[speedfoos]

Yeah, it was down. It got hacked, apparently (the server not the site specifically).

[WilmncChris]

I give up on trying to keep up with this project....Just ship the car here..hahahaha

[speedfoos]

Funny enough I will! I got orders to Ft. Bragg this fall so clear off the couch I'm coming to stay at your place every weekend!

[filipinop1405]

SWEET CLINT!!!!!!!!!!!! Tony told me before but i didnt want to say anything til you did! now we can have a photoshoot!! and i'm the only one not boosted....for now!!!!

[tuningmycivic]

Originally Posted by WilmncChris

I give up on trying to keep up with this project....Just ship the car here..hahahaha

speaking of which, i never got that modded fuel map. can you send it again??

[speedfoos]

^^^ LOL - told ya. Gotta call his ass! Yeah, we're pretty excited to come to Bragg especially since I'm going to be a one-man detachment again (got a Foundry assignment). I'll be the only military guy in the section, my unit is at Ft. Meade, and I will work with a bunch of DA civilians. I really love my job.

Well, while the site was down I've been a little busy making my new exhaust. I'm almost done with it and should be able to finish it up by this weekend. The car is sitting in my garage all ripped apart once more since I'll be replacing the oil pan to have a better drain placement (thanks again Edwin and keep that glass full!), swapping my PCV system to a dual vac-source setup with check valves, and checking the bottom end for problems while the pan is off.

Oh and I fixed my alternator problem. The wire was friggin' burnt from the DP being so close to the stock wire routing. I lengthened the wires, added some more heat shielding and it's good to go now.

Anyway, on to some pics!

I got new pistons thanks to dopes0670!




My burnt alternator wire.




It's not ghetto.




It's Ghettoes.






Don't laugh at my heat shielding, it works. Volts stay at 14 now for the most part and don't dip. My alternator was actually shutting off because the wire was so Fubar'd.

And on to the exhaust. My chop saw broke so I had to make my pie cuts with a die grinder. This is really tedious. I don't recommend ever doing it this way.




Almost as good as apple pie. Almost.




Wee, unshielded messy MIG welding!





Yes it clears the LCA and sway bar when the car is down on the ground.




I'm so tacky. I burnt my head from weld spatter and got a nice radiation burn on my face from welding under the car with just goggles on. Looked like I had spent the weekend in Vail!






Then I ran out of welding wire and was not happy.




And here's about where I am right now.



The only difference in what you see in that pic, is that this whole piece has all the finish welds done on it and just needs de-slagging on the engine side of it. I've already done the zig-zag frame transition piece up behind the cat so will just need to get the length sorted and tacked into place. That should be fairly easy.

My welds are straight gangsta though!

[HondaCivicCat]

Woot for coming to the Fort Bragg area...I've been following this car build since the beginning (haven't contributed much but learned a lot) and it would be cool to actually see the car and hang out with you and talk shop. I'm up in Wake Forest an hour or more away from the Bragg area. I bet you're excited to be coming back to the states where real car shops exist. Have fun finishing up the exhaust...are you betting its going to sound that much different with the custom exhaust? What are you expecting from power gains with it as well? Keep on keepin on

[speedfoos]

Glad you learned a lot from it, I know I have! Yeah, we're looking forward to coming back. Europe has been a great assignment, but certain things that used to be quaint and charming are like nails on a chalkboard now.

I'm sure it will sound a lot different - quieter probably - than my current 2.25" fart can catback setup I've got on there now. I'm really curious though.

Power gains, I don't know since I haven't even dyno'd it yet. I expect the turbo to spool up a lot quicker though since I will have very little backpressure.

[andyman97]

A little backpressure will actually help spool a turbo, believe it or not. My turbo spools alot quicker and I definitely picked up a good bit of midrange since I put the 3" on.

[edrulz2003]

well good job on getting orders to Bragg...i loved it there, the only thing that got to me was all the gay shit they do to look good...ex. ALL American Week,
Pass and Review etc..well it cool that your comin back to the states...car looks good

[skipbarber]

good work clint. but...i hate to be the one to say it, but i really hope those pistons work. it's risky to buy pistons without figuring out if youre gonna need to bore your block. You should always measure your cylinders for out of round and taper before buying new pistons. how many miles are on your block?

[speedfoos]

Yikes, didn't know that Edwin, but I've got 38K on the dial right now.

I can't imagine putting on much more than another 4-5K before the pistons go in. I'm going to start watching for a low mileage engine on Ebay and when I see it, buy it and just have shipped to a someone in NC to wait for when I get there this fall. I should think if I find one right around the same mileage, I should be OK. What do you think?

[skipbarber]

well, im not entirely sure, at nearly 40k it's a tough call. it happened to justin with his block, they had to go .5mm over because of taper i think, and his brand new pistons wouldnt work, and it had pretty low miles from what i remember. so he ended up getting a second set. I had to get a k24 (not for me fellas, so dont start) im building bored for a similar reason. When you pull the motor, have a machine shop measure the cylinders for you, or measure it yourself with a cylinder bore gauge or a telescoping bore gauge and a micrometer. If youre within spec, all you'll need to do is a quick hone job to break up any glaze and to set in the new rings. If you end up needing a block for machining, hit me up, i have a spare, then give me back your old one once you get your shit back together. With 3, soon 4 of us boosted around me, and you coming somewhat close eventually, we all make it a habit to keep spare d17 stuff around. I think between andy, justin and myself we could probably build another car, just from spares. oh, and never reuse rings. just thought id throw that out there FWIW.

[speedfoos]

Great advice Edwin, I definitely appreciate it. Once it get's to be building time this fall I'll let you know what I find out. I've got a spare A1 block sitting here with a girdle, but no crank so I need to figure out whole bearing thing before even trying to mess with finding a crank and buying the right color bearings.

Didn't get the exhaust done yet but I did get the new pan installed and the water neck I bought from Justin installed as well. One thing I noticed that is different on the metal pan that the aluminum one doesn't have is these little bumps:




So I ground those flat since I didn't have a pan gasket. A little RTV made short work of not having a gasket. I drilled the hole in the pan for the new bung:




And then painted the pan olive drab. Because I'm in the Army.

Actually I didn't have any more black paint laying around so it got Ultra Flat Olive Drab and then a couple coats of clear. Good enough for me, it's an oil pan. Because of the bung location, I couldn't get a leak-free weld at the very top with my MIG welder. JB Weld to the rescue! It sealed up the two little pin holes I had and made everything look nice and smooth.




Here's the new drain setup. Much better than the old one.

Old Nasty:




New Hotness:




And then on to the water neck install. Justin had said the TB return pressed in fitting was threaded to take a 1/4" NPT fitting, but it was much smaller than that. I think it was thread for a 1/8" or something in-between. Oh well. That's why I have an NPT tap and die set!





I need to get a 90-degree -6AN fitting at some point, but it's not high on the priority list right now. This will work and it doesn't look completely awful. It will serve the purpose of getting coolant from my turbo into the radiator and is much cleaner than T-ing off the TB lines.

So that's that. The car is in pieces, the garage is trashed, I'm driving the Rubi again, and making lengthy daily posts in my thread. Deja vu....

[skipbarber]

nice, good work. you always want to have a good bung hole location. putting your bung hole in the wrong place at the wrong time could spell disaster.