BrettLinton7

iTrader: (33)

I purchased a reman alternator and starter from AutoZone for my first FC when I first started driving/ getting into cars and had to replace both within the first year. IIRC I replaced the alternator another time. They're absolute garbage.

On my current FC I have an original S5 alternator and I trust it more than any AutoZone part. On long trips I throw a spare S5 alt in the back just for safety... lol

Akagis_white_comet

iTrader: (4)

Good News Everyone!

Kevin Landers has hooked me up once again on parts I needed. S5 Lower B-pillar trims in black and a S5 stereo trim minus vents for $58 shipped. Should arrive in a couple days.

Starter arrives tomorrow morning at Advance Auto. Got my fingers crossed that it's a good one, but not holding my breath. It IS a Worldwide one after all, exactly like Duralast ones...

Storage Bin locks are re-keyed to my original master key, exactly like stock. A big thank you to Slaters Hardware for doing both $36 and a quick turnaround. These locks gave them some trouble, but really shows how good they are at what they do. When I convert the rest of the interior to black, I'll be taking the glove box lock to them too.

Akagis_white_comet

iTrader: (4)

As predicted, Starter #3 failed to perform. 70 rpm, breaker tripped after 10 seconds and it melted the 4awg (actually 6awg) battery cables bought back in January from Advance Auto, exactly like #2 did. Both Worldwide and Duralast starters are made by Remy International, same exact part number for both and made in China or supposedly Mexico.

The cable I cut into two ground cables had the heat shrink come loose and the lugs were loose as well. The positive cable had visible arc damage on its lugs.

So ObliqueFD & I resoldered the ground cables, replaced the positive cable with one made from extra welding cable and tried it again. Same result, 70 rpm

I checked everything again front to back and the battery ground cable (again, welding cable) came apart in my hands. Resoldered that properly, as I didn't do a very good job before and moved the battery up front. Ground cable was swapped with the resoldered battery ground between starter and strut tower, with both the store bought/modified cables between strut tower and the battery. 70 rpm again and the store bought/modified cables melted loose again.

Starter #3 is junk, store bought cables are junk because people can't measure.
Reason for cable failure: MADE IN CHINA
Reason for starter failure: MADE IN CHINA OR MEXICO

Going to Delille Oxygen tomorrow for more american made welding cable, lugs and reinstalling the old starter. Perfect way to spend my birthday...

FDWarrior

iTrader: (6)

Does it really seem like new starters would cause all the problems you are listing??? It is painfully obvious that your problem is not in China starters, surely 3 different, new starters are not all providing the same exact results.

I think you should start looking at other sources for your problem, like rotating resistance in the engine, wiring issues, or a bad starter ground location. Best spot for a starter ground is on the iron plates. I bought a TII once with a relocated battery, and a ground to the chassis in the rear. The car cranked like a dead battery all the time, and hated to start. This car was also a haltech car. Once the ground was moved the car cranked and started like it should.

There is no way 3 new, different starters are all bad. There is also no way advanced auto cables are the problem either, unless they were built wrong.

ObliqueFD

iTrader: (32)

That's exactly what my argument with him has been recently. I'm hooking the battery up directly to the starter this evening and then working my way back into the electrical system by slowly adding components. Grounds and cable workmanship have been questionable. I ran out of sunlight when I was helping him solder a few lugs on last week and wasn't really able to work with the grounding locations.

Akagis_white_comet

iTrader: (4)

Agreed, though we have tried known good cables in parallel to each questionable cable and ended up with the same results with the battery up front. In a back to back test under identical conditions, the old starter cranked 100rpm faster than the two from autozone & advance auto. Battery location, either front or rear, made no discernible difference in cranking rpm either.

Either way, known good cables will be throughout the car today and a defibrillator on standby if need be.

2RotorSpeed

iTrader: (1)

When I did my 20B swap, I relocated the battery in the back-most passenger side of the car. I used the following SummitRacing battery relocation kit.

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/SUM-G1231-K/

I grounded the battery with the cable from the kit right in the middle of the trunk of the car (I'll post pics when I get home).

I ran the positive wire that came with the kit all the way up front by fusebox, and soldered it into the alternator/starter main wire.

I kept the original starter wire and grounding point (from starter long-blot with nut that bolts to the trans, to the bottom of the strut-tower.

The engine started right up.

Also, I had an original Turbo FC starter and a red-top OPTIMA battery.

