I have no doubt that this may be the case.
The new intercooler will not be installed for the time being and from the looks of it, it wont be installed at all.
I may have to revisit the idea in the future with a different intercooler size but it works well as is .
I will be going back in July where it is much warmer than my last visit in November. I was quite happy with the performance of the HKS intercooler in the cooler climate (low-mid 70s?)
we will see when the ambient temperature reaches the 100s F and see how well it works.
Since the car works exceptionally well now i don't want to change anything and regret it later.
I do have a backup HKS vmount as a back up in case the current one craps itself.

 

I havent looked for a taller ratio than the 3.9.. With the large turbo I wanted to shorten the final gear so the car "feels more responsive".
I will keep the system as is for now with the 4.77 and hopefully the shifter will solve my problem.

 

Thank you for the wishes

I did find your post interesting, before you edited it ...
While i am not looking for such a tall final drive, it is good to know, i had no idea they existed

 

HKS intercooler works great, bunch of cars here in Thailand running them without issues, and we have really high ambient temps.

 

I am going to just drop this here....



CAE's customer service was incredible.
CAE does not take a credit card, it would have to be a bank transfer. I cant say i wasn't a little skeptical at first but wire transfer completed on the one day and they shipped it with DHL the next day.

As usual, I am half way around the globe and these are just the pictures I received. So i have not seen it in person yet and therefore i can't give any feedback yet.
I will probably have my good friend install it and get his input

 

I had asked a friend of install the CAE shifter as , like always, i wont be there for a few months.
the shifter travel is so short. No shifter play AT ALL. He was convinced that it wasnt actually engaging the gears because of this short travel.

I have not seen it in person so i cant comment for myself how great it is but my friend was impressed!




The car needs some serious TLC

 

I did not post a more detailed post about the CAE shifter but since there is not much information online about it i figured let me in go in a little more detail

I had sent a friend of mine to install it. He is in general mechanically handy but I don't know what happened. the installation was incomplete and supposedly the cover wouldn't fit.
I reached out to CAE to see if its possible that i might have a defective cover. Communication was great and clarified what my friend was doing wrong. It is hard to troubleshoot this since i have not seen this shifter in person or tried to install one.

None the less, i had sent another friend of mine trying to fix the "issue". Everything fits like a glove thanks to my friend.



Since this is a custom unit, there is one minor interference with the shifter boot.
with the original CAE unit i dont think there will be any interference as it does not have the mechanism to lock the 5th and the Reverse gears.
I have not confirmed this obviously but if you are considering this shifter, i dont think the interior panel will interfere with the original unit.





Shifter panel console fit perfectly in the right position




If anyone is considering the modified version like i went with. you will most likely need to cut the shifter boot mount like this. I might make a new piece from scratch but i have not determined what i am going to do yet.




We have not adjusted the locking of the 5th and the reverse. There are 2 set screws that adjust the locking option.
I have posted a video of the shifting operation as my friend sent me.
Truth be told, i dont think i needed the custom option because the shifter appears to be perfectly precise. I trust my friend enough to give him my car at the track and we always go together and he told me that this is the best shifter he has ever used on my car and on other vehicles. I have not seen it in person as i have mentioned before but from the feedback i am getting and from what i am seeing i think this was the right option.

 

that’s pretty slick, but the cost to go with it

I was looking at their RX8 6-spd shifter and for me they allow payment by Paypal using a CC.

Optioned out at $1050 USD + shipping though … ugh
.

 

Hey, at least you won't pay a crazy import cost like a lot of us.

But man, $1050 for a shifter is a bit mad without strain gauge etc. Sure looks like a nice piece though

 

i have some small upgrades coming up but i figured it was probably the right time to post them.

I previously mentioned that i switched the Recaro TSG seats for the Recaro Pole Position ABE SL, limited to 300 seats globally.
The TSG in my eyes is the most beautiful seat ever made for the era of our cars. perfect fitment and matches the rest of the interior.
I do like the Pole position ABE but being such a big seat to accommodate the "oversized" folks like myself, it barely fits in the FD cabin.
I switched to different seat mounts but none of the seem to work properly because they are made to be used on different seats

So Far the AFGmoto from Adam seemed to "fit". I liked the manufacturing of it but for a street car, being in the fixed position is far from optimal never mind the fact that they are made for people with super long legs. I am 5.11 and at the closest setting, it wasn't close enough.
Other friends drove my car while they were much taller than me, it still too far back to properly use the clutch and not slide your *** out of the seat to press the clutch

