The 'white elephant' SR20DET swap

[Didderson]

No problem about the slight jack. I'll have this info in here for when I do wheel calculations so it'll be nice haha. I'm definitely asking for your help on the stretched tires when the time comes Dan.I have some pics of the CF hood im working on. So far I just filled in the holes for hood pins and filled in the chipped areas where the clear resin came off during impact w/ wc's cars roof. The plan of attack is to finish the fiberglass fully smooth and paint the outside of the extractor, while leaving the inner area of extractor clear coated to show off what carbon fiber isn't damaged still.My phone was set in old time mode for this one lol:hood pin #2 filled in.Broken hinge area repaired:Broken hinge lip for P side:Center hump for heat extractor vent repaired: This part didn't require fiberglass, just resin because the CF was still in tact, only the clear resin had been chipped off.Hump number 2 same situation: filled in the chipsI didnt take pics of the bottom but there were 3 areas where the fiberglass frame had broken. NOTE: the cracks all throughout the finish of the hood are just clear coat cracks and will all be leveled with sanding. One more area, the side where the frame meets the CF had to be repaired because it had separated along the seam, so I used resin and a clamp.

I'll post pics of my sanding and other progress soon.

[idahotuner]

dude you should leave the middle part carbon fiber that would look sweet. like in the vent area.

[mrgreeneyes]

nice man, looks great...

[White Comet]

goos stuff, its coming along nicely. look into what i said about hood pins just to be sure, but that'll look nice

[mrgreeneyes]

hood pins FTL... makes a sleeper look like johnny racecar. besides, with a factory hoodlatch, etc... you wont have to worry about the hood flying up and cracking your windshield and roof... WC

[White Comet]

lol true but what i told tom is that from doing some researching, i've found that some say say the lighter material cf hood will start to get lift at the corners at high speeds. just something worth looking into since u wouldnt want the hood to start to lift at the corners while on the highway

[Automato]

i know i'd throw hood pins on just to be safe. my oem hood wobbles at anything over 100mph and under hard acceleration. pretty scary if you ask me. better safe then sorry is what i say. aerocatch hoodpins ftw. they even have a cf design one so that it blends in with the cf hoods.

[Didderson]

Yearrrg dangit lol. You guys are scaring me. I probably should throw some hood pins on because I don't want it to fly up and hit the windshield. At first I wasn't concerned about it flapping around at high speeds but considering the frame isn't in the best of shape it would be a good idea to keep it safe. I did patch up the 3 broken spots on the frame tho.

Oh yeah, and I'm still planning to leave the middle clear inside the V so you can see some CF still and know it's pro hehe. Plus there weren't any major issues in that area so I'd like to show it off a bit.
Modified by Didderson at 7:44 PM 2/5/2008

[idahotuner]

nice dude that will look kick A$$.

[White Comet]

Yearrrg dangit lol. You guys are scaring me.

good, embrace the fear. lol but seriously, get hood pins, like i said i heard the corners will get lift but never experienced it since i've always had hood pins. and its a good point about the structure of the hood, so better safe then sorry. the ones that dan posted are nice but pricey. if u wanna get regular ones lmk and i'll tell ya where to get good ones that wont snap as im driving down the road

[mrgreeneyes]

go aerocatch or go home. this aint F&F where blatant chrome is cool. BrokeAs240sx did a great writeup on how to do them properly

http://www.nicoclub.com/articles.php?id=206434

please spend the appropriate money and do this correctly, if you are going to pin it

[White Comet]

i dont think regular hood pins are rice and aerocatch pins cost way too much. i have sparco pins and no probs. the car came with ebay hood pins that rusted out so that caused some issues. you can still get quality pins without getting the aerocatch ones

[idahotuner]

how did this hood get damaged i nthe first place?

[White Comet]

it hit my roof

[idahotuner]

i got that but how did it come open while you were driving lol.

