what is your opinion on the coli-overs that you used? how do they feel on turns and a normal drive?

 

too soon to tell, this saturday i rolled it out of the garage for the first time in 3 years, and it ran under its own power for the first time since 2008? and then it ran out of gas for the first time since 2008! it was an eventful day

 

glad to see it out in the sun. how's it going working out the bugs and all?



so, sort of your first time sideways?

 

well i feel stupid, because i dropped it off a week ago at the body shop, and he said it would be done Thursday, and even though i should know better, i took him to mean LAST Thursday, so i feel dumb, because i should know better....

i also might have used the words "i'm not in a hurry", which of course in body shop means "just keep the car forever"

so i'm on hold, but it should be all one color someday. in the meantime i've got all the trim stuff cleaned, and ready to go. which is kind of nice, when the car gets back i can just slap all the trim stuff back on.

on the actual running end of things, i put 5 gallons of fresh gas in it, and it runs WAY better, the old stuff was no good. after that i need to fix an oil leak at the turbo drain, install a check engine light (didn't get an idiot cluster), and start plugging in solenoids/resistors until its happy.

 

its back! they did a convincing brave blue too, which is kind of a pleasant surprise. so now i get to spend a day putting on trim bits and moldings and stuff.

then it needs more sensors hooked up on the engine, an alignment, i need spacers for the volks, they painted the HKS muffler tips blue...

 

so far the two biggest surprises are that when i plug stuff in it works, and B how much the oil pan leaks.

it started leaking before i put oil in it... fresh motor fresh pan! the previous owner, parts kenny, assures me this is a good sign

 

Woah, car looks great!, Leaky oil pan sucks, but at least with an fc you can actually remove the oilpan, it really sucks with an fd

 

it is an FD! i may get lucky though, i ran my finger around the oil pan perimeter and its actually dry, so i think its actually leaking out of the engine mount bolt, which actually might not be too bad to fix.

 

got most of the exterior and interior trim on (that i have!).

the odd (to me anyways) twist is that so far everything works, logicon, which came out of a bucket, dome light, headlight and wiper switches...

at some point i need to pull it apart, and finish the ECU wiring. its running really rich, and or the turbo has taken a dive, so that needs to come apart maybe.

in other news camber seems to be even in the front, so in the rebuild i replaced the bent part(s), the p/o hit a guard rail. i think it was the subframe, but i changed the spindles too

 

Cool build

 

Yes it is.

 

glad you like it! i was thinking i should change the title to "shouldn't a ground up rebuild turn out nicer than this?"

 

Keep it up!

 

not much to report, except a little inspiration. i've always liked this car, and mine has gone a different direction cosmetically, the engine combo ended up pretty similar. i think i just dig the RG's though... and i like the stockish body

from 2001, this is the Feed demo car, its a 13BT, with REW trimmings, article says TF07 turbo, but i'm thinking its a typo and its a TD07, they oddly don't quote hp, but it should be mid 300's?

 

wonder where those coils are...

 

they don't need coils in japan! there's another page in the magazine, and you can see they just used the FD coils, so its under the intake

 

Good work!

 

Looks good. The mismatched wheels are classy.

 

stupid things are afoot! so basically it runs, but runs like ***. so i decided the next step should be to pull the codes and see if there is anything important, and of course the ECU did a couple weeks ago, but wont now.

i've tentiple checked the wiring, tried 3 different ecus and none of it has worked so now its time to bypass the car!

behold the ECU tester 2000!

 

I like where this is going.

 

i just wanna drive the %&(#* thing!

so the ecu spat out codes the other week, then i pulled the harness out to finish it, and now the ecu doesn't spit out codes, so i tried two more ecu's with the same result, so ecu test board is replace car!

so test #1, which hopefully is today is to hook up the powers and grounds and the diagnostic stuff and see if it spits out codes, then i can continue being confused?

actually i guess step #2, is to figure out what i can remove and not have a CEL, because i do need to smog this thing at some point

and then step #3 is to figure out what i f-ed up on the car! either that or i've fried 3 FD ecus...

 

Does the FD ECU die out when the OMP goes like the S5 FC?

 

it doesn't seem to. the FC ecu actually dies because the harness goes, which puts all the grounding into the MOP, which fries the MOP, and then the ECU. so the root cause with the FC is actually the harness grounds

 

Wow, that's some dedication! I hope you'll get it sorted out

 

nice job so far.

so, next time when someone challenges you to re-build a delapidated FC in a month.... tell them it will be a 1 year and a month. challenge on!

now you know how i feel when i walk into the shop everyday.


i say put a powerFC in it, slap some duct tape over the Apexi logo and say it's a stock ECU. result! not like the refs are actually going to get their knees dirty checking it anyways. for the CEL just wire it in as a "follow me" light to pass visual. it was always sort of a challenge passing CA emissions but in the end the cars usually burned cleaner than brand new. if that doesn't fly, cut a new ECU top plate to eliminate any aftermarket logos, remove the serial numbers, any defining labels and then they will just scratch their heads and move on.

worrying about emissions is a waste of time until you have some direction from the testers. the techs always are different, some may let some things fly while others won't.