I'm pleased to report that on 8/27, the engine started for the first time since it died after the crash at NJMP on 11/1/2014! All the work i've been doing on the car for the past 9 months was all leading up to this day. I'm glad to say that all my fears of the engine being damaged or me not installing something correctly were unfounded (so far at least...i still might find some issues after i start driving it...but hopefully not!).
But before i share the video of the first start, i'd like to fill in the gaps since my last post. After i finished mounting the radiator and the intercooler, i noticed that the radiator wasn't completely level, so i had to readjust the brackets as well as make a new bracket to make it more even. Honestly, it probably wouldn't really have made a difference in performance of the radiator, but it was definitely an eye sore for me. After the vmount was done, i made a new bracket to mount the AST closer to the coolant filler neck. I previously had issues with the coolant level dropping at the filler neck despite the AST being completely full. I suspected that it had something to do with the way the AST was mounted, possibly because it was lower than the filler neck so it wasn't able to properly separate the air from the system like it's intended purpose. When it came time to fill the coolant, i tested its functionality by filling the coolant from the AST and confirming that coolant flowed back up to the filler neck before overflowing out of the AST. I didn't take any pictures of the AST mount because it's pretty ugly and i plan to create a better looking mounting solution sometime in the future.
After the vmount and AST was done, the last piece of the puzzle was finishing up the exhaust. As i previously posted, i had purchased a new Vibrant resonator/muffler to replace the hi-flow cat that i had, with the main reason being i no longer had an airpump so the cat was pretty useless. But after removing the cat, i found out the material in the cat had completely broken apart so it was doing more harm than good because it was most likely limiting or at least disrupting the airflow. Here's a picture of the old cat next to the new muffler that's going to replace it.
I went back and forth between finding someone to weld it for me and buying a welder to try welding it myself. In the end, to save time, i decided to just take it to a local shop to have them do it for me. The welds they produced weren't spectacular, but at least it shouldn't leak. The one nice thing they did was spray the pipe with some high temp coating, but honestly, i doubt it'll last a couple hundred miles before it starts looking terrible. Either way, it's not something easily visible anyway so it doesn't really make a difference as long as it performs. Here's the pipe ready to be bolted in:
With the exhaust done and out of the way, the final step before attempting to start the car was to fill the car with all the necessary fluids. The first thing i did was drain the gas from the tank and poured 5 gallons of fresh 93 octane in. I wanted to make sure the car had the freshest gas possible when trying to start it for the first time. Then i moved on to fill the transmission and the differential with Mobil 1 75w90. Next was the power steering fluid. After filling the reservoir with oil, i noticed a constant drip on the the a/c compressor below. I initially thought it was leaking from the tube and proceeded to try and replace it, but after taking the tube off, i noticed the reservoir was actually cracked pretty badly. Luckily, i had a spare one from the motor i pulled out of the donor car. After swapping out the reservoir, i filled it with oil again and confirmed the leak was gone. Lastly was the engine oil/filter and the coolant. For the coolant, i filled as much as i could, but in order to properly "burp" the system, i needed to start the car. Before attempting to crank the engine to life, i wanted to prime the oil a little bit first, so i went ahead and pulled the fuel pump relay and cranked the engine a couple of times. Once the oil was primped, i popped the relay back in and settled myself into driver's seat (oh, i forgot to mention i also reinstalled both my seats back into the car as well) to prepare myself for the moment of truth. I knew the first few cranks wouldn't do anything because the fuel system still needed to be primed as well. But to be sure, i got out of the car after a few tries to confirm the fuel pressure was building, and it was. Then i got back into the car and crossed my fingers. I'll let the below video tell the rest of the story.
When the car came to life at the third attempt, i was so happy i almost started crying. It was a HUGE relief to hear the engine run for the first time after so many months, not to mention, hours and hours of work. Despite the long road ahead to actually completing the car, i felt a great sense of accomplishment. After letting the car warm up completely (I let it run until the fans came on at roughly 85C because i wanted to make sure the fans worked), i shut it back down to do a full inspection. The only thing i noticed was a small oil leak coming from the oil cooler lines. My guess is because when i went to remove the lines during the first tear down, i had unscrewed the fittings as opposed to removing the quick release clip, so the fittings probably needed to be tightened down. At least i hope that that's what the problem is. I guess i'll find out the next time i go to start the car.
