REsuper7のブログ一覧

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**

For the past month, i've been working towards one goal, getting the engine back into the car. I thought i had done most of the prep work and was ready to drop the engine in, so i took Friday off from work to do just that. In the end, i realized i wasn't quite ready, but with my personality, once i had my mind set on something, in this case getting the engine into the car, it had to be done, granted with a lot of cursing and swearing. I woke up at 6am that day and got straight to work. The first task at hand was to finish prepping the engine, which meant bolting on the turbo, manifold, and downpipe, as well all the oil and water lines for it.



Here you can see the oil return line i redid. before it was just a regular hose that connected to an unbarbed pipe that was simply cut. I switched it out for -10AN fittings and a stainless steel hose with DEI fire sleeve for added protection. I also swapped out the water lines for silicone. They too were using unbarbed hardlines which were cool, but were constantly leaking. I think the upgraded silicone hoses will take care of the leaks.



In the back, i added a line for the oil catch can. I debated back and forth whether or not to go through the trouble of adding this line considering i don't plan to track the car for a few years, but in the end i figured i might as well do it now while the motor is out rather than kicking myself later on when i'm trying to add this line with everything bolted into the car. In the end, i'm glad i did it.

And here it is all bolted together and ready to go...


NOT! After taking this picture, i realized i still hadn't installed the A/C condenser nor the power steering pump! In order to do that, i had to take the engine off the stand and hang it on the hoist. Making that swap turned out to be a nightmare. Without going into too much detail, i ended up having to hoist the engine off the floor! As far as i can tell, only the driver side engine mount was damaged, everything else appeared to have escaped unphased...unless there's hidden damage that i can't see which is what i'm really scared of. Anyway, turns out i made a huge mistake cheaping out on the 1 ton engine lift. Not only was it not holding the engine up reliably anymore (the hydraulic lift must've been leaking) but the boom arm was too short causing the front of the car to get scratched up by the hoist when i was trying to put the engine in. Not only that, because the arm was too short, i had to push the engine to try to get it to seat in the subframe. To make the most of the situation, i lowered the nose of the car so i wouldn't have to jack the engine too high to get it to clear the front of the car.



This really was not how i envisioned it going down. Granted i knew it would be difficult doing it by myself, but the state of the hoist made it 10x worse. I'm planning to get rid of this hoist once i finish tearing down my spare engine and get a 2 ton hoist if i ever need to pull the engine out again.





In the end, i'm glad to say that i did manage to get the engine into the car, albeit with mixed feelings. On the one hand i was glad that the engine was finally into the car, but on the other, i was disappointed with the whole process, especially since my engine bay suffered a few scratches from the whole ordeal. Regardless, i reached a major milestone in my build which is progress. I still need to finish up a few things like plug up the power and engine harnesses, hook up the driveshaft and install the PPF. Which reminds me, when i was rewrapping the power harness, i found out the plug for the alternator had two wires that were exposed and contacting each other. I think this was the source of the mysterious issue i had in the past where every time i went to hook up the battery charger i would get a shock when i touched the frame.

In the end, i worked on the car non-stop from 6am to 5pm. After that, the kids forced me to take them to the YMCA to swim, otherwise i probably would've kept at it until midnight. The next day, i decided that instead of working on my car, i should spend some time cleaning out the garage. After 3 hours of cleaning, this is how it looked:



I know it doesn't look like much, but my wife can attest to the fact that the garage hasn't looked this clean in over 6 months easy. Both her and i know its not going to last long though, especially since i just got word that my RE雨宮 parts are enroute to me now and delivery is expected this Friday. Although i didn't reach my goal of getting the car running before my bodykit arrived, at least i got the engine into the car.

Although i've spent quite a few hours this past week and weekend working on the car, i don't feel like i got that much done, and i'm not quite sure why. In my last post, i left off with pulling the rear subframe and giving it a good powerwash. After that, i removed all the suspension arms from the subframe so i could paint it. I used a rubberized underbody spray to protect the subframe from rusting further, and consider it's under the car and not visible most of the time, the textured finish from the spray didn't really make that big of a deal. Here's the subframe without the arms



And here's the subframe painted and all put back together ready to be reinstalled.



Before putting the subframe back into the car, i had to swap the fuel lines from my old car because the ones on the donor car looked to be in pretty bad shape, and when it came to something as critical and dangerous as fuel, i didn't want to take any chances. I also swapped in a new fuel filter while i was at it. I used the lines from my old car so i could relocate it from the stock position which is really hard to access.



I think because i wasn't planning to do the fuel lines, and the fact that it took a good amount of time to remove and reinstall, it made me feel like i didn't make that much progress considering how much time i put into it. With the fuel lines back in, i reinstalled the subframe and hung the differential back onto the subframe. I won't be able to bolt up the diff until i get the powerplant frame and the driveshaft back in first.

