Winter 08 build: The track package

[Bumnah]

Looking great man. I didn't have time or care yet to remove my subframe weights .

Very well thought out colors. I like it all!

Your exhaust looks like a BAWSs

Colors? huh?

BAWSs?? Do you mean boss?

[Osirux]

If he doesn't say so, then I will.Your building that car; LIKE A BOSS.

[Bumnah]

From urbandictionary.com

boss Incrediably Awesome; miraculous; greatDude, did you see that chick? She's f***in' Boss!

I mean really, my car is pretty boss.

[mRodiek]

Is that a buddy club spec 2? Looks just like it but no markings on it..

[Bumnah]

It's an older Buddy Club Spec 2. These don't have the plates like the new ones...

[Bumnah]

So I got in the garage and wrenched on the car semi-decently.

Accomplished:

Rewired fan controller.Ran all gauge sensor cables in to the cabin. That included running the cables in wire loom and zip tied in a clean fashion.

Fixed minor wiring issues, and finally got the car to crank.

My Braille battery is pretty much dead, so I need a new one.

I used my old battery and got the car to turn over. The engine is stumbling over itself at idle, but when I give it gas it responds quite well. My belief is the IACV needs adjusting. I'm going to be attending to that tomorrow.

[Didderson]

Sometimes I just type the way things are said by the people who make them slang pop culture... Just have to deal with it mang.

I meant the overall color scheme of the suspension I really like. Claro?

[Bumnah]

I actually wanted to powder coat the suspension different colors. All driver side arms would be one color (neon blue), passenger side arms another color (neon orange). Sub frames would be lime green. Bill Washburn did a similar thing on his 240RS Maxi.

I probably would've done it if I found the powder coating place earlier.

Other than the lime green, the colors were just the acceptable second option (MA-motorsports just uses this paint). I don't really mind because the paint reminds me Opera Performance builds, and they're the greatest.

[Bumnah]

So I made some head way on the car.

01. My motor was not grounded. The cable that goes to the manifold wasn't connected to the manifold. So I had to ground out the. I put on a mini skirt shaved my legs, and went to the local audio installation shops to sweet talk someone there to give me one of their throw away cables from an amp install or something. Sure enough, the sight of a big Indian man in a mini skirt scared them into giving me what i wanted for free.

Grounding the motor def. helped.

Finally got the car to warm up enough to where it would idle on it's own for a moment. Ran in front of the car and kept it alive by manually controlling the tb.

I see smoking coming out of the #3 fuel injector. It looks not to be seated properly. I'm going to play with it tonight and see where I get with that. That injector gave me issues during install as well.

On a positive note, I haven't seen a single drop of fluid from any where. All oil and coolant points I opened, I reinstalled properly. So far so good...

Hopefully I make it to the event on Friday. It would sure suck to miss that.

[Bumnah]

So tomorrow I'm going to work on the #3 fuel injector. Get everything seated properly and hopefully get this car running.

Pictorial update:

My coolant bleeder:

Gauges wired up. Looks awesome.

The start up sequence for the gauges:http://www.bumnah.com/trakpak/gauges.html

Thanks for looking.

More picture here.

[nevertheless]

Gauges looks sweet, engine just needs a spit shine, cant wait to see this thing do work!

[Bumnah]

Removed the fuel rail spacers. Mounted it directly to the manifold. Got the motor running solid. All injectors are now seated properly.

Here is a video of the idle:http://www.bumnah.com/trakpak/idle.html

Should be the last big hurdle. I'm going to push really hard to have it running tomorrow morning.

[White Comet]

wow, love the start up of the gauges. that really fast sweep is cool.

[mattblancarte]

On a positive note, I haven't seen a single drop of fluid from any where.

Just you wait. Five or six track days in, she'll start to weep like a 14 year old emo chick.

[Bumnah]

Just you wait. Five or six track days in, she'll start to weep like a 14 year old emo chick.

Great something I didn't want to read.

[mattblancarte]

Great something I didn't want to read.

Tis' the nature of the beast, my good friend. It's not like she won't let you mount her and ride her to your heart's content. If you're catching my drift (no pun intended).

[1sikS13]

SPL suspension parts are the WIN i was almost expecting to see the LCA's in there too. You do some bad a** work though man. Keep it up

[Bumnah]

SPL suspension parts are the WIN i was almost expecting to see the LCA's in there too. You do some bad a** work though man. Keep it up

I looked at the lower control arms. I decided against them primarily because it would further complicate the suspension. Reality is I'm new to the whole suspension tuning thing. Having adjustable track on your lower control arms just makes it that much more difficult to properly setup the car. Although having an adjustable roll center would be very beneficial for traction. Perhaps when I've mastered driving the car....

The focus of the suspension build is to remove the old worn out bushings in favor of new polyurethane or spherical bearings. 90% of the car is spherical bearings, 7 % of the car is polyurethane, and the last 3% is oem rubber. All the rubber pieces are in locations where they won't affect the feel of the car.

In my head I really look at this car as stock for the most part. I just simply refreshed the old worn out parts.

[White Comet]

i've tracked my s13s and my fc plenty of times and no leaks. i hope i'm not jinxed with thsi setup though

[Bumnah]

Down to the wire!

She's ready for the long trip tomorrow. Taking it to my friends shop @ Summit Point. They're going to corner balance it, and align it. I hope I don't die on the way there. My used Braille battery turned out to be bunk. So I lost some money on that deal. Until my replacement arrives. I'm driving around with jumper cables, and my spare battery.