I have decided that it was time to design and manufacture my own seat mounts that are Pole Position ABE specific.
Inspired by the Kawai works joggle brackets, I bought one rail from japan to reverse engineer the mounts points and the offset. I came up with this version using the Sparco double locking seat rails. I want to be able to slide the seat back and forth without my helmet touching the roof.
I sourced a set of the recaro Aluminum side mount brackets as the intention was to make them the same way







While the concept was pretty good. It felt that it wasnt going to work. I 3d printed all the related components and while i was heading to do a test fit to a friends FD here in Jersey, i found out that the kawai works design concept is copied from the Recaro Japan seat rails.
I came across one of those rails from japan so i thought why not just buy this and only make the components that will be unique to the Pole positions ABE .


these seats are big but they will have to be offset towards the transmission tunnel to clear the door cart.
The intention was to make the same bracket, formed in left and right orientations, with multiple holes for Left vs Right seat mounting.
Unfortunately this did not work as i would get interference with the slider handle so i came up with this solution

Longer vs Shorter version, formed in left and right orientation.







Since these side mounts are significantly longer at the bottom than the original Recaro , despite looking the "same" , i had to eliminate the lowest hole on these brackets as it would interfere with the bottom of the seat itself. So I replaced the 2 holes between the highest and the lowest with one that fits right in between them.

I will be going back next week to test fit them. More updates coming

 

One thing that i absolutely hate with my car is the lighting output. i cant see **** at night. The R-magic Lights are beautiful and all but the light output is garbage.

I did switch my high beams with the Baja Designs S1 with custom brackets and i must admit that the improvement was significant.
So better lighting, and lower power consumption since i was on the limit with those on the PDM

So i have decided to do the same stuff i did with the high beams, into my low beams
I wanted to stick to the Baja Designs because i really liked the product on the one hand but i wanted it to look uniform with the high beams.

I came across these
Baja Designs S2 sport flush mounted version



I didnt need the flush mounted version of course but i thought that i was going to make a cover plate to replicate the PIAA 2100 lights that i currently have so i could have used the 4 mounting holes.

I was pretty happy to find out that these Baja designs can be fully disassembled so i instead remove the flush mounted plate and replicated the PIAA verson and it bolts straight on it. Initially printed on PLA+ to confirm fitment and made the mating bracket to bring the S2 in the position as the 2100.





I ended up printing this in Onyx PA6 black Nylon and made the mounting bracket out of 304CRES





I did like this upgrade but i wanted to increase my lighting performance even more

I do have the FEED combo lights on the bumper and i have the Feed Combo light kit they offer for that bumper.
I did not like those lights at all; so why not upgrade those as well ?
Same story with this one,

Baja Designs offers the Squadron R which is a 3.5" LED projector as opposed to the one feed offers which is 4" (IIRC).
Made the brackets that places the projector at the same location of the feed projector. Made those backets out of a 304CRES

 

Wow, you always do the coolest stuff. Looking forward to seeing the finished product.

 

Thank you dude, greatly appreciated. And here i thought nobody was actually checking the build threads

I have a few more things coming. I hope everything will go according to plan as i have a mountain to climb in the 2 weeks i will be staying there

 

Yeah, one needs to refer to the number of likes and views these days not so much the comments. I'm often too lazy to comment on things when the only thing I have to say is how cool I think something is.

 

Would love to see a pic of these installed when you get there. Also a seat pic after installation too.

 

I dont really follow the hype. call me old-school i guess . But as always, thank you for your nice words! they are always greatly appreciated


I am flying over tonight. i should get to them before the weekend. I hope everything fits

 

Have a safe flight, hopefully you beat the holiday traffic. I have read your whole build, there are a few things I'd like to ask you, I am very
impressed with many of the things you have done....I am in a high end build myself but haven't started a thread.

