice progress. Are those pumps loud?

[speedjunkie]

Nice progress. Are those pumps loud?

I have no idea, I have no way of finding out yet haha.

I discovered today that the wiring on the pumps is incorrect, and since I have to depin them and I need two more injector boss adapters anyway, I decided to order new terminals with the boss adapters and just solder on new terminals while I'm swapping the pins.

I finished up the new chassis harness today and started installing it, but didn't even get halfway finished before I had to do something else and I didn't get back to the car tonight haha. I'll finish installing it tomorrow.

I took the fuel rails to Ximpak today but decided to wait since I forgot to get the shavings out first and they said that if they anodized it that way, the anodizing would go over the shavings and they could flake off later, exposing the raw aluminum underneath. I was also torn because I was thinking I should have taken the in-tank surge tank, but it needs to be modified first. Then this afternoon I was thinking again that now I could just go with the drop-in assembly that's built around the hanger, and just hook the Hydramats to it. Although then I'd still have to figure out a way to mount the float sensor to it, and just now I'm wondering how I'd hook up the lines to it after it's already dropped in lol. Eh, better just stick with the old design and get it modified and anodized lol.

I spoke with Chris Ludwig today about the lines, and he said the price Whisler quoted me was pretty close to what he'd charge, and just as I was about to call Whisler and have them make the lines, I decided to do some research on the lines I already have. The majority of them should be good for E85 anyway, but I looked up how to make the teflon lines and they don't look to be that bad, so I'm just going to make them myself at a later time. For now I think I'm going to install the old lines, as much as I hate the thought that I took them out for nothing lol. Or I might go ahead and order the materials to make the teflon lines and see if I can get them finished before I need to take the car to IN.

[speedjunkie]

I'm trying to remember all the updates since a few days ago. I made the battery tray but it puts the battery too tall, so I have to find the clamps that hold the bottom of the battery and just bolt those through the floor, something like this.


The injector boss adapters and terminals from CJ Motorsports came in today, and I picked up the fuel rails from Ximpak yesterday, so I installed the rails last night and the boss adapters and dummy injectors today, along with replacing the terminals on the fuel pump wiring today. Here are the fuel rails.


The other day when I was installing the chassis harness, as I was running it over the driver's tire I noticed new tape. I peeled off the tape and discovered at least 11 wires worn through by the tire, one of which was broken completely. And he tried to cover it with tape. NOoooot cool. So I pulled it back out, took both that harness and my original harness to Jesse's, and over the next couple days we completely unwrapped my harness and checked it over, checked continuity on all the important wires, soldered points where the factory had just clamped wires today, and then I rewrapped it yesterday and installed it last night and today. Here are pics of the damage on the harness I bought.



And here is when Jesse and I were going over my harness.


Here I had both harnesses laid out on the kitchen floor to start rewrapping mine.

And here it is finished.


Mitch sent me some pics of his mock up of the IC end tanks. I'm pretty happy with them overall, but I told him I'd try to mock something up myself to show exactly what I'm looking for, and I keep forgetting lol. I really need to just let him do his thing and finish it. I also asked him to make me an oil reservoir tank for 2 cycle oil. This is the first version he sent me.

I asked him to angle the sides of it in. He sent me this pic and the red lines are where I modified it a little more. I'm trying to get the far side to angle down more to direct the air more evenly over the whole core.

Or some directional pieces could be added like in this one to direct the air.


Tomorrow I need to install Bobby's engine harness and install at least the heat, AC and blower boxes, drain the old fuel out of the tank, and put the fuel lines back in so we can try to fire it up and see what happens. And obviously I have a lot more to do to get it back on the road lol.

[FDEEZ]

The other day when I was installing the chassis harness, as I was running it over the driver's tire I noticed new tape. I peeled off the tape and discovered at least 11 wires worn through by the tire, one of which was broken completely. And he tried to cover it with tape. NOoooot cool. So I pulled it back out, took both that harness and my original harness to Jesse's, and over the next couple days we completely unwrapped my harness and checked it over, checked continuity on all the important wires, soldered points where the factory had just clamped wires today, and then I rewrapped it yesterday and installed it last night and today. Here are pics of the damage on the harness I bought.

Regarding my comment earlier about shady sellers...crap like this pisses me off. Anyway, good luck with the repairs...we can't wait to see the beast on the road again.

[speedjunkie]

Thanks! I'm dying to get this thing on the road again haha. I did a few things last night and today, but anything that I do these days pales in comparison to the amount of work I used to do in a day haha.

Last night I installed the AC, heat and blower boxes, installed a new radio antenna wire, removed the turbo...I can't remember what else haha. I also priced out some Teflon lines and fittings from TechAFX...$700+ haha. Good grief. So I'm doing some more research to see if I can find cheaper, and if not I'm going to have Whisler Bearing build them I guess.

Today, I rolled Shadow's fenders. That's about it lol. I also mocked up a cardboard end tank the way I want it and dropped off the pieces to Mitch. He said he'll have it tacked up within the next couple days.



I need to braze the brass nipples on the aluminum lines still, then I can install them and install the turbo and everything else.