soccer05

Tune went very well, car is running fabulously with amazing top end pull and good response. I need to get one or two very very minor tweaks to the tune prior to posting the graph, but the car is running great. It's just tough with the christmas and new years holiday, lots of shops close down and I didnt want to bug anyone on vacation. In a couple days it will be all set and graphs will be posted. I must say, the car pulls so hard, I am extremely happy with the performance. Now it is time to star dialing in the ride height and chassis, as well as figuring out the little details like what passenger seat am I going to run.

soccer05

So, I decided to do a little tinkering on Friday in preparation for my upcoming trip to GST for some minor tuning work, and decided to install my Synapse DV Valve. First, it is a tight fit with the upgraded APS TMIC and the extra height on the intake manifold with my Phenolic Intake Manifold spacers. So as I finally get everything in a bolt snaps mounting the dv valve to the tmic. After some swearing, I break out the EZ out to remove the bolt and pick up some new bolts. Of course, the EZ Out tip breaks off in the bolt instead of removing the bolt. AAARRRGGGHHHH. So I remove the tmic and have to take it to the local machine shop, and the price is quite steep due to the ez out tip being broken off in the bolt. Stupid me to mess with a good thing.

On the bright side, I needed to do a little work under the tmic anyways, so the goodridge stainless steel clutch line will be installed and bled while the tmic is out.I will also take this time to stroke the suspension and make sure there is ZERO binding or rubbing, and probably play with the ride heights a little bit. The car might need to be raised a 1/4 inch or so, as I am getting some slight rubbing on harsh bumps due to my soft springs, so have a little bit of playing to do. Also need to finish programming my Greddy infometer so all that information can actually be useful and prevent any problems. Should get the tmic back on Thursday, and then take the car in to finalize the tune and iron out a few kinks, then get on with enjoying the car.

soccer05

TMIC Back off the car, feels like I took a few steps backwards. Leave it to me to start messing with a good thing. Oh well, I needed the TMIC off to install the braided clutch line, and it will be the proper way to install the synapse dv valve. Front suspension just got pulled from car and coilovers sitting on the ground. I will probably be raising the ride height a 1/4 inch, but will be removing the springs and reinstalling the front suspension and stroking through the travel to make sure there is no rubbing or contact. Maybe, just maybe, I will have time this go around to measure out the bumpsteer.



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soccer05

Various people have been emailing for pictures in regards to the rears, and how much fender has been cut away. Hopefully these pictures help, unfortunately I am too busy getting the car back up and running to pull the flares to take a picture. The different layers of metal are seam sealed together, then painted to avoid water and rust issues.



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And another



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soccer05

Front suspension put back together without the springs. Allignment set back to where it was previously, and measured suspension points so I know where my ride height is without the springs. Made a ghetto fabulous bump steer gauge out of some pieces of plywood and door hinges. One bolt through the plywood to locate rim, second hole for a dial gauge to measure bumpsteer. This will give me some good suspension information, amount of bump travel, droop travel, bumpsteer, and any clearance issues.



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soccer05

And for any of those who are interested, this is the amount of wheel clearance I have with the flares with my setup. My suspension settings (ride height, camber, toe, wheel size, offset, blah blah blah) have all been posted previously. This is my wheel clearance prior to ride height adjustments.

Clearance for front



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soccer05

Clearance in rear



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soccer05

Current update of the car is it sits this morning. About to head over to my folks house and try to spend a day working on it, hopefully quite a bit of progress will be made. On the checklist, get the tmic fully bolted on (possibly need to space up for proper dv valve clearance), bumpsteer front suspension, reinstall front coilovers with adjusted ride height, bumpsteer rear suspension, raise rear ride height. Thats just off the top of my head. Tmic mostly bolted on, just need to hook throttle body coupler up and install dv valve.



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Superusdm

iTrader: (6)

Have you considered a catch can setup? I had my vac lines routed the same as you and recently learned that it was incorrect. Perrins instructions are wrong about t-ing the pcv into the breather lines.

To fix this I vented my EBCS to atmosphere and routed the PCV into the front hole on the inlet.

soccer05

Yes I definitely plan on running a catch can set up, I currently have a Crawford aos sitting at the house, and will be talking with mike from gst about how to mount it as I currently wants to occupy the same space as the external wastegate on the turbo. Maybe some custom mounting, we will see what like says.