 

thank you for your kind words,

ask away, i hope i can answer

 

I read where you purchased a Gleaseman Big R turbo manifold with the down pipe, have you been happy with this manifold? Do you have any boost creep?
Also if you get a chance, could you measure from some point on the motor, perhaps the front rotor, center of exhaust outlet or center of rear exhaust port out to the
center or front of turbo mounting flange? I'm sorry to ask this of you but I'm trying to design an air over water intercooler system that will sit horizontally on top of
the motor. My need for this measure is to see if I clock the turbo straight towards left side of motor, shoot it straight into a "U" shaped intercooler, which I intend to
tie into a DBW mounted on a pro jay sniper....this is a very critical measurement for design. My next obstacle will be alternator location interference. You are the only person that I know with this set up that I can ask this question of. Many, many thanks! Do this totally at your leisure. I greatly admire your thinking outside of the box
on your upgrades. If I haven't worn you out with this first question, I have more to come.

 

I do love the Big-R manifold. I did not use the downpipe as i decided to make one from scratch.
No boost creep. spring pressure is 14 or 15 psi and thats pretty much where i am at with my lowest setting. the wastegates are routed in the downpipe so it creeps ever so slightly (maybe 1 psi or 2) but it is not noticeable . I would see similar behavior from all manifolds where i re-routed the wastegate into the downpipe.

I will take some measurements, i just hope i am understanding it right .. to avoid any confusion, if you want to illustrate exactly what you want me to measure i will gladly do it since i am right next to my car for the next 2 weeks

 

I have returned about a week ago and i have been working on it non-stop. some things that were done i did not manage to take a picture.

some of the upgrades.

I went to find this car in this state. Since my friend's "2003" Fd was there right next to each other i figure, let me take a pic of them both .



First Upgrade

New oil pan from Xcessive. No picture

Sikky Diff brace.
I really like this thing! I didnt drive the car much but i didnt feel any vibration or road noise change.


CCFabLab Ball joint (extended). my Intention was to take pictures of the whole process.. I cut off the first ball joint and then i completely forgot. It is not a difficult process nor time consuming. i probably spent about 3-4 minutes on each ball joint after removing the control arm. I would do it over again in a heartbeat




Old headlights VS NEW.

While this is still work in progress as i think i can man make them fit better than now and wire them. I think it looks semi-decent






The seat brackets were made and they came out pretty nice. Tumbled them in a high abrasive metal ***** media.


I have mounted the seat on the new rail. just not in the car yet.
I had removed a hole pattern to lower the seat even more but now looking at it i think i will have to add it back just for the sake of the adjustability





I have done a lot more. but i will be making shorter posts every few days

Stay Tuned!

 

Nice man!! I've been waiting with baited breath to hear about these updates, especially the CCFab Lab joints and the Sikky brace, and how you faired without the exhaust hanger. Lights look great.

 

Love the upgrades, the seat brackets look totally pro, I'm gonna study your diff brace, I need to put a brace on my own. Those are 2 very nice FD's. I looked at Cyprus
on the map and wondered how many good riding roads you have over there for such a car as that. I hope many, though it is a small Island....but I digress....
The lights are cool too. Good luck man!

 

I also noticed the huge Link banner on the wall in the back ground of one of the pics...are any of ya'll over there using those ecu's? I'm gonna be buying an ecu
for my build very soon, just curious.

 

I had to go back and take pictures of the CCfablab, and the sikky brace just for your Peter. . see the next post. I think you will like the overall outcome.
There is one section on my exhaust that it gets a little closer than i like but i am planning to switching to a 4" exhaust so i will re-do it in a way that clears the diff brace completely


Thanks for the compliments on the seat mounts and the lights. I am overall happy with the outcome but i have more stuff coming in the next post and i am actually very excited about those.
​​​​​​​the diff brace is from Sikky.. I was very skeptical in the beginning but i said i am going to give it a try because i am sick of the ppf... so far i really like it !!!!! but i have not hit the track yet (or the highway) to notice any changes in the road noise/vibration. it feels stock
some roads in cyprus are actually excellent for cars like that but nobody knows them outside of the car scene and it doesnt get any international/youtube coverage


The link ecu is very big everywhere in europe.
I was debating between the Haltech and the Link. both are very good options even though i will admit that i dont know a lot about the Link ecu. I don't tune my car anymore and J.Renna is very comfortable with the haltech so i was happy to follow the haltech path . I would choose the tuner first and see what he recommends before you buy anything. The shop i use while in cyprus is an authorized Link Ecu shop and they have a lot of successful tunes but i J.Renna is my go to guy, he is a friend most importantly and then my tuner ! The majority of the tuned cars in cyprus nowadays are using the Link ecu. only one shop is tuning the haltech ecus in the whole island as far as i know