Not wanting to put too much weight at the rear, causing the car to tip, i decided to start working on reinstalling the front suspension components. The goal is to get the car back on all four wheels before i put the engine back in. I'm still working out in my head exactly how to go about it, but i'll cross that bridge when i get there. I bought ARP wheel studs over a year ago because one of the wheel studs on the passenger front was broken. I ended up never getting around to installing them, so with the rebuild, this was a good opportunity to get it done. Install wheel studs in the front are easy. All you need is a hammer to knock out the originals, then using a wheel nut and torque gun pull the new ones in.



I'm only planning to do the fronts at this time because i don't feel like paying $120 to buy new rear wheel bearings which are required to swap the studs. Before i could finish installing my front suspension, i needed to put my coilovers back together. If you remember, 2 of my coilovers got damaged in the crash and required replacement parts. About 6 months ago i contacted Ohlins USA and they were able to order replacement parts for me. In particular, i needed a new front shock, the lower eye for the front shock, a gold threaded cup to hold the shock, and also a mount for the rear shock. To my surprise, when i received the replacement shock, it actually came with all the parts except the spring and the top mount, so in the end, i ordered extra parts for nothing. Here's the replacement shock next to my old, busted one.



And here's the replacement mount for the rear shock





And here's my coilovers back together in one piece!



The new shock replacement is a US spec version, that's why the color is slightly different than the others, which are from Japan, but still, it's better than having to buy a whole new set of coilovers.

Besides the coilovers, i also replaced the ball joint covers because the original ones were cracking.

Before


After


And here's one corner of the car fully buttoned up. It was quite satisfying finishing one corner of the car, now i just have 3 more corners to go and i'll be ready to drop the engine in.



I've also begun prepping the engine as well. I still need to do the plumbing for the turbo but at least i finished putting the heat reflector on the lower intake manifold. I realized after closer inspection that my lower intake manifold is actually ceramic coated and not polished like i originally thought, but adding additional heat protection can't hurt.



Besides working on the car, we took the kids on a trip to the aquarium because they've been really into sharks lately, especially with the recent Shark Week programs on the Discovery channel.



I realize that it's good to post pictures of my kids as i continue working on the car so that in years to come when i look back on this build i can remember what my kids were like. They grow up so fast and change so quickly that each year that goes by it's hard to remember how small and different they were just the year before.

Naomi in the shark tunnel

Since i started putting my engine bay and interior back together, i've become very motivated to finish the car, probably because i'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately, i've sort of hit a stop sign because after debating over and over whether or not i should rework some of the turbo/engine plumbing, i decided to just bite the bullet and get the stuff i wanted done before i put the engine back in. Namely, i wanted to redo the turbo coolant lines, oil lines, and also add a line for the rear oil return for my catch can, which meant i needed to order parts. In addition to changing out the plumbing, i went ahead and bought some fire sleeves and heat shields to protect my new lines as well as some of the existing vacuum lines. So far, i've collected about half of those parts:



I'm hoping to get the remaining parts this week so i can start prepping the engine this weekend and possibly even install the engine this weekend. Update 7/14, received some additional parts:



I also ordered some additional parts that i needed for after i got the engine back in, including:

a vmount radiator since my radiator got destroyed in the crash


and a resonator to replace my high flow cat. After i removed my cat i found out it was pretty much destroyed so instead of buying a whole new one, i figured i'd just pick up a resonator and have a welder cut out the old cat and weld in the new resonator.


Since i couldn't work on the front end of the car, i turned my attention towards the rear. Technically, i don't really need to touch the rear of the car to get the car running again, but one look at the rear and i knew something had to be done. The car hadn't been driven in over 9 years, so a lot of rust had built up over the years in the undercarriage, including the rear differential and the rear subframe. To do a proper clean up, i had no choice but to take everything out so i could wash and recoat the subframe.

Here's the subframe removed the car. Notice how filthy it is.


Like everything else that needed cleaning, i took the subframe out to the drive way to power wash it. Unfortunately power washing isn't as effective as media blasting, but it was still easier than hand washing and scrubbing. Here's the subframe after a good power washing.



Despite a good cleaning, there's still quite a bit of rust on the subframe. The next step will be to use my dremel to grind away the rust then spray it was some undercarriage coating to protect it from the elements. Unfortunately that's all i was able to achieve this past weekend. This coming weekend should be a little more productive once all the parts and supplies i ordered come in.

Removing the subframe should be the last time i need to take apart the car. From here on out, it's just a matter of putting everything back together...this will be the uphill climb of the journey, but also the more exciting part as the car becomes closer and closer to to it's final destination.

In other news, i finally got a chance to see the World Trade Center memorial waterfall. These waterfalls (there's two of them) were created in the location of the original WTC buildings, so you know where they once stood.



We also got a chance to get out onto the balcony on the floor of our building so i snapped a quick picture of the new WTC building



You can also see the Statue of Liberty from that side of the building as well, although it's not very clear in the picture