Managed to get up the road to do some schassis matsuri preparation. Unfortunately after stockpiling everything I needed to get up the road and fit my TD05 we ran into a problem with modifying the manifold so I had to switch gears and just do all round maintenance.
So first off was the intercooler swap. I’ve been running solid up headlights since the car was MOT’d because I hated pig nose bumpers with headlights down. Obviously I now have a kouki bumper but my bodged mid mount stops me from getting my headlights down. Picked up an intercooler from Dan Joyce that already had two 90* bends already welded into it (I also had bought two 90* bends to weld in but never had the time to pull the IC and get someone to do it).
Got it fitted and had to trim my headlight brackets a bit more but was able to get them down fully in the end.
Obviously since I had a new intercooler with different entry/exit points I’ve had to re-do the boost pipes. I decided instead of doing my hack flare with mole grips I should make a diy boost pipe beader. I welded an old alternator bracket and exhaust clamp into to a pair of mole grips. Tested on some offcuts and worked well.
Then I started trying to bead a slightly thicker bit of boost pipe so stuck it in a vice to help with the clamping power....
turns out that half of the boost pipes were stainless and I killed the beader before I got started with it haha. Went back to flaring with mole grips and got it all bolted up. Boost leak tested to 2 bar so at least it works.
I also bought an adjustable actuator as I was suspicious that my t25g isn’t boosting properly. It was bullshit and pish and I didn’t even fit it. Put on the actuator that came with my t25g (I had on a t28r actuator) and it seems to take a fair bit more pressure before opening so hopefully the turbo will hold boost a bit longer before tailing off.
My bay is a total state from driftland pits. I need to give it a clean but don’t have the time, and it will just get clarted again the next time it’s driven.
Talking of the pits being a state I cleaned out my Apexi filter which was fucked. Had compressed air on it and wasn’t really feeling it from the inside out in my hand. Gave it a good going over and finally my hand was able to feel the air rushing through. Poor wee bugger must have been horrifically choked up.
Also realised that since I did the tubs there’s no fresh air actually getting to the filter and it’s just getting hot bay air. Bought a 3” piece of silicone ducting and drilled out a 3”(ish) hole to feed it to. - I fucking hated this job and have no idea how I didn’t find it so bad doing my loom relocation. Next time I’m paying for a metal hole cutter even if it’s for one job.
Jammed the duct into the hole then ran the other end to my bumper and trimmed to fit.
So for the first time in years I was able to get my lights down.
Annoyingly the OS headlight cover was too low.
I’ve never wanted to adjust them because I snapped two heads previously and naturally expected the other two to snap but went for it.
Yeah you guessed it. Snapped. Drilled and trapped, raised the headlight cover but it was still too low. Bent the bonnet. Sorted.
I also got a GKTech cooling panel to try and help the car run a bit cooler. I’ve added a universal overflow tank with a hole drilled in it to vent. I used to just let it pish water out and then when the windscreen got misted I knew it was time to stop (instead of ignoring the beeping defi) Going to do a coolant flush as well because the coolant will be pretty diluted by now and overdue a change.
Another thing I’ve been wanting to do for some time was sort out my interior. I’ve seen a few nice 180’s and 240’s pop up with nice interiors so the motivation was finally there to do something about it. I had been trying to figure out what pattern I’d go for but since deciding I was returning door cards I knew I was doing Harris tweed with the Harris tweed labels. Annoyingly when my fabric arrived I ended up with the massive labels so I need to get some more.
Started by lifting the original fabric and got some black vinyl underneath.
I was thinking about retrimming this but thought it’d be best to get rid and stick directly to the doorcard, so cut the vinyl off and was left with this.
At this point I’d cut fabric to roughly the right shape and just stuck it down with some pretty aggressive spray glue.
Finally went round the extra fabric with a Stanley in the fabric well and looks pretty good!
Chucked it back on to admire my work.
Got my old dear to whip out the sewing machine to do the gearstick gaitor and I followed the same process as the doorcards for the glovebox.
Next up was dealing with my doorbars since one is black and the other is just raw and has been making a mess of my new brix and doorcard.
No point taking photos as I’m sure everyone knows how to paint something from bare metal.
Finished article of the interior. I’ve got some rear 1/4 panels and a bench to add in also but the car leaks water so going to wait til that’s sorted.
So as part of “make my car not slow as shit” I was going to re-do my rear alignment after having some dodgy drift days with fucked alignment.
Started by pulling my traction arms off to free them up and set them.
Looks like someone has used them to change toe. No wonder the car had fuck all rear grip.
At this point though I was running out of time for everything I had to do in two days so instead of doing the full setting I just chucked them to +22mm as I heard the figure someone with a low car said at some point. Them being even will be a good start anyway.
Removed all arms and freed them all off ready to do an alignment. One of the camber arms was fully fucked though so I had to revert to a spare I had.
Run a plumb line (golf tee taped to some other golf marker my old boy gave me) and got a centre line before setting toe on one wheel with it, then I got the toe plates out and evened up the other side before adding toe in.
I picked up an HKS Hi-silent exhaust for quietening down my exhaust for when I go to the Greddy Wastegate.
Only problem was it was for an s15 so some modification was needed. I cut up an old japspeed backbox I used for MOT’s and welded the backbox onto it.
Managed to impress myself by nailing the location of it with the first tacks off the car after figuring out the rough location for it. I also ran round the other sections of exhaust patching holes that have come up since the last time I had the welder and stainless out.
