The blackhole to my paychecks =p

[imstillonjava]

(at the heart of it all, it still looks so stock! for now, at least)

With a big 5 day rainstorm that dropped 15ft of snow in Mammoth, and a record breaking 7 inches of rain in LA...it was way too chilly and wet to do much with the car. But the sun finally popped out for the long weekend and I was able to accomplish several things:

- apply my long delayed registration sticker
- install my new hood cowl, wiper arms, and wiper blades that Paul bought me for Xmas '09
- set the car down and test drive the brakes, make sure the new fan and rewire worked, try out the new tires, check for rubbing issues with the brake ducting
- wash my car (extra dusty from the sawdust that my dad was causing with his cabinet building)
- get started on buffing the paint to follow up on spots that were missed when it left the paintshop

It took a few times around the block to reaquaint myself with the Mazdaspeed twin disc clutch, but the good news is - my brakes work! Major pat on my back for that since I'd never worked on that before 0_o That was super important since my house and neighborhood is made of all steep and long stretches of downhills and uphills! The clutch also works...which means I didn't screw up bleeding that either I'm still pleasantly surprised from the excellent feedback the Atomic Rex rack provides - but with my muscles and joints falling apart as early as they are - I figured it'd be nice to purchase the Electronic Assist (EPAS) option for the rack to help make parking more of a breeze (this'll be for my birthday next month ^^;; ) There is some rubbing coming from the driverside wheelwell on right turns (admittedly, I've not tried hard lefts yet to see if its the same on the passenger side) - but I'll have to check that out soon.

Not much I can do with the car until after the new year though - first thing on the agenda is to get the car properly aligned, and then to get my Feed hood and have it paint matched. Besides that...I'll be having the differential worked on with the Greddy diff cover that I treated myself to for Xmas '10, to be installed with the Carbonetics 1.5 way carbon LSD and 4.44 rx8 ring and pinion.

Once all of this is completed, and I find time to install the VMIC and the Atomic Rex EPAS, I'd imagine there's nothing else I can do to put off dropping a single turbo in 0_o.

By the way, did I forget to mention I bought titanium shims for all 4 braking corners? Because I did!



Also - for good measure, a couple more interior pictures...because they were requested








I know...the steering wheel's yellow threading doesn't match. But steering wheels are like shoes for girls right? You can never have too many? I'll get around to buying another one sometime I'm sure.

[MaczPayne]

Sizzlin'

[imstillonjava]

Finally stopped getting lazy and made my appointment for corner balancing and alignment next Saturday the 19th. Figured I find out my max "streetable" height I can work with on the car, with my quadruple compound angled driveway haha..and I'll have the guys dial it in for that.

Its pretty darn conservative to avoid massive scrap-age, and I wish it could be lower but...c'est la vie. Can't have everything =/

I also started measuring out for my order on a Spearco IC. Scrapped the Knightsports VMIC idea, and am going with a custom setup to my dimensions. That'll be a fun summer project ^_^

Tape & rough measurements


What can I squeeze in between the HKS intakes and the PC680 battery? Plenty, with lots of room for ducting!


Finally remembered to snap a "Better" picture of my new windshield cowl and wiper arms.


So after adjust the front corners....
I backed it out at an angle for the rear clearance test. I removed the CF diffuser for the time being.


Ehh...if the side canards hang that low, how low will the rest of the diffuser be? Think I can make it? :X Or think I should switch to the street diffuser?


....was going to hold up the diffuser next to the car, but I was starting to die from the exhaust fumes. Anywho..without the diffuser at least, I've got plenty of space to work with.


How about the front?


I can't install the under panel back yet. Still trying to find out when it rubs against the brake ducting on the driverside, but can't quite tell exactly where still.


Wheels clear fender!


Bumper clears!

Just kidding, it wasn't quite over the worse part yet in that picture, so there was slight scraping

Side shot - it sits a little lower now after the corner balance, but its my most recent sun picture.

[imstillonjava]

Went and got the car's alignment and corner balance a little earlier to beat the rainstorm coming down this weekend.



God bless those Evasive guys for spending so much time dialing the car in. I had changed out so many parts on the car in one shot, that the machine was erroring out trying to read how misaligned it was They had to fiddle with the suspension settings to get it to even read. And what a big effing difference it was on the road. Made driving with the Atomic Rex rack wayyyy easier with all the wheels pointing in an agreeable direction

I'm actually quite pleased with the weight of the car, I thought it'd be heavier with all the parts I've been slapping on it.

Unfortunately, since the car's been tinkered with so many times, I'm not sure what I did to make it lose boost pressure - I discovered that issue driving back from the shop, since the car was now in better shape for some actual acceleration (and then I found I didn't have any hahah). So that's next on my list, as well as rigging up a new resistor for the airbag light, since the one that came with the Works Bell hub blew. The Works Bell hub only used a 0.15ohm, 1/8 W resistor (it was a tiny tiny little thing to read...that made me feel like I was going color blind trying to see the color bands). I'll test it out with a 1ohm next, since those are easy to find at a Radio Shack.

Rainy day projects for the weekend (unless the garage is too cold).

[prrex4ever]

Your build is really awesome, the attention to detail is #1.

[hades]

very nice !

[Doc-1]

Very Nice build. Yep these cars can just drain the cash, but the results can be ....well...off the wall!

[imstillonjava]

No real update yet, but took home the Flir thermo camera from work to learn how to use it, and got some shots of the car. Realized I should have set the temp scale higher, it maxed out at 302F because I forgot to change the range. Very expensive camera...and I realized there's a lot of adjustments to make for each image in order to pull temperatures correctly. You have to correct for ambient T first, and then adjust for the correct emissivity of each surface...still, had some fun, and got some interesting shots!

Unaltered:


Thermo image:


HKS downpipe with the swaintech white lightning ceramic coat




Another engine bay shot


Oil cooler


Exhaust - pretty sure the temp was wrong here, reflective surfaces are terrible at registering temp correctly



Teaser_ real updates coming soon, hint:

[hades]

great looking build.

I have messed with some thermo-guns at work. Yes anything shiny is impossible to get a good heat reading on. Pretty much need thermocouples for an accurate reading, but that doesn't look as cool

[Macer]

Simply awesome build thread Love the attention to detail... Any more updates?