I took it for a 5 minute test drive in my neighborhood. All went well. I hear some grinding noise, but I think it was the surface rust on the rotors. Whatever it is, I can't address it until I return from the shop tomorrow.

I drove it in my neighborhood without a hood or bumper on, needless to say I got a lot of weird looks. I effectively lowered housing value in my neighborhood by $10,000 a home.

Anyways. Pix:

Gauges mounted up. Not my favorite install of the GReddy control unit, but it'll do for now.

Finally standing on her own feet.

****, just got real.

Track rims and tires in the hatch already. Having it aligned with the track stuff on.

Wish me luck tomorrow!

More pix here.

PS Installing the OEM front bumper sucks big time!

[SolaraOnBronze]

Good luck with the alignment man, great to see the car on the ground and running! I love the rpf1s, I for sure wouldn't mind owning a set in the future.

[mattblancarte]

I drove it in my neighborhood without a hood or bumper on, needless to say I got a lot of weird looks. I effectively lowered housing value in my neighborhood by $10,000 a home.

You must have wonderful neighbors.

[Bumnah]

Update.

Got up at 7:30 out the door by 8. Left to get the car corner balanced and aligned at my friends shop in WV (2.5 hour drive from my place). Got on the highway, and started having all sorts of minor issues. The car would lose power for a split second, we noticed because the gauges would randomly reset. On the highway we felt a slight bog when this happened. Drove 10 miles figured it wouldn't do anything more. Front right fender liner came undone a bit. Made my friend and I even more nervous. Contacted my friend at the shop, asked if he could pick us up if we broke down. Unfortunately he had to pick up another customers car and wouldn't be able to help us out if we broke down. So like a beaten dog I put my tail between my legs and turned around.

The trip back was smooth, no issues. We felt comfortable enough to drive to another town and see if I could get the car inspected. Drove it there and back, no problems. By the time we got back to my place it was 2 hours and we would've been to our destination by that time if we hadn't turned around.

My friend and I grabbed lunch, decided to grow a pair of balls and go on the adventure we originally planned on. We left at noon and got there around 2:30. At three they started work on my car.

Pix:

Car finally on the rack!

Weights before adjustment.

Alignment:

s***ty cell phone picture of the car as she sits now. I'm very happy with the stance.

It was an expensive corner balance and alignment.

Honest review: Best alignment I've ever had. Everything feels really good. He spent close to 5 hours balancing and aligning the car. If I were really being critical of the alignment, I would have to admit I *THINK* it pulls to the right slightly. That could be due to my street tires though.

I was however, NOT happy with the corner balancing. For two reason; 01. He adjusted the ride height by lowering the spring perch, and not the lower collar on the KTS coilovers. I told him how they worked, but he wasn't listening to me. Since my friend worked there I didn't press it too hard. I had to bite my tongue on it. He also didn't balance the car with my track wheel/tire setup on. He said since the street setup was similar in size to the track wheel/tire setup it would be fine as it. Perhaps I'm a bit too anal retentive, but why not use the track wheel/tire setup if they're available? I brought 'em with me!

He did take time and looked over my work and said everything looked good. He also checked the pre-load on my sway bars. Everything checked out fine.

I believe I will save up for some scales for my personal use. Rather do that than pay some else for a less than ideal job.

This weekend is my first track event, VIR - Grande course.

I'm not going to push the car too hard. I'd like to get a feel for her at first. As time goes on, and I feel more comfortable, I'll push harder. I'm very glad this suspension build went as smoothly as it did. Hopefully I get a lot of track time in this year. My goal is to do 5 events this year.

When I return from my track event, I'm going to swap in my tail lights. Can't wait to see how they look, now that I've lowered the car.

Driving feel:The car is very well behaved. It feels solid. The body roll is obviously much less. It tracks well. I haven't felt any odd bump steer. Driving over uneven road surfaces doesn't cause the rear end to lift up on one side. Even with the spherical bearings, and aluminum rear sub frame bushings, it was VERY streetable. KTS coilovers are still set to the softest setting however. Leave the shop it was storming, and the car drove well through the puddles. VERY satisfied with the suspension.

The aluminum rear bushings are def. transmitting a lot of noise. The slight rear end off throttle grumbles I used to hear at certain RPMS are much more prominent. The differential noise is much more apparent as well. The worst of it all is, I can hear my gear selections after ever shift. It's transmitting that as well; comes across as a loud "clunk" every shift. I did a quick look to see if I was missing fluid, but I'm not seeing anything. I do hear a slight grinding noise, I think that might be the drum ebrake setup being off slightly. All this will be checked out after I get back from the track.

Sorry for the novel.

Thanks for looking at this thread. I may updated this thread once more with pictures of the tail lights and front lip installed. I hope it was useful to someone.

[mattblancarte]

Good to see it running!

What organization are you going out on track with? I'm hoping to see this long of a review from your first track day after the build!

[Bumnah]

The event is with Mazda drivers.

[Ender_Zero]

Woo! Great build man, great car! I can't wait to hear how it does at the track!

It seems funny that someone corner balancing a car would adjust the coilovers the less efficient way, one would think he'd know best...

Keep those updates coming! I just found this thread today and read all the way through it.

[mRodiek]

Good job what tails are you puting in?

[White Comet]

180sx kouki tails. btw, bunmah, if you don't care about removing the wiring leads from your us tails, you should pull those plugs to splice on to the end of the kouki tails. thats what i did with mine and they're now plug and play on any US chassis

[Bumnah]

yeah. i'll figure it out sometime next week.

[Bumnah]

Took some pix today.

Haven't had time to edit 'em. So quick upload: