Cerberus Project (56K DNE)
 

Started over a year ago when I wrecked my first 7. The preliminaries were to swap the 6-port into the roller chasis I picked up and do the interrior. Since this has been covered already over Here. So I won't bore you with the repitious behavior. Instead I'll declare what's to come and give you a little idea of what I'm working towards.

I left off on the restoration with the installation of the Tein Flex coilovers and had just picked up my Racing Beat Front and Rear Sway bars. The installation of the energy suspension bushings, new ball joints, and tie-rods has been postponed as I ran out of money and my credit card was getting rather heavy. Since school's been out I've been interning and saving money while paying off that debt. I'm now currently pricing everything for the next step of this project and I've included the file to give you a nice little sneak peak.

Since that time however I have done a few different things to the car. Not a whole lot, but enough to warrant mention. I have a partially installed front RB sway bar (One bolt will not hold tension, but is not moving anywhere... Will have a shop fix the hole). Rear sway bar is not installed yet because of a sheard bolt in one of the hubs. Will be having that fixed at the same time as the front sway bar. I'll also get a quote for the energy suspension bushings to be installed and if it's reasonable will have them install it (the reason for such the delay in the installation is the fact that the Delrin bushings I ordered never made it to me quick enough so I had to scrap the previous appointment. Don't worry though. They're for the rear subframe, shouldn't be too harsh).

Well, anyways; check out the .pdf (converted from the .xls file I have going) it'll give you a rough understanding of where i'm heading.

Here's something to whet your whistle on:

The turbo I'm considering (will most likely buy) for this project:
http://www.turboneticsinc.com/Librar...arge044714.jpg 60-1 F1-62 .77AFR what does everyone think? Too small?

My buddy lives in Culpeper still and has that turbo on his miata. We built it about 3 years ago and have been playing around with tuning since then. Its a pretty decent turbo. Should play out well for the 13B - but is a bit much on the 1.8L's stock head.

Oh hey, you found it. lol. I was about to link it to the NE section for you.

Yeah, the guy that's selling it to me works for Turbonetics and has told me it's good for about 4-600. We'll see though. I think I'll only be able to pull in low 300's with the Rtek. Depending on how all my other supporting modifications go I may be able to secure myself a M600--that's my intent at least. I'm also picking up a waste gate and a blow-off/by-pass valve on top of the turbo. I'll probably be selling the original S4 turbo I have. But that won't happen until down the road a little bit.

I still need to get the suspension dialed in and my bushings installed though... maybe I'll do that when I head back to school. We'll see though.

We'll all have to hang out at some point. Its not hard to get the three rotor heads in culpeper to get together, lol. My buddy just finished building his house out in Highpoint. I know one of his neighbors has an FD w/ '99 spec equipment, so maybe we could get him to come out too.

Growing in Culpeper was fun being a rotor head, nobody understood my car :)

So is this S4? S5? i ASK BECAUSE I'M TRYING TO SEE IF ANYONE DOES THE oiL SYSTEM REMOVAL WHEN THEY CLEAN UP THE EMISSIONS. Caps locks owned me.

It's an S4. So far my plans include keeping the OMP mechancial but running a full stroke TPS (either a rotary style, or an s5 modified). I'm still toying around with what I'd like to do with the oil besides modifications of the oiling system and pan to support a turbo, as for the OMP... I've toyed with running two stroke oil in an external resivior but I'm just not keen to another fluid that would need to be filled up.

But here's the most recent modification to cleaning up the engine bay:
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...n/IMG_3144.jpg
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...n/IMG_3145.jpg
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...n/IMG_3146.jpg
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...n/IMG_3147.jpg
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...n/IMG_3148.jpg
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...n/IMG_3149.jpg
Bought a new battery and threw it in the passenger bin. My main focus is cleaning up the engine bay and running a wire tuck a little later.

Unfortunatly as you see the engine bay is in pretty rough shape. My plan of action is to pull the engine and tranny, modify what I need to on the engine for the turbo, strip the engine bay. Strip the paint, POR-15 it. Remove the fenders and begin mounting the wires and grommets in the upper fender. This will clean up alot of the engine. I'm not sure I'll tuck the coils since I'm probably going to go indepent ignition eventually.

oh yeah... I forgot to post these pictures up as well.... :D

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...o/IMG_3165.jpg
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...o/IMG_3166.jpg
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...o/IMG_3167.jpg
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...o/IMG_3168.jpg
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...o/IMG_3169.jpg

Gotta make room in the engine bay.

Christmas came in August this year:

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...g/IMG_0006.jpg
Look at the quality packaging material:
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...g/IMG_0007.jpg
Ohhhh! Reading material!
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...g/IMG_0008.jpg
All the teasing's over
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...g/IMG_0009.jpg

Well, this weekend's been pretty nice.

Yesterday I got my evolution wastegate (35mm), and I went ahead and swapped in the 5lbs spring (instead of the stock 9lbs) I think it's the safest one to go with for right now.