Interesting about the vaccum lines I will double check with mike when I next speak with him and update on here.

soccer05

Well it has been a long time since the last update, with quite a few minor issues holding up the finalization of the car. As I installed the Synapse DV Valve, I encountered a few minor difficulties. One, the flange is thinner than the oem bypass valve flange, so you need to get some shorter bolts to secure the dv valve. In my sleep deprived state, I failed to notice this and ended up snapping a bolt in the tmic. As I attempted to pry it out with an easy out, the easy out tip broke in the bolt. Thenight is getting better and better. So I take it down to the local machine shop and they tell me it is going to cost like $150 because the easy out is broken in the bolt, and snaps the bits whenever they touch it. Arrgghhh, but gotta do it. About a week later I get the tmic back and the oem bypass valve lines up. As I finalize installing the synapse dv valve, the housing cracks. Very frustrating to say the least, nothing bad about their product I just got one that seemed to go. So I contacted Synapse and they had excellent customer service, sent the broken one back and they immediately sent me a new one. Very refreshing, as I really was getting frustrated at the way the install had gone. So, I have a new dv valve but just haven't had the time to install it.

So that iss where the car is at currently, hopefully I will be able to get back into the car and making some updates/progress.

I have also been battling a slight rubbing on my rear fenders under a full load (full tank) on large bumps. I have raised the ride height in the rear as high as my coil overs will let me, so I need to remove the springs and measure the lengths and contact swift and get some stiffer springs. I am thinking 100-150 lb/in increase should do the trick, just need to call H&R and confirm the strut valving can handle the increase and not be over sprung. H&R springs that come with the kit are originally 287 lb/in rear and 450 lb/in front. I am thinking an increase to 450 lb/in rear and 500 or 550 lb/in front should do the trick. This will let me slightly drop the ride height, as it is a pretty drastic spring rate increase (just back to where I had it), and help the rear end to rotate with the stiffer springs.

soccer05

I've responded to quite a few pm's about how the front bumper is mounted to the car. We did it slightly different than some of the others I've seen on the internet, but as I haven't had first hand experience doing this, we went with a way that we know would work for dual purpose daily driver/trackday toy duty. As mentioned earlier in this thread, I used an AMS lightweight bumper beam sourced through topspeed motorsports, but ran into some fitment issues. Doing some research, I found on the AMS website that the beam was designed for the 04 and up gd sti's, and not the 02-03 bugeye, even though it said it fit all gd chassis cars on the website. A little extra time, but took the beam down to a local muffler shop, and had 3/4 of an inch taken off both sides and re welded up, I guess we will call it some extra weight reduction. We then used the oem plastic pop tabs to secure the top of the bumper and grill to the beam, and prevent the center of the bumper from sagging. The sides of the bumper are secured with two quick release dzus fasteners per side, which connect to a fender reinforcement piece ont he backside of the bumper/fender. Very secure and clean looking, and have zero issues. Looks amazing and comes off very quickly for me to do allignment work and plot suspension geometry pickup points. Here are some pictures of the fender mounting/reinforcement.



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soccer05

Selling a couple parts at this stage of my build to clean me new parts, I have in excellent condition hotchkis sealed bearing adjustable front endlinks (ran for literally two weeks until my msi endlinks came in that I had already ordered), Cobb stainless steel front brake lines (brand new in box, never used), whiteline rear strut tower brace, cat delete pipe, and brand new sti front control arm forward bushing (0 miles, pressed out of my new sti aluminum suspension arms and replaced with robispec spherical bearing). Take a look over in the for sale thrads if your interested. All parts are fully functional and ready to be installed and used. As you can tell from the thread, I purchase quality parts and take care of my car, so the parts are all ready to be played with. Check out the for sale classifieds or shoot me a pm if you're interested, want to clear this out so I can slide an sr20det in the 240sx, the poor thing needs a new engine soon.


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soccer05

Minor update, talked with h&r about upgrading the spring rates and they said I could safely run up to 100 lb/in stiffer spring with the damper still able to adequately control the spring and not be over sprung. After consulting with tic about the unique needs of my build we are going to run slightly over a 100 lb/in increase (only like 112 lb) and run a 400 lb/in spring in the rear that is 6.5 inches long. This should help greatly in reducing suspension movement and eliminate the last little bit of rubbing under harsh impacts (the type were the car unweights and then is coming down on a sharp rise, the undulating movements sometimes occurring on freeways at higher speeds) with a full tank of gas. It will also allow me to slightly lower the spring perch and keep its current ride height as the coil over is raised as highs it can go. In the front I will continue to run the 450 lb/in springs that came with the kit, so a 50 lb/in difference front to rear. I have heard mixed things, but at hire spring rates most people seem to prefer having a 50 lb/in difference compared to a 100, but they were utilizing dampers that were more sophisticated than mine. We will see how it goes, but if it is not to my liking I will upgrade the front springs to 500 lb/in and run that setup. Either way the overall handling should be much improved, and the stiffer rear springs allow the car to rotate better. At the recommendation of gst, I am using swift springs, as they say they are the only springs they have used that don't fatigue and alter their spring rates. At least we're moving forward...

OneManArmy

iTrader: (7)

man that thing looks bad.


do you have any close up photos of the final flock on the dash. I have an extra dash and clock. Might be a cool project for me.