Another comment I'd like to make is that, when the wires are melting the way you are describing this... it's usually an electrical problem (cable is not thick enough for the length, bad ground, etc)

BTW, when you increase the length of the wire (such as relocation the battery in the back), and you are feeding something such as a starter which draws high amount of AMPs, the gauge of the wire required increases. When I did my research, for the length of wire that I needed, the charts online recommended me to get a 0 gauge wire... as you see the kit I linked is a 1 gauge wire... which luckily hasn't cause any issues with me so far. Your 4/6 gauge wire doesn't seem adequate for the job IMO.

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

i may have mentioned this before, but when i did mine i had a couple of OEM rear mount battery cars to look at, a Miata and an MGB, and i just copied those.

the battery went in the right bin, ground cable went to the seat belt bolt hole for the 2+2 seats, which is right there. the positive cable went thru a rubber plug, i used the same run as the fuel/brake lines, and just went to the + of the starter, like the stock cable does.

i got lazy and left the original charging harness in the car, which later let me run 2 batteries, and even later i switched back to stock.

neither the MGB or the Miata has a circuit breaker on the + cable. the miata runs the cables on the inside of the PPF, in a little harness, so its really well protected.

even later the BMW E30 had a front mounted battery, and later they switched to a rear battery, cable run is thru the interior somewhere (i think), and the + cable goes from the battery, thru the car and ends in a battery style terminal, so it plugs into the front mount battery harness. so they were cheaper and lazier than me!

so make it simple, OEM's do, and people sue them, and do horrible things to their products

Akagis_white_comet

iTrader: (4)

Every cable in the car is 4awg welding cable now. As soon as the junk parts store cables were replaced, no more melting and no more tripping the breaker. Grounds were cleaned up again to ensure good conductivity.

Source: http://www.crutchfield.com/S-JfkPghm...uge_chart.html

According to Crutchfield, 4awg is sufficient to supply 150 amps for up to 13 feet of cable length. While I am not certain of the actual current draw during cranking (someone with an amp clamp, please chime on on this), it is my understanding that the starter would be drawing about 125 amps, 25% above its stated draw of 1.2KW (100 Amps x 12 volts). Based on 125 amps, the total run I can have is 19ft while keeping a decent safety margin.

Battery to Breaker: 2ft
Breaker to Bus Bar: ~14ft
Bus Bar to Starter: 4ft

Starter body to Strut tower ground: 2ft
Strut tower ground to Ground bus bar (for convenient grounding): 2ft
Battery ground spot to Battery: 2ft

The breaker to bus bar cable runs from the bus bar mounted in the stock fuse panel location on the front of the strut tower, around and through the driver's side grommet, straight down to the harness channel (under the fiberboard piece) directly back and along the bulkhead crossmember to the breaker in the passenger side bin on the side nearest the tunnel. There's plenty of slack in it, so I could probably remove 3-4ft or so from the cable run.

Just to be certain it's not cable length, I'll be doing another test tomorrow morning with the battery connected directly to the bus bars at the front.

Aaron Cake use 4awg in Project TIINA and hasn't seemed to run into any issues yet.

ObliqueFD

iTrader: (32)

This afternoon we connected the starter (installed) directly to the battery with a couple of short cables to test how it performed without dealing with shoddy wiring. Upon connecting the S terminal it turned right over and sounded very healthy. The engine does not have excess rotational resistance and the starter is good.

I didn't get to move back through the system as I had hoped but I did clean up the starter to chassis ground at the strut tower. It was nowhere near adequate and looked like there was a lot of paint in the area. After believing that was the cause of all the problems we went ahead and placed the battery back in the passenger bin. I have resoldered all of the cables except for one lug at the battery in the bins. After trying to crank with the battery in the back the Haltech only indicated 170rpm but it did sound stronger. The only issues left are the bus bars, grounds and wire size.

The battery is on a charger and the goal tomorrow evening is to hook the battery up in the engine bay without the relocation cables. I'm fairly positive he just needs better contact on the grounds or bus bars.

Akagis_white_comet

iTrader: (4)

Did some testing today with a fully charged battery to start with.

