I attempted to clean it up a bit but in the first month driving it a wheel popped off due to a shop not tightening the lugs properly :wtf
result was a fiberglass front and fenders and a paintjob. I went back to black to match the bay and jams which were still the original color.
Soon after I was hit by the power bug and pieced together a low budget “junkyard” turbo kit. It worked pretty well and cost less than $1k. I actually put a lot of time into making it look clean too.
Then on a long road trip it all went to shit, the small turbo spooling all the time next to the tiny stock radiator basically boiled the oil. The result was this:
The rebuild was equally a disaster. Three shops and a full YEAR later I ended up with something more like what I wanted:
However I couldn’t get the head to stay on the thing. It repeatedly popped on the dyno despite switching out the new headgasket and ARP studs with a new new head gasket and studs.
By this point I was more confident in my own work and ready to tackle the project on my own.
next up was the transmission I again had to get this in myself, NOT something I would recommend or ever do again:
some more shots of the fit of wheels/tires… This car is not to be “slammed” as you can see in the picture in my first post of the car autocrossing under hard braking I need to be able to have the wheel turned with out any rubbing. I later raised up the back as well to prevent rubbing there:
while waiting for the next bunch of parts to come in I decided to remove the last piece of rice on the car:
The next step was to do the wiring. The wiring on this car already sucked and at this point I was adding:
PLX wideband
greddy EBC
the 3 gauges
turbo timer
my labeling system was my attempt at keeping crap organized:
*in response to questions about the OBX diff: I couldnt really justify putting a $900 diff into a $150 transmission. If this one takes a shit I might build a gearspeed tranny or something and put a good diff in.
The next phase was mockup. Checking my clearances and making sure all the crap I bought would fit.
By this time I had actually bought oil cooler #3 It was a great looking piece but simply was too long to mount behind my bumper upright.
forgot to mention, new valve cover too:
The only real problem to be found with the mockup other than that the oil cooler didnt fit was that the wastegate actuator was where the front engine/AC mount was. A little chop took care of that:
Also, the muffler was a bit too big for my taste (kinda what I expected) But since I got it for 20 bucks and people seem to say its one of the quietest brands I decided to make it work:
the fix:
The mockup allowed me to make my oil and water lines:
I got my hands on a welder and started going at the stuff I had mocked up.
I welded up the sagging rear bumper mount
the lower radiator mounts, i dont know if i mentioned but i trimmed the radiator support and pushed it as far forward as it would go:
and here is the welded up muffler on the ground:
next up was installation of oil cooler #4 is a B&M unit:
10AN line and fittings. My favorite part in this setup is a sandwich adapter with a thermostat in it. The oil wont go to the oil cooler until the engine is warmed up:
Not pictured are the two rear bars.
What im kicking around right now is moving the main hoop up above the seats kinda a step up. door bars will be trimmed and lowered into the correct position, center bars will come down onto a plate in the center. Rear bars will be run lower than you would want, but I am going to retain 90% of the movement of the rear window. The rear window will be replaced with lexan and the “extra” glass at the bottom will be trimmed to allow the best angle possible.
This was near the end of summer, so it was time for a little bath:
The next story is the manifolds… the first from CCFAB was a great fit. quality was decent (excellent for ccfab standards) but when i got an opportunity to sell it for a $50 profit and buy an AFI manifold for a great price I jumped at it. Especially for the fact that other parts were holding up the build. The AFI manifold finally came in… late November. :sad and didnt fit with the radiator
In a rush during thanksgiving break I had one whipped up local and figured everything was ready to go.
Ill start off with some old pictures of the manifold and downpipe:
They look pretty good, fit was mediocre and I was disappointed in the lack of fasteners. Regardless, got it installed but no pictures.
The car was started after some timing belt trouble. I left the car as it was for my christmas vacation and had to take a few steps to prepare to work on it again:
first thing i needed was some kerosene:
for this thing:
now that I had some flames nearby I had to clean up the oil spill I created last time:
After a long time of trying to pump oil through all of my lines when I finally started the car I had forgotten that i had left the oil drain unplugged with a pan below it so I could see if anything was actually coming through. Pan was misplaced, car was run too long, oil was all over.
solution:
I attempted to start the car again but soon found that the timing is off again. Must have been off by a tiny bit to begin with and slowly unwound itself to were it wont start anymore. So tomorrow I have too pull off the damn power steering belt, alternator belt, timing belt cover, dipstick tube… the whole 9. and try to set it again.
Current picture of the engine bay (November 2007) with everything hooked up. I can probably organize vac. hoses a little better once I get it running. Right now my concern is to get it running and to get the oil to stop leaking for all of the AN fittings WTF. thats what I bought them for.
I believe I have identified the two problems I am currently having with the car:
Injector wiring is shotty. ECU is throwing “Injector” code. This will be a simple fix once I get new connectors and clips.
I think that the low compression is due to the fact I have not done a valve adjustment yet. Hopefully this is the case, if not I may have a bent valve.
as far as the cage, I have begun to strip the rust and paint it black. The craftsmanship on it is top notch. :thumb
Next time I get home I should be able to finish cleaning up the cage, fix the wiring, and get it running.
The maiden voyage was a drive out to the “Marcus dairy” honda-tech meet in CT:
not quite tuned yet
the oil temps are a thing of beauty. turn on the car, 90…95…100, start pulling out… 120…130…140, get on the turbo 170…175…176 T-stat opens up to the cooler, 175…176…175…176
those oil temps are really low. Oil temps are usually hotter than water temps by 10 or 20 degrees somtimes more. That mani is really nice esp for CC fab hahaha
It’s cool to see all the steps/progress of how your car has evolved. You had the other thread with the wider wheels and flares… What’s going on with those mods?
I blew a coolant hose on central stuck in construction traffic. Well here is my fix:
Dual 10" fans on my full length radiator. That should do the trick given most turbo’d hondas have half length core and one ten inch fan.
And no I didnt have any fans on it when I over heated.
Shortly after it hit the road I started having some electrical issues. After bouncing back and forth from the alternator under the hood and the battery in the trunk I finally got it to fire up and I took it for a short spin. Well it turns out I hopped in a scond too early and forgot to latch my 4 hoodpins. The only lucky thing is that the hood lifted clean off and didn’t touch anywhere on the car.