Next steps are to get the wheels on the car and back onto the ground so i can drive it out of the garage and down the street for a quick test. Also, i need to reposition the car in the garage for the next phase which is all the body work that needs to be done. But before i can do that, i need to fix the steering alignment issue. For the longest time, i could not figure out why i couldn't get both wheels straight at the same time despite using up all of my toe-in adjustments on the tie rod. I just assumed that there was something wrong with my steering rack and/or inner tie rods. I did multiple measurements, even removed both tie rods to see if they were sized differently (they weren't). I even contemplated shortening the inner tie rods, but that would've been a really desperate last resort type option. In the end, i found out the steel arm on the passenger side wheel hub that holds the outer tie rod link was actually bent. I never suspected anything was wrong with the passenger side because after the crash, the passenger tie rod was in good shape, whereas the driver's side tie rod was completely bent to hell. Again, luckily i have spares from the donor car and will need to swap it in. The only sucky thing about this is that removing the wheel hub means removing the ball joints, which means messing up the ball joint boots and needing to replace those again. ARGH! oh well...you do what you gotta do...at least i got the car running again! ヾ（〃＾∇＾）ﾉ♪
Leading up to every weekend i tell myself this is the weekend i fire up the car, and every Monday i find myself disappointed, feeling like i'm still not even close. That basically sums up this past weekend as well. I didn't realize how long it would take me to make a few brackets to hold the radiator in place, but that's all i got done over the weekend.
They don't look like much, but these small little brackets took hours to make. It took a lot of trial and error to figure out exactly what sizes i would need in order to get the radiator at just the right angle. To be honest, i'm not still 100% sure the radiator fitment is perfect because i have yet to fully install my front bumper and undersweep (that's my plan for this coming weekend). It's possible i may still need to readjust the angle if i have too much trouble fitting the bumper and undersweep. But anyway, at least i got most of the work needed for the vmount kit done this weekend, including the radiator hoses. Luckily i was able to reuse my old ones so i could return the $85 hose kit i bought off of amazon.
Here's what it looks like with the lower brackets mounted up. The only reason i painted the brackets is to prevent the steel plates from rusting. At this point, i'm trying to cut as many corners as possible just so i can get the car running again. And here's a top view:
As you can tell, i was too lazy to tape up the core so a lot of the fins got bent during the install process. Like i said, i'm in the "do whatever it takes, as quickly as possible" mode right now so didn't really care if i got a few bent fins. Another view of the radiator from the top with the intercooler mounting bracket in place as well:
I used to think the intercooler bracket was pretty cool, but now i feel like it's a nuisance and adds unnecessary complication to the vmount setup. Although, it's possible that the bracket did save me from having to buy a new intercooler after the crash. Either way, if i were to do it over again, i think i'd get rid of the bracket and just have the core mounted directly to the frame without the stupid bracket. Here's a view from the "mouth":
And finally, here's a view of the kit installed:
The intercooler is not quite mounted yet because as i mentioned earlier, i still need to do a final fit test with the bumper and undersweep. If it all lines up without the need to hack up the bodywork to fit then i'll go ahead and bolt down the intercooler and get ready to fill up the fluids. But with my luck, i'll probably need to take everything off and realign it again.
Quick Update (8/18)
So i got a chance to fit the front bumper last night and i'm pleased to report that i don't think i need to make anymore adjustments to the vmount.
I really love how the radiator tucks nicely right underneath the front lip, especially in comparison to my old setup where the radiator stuck out so much. Although the bottom bracket of fan does protrude out underneath slightly, i think i should be able to adjust the undersweep enough to get it all to fit.
Since i didn't plan to make any more adjustments, i bolted up the intercooler and attached all the pipes. My engine bay is really starting to look like it used to again!
There's still a couple of more things i need to do before firing up the car, including, installing the AST, the oil catch can, the fuel pump, and the slew of underbody braces. From there i just need to add oil, coolant, and fuel and i should be able to fire it up. Slowly but surely...
The past two weeks have slowed down quite a bit in terms of finishing the car. Unfortunately, i still haven't gotten the car running yet. The main obstacle standing in the way is installing the new radiator. Unfortunately, my previous radiator got destroyed in the crash, and since it was a custom set up for my vmount kit, the new radiator wasn't a simple bolt on replacement. In order to get it to fit properly, i need to make new mounts for it. Luckily, my RE雨宮 parts arrived from Japan, so i was able to use the front bumper to help me figure out the ideal mounting location for the radiator so that i wouldn't have to cut too much of the front bumper to get it to fit.
Getting my RE雨宮 parts was like deja vu, especially since my order was almost identical to the first time i ordered.
The main difference was this time i didn't need to order a wing and the rear super canards, but i did order new sleek lights.
And here's a shot of the front bumper temporarily mounted so i could adjust the angle of the radiator.
I hope to finish installing the radiator this coming weekend. If that happens, all i need to do is swap the fuel pump, get oil into engine, transmission, and differential, and i'll be ready to fire up the car. Keeping my fingers crossed.
Besides the radiator, i've hooked up most of the wiring harnesses, including the power harness, and the engine harness to the ECU. While i've been working on the radiator, i've also been test fitting my intercooler. Luckily, the intercooler didn't get damaged in the crash. The mounting brackets were bent up, but a few minutes on the vice and everything was in good working order again.
Oh, i forgot to mention, since my last post, i also finished installing my driveshaft, differential, power plant frame, rear axles, and rear suspension.
I'm so close to getting the car running, but unfortunately, i've been having some issues with some of my other cars so i've been having to use some of my precious weekend time to address those issues as well. Gotta keep pressing on. I hope my next post will contain some good news, like the fact that my car is running. **fingers crossed**
REsuper7 Lives! 