Test #1: Battery in front:
Positive: 2ft battery to bus bar + 4ft bus bar to starter
Negative: 2ft battery negative to bus bar + 2ft ground bus to ground point + 2ft ground point to starter
Result: 210rpm consistently and wanted to start (heard it fire w/injectors connected). Haltech reported 380rpm for a second. Spark plugs needing cleaned and/or old gas prevented startup

Test #2: Battery in rear
Positive: 2ft battery to breaker + ~14ft breaker to bus bar + 4ft bus bar to starter
Negative: 2ft battery to body (rear), 2ft starter to body (front)
Result: 175rpm
Suspect: front to rear positive cable (voltage drop is 0.1v) or ground cable in rear

Test #3: Battery in front:
Positive: ~14ft battery to bus bar + 4ft bus bar to starter
Negative: 2ft starter to ground point + 2ft ground point to bus bar + 4ft bus bar to battery (original cable circa 1986)
Result: 150rpm, breaker tripped after 10 seconds
Suspect: front to rear positive cable

Test #4: Battery in front
Positive: 2ft battery to breaker + ~14ft breaker to bus bar + 4ft bus bar to starter
Negative: 2ft battery negative to bus bar + 2ft ground bus to ground point + 2ft ground point to starter
Result: 160rpm, breaker tripped after 10 seconds
Suspect: front to rear positive cable

After these 4 tests, the battery was a bit weak as I had attempted several times to start the engine during Test #1.

Overall prognosis is that the ~14ft front to rear cable is the primary culprit (rear lug I soldered poorly) and the battery ground in the storage bin is the secondary culprit. ObliqueFD mentioned that it could be cleaned up better. It works decently as it is now though. In addition, the front to rear cable can be shortened by ~3ft

Ocnod

This thread is sick. I only wish I could afford to do half of this. Guess I will just stick with my n/a turbo swap.

Akagis_white_comet

iTrader: (4)

Thanks for the praise. While the big ticket items, Engine and ECU, have 4-digit pricetags, all of the remaining significant parts have been under $250 each on this project. Unfortunately, it's all of the little parts that nickel and dime one to death with something like this. Silicone intake couplers come to mind on this. If you're creative, the costs can be kept quite manageable.

Progress update:
Wiring cleanup has begun. Discovered a large error I had made in the pinout for the VW relay panel. So I went through it again, fixed the error and rebuilt the fan circuit from the ground up. Much easier to work with now, much simpler and it let me add something desperately needed: Ignition-switched studs for ring terminals. Now the car has two readily-accessible M6x1.0 studs triggered by the ignition switch (green connector), getting nice, clean power from the Battery Bus Bar via a 70 Amp Relay and short length of 4awg cable. It's infinitely better than the old arrangement that had the haltech ignition wire slip out if you just looked at the green connector.

Slightly modified the old compy case brackets and reinstalled the panel. Looks pretty good, clears the intake plumbing and just needs linked to the strut tower.

Fan gets its power through another suitably large cable on its own dedicated M8x1.25 stud. Low speed comes out the bottom of the panel on a 0.187" quick disconnect terminal with four 18awg wires crimped in and covered with 2 layers of heat shrink for support. Should be about equal to a 10awg wire in ampacity.

For the record, two 12awg wires will fit in the same terminal despite it clearly saying it's for 16-14awg. I used four 18awg just because I was out of 12awg after doing the output jumper wire between the Low-Speed and High-Speed relays.

Just cut off the blue vinyl insulation, open the barrel up to a C-shape and put the wires in. Close the barrel back up with needle-nose pliers and crimp with a Non-Insulated terminal crimper. It's the kind with the 'tooth' in it, linked a few pages back when I did the weatherpack connectors for the ignition coils. Just put the tooth side on the bottom of the barrel and it will be secure.

If there is a need to overload a wire terminal, I always give it two layers of heat shrink for extra support. Tried one layer and it felt too flexible in the way that the crimp might fail prematurely. Granted, it is always better to use the proper terminal but I don't have access to the correct terminals...yet. This is in the works though.

Ninja Update:
ObliqueFD came over, we lopped off 3ft from the long cable & soldered a new terminal on. Instant cure to slow cranking. So with this, the injectors were connected and...

(in Mad Scientist voice)
IT IS ALIVE!!!!!

Was puking chocolate milk mix (coolant & oil) at the rear cooler line's fitting and a small oil leak at the front cover oil cooler fitting, but those can be fixed relatively easy.

Instantly idled at ~1000rpm
Video of it running will be uploaded shortly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqXyH...ature=youtu.be

ObliqueFD

iTrader: (32)

I didn't think tonight would be the first start, but after getting the electrical issues worked out it wanted to start!

Sorry about the video size. It was just a quick clip before we had to shut it down due to the leaks.