I snapped a couple pictures during the process and will load those up soonish.

I also got my car back from my mechanic. Full bushing swap to poly plus the rear subframe now is mounted with Derlin. It rides so nicely now, and I'll take some pictures of the bushings before I load up the pictures for the wastegate. I still need to go get it aligned and re-torque everything in about a week or so. So that should be nice and fun.

Suspenseful man!

You'll be glad (or not) to know - I sold my FB and I am now 99% dedicated back to my FC project, so you'll have to come by sometime to check it out. The other 1% is to the 8... it needs a few things :)

I'll be interested to see what route you take w/ your radiator though as I'm using the same one...

Actually I am excited to hear that. I want pictures so snap away while you do it.

I just sent out a quote to get some flanges made from MPI. We'll see what happens.

I may have a local car guy tig weld in some slotted brackets for me. That may prove to be the easier of the two routes (compared to making a rack to hang it on). Beyond that I'm just waiting right now until my court date for the speeding ticket. I already just sent in the money for the faulty exhaust. It would cost me more to drive up to Culpeper to get it taken care of than it would be to just pay it out of pocket.

After that I'm planning on tearing into the car and stripping the engine down to nothing but the Keg. I'll then begin work on the engine bay (stripping the paint, sanding it down, drilling, running wires, running pipes, etc) and installing the radiator. This is going to be a fun time. I've been waiting about a year or so to get to this stage. I'll also probably be shipping off my spare ECU to get it turned into an RTek. Before that though I will have to make sure it works. I don't really trust it... mostly because I haven't tested it yet.

But back to those flanges I sent off to be quoted; I found some online and the total would come to a little over 40 (60 I think) bucks for everything I want. I'm going to see if MPI can beat that price. Then I'll have flanges of my own make! w00t!

edit: ECU has been shipped out!

You can test the ECU out of the car, but its probably too late now that its shipped. I'd also assume that RTek will test the ECU before shipping it back to you since they'll want to make sure their modifications take.

Are you tearing the car down in blacksburg or up in Culpeper? I should have some updated pics of my FC (I have a build up thread here already) as I'm beginning the interior swap over to black.

I tested the ECU I was worried about. It works fine. in fact it's running the car now. I shipped out the regular one (N326) to be modded.

Just got the RTek back today. I'm still having connection problems with the TX but I'm working on it. We'll see what happens though.

TX - not sure I'm following on that one?

TX = send channel on a data line.

Ah - makes sense....

BTW - I'd love to join you at Summit, but it'll have to be next year since I'm nowhere near done w/ my car, lol.

I am interested to hear your thoughts on that rtek though...

It's the Palm I'm using
Yes... sort of. Tx usually denotes send channel on the data line, however it's also the designation of the Palm I'm using to run the RTek. Which, by the way I have working (for the most part).
Oh don't worry, my car won't be ready this year either. I'll have just done the engine and suspension. I'll still have to get the interior and exterior up to snuff.

So far the Rtek is really nice. I enjoy the ease of use, it's only giving me trouble because of the Palm I use (just because I already have it). I'm still working on some issues with the logging, but for the most part it has the ability to track everything you'd need from a stand-alone, and plus some. This is however only temporary. I'm planning on going full stand alone at some point in the future, but that has yet to be finalized as I still need to locate some cannon plugs (or someone who's willing to construct the harness for me). I'm thinking sometime over spring semester or so.

You can set alarms and triggers for datalogging, and there's a few other features I still want to toy around with. But that's going to have to be tomorrow.

Alright the car is going under the knife this week for an undesignated amount of time. currently ordering parts... Will have pictures up sometime soonish when the parts come in.

I was beginning to wonder...

haha, sorry. I was just biding my time until my court date. So far I have a few of the major components I need. I still will be ordering a few things from specific vendors but right now I have the following coming in:

Shifter Boot
E-Brake Boot
680 Injectors x 2
FD Alt
FPR
Y-Block
Rear Wiper Motor
FD Fuel Pump

I still need to find a pair of 550's lo-imp. The guy on here just went silent so I don't know what's going on with that. If worse comes to worse I'll just have to buy a set off of 7club.

Hit me up after this weekend, I'm picking up some misc stuff this Friday to sell off and a lot of it is for an FD and might be something you're interested in. I wont know what all I'm getting until I pick it up.

Sweet. Will do bro, will do.

Alright, basically due to money problems I have stalled on this project. I'm currently held up on ordering raw materials such as Stainless steel pipe (3in), mufflers, presilencers, and getting stainless steel flanges cut/made/ordered. I'm also planning on ordering a cannon plug and some wire as I now have a source to pick those up. Which leads me to hold off on ordering anything for it until next semester as I have LARGE purchases coming up (which include laptop, engagement and wedding ring, etc) so... who knows.

Also of effect does anyone know of where to order alternator parts online? I'm wanting to use a customized FD alt so I need to source those components as well. Not to mention an FD to FC dual Alt Pulley.

