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i think i may be redoing my exhaust this weekend...nice work

 
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LOL - nice Phillip! Glad I could give you some ideas!

 
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its not a new idea but i wasnt sure if i wanted to cut that brace so i didnt cut it.
any idea what temp that gas tank melts at? plan on doing a heat shield?(never mind i read it again and saw my answer for the heat shield)

 
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thats good beer by the way

 
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Jesus 'Foos you really are a damn mechanic. You can make just about anything work huh?

Just wait till the day we can clone people.. I'm getting one of you special order.. I'll have a nice place for him to hang out in my tool box..



Good Job!

 
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hehe yah i just ordered them from honda 200 euro FTMFW

 
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haha im already here suckers beat him to it

 
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love what you have done so far clint! hopefully this weekend we can meet up and i can give you your wheels. and whatnot. thanks for the hsot glass and side markers.

 
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Thanks for the compliment!

Phillip may want you to bring another set back. Hit him up in PM.

Thanks Steve! This is the only site I can get to from work which is probably a good thing as it keeps more focused on the job. Let me know what your exact plans are whenever you get a chance.

 
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Got most of the exhaust figured out and tacked up tonight. I really like v-bands. These things make fabricating exhaust sooooo much easier. Here's where I fit the fun tube up to the back of the downpipe.




Once that was mocked up and I set the DP where I wanted it, I dropped the fun pipe (flex, but no cat) off and put my cat in (again, v-bands for FTW!) aligned the midpipe and tacked it all into place.

Tacks...






Too easy. Cuz I are welder guy.




Now here's the crappified POS I took off the car, compared to the new hotness about to go on her. Much gooder.




It's still just tacked up for now. I've got to run the axle-back piece still and sort the muffler placement, but that's an easy job tomorrow!

 
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Man I was looking at those V-bands like, "v-bands v-bands where have I seen those before.." They hold the exhausts together on some on Seadoo RXP and XP personal watercrafts.. they do work great! I've seen them on some Yamaha 800s but not all of them.. How much did they run you again?

 
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nice pipe you made clint!The v-band look verry handy indeed! do they seal wen you
attach them? so no exhaust gaskets that get corroded.

 
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For a set of flanges (2) and a clamp, they're $30 a set for mild steel and $40 for stainless. Smaller diameters a little cheaper. I got most of mine from siliconeintakes.com and I like theirs a lot better than the 4 I got from a misc eBay vendor. The SIC flanges are 3" ID so you can slip them over 3" tubing very easily. Makes getting the alignment straight a lot easier.

They do seal when clamped together, just like the flanges on Tial BOVs. The really nice thing is that you can rotate the setup during fabrication and install to get the angles set up just right. Plus when running a v-band turbine housing on the turbo, you can really hook the DP and not have to worry about clearance for bolts.

 
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that nice!! was looking to wrap the dezod downpipe but its already difficult to get the nut on!!

Think of thapping a 1/8 NPT brass barb into
the comp. housing for the vacuum line to the wastgate.

Getting crazy about those inches!!!

 
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Yeah, it's hard wrap the Dezod DP because of the lack of clearance on the back side.

In ref to the brass fitting, I don't have to. It's already tapped by Garrett.

 
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should i risk it to tap the turbine housing?
I dont realy know how thick walls are for tapping, or tap IC piping just behind the comp house. what would be best or doesnt make a difference. I have read people saying it runs fine!

lucky you on the nippel

 
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Tap away man, those walls are 3-4mm thick so no worries there!


Not much of an update tonight. Just spent a little over an hour in the garage doing the finished welds on the exhaust DP-to-axle pieces. Also finished up my drop-in/out cat pieces. One is for fighting, one is for fun...





Tomorrow I'll install the radiator cradle and futz with all that. I don't want to do the axle back until this weekend when I can have the garage door up during the day while I mess with getting the muffler and tailpipe orientation right. Too damn cold to do it at night during the week!

 
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I bump my own threads.

Starting tacking up the cradle tonight. It was actually pretty easy even though it messed up the paint job in the bay. Oh well. Paint is cheap. Gotta hold it in place with C-clamps and vise grips like so....




Make some tack welds like so....




Tacks....




Double-check to make sure the fenders are still lining up. Oh, and for those of you purists who only want super dooper OEM parts on your cars, don't get the PasswordJDM ones, because they come from the same place my $50 hood came from. Same packaging and everything.




And voila!! Instant 04-05 front end!







It was actually pretty easy to get the alignment right, but it turns out that they sent me the wrong bumper filler for the passenger headlight, so I've got to order a new one of those tonight. I must say though, I reaalllly like that 04-05 front end on Sugar!

 
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God you do amazing work...A friend of mine took who knows how much longer doing the front cradle on a mazda...Nice work man, love the new front end

 
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nice, nice. sick work! when are you ganna be painting?

 
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oh lala! That was a great work. Superb work!

 
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eh its not half bad for a soldier

 
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Jesus F-ing Christ that is amazing work. I wish I had half the skill that you do. This should totally be added to the most unique mods list. I also like the fuzzy dice on the side view mirror I bet that is pretty unique as well. Anyway keep up the good work I am curious too see what it looks like when its painted.

 
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I can't speak to the difference between Mazdas and Hondas, but yeah, once the car was apart, we're talking like two hours from removal to re-installation.

I'm looking to start the bodywork around 1 Dec (ish). I'll have it all back together by the end of the weekend and then it's off for inspection, title and registration, then back to the garage for the next complete teardown for the bodywork and re-wiring/de-wiring for kpro.

Thanks!

Cough.......JARHEAD......cough.

LOL - thanks, but I'm not the first to do an 04-05 front end conversion. A couple other folks have done them. As far as paint goes, I'm thinking about the Blue Pearl that Eastwood sells. It's close enough to the IS-F color that I want, and I don't want to pay for a custom mix.

 
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nice work on the 04-05 conversion..why not do a hid retrofit while your at it?

 
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Too many projects. I'll be adding HIDs to the current housings, but not a full retrofit with different projector housings.

 
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So when it comes time to sell this car will you sell it as an 04-05 haha. I am sure you can fabricate a vin number.

 
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I really don't know that I will ever sell this car. More than likely if it ever comes down to it, it will be a part-out, cut-up and crush. I've modified too many things on the car to ever get any money out of it.

 
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hey get any body parts from certi fit. everything is super cheap. I got a front bumper for 40 bucks brand new.

everything is cheap there and lines up great

 
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i like turtles