2RotorSpeed

iTrader: (1)

Nice, good job man. I'm glad you finally got it running! Seems that by shortening the length of the wire you reduced the gauge requirement that I mentioned before and now it's all sorted out.

LokiRx7.1

iTrader: (1)

Looking forward to seeing this in person! Hope you get the chance to hit a few meets this year.

Akagis_white_comet

iTrader: (4)

2rotorspeed, it was on Crutchfield's wiring guide where I found that I needed to remove that 3ft of cable. Now there is 17ft of cable between the battery and starter (battery to breaker: 2ft, breaker to bus bar: 11ft, bus bar to starter: 4ft) and 4ft of ground cable.

Plus, the lug soldering I did before wasn't very good. Redoing that probably contributed to the cranking speed difference as well. Anyway, actual cranking speed needed to start a rotary seems to be about 225rpm give or take a bit. Obviously, more is better but at least we know what is needed to get the job done.

The past couple days have been spent tidying things up a bit in the hatch. Cables in the rear are secured using nylon 1/2" adel clips on the bulkhead crossmember. You know those ~1/4" holes on the top of it? I put some M5x0.8 bolts through them from the inside, secured with nuts. the adel clips go on those, with a washer on both sides and another nut on top.

HOW TO SECURE CABLES AND WIRING TO REAR BULKHEAD CROSSMEMBER.

You'll need the following:
Short pair of Needle Nose Pliers
Electrical tape
Flashlight
One M5x0.8 bolt, 30mm long for each location
Two M5x0.8 nuts for each location
Four M5 washers for each location
One Adel clip (P-clip) for each location, suitable for the wiring you wish to secure. 1/2" is as close as I could get for 4AWG welding cable and 1/4" split loom. Make sure the mounting hole is big enough for a M5 bolt to go through easily. M6x1.0 bolts will fit through each hole, but will be much harder to wiggle through the crossmember. This is why I suggest using M5 bolts.

This is a MAJOR PITA to do using the existing holes in the crossmember. If you are right-handed like me, it's a bit easier to attempt while sitting in the hatch area instead of being belt over behind the front seats. Cut an 8" length of tape and wrap half of it around the bolt's head. Now wrap the extra around the pliers while leaving a small gap so it will be flexible. Ideally, you want the tape to stick better to the pliers than the bolt. I didn't measure when I did my car, so 8" is a guess.

I should have put washers on each bolt before putting them in so they won't distort the sheetmetal, but was afraid they'd fall off while routing the bolts. Dropped a few bolts with one completely disappearing till I came up with the tape trick. If you do drop the bolt, you'll have a hell of a time trying to extract it. The crossmember is VERY dark inside, so having a good flashlight is essential. I use a Black & Decker Snakelight and it barely fits through the big oval holes nearest the doors

After you tape the bolt onto the pliers, feed the bolt into the large hole nearest the hole you wish to poke the bolt through. The big oval holes nearest the doors and the rear seat 'hook' holes will be sufficient for everything except the middle of the crossmember, but more on that later.

Have some nuts ready near your right hand. With the pliers in your left hand, held in place with your thumb and pinky & ring fingers, maneuver the bolt into position using your index and/or middle fingers to adjust the angle of the bolt.

As soon as you get it through the hole, get a nut on ASAP it to hold it in place. Your left hand will want to cramp up by now. Now pull the pliers back out and the tape should ideally come out with them. Remove the nut and put a washer on, then put the nut back on. Tighten till it feels secure. Now put another washer on, then an adel clip, a 4th washer on and finally another nut. Snug it down gently so it can be removed without holding the bolt head. Washers on both sides ensures that it can't come loose.

The only one I couldn't put a bolt in was at the middle of the crossmember as there is no access hole. Since it was dark out when I finished it up, it just got a fir tree with a flat side cut on it to hold it in. Cut another flat side and secured both the main power cable and haltech wiring at the middle. Main cable & Haltech wiring meet at the middle, then turn to the rear to go to the breaker that's conveniently mounted on the inside of the passenger side bin flange. One of the 'bag' holes puts the breaker in nearly the perfect spot for this. Even with my 9A48 battery and a bypass fuse, it is still easy to access the breaker.

The reason I used nylon clips was because Lowes was out of metal ones and these were 8 for $1. 1/2" is a hair too big for 4AWG welding cable and 1/4" split loom but a couple layers of heat shrink can fix that. Before someone says to try 3/8" clips, I did and they are too small and I don't know of a company that makes 5/16" clips yet. Had to ream out the mounting hole a teeny bit with the good ol' leatherman pocketknife.