[White Comet]

ebay hood pins rusted through and failed

[idahotuner]

ouch that sucks

[Didderson]

Alright I'm going to hold off on the CF hood updates because I'm going to do it all in a write up. So today I bought another silverstar light because my car was mismatched and had one regular sylvania and one crap yellow light. I replaced the yellow only to notice the regular sylvania isn't quite as white as the silverstar, so I now have 2 silverstars.

I love how they look and the cutoff/output is quite nice compared to generic lights.

I've been tweaking where to point them and I'm finally close to perfection, also I fixed my lazy sleepy eye so now they're nice and even ftw!

I went to WC's to pick up some old weather stripping stuff he has no use for (we're always borrowing/trading stuff me him and mrgreeneyes, it's the local 240 trade?)My taillights leak a bit still and that's because I didn't seal them properly, so this should do the trick. WC's car is still in need of the interior finished up before he DD's it agian, so it was sittin there when I arrived.

I've got plans for a gauge cluster color change in the works, stay tuned!

I'm probably going to stop adding to this thread but I'm not sure. Maybe I should just keep it going like it is a big blog of what I do to my car.

[idahotuner]

Maybe I should just keep it going like it is a big blog of what I do to my car.

dude that is what i am doing. keep it all in the same place.

i like how you and wc are rocking the SE rims lol

[mrgreeneyes]

ebay hood pins rusted through and failed

the TRUTH fairy has landed.

ebay hoodpins were not the cause of that. WC had placed bolts thru the pins in place of the cotter pins for inspection cus the place said the hood had to be SECURE (he has no factory hood latch)... while WC was driving, the bolts rattled loose and let the hood rip up and smack his roofline and windshield. so he bought a new hood and sparco pins, gave the dead one to Didderson, who is repairing it and putting it on his car.

also, a vented hood which you BOTH have wont allow such a buildup of pressure on the hood surface, so its not really an issue.

[Didderson]

After securing the hoods frame today with high temp glue (rtv silicone lol) It worked wonders for my stock hood. The hood feels like it's going to be strong enough to definitely withstand no hood pins for the time being. Plus i filled in the holes where hood pins were to the bottom so the rubber stoppers can be adjusted to prevent flexing on the sides.

I'll pull it off.

and yea, it's true. I dunno why WC said that. the ebay pins only had surface rust, so he put bolts thru the things which weren't big enough for the holes and eventually they slid thru the hood pin holes. The inspection place had made him put a secondary latch device on because it's not legal w/o one. So he had a chain hooked to the latch, but that was not attatched when the hood bolts slipped thru due to laziness? We all have 'doh moments. Just try not to have anymore man
Modified by Didderson at 1:30 AM 2/8/2008

[tramp_drift240]

i think you should keep updating this thread.

and that whole truth fairy/reavealing what really happened to WC...good stuff.

sorry to say it, but i had a good laugh about it.

whitecomets tryna be sneaky

and why the hell dont i have a damn local 240 trade.

[mrgreeneyes]

yeah... random hardware store bolts dont = hoodpins....

[tramp_drift240]

did he not even put like...matching nuts on the bolts?

[mrgreeneyes]

yeah, but not lock/nylock nuts...

and a CHAIN for the hoodlatch.... that wasnt re-hooked post inspection...

just a "set sail for fail" scenario

[tramp_drift240]

just a "set sail for fail" scenario

[mrgreeneyes]

I LOL'ed at that... yay visuals...

[ryan15]

just skimmed through your whole thread, you did a hell of a job man!

[White Comet]

+ many for greeneyes that is indeed what happened. i forgot that i used bolts. i do remember using the chain though to pass inspection. lmao yeah the ebay hood pins had been tightened in too hard and cracked the hood so they no longer held securly. the night the hood came up i had tightened the nuts too far onto the bolts causing slippage into the hole. thanks for calling me on that i was proabaly just trying to block out that bad memory

[ILoveMyRHS13]

Hey dude. Nice swap. Looks really good and looks like a lot of work went into it to make it this nice. By the way, you're the guy that I saw those two saturdays down on Fruitville Pike. I'm the one in the red hatch.