Some Porter Cable action in preparation for tomorrows Cars and Coffee meet. This was a pain in the *** but it paid off at the end. I hate tree sap.

 

That is a great mod, very innovative. I had to do a double take because I didn't notice it the first time around. Looks great.

 

Small update. What I have done since I got the interior done?

I installed new springs. The Eibach I had on before were to soft and the drop wasn't even. I went ahead and installed some Tein S Tech for the time being till I can put coilovers on. The ride is firmer but not as bouncy as before. The drop is the same in the front but the rear has no gap now so I'm very please with them.

Today I removed my resonated mp and installed a cat to control my boost creep even with a ported waste gate and the pill removed. I was hitting 14 psi at 6k rpm and I didn't like that at all. Now I have even 10 psi all the way to the beep.

While I was down there I decided to polish my new Greddy EVO exhaust (I LOVE THIS EXHAUST ) Thanks to Flyin Fritz I got my hands on one. It was discolored, dirty and stained. Since I am a fixer not a "replacer", I broke out the elbow grease and started to polish it. In the pictures, I did the worst side first (passenger side). Since it was full of tar and some thing sticky (may be the crap that is layed down at drag strips) that was a PITA to remove. I was about to give up till I broke out my headlight polishing buffing wheel. The driver side will take about 15 mins to clean, the pass side took me over 2 hours to get it like that. Wish I took pics of that but I wasn't expecting those results. Here is the before and after. From what I remember it looks better than new.

Oh I also installed a new rear valance since the old one was in 2 pieces because it melted.

 

Beautiful work Rick!

 

looks great!

 

Looks great man!

Hey when you say the eibach made your setting uneven, what do you mean by that? Like one side is higher than the other??

If so, was that the spring fault or something else??

Cause my passenger side sits higher than the driver side and now people are telling me going to a coilover setup wont help it.

 

My rear was way higher than the front (could stick 2 finger in the tire/fender gap). My car does sit higher on the pass side and I though by switching springs would alleviate this but it didn't.

 

Forgot to post this picture of last weekend's Cars and Coffee. After 7 hours of buffing her, she was swirl and tree sap free.

 

Yeah the driver side ground to fender is about 25.75 inches and the passenger is like 26.75 inches lol

Its really weird. I thought about using the coilovers and just cranking down the passenger side a bit more but idk how that will effect the overall setting, after i get it aligned etc.

And yes porter cable works wonders. Gonna invest in that this year and gonna do that 8 hour job at least once this summer lol

Which porter did you get?

 

When I get the coil overs this summer, I will make it even. I do plan on some track driving when I move to Cali but nothing that serious when setting the coilovers like that will worry me.

Every time I look at that picture I get reminded that I have 5mm spacers in my storage to installed.

I got the 7424 with the Pinnacle package fro Autogeeks.com. AWESOME place for your auto detailing items. They have very good customer service. When the wife got it, they sent 2 bottles od the paint conditioner when they were supposed to send one of that and another of the swirl remover. Well my wife called them about it and they sent the right item over night for free and didn't asked for the extra bottle. Those things are not cheap either.

 

Yeah autogeeks is amazing. I always find myself browsing that site even though i have a ton of car car products in my shed lol. And i really only use them on the FD lol.

Maybe i should start inviting friends cars over to use these products on.

 

HAHA I though I was the only one that did that.

 

Last night I got bored and one of my tail lights had condensation in them so I took them apart a did the 99 tail light mod. My little helper did the masking, painting, install and testing. I would say he did a pretty good job.







BTW word of advise. If you have a Shine Auto Project Low pro wing use a real heat gun to remove it. I used a hair dryer. Even though it did warm up the 3M tape, I manage to warp the wing a bit when pulling up on it that made installation a BITCH!!!.

 

My daughter usually helps me too. She was at a sleep over last night though. We are all rotor heads here even the wife. I guess in come with the blood.

 

Wtf damn your kids are old enough to work on cars!?!?!

Damn you guys are old lol

 

I'm not old even though I get to retire in 4 year but I'm only 34. My son is 10 and my daughter is 12 then I have another on the way.

 

This is what is in stores for today. Had this sitting here for a little bit.




This tool is AWESOME. Make filling your coolant system pretty easy. No bleeding necessary!!!

 

I hate when I find things that are hacked up.


Didn't want the new radiator to look like the old one.


So I made some brackets to give the extra support needed.


Supported

 

Came to find out why the legs where cut off on the fan. The ducting for the IC were in the way but figured out a way to make it fit without getting rid of the legs. Had to get rid of a little it of insulation that was under the ducting but I also installed the intercooler fan. So now every thing fit like its supposed to.

The coolant filling tool made it very easy to install. I highly recommend it to any one. The engine is done for now. The next time the engine bay get touch will be when I pull it to get th engine bay painted and wire tuck/fuse box and relay relocation but that will come next winter after I move to Cali and get settle.

 

Pretty neat fix, a lot cheaper than buying new fans. Getting me motivated to start installing all those parts I have piled up in my garage. BTW, what radiator is that?

 

Damn car is coming together. Cant wait to see it all complete!!

 

It's a Koyo N-Flow. Going to the desert so I need all the cooling I can get.

Next on the list is sell the spoiler, fix the pited tail light, replace cluster, get some Corbeau FX1 pro seat and Pettit coilovers.

 

^ I hear you, my next project is an upgraded oil cooler kit. It's that hot Dallas summer coming soon.

 

Oil cooled upgrade are on my list too. Those will get done when I pull the motor.

 

A little re-cap.

This is where the engine sits at as of today. I'm moving in May to California and the car will stay like this for a little bit till I get settle in the new house, the newborn is taken care of and I sign up for school. During winter the engine will come out to paint the engine bay and move all the fuse/relay boxes to the back. I can't stand that mess under the hood. I'm also reconsidering going with a v-mount to coupe with the desert heat, just worried about the ac condenser.



The things that will be getting attention first will be the seats. They are driving me nuts.



I keep bouncing back and forth on what I'm going to do about my seats and I still not sure. It will cost me $900 to get them reupholstered in OEM like fabric for both of them. Or I can spend the $900 and get me a set of Corbeau FX1 pro seats. The issue I have with that is that I think it will look to ricey for my taste. Then there are the JDM Recaros but I can't see myself spending that kind of cash for those seats. May be when I have nothing else to replace/upgrade I will bite the bullet. I'm also not sure what to do with the steering wheel. I'm in the fence between the Nardi and the Spirit R wheel. Thinking being in California I might want to go with the air bag steering wheel to just avoid as much unwanted attention.

This what happened today. Semi in front of me blew a tire and I didn't have the room to react. Piece of tire went up the fender and bent my fender cracking the paint.

One thing I will do when I get to Cali is to get my 1600cc installed along with the Supra pump and get it tune to run on the crappy California 91 gas. Still indecisive about what to do about upgrading the turbos though. I'm very happy with the way the car drives now and I think with the 1600s and tuned to 14 psi will keep me happy since I'm not really looking for more than 350 whp. I was going to really fallow gmosen steps and go with a N/A 20B but I'm trying to keep thing simple, just want the car to look good.