On a related note, Lowes stocks our Fir Tree trim clips! They're labeled as Ford trim clips and are the smaller of the two Ford-type ones but they're there and only in black! Price is 2 for $1, half of what the dealer asks. Next time I'm at Lowes, I'll get the SKU number and post it.

Really hoping to get to a few meets this summer after all the bugs are ironed out of the car. It will need some dyno time and I've still got plenty of work to do before the car is meet-worthy.

Official To-Do List
Priority One Items:
Clean up haltech harness & underhood wiring
Build ECU mounting panel
Finish building intake plumbing & fix air filter/hood issue (front filter hits hood)
Fix oil & coolant leaks
Build switch panel w/provisions for haltech's LEDs and USB port
Mount Taurus Fan & Revise Oil Cooler mount to accommodate this (mounting bar is too close to radiator for fan to fit)

Priority Two Items:
Add second M16x1.5 thermoswitch bung to upper water pump neck
Build battery box
Clean up vacuum lines

Priority Three Items:
Mount boost gauge
Install stereo
Clean interior

There's a lot of work to do, and some fabrication. Wiring is going to be a PITA in order to keep the fuses & relays accessible in the kick panel, but hopefully not TOO difficult.

Akagis_white_comet

iTrader: (4)

I forgot two Crush Washers for the oil cooler lines, one on the front cover and one on the rear iron

Product Review/Bump Alert:

Fixed that today using a set of copper washers from Harbor Freight and some leftover extras from the old oil cooler. Item# 67526 has nearly every size needed on our cars for $8. Yes, they are labeled SAE but are the proper size for nearly every fluid connection. According to the digital caliper I picked up at HF the same day (item# 93293, $8 as well), here is what each size turns out being in ID:
1/4"=6.3mm, 5/16"=8.0mm, 3/8"=10.0mm, 7/16"=11.1mm, 1/2"=12.7mm, 5/8"=16.3mm

The only sizes not in the box are M14 (Turbo Oil Supply) and M18 (Oil Cooler lines except front cover). Although this one is a bit skimpy on the larger sizes, Jegs has a similar kit with greater quantities of the same sizes for $15.

According to one thread on this subject, a note with Racing Beat's oil cooler hose kit says to torque adapters to 300-360in.lbs. Thought it'd be better to play it safe, so mine got 25ft.lbs (300in.lbs) and freshly annealed crush washers for everything till I can check for leaks.

Bit of advice though: When annealing a crush washer, don't use a coffee cup that was made in china to set it on. I did this and during the 3rd washer, the cup exploded and the crush washer jumped about 4" in the air from it while sending a chunk of the handle thankfully in the opposite direction.

With the big oil leaks (hopefully) solved, my attention is now on cleaning up the wiring mess. Speaking of which, are there any tricks to de-pinning the haltech connectors? I know that one needs to push in the white tab first, then I'm at a loss...

The plan is to remove all the excess crap from the flying lead harness the right way, take out all of the splices in the Orange 5v wire in favor of a single one going to a dedicated bus bar and redoing the AVI2 trim connector BS entirely (using the extra wire salvaged from the 5V reduction with some black heat shrink added for proper chrominance retention). Every wire is going through a weatherpack connector in their respective groups (DPO, AVI, etc), then to their individual targets with each connection being labeled and permanently sealed under clear heat shrink.

Currently, the ignition coils' wiring is done this way minus the clear heat shrink and will serve as the model for everything else. Just gotta do one piece at a time... (insert Johnny Cash song here)

SirCygnus

iTrader: (1)

fast forward to 3 minutes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqVgbENGxjU

Akagis_white_comet

iTrader: (4)

SirCygnus, that is exactly what I needed to know. Tried separating all the fluff from the necessary stuff while in the car and gave up when it came to opening all the shrink wrap on the haltech harness. Unlike brand new harnesses, mine came pre-shrunk and with all of the relays loose and I'd like to not set my interior on fire or melt the dashboard or other necessary items when replacing the shrink wrap

2 hours later, a completely disassembled hatch and several "Oh ****!"'s later, the harness is out of the car. On the project table is a big reduction, full round of weatherpack connectors on everything and a complete re-loom over the next week.

Man, Top Gear should do this too. Just imagine Jeremy Clarkson wiring up an ECU...would make a killer challenge.

