I lied, no pics this time... But good news! I started it for the first time in about 5 months, started pretty easy... It's leaking coolant from somewhere, gotta find that. Because of the coolant leak I didn't run it for long, it has a surging idle, but not sure if thats just because its not warmed up all the way or what. I'll have to do some investigating... Making progress though!
I hope to have the door windows in by the weekend, then I'll take it outside and wash it off, then I'll get some pics for everyone

 

Washed it off this weekend and here are some pics. For the first time in quite a few months its a lack of money rather than time holding me up, so I haven't been able to do a whole lot the last few days other than some details, waiting for the funds to finish buying brakes and other assorted suspension bits.. Still have some running issues to take care of but its slowing getting there! Hope you guys enjoy

 

Few more....

 

niceeeee getting there and it looks like my car =] except yours is s5 turbo haha.. ill be getting there once school is done kicking my ***!

 

btw whats your exhaust setup

 

looking great, I finally got my car back in town, and if all goes well, with the help of Aaron, I should be getting her fired up tomorrow

 

Thanks! The exhaust is 3" all the way back, Racing beat downpipe, catco cat and magnaflow straight through muffler. It sounds great but its way too loud, I'll have to either change mufflers or add a pre-silencer or something...

 

ditch the maganflow and go with a borla

 

I was thinking of putting a borla muffler under there as a pre silencer of sorts to help quiet it down, wonder if that would work....

 

i'll be doing the borla route shortly and will let you updated on that. I am still going to retain the single rear, but to be honest you shouldn't worry about it too much because your car is turbo now, so it will sound nothing like NA. I would even say give that a swirl before you go buy other things and if you still don't like it you can do the switch then.

 

Yea I'll probably put a few miles on it before changing too much around, but its just too loud, will attract too much of the wrong kind of attention... I might end up bringing it somewhere and having a stainless exhaust bent for it anyway, and while I'm at it throw a resonator or something in there...

 

That's looking sharp diggity!!! For real! I like it!!!!

 

Thanks man! I can't wait to get the wheels on it and really see how it looks. Did you get my pm about the pipe bender?

 

No pictures, but I finished up the rack and pinion install tonight and did some more work on the coilovers, so hopefully i'll be getting this thing back on the ground pretty soon, then i have to do the 5 lug swap in the rear and maybe i can actually take it for a spin finally.....

 

Damn man, i just found this thread. your car is looking killer now! hows that trilink/panhard working out?

 

I like the way you did the body work looking very good have fun

 

Thanks for the compliments guys! Hey Maguire hows things going by you? Haven't talked to you in forever man!
I was surprised to open the forum and see my thread up here again haha, its been awhile since I posted an update, I was waiting to finish up a few more things before I posted any info/pics, but heres a little update:
The car is still not on the road, but its very very close, i've decided to undertake the task of fabricating center iron mounts for the engine (to mount it like the FC does stock) this will allow me to use the FC front cover and avoid any potential problems from the S5 omp...
I have the left side mount done, just finishing up the right side this weekend then I have to swap the front cover and oil pan back to the FC parts. I also re-did my trans mount, wasn't happy with how I had it, i'll post pics of that as well soon. I want to sandblast and paint the mounts before posting pics of them...
I also bought the rest of the brakes/bearings/seals etc needed to finish the Re-speed big brake install.
Basically its tying up a lot of loose ends at this point, and I hope to have it on the road within two months. This has taken entirely too long, but its coming out pretty good, so its worth it...

 

your going to love the sound of a magnaflow when its turbo. Not loud at all, I have a full 3'' to a magnaflow and it sounds amazing.

 

I'll have to see how it sounds when its actually driving, at the moment its a bit loud for my taste. The tone is good, just too loud, guess i'm used to my quiet little 12a with RB headers and muffler....
BTW your T2 FB is gourgeous, love it man!

 

so what you're trying to say is I might still have a chance at beating you ... if I ever get home for not only sleeping ... Still a close race between the trio.

 

Yea it's possible that you'll beat me, only time will tell...

 

Finally some pics to show! As I made reference to in a previous post I have been busy re-inventing the wheel (redoing a bunch of stuff that I wasn't happy with)

The first few pics show my redone trans mount. I wasn't happy with the current setup (see pics on first page) with no rubber isoltor. So I modded it to use the stock FB rubber mount, with out the need for big spacers on the mounting studs. My goal was to make it so the stock FB mount remains completely stock, so that required making some brakcets to adapt it to the T2 trans, and notching the FB crossmember so it sits at the correct height. I still have to paint it obviously, but its pretty much done...

The second set of pics are the modified (what used to be) tension rod brackets. Since the RE-speed rack/pinion kit doesn't use the stock tension rods at all I felt there was a lot of useless metal on those brakcets. Basically I cut everything off that wasn't needed to hold the sway bar to the frame. After that I sandblasted them and sealed, and undercoated them. They are totally done, ready to go into the car.

I have also completed a subframe that will make use of the stock FC style center iron mounting system. I couldn't get any good pics of it tonight, as paint is still drying on it... i'll get pics later on of that and post them, uses the stock FC mounts, oil pan etc, and existing holes in the FB's frame (for now, might require a extra mounting point)
In addition to all of this I've spent some time de-rusting a bunch of nuts and bolts including the rubber coated "clips" that hold the fuel/brake lines to the bottom of the car. They were very rusted, and the rubber was coming off. I used chemical strippers to remove the rust, and then re-coated them using the rubber stuff they sell at lowes to coat tool handles, came out great. I'll post pics of them later on too...
Phew that was a long post

 

Managed to get two decent pics of the FC mounting frame. Since this isn't in the car it might be hard to see what I've built, but basically it shares one of the studs with the re-speed subframe, and the other mounting point is one of the bolts that is originally there for the steering box and idler arm (now used for the rear control arm brakcets for the rack/pinion kit)
The notch in the square tubing is to clear the oil pan (the stock FC oil pan) and as much as I wanted to connect the two sides with a straight piece of metal the oil pan is right there, and it would be way to low, hench it being offset towards the front of the car about a inch. To avoid confusing the closeup is the drive side, so the left side of the overall pic is the passenger side.....
Guess I'll have to get pics of it in the car for it to all make sense....

 

Looks good! I like dark colored FB's. DJ, why a borla? I have a magnaflow.

 

what type of welder are you using?

From the looks of that splatter it seems to be a flux core, not that the welds are bad, they look pretty decent. But file off those BB's lol

very Nice custom Fab though I must say.