Marriage huh? That'll put a dent in the car project! Congrats though nonetheless.

Besides the FD to FC dual alt pulley - what other alt parts do you need?

FD alt rebuild parts, so I'll need just about everything, minus the stator. Bearings and everything are good, so is the core. I have a list of things I need and a site that tells me what the part numbers are, but they don't let the average person buy off them. Give me a sec and I'll be able to dig it up.

I need a rectifier and regulator
Regulator
http://www.transpo.de/cgi-win/product.exe?IM830
Rectifier
http://www.transpo.de/cgi-win/product.exe?IMR10068

I might buy some slip rings too
http://www.transpo.de/cgi-win/product.exe?13179001
http://www.transpo.de/cgi-win/product.exe?13179002

As for the marriage bit, I doubt it'll significantly slow it down any. She likes my car and wants me to complete it ;)

Well... it's a new semester and I have about 80% of the parts I need to install a turbo on my car.

I have ordered a few things, mainly an RB engine to header flange, some mild steel mandrel bends, and some por15. I also secured a garage for use come Feb. This should be quite fun. I'll hopefully have pics and stuff posting when I start the project.

The reason for lack of pictures is I don't really have a camera (well, that's a lie. I have a camera I'm just too lazy to find some double A's to put in it).

Right now the engine bay is about 90% apart. I still have some harnesses and a few things on the drivers side that I need to remove before prepping the bay for paint. I've looked again at the rear rotor through the Bore Scope and still see standing liquid there. I'm not sure if it's gas or not, but the smell is of gas and I can't seem to sop it up--but then again I haven't really tried recently. I shall try it more when I have the chance and might even syphon as much as I can out of the housing.

I've ordered a few more parts, mainly the stainless steel mufflers, some stainless steel line, and fittings for the fuel rails that I modified.

Apparently the mild bends I ordered never actually got sent, or processed so I'm considering going with schedule 40 stainless steel. I have very, very limited space so I will be attempting to figure out the best way to cut and make the turbo manifold.

I'm currently waiting on No Limit Industries to finish production on a tube kit for me which will get the project on the face track.

Here's hoping.

Pics, or it never happened :)

You going to be around Culpeper much when this is finished up?? I want to see it...

Come the summer months. I'm still concerned about that rear rotor housing. I keep flip flopping between it being excess gas or coolant. I honestly didn't notice any un-accountable coolant going missing, but then again I don't think gas would stay pooled in the rear housing for that long.... Maybe i'm just paranoid.

anyways, my shipment from summit should be getting here soon and I can finally get my fuel rails put together.

I'll try to snag some pictures here in a few. It's going to be a busy time in a little while.

Well, in an attempt to move forward with the project, you can use the engine in there as it is to build the turbo system, do the plumbing, etc and if then once everything is setup good... you could pull the block and do a quick rebuild. I always recommend doing a rebuild BEFORE blowing seals through the new turbine...

I'll probably need to pull and port it eventually, but I need it to at least last over the summer months and get me back to tech for next year. Once the school year starts again I don't mind not having a car and porting the engine.

well... today I was able to confirm that I'm going to need to pull the engine and rebuild it. The coolant seal has gone and there is a nice puddle of coolant sitting in the rear rotor area. At least this way I can port the intake and maybe even get rid of the baffles in the exhaust.

Going to pull the engine probably tomorrow and see what I need to get to rebuild it. I'm thinking just the atkins gasket kit and what not.

If the coolant seal went, I'd check the step wear on the irons.

You may not need apex seals & springs, so that should save some $$

Well pulled apart the rear iron today (and did a few other things), and I found this:
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...9/IMG_0061.jpg
It's about a half inch gap on the lower portion of the iron where the seal failed. Besides that no damage from what I can see. I think all the seals on my rotors are good, but for the most part I'm still attempting to see if the backing of the inner oring is supposed to be like that or not. I thought it was supposed to have rear support all the way around. It doesn't look like a metal failure but like it's been either caste that way or removed by a dremel. There's no damage to the Oring surface, but that concerns me.

And here's a random picture (didn't take any of the car), but it's getting closer and closer to POR15 time. Still got to do the marine clean and metal prep, then tape it up and start painting.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...9/IMG_0063.jpg

Anyone willing to give me a rear iron for a 6 port engine? Or am I going to have to go digging for a new engine?

/\ PM sent!

yea, that iron is f'd.

I just did POR15 today. Have fun. I'm not in love with the application process, but it turns out ok. And their "semi" gloss is super glossy, lol...

well removed the rear iron and rear housing today, the housing looks prestine. I'll be specing it shortly and the Apex seals look to be two piece apex seals with lots of life left (though I have not spec'd them yet).

Also begun degreasing the engine bay with the marine clean. Will finish degreasing and application of it next time I'm out there. Still need to pick up a few supplies but I should be making large amounts of head way soon.