SirCygnus

iTrader: (1)

no no, james may.

Akagis_white_comet

iTrader: (4)

James May would be the only one that would probably do it correctly, but be a week late from it. Jeremy Clarkson would be 2 weeks late as his car would spontaneously ignite. As for Hammond, can we really imagine the Hamster under the dashboard of a RX-7 feeding a harness through the firewall?

DEFINITELY!

Okay, small update time:
Haltech Harness has been thinned out. Had to chop off all the shrink wrap, the zip ties and give it some targeted muscle. Result is 25% less bulk, 8" more span between the fuses/relays and ECU connectors and only having to fish the ECU connectors through the firewall now. Tested it out this morning and it was in & out in 10 minutes. Fuses & relays will be mounted permanently under the Cruise Control Actuator as soon as I make brackets. Connectors will be ordered tomorrow morning for all remaining devices.

De-pinning and Re-pinning the Haltech Flying Lead Harness:
For those wanting to thin out their Haltech PS1K/PS2K Flying Lead Harness, especially the ones that don't have the nifty fuse/relay center they now offer, I'd like to offer a bit of advice based on my experience.

3/4" Heat Shrink (before shrinking diameter) is the correct size to seal everything back up on the connectors, but will NOT fit over them. 1" is too small to slip over them as well, but is the right size to seal up where everything joins together. As 1" was the largest I had, I had to de-pin both connectors as shown in the video from Haltech that Sir Cygnus so kindly posted. The 34-pin Connector isn't too bad to do. No drama, just pull each pin and slip it inside the shrink tube, then put back in (you'll feel it 'bump' twice). The 26-pin connector was a MAJOR PITA to do. Haltech made several pins shielded or tied to power (let's call them crossovers). This means they are tied to either the Signal Ground (pins 14-16) or ECU power (pin 11). It wouldn't be an issue, except they put the jumper wires half an inch from the actual pins!

It is difficult to extract and reinstall these pins without stressing the crossovers. To do it and keep the crossovers intact, push that row of pins in their proper openings, push the tab to unlock the connector and push each pin all the way down using a sewing pin. If the lock tab won't push back into place, push on each contact pin again with the sewing pin and try the lock tab again. Once you have them all seated, it will go to the locked position.

Pins that have crossovers on them:
1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13

#1, 2, 5 and 6 are the biggest PITA to do as they have three crossovers (shielding, ground and power) in their groups (Trigger and Home). Do these first and you'll only have annoying trouble with the ECU power pin and all the shielded pins in the second row. FWIW, the Ground crossover was placed far back enough to where you can maneuver things without too much trouble.

Next time I do this, I'm building the harness from scratch and putting all of the crossovers 6" from the connector pins.

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

congrats on bringing it life!

Akagis_white_comet

iTrader: (4)

Well, I lied about the connectors and started on the turbo side of the intercooler plumbing. Since I didn't want to buy a piping kit or mandrel bends ($65 each for the correct radius from Burns Stainless) and the only silicone couplers that would fit between the Y-pipe (unmodified) and intercooler are $20 each and require modification to barely fit, I decided to go the third route and fabricate all of it in 2.5" exhaust tubing that I already had.

$50 for a 8" miter/bevel chop saw and a few days later yields twelve pieces cut at 15 degrees each to make three TIGHT radius 90 degree transitions. End pieces have a straight cut and one 15 degree cut with 1/2" for coupler grip area. Middle pieces have two 15 degree cuts (not clocked) with the thinnest part being 1/8". Makes for an overall length of 3.5" from one end to the far edge of the other. For reference, a 90 degree coupler from siliconeintakes.com has an overall length of 5.0" and 1.5" of it is in the coupler's legs.

Since my saw gave each piece quite a lot of flashing, cleaning the pieces up has been annoying though I discovered a neat little trick. The perfect tool to remove cut flashing is a dremel with a heavy duty cutoff wheel. Clamp it down and rotate the pipe piece clockwise on the right edge of the blade. Works better than a grinding stone or disc and leaves the edge quite smooth too. Thanks to Aaron Cake for demonstrating the improper/awesomesauce use of a cutting wheel on the '76 Cosmo.

On the books for tomorrow is to finish cleaning up the last few parts, mock it all up with duct tape and cut out the last few straight pieces to tie it all together. Pics of the assembly will be posted when I have it mocked up.

scrapp

iTrader: (1)

This thread is amazing and just what I needed. subscribed. awesome work.