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fuel

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Everything posted by fuel

  1. Some pics of interior after going over it with the Clydes remoisturising cream - it definitely makes the faded brown door cards, steering wheel horn pad & shift knob stick out a lot more
  2. 100% saw a Z3 in a Melbourne pick a part with solid fronts, I even snapped a pic cause I thought it was odd it was DOHC 4cyl
  3. I briefly had one of these that I traded (though it was the 2.8) and it had a ridiculous dumb p-plate something like ISONME (eyes on me) I dunno I only had it for all of 5 mins it feels like, but definitely enjoyed the drive from Auckland down to Hamilton in it. I think those base model 1.9's have solid disc brakes up front? I found that to be wacky.
  4. could you maybe swap out your tail lamp and regular brake lamps for LED also? the on/off difference between the LEDs in the fog housing and the incandescent in the regular brake lamp housing is triggering my OCD haha
  5. Small update... as it's been almost a year since the last update I decided I really want to get this thing back out on the road so I can enjoy it this summer. In addition to the rear suspension overhaul I finished off the front suspension, so new lower control arm bushes (had to cut the lower control arm bolt on both sides because it was rusted solid to the bushing sleeve and was a prick of a job to get out), inner and outer tie rod ends, front disc rotors, wheel bearing, wheel studs etc Rear brakes done too, well at least one side - the other side is partially seized and the handbrake cable bracket bolt has snapped off inside the caliper body so that needs to be rectified so I have an effective hand brake Also made a start on tidying up the interior, used the same Clydes leather colouring balm that I used on the Diamante here, obviously in the maroon colour. I did half an half on the passenger seat to see the contrast, the driver's seat had been done at this point: Once I've sorted out the rear caliper and get it a wheel alignment it should be good to get back out on the road. I dropped all the fluids and got some Redline into the box and diff too.
  6. Because I'm a ricer at heart, I applied some stickers I bought that just turned up today: I fucked up on the size of the 'spirit of competition' sticker thinking it was going to be much bigger, in order to cover the majority of the space on the right
  7. I changed to LED bulbs because of the amount of times I had left the door open etc working on the car only to find it wouldn't crank after a few hours. Plus in most cases you get more light output. Hard to find ones that have the same warm glow as regular bulbs though.
  8. Ralliart it is! Small wee problem that the carbon lip is in Auckland and the car is in Toronto.... so yeah that's going to be fun to get it half way around the world undamaged, and for something that wont break the bank. In other news - snapped some 'zaust pics while I had the car jacked up to refit the crossmember braces and some under body belly pan clips.
  9. also have the option to get a Ralliart style CF lower lip or CF version of the stock MR lower lip, which one do y'all think looks best? Ralliart: CF version of stock MR lip
  10. The downpipe now fitted along with a 3" high flow cat and ditched the 2.75" flange at the beginning of the kakimoto cat-back exhaust so it's a true 3" mandrel bent system right the way through. Don't have pics of it fitted but here it is compared to the original when I was faffing around with it last week:
  11. Some more angles of the silver vent plate
  12. So turns out the downpipe I had picked up is trash, it seems like it's about 10-20mm too short in the middle, the rubber mounts don't fit on like factory and it pulls the rear section of the exhaust forward to the point that one of the exhaust mounts rubs on a rear suspension arm... so either I modify this downpipe (turning a cheap item into an expensive cheap item) or find another downpipe (also probably not cheap). I am also thinking of running a 3" high flow cat converter as the rest of the exhaust system is 3" apart from the stock cat converter which is 2.5". Anyway, until I figure out what to do with the exhaust I've turned my attention to trimming the Varis CF hood so the Ralliart carbon intake can fit, thankfully it's just a separate fibreglass plate that comes undone with 6 10mm bolts. I also repainted the mesh black because it had bits of chipped paint originally: Hopefully that looks nice and subtle and not overly obvious I've taken a dremel cut-off wheel to the vent plate haha. Now... cause I can't leave things be I decided to paint the vent plate silver to mimic the OEM vent colour as they have an aluminium vent plate, but I think the black mesh really hides a lot of the colour
  13. As mentioned above, I was able to pick up a mint intercooler & the M/T aluminium piping while in the US a couple weeks back. That means bumper off again: Replacement intercooler & piping on: These pics show the Ralliart CF air box lid/snorkel however I can't quite run this just yet as it actually fouls with the vents of the Varis CF bonnet - so either I run stock snorkel & air box or I remove the vents from the underside of the bonnet leaving just the mesh there. Not quite sure what to do just yet - I am wondering if I can get creative and cut away just a portion of the vents for the one third or so of the area that it does foul. Next up is swapping on a 3" downpipe I also picked up on the same trip.
  14. Last Tail of the Dragon spam I swear
  15. So once I threw it all together I drove it an almost 4000km round trip down to the Tennessee and North Carolina border for the Tail of the Dragon and had an absolute blast
  16. So in order to get this sorted I ended up buying a Meek Evo 9 J-pipe from Australia and also a stock Evo 9 J-pipe from across the border in Ohio and they were both shipped out on pretty much the same day. The Meek J-pipe arrived within 5 days whereas it took 12 days for the one to arrive from the US, and they both cost approx the same to send too - go figure. Turbo out once again - can compare the two J-pipes which are similar but different enough No longer hits starter solenoid! And lines up great with the Mishimoto lower intercooler hose
  17. Small update - pulled the bumper off again (can get it down to a couple mins now provided the under tray isn't attached) to swap out the stock lower hot side intercooler pipe and was easier with the bumper off. bit of a difference here - the 40mm/1.8" section of the stock pipe is responsible for an easy 10-20hp bump in power when going to an aftermarket 2.5" pipe. Also wanted to check out more closely the small ding in the lower passenger side of the intercooler - it looks like perhaps someone has accidentally jacked it up from the edge of the intercooler as I couldn't find any corresponding damage to the bumper/lower lip or under tray which both look to be factory original. I have found a lead on a mint replacement low mile intercooler that I can pick up when I'll be in the states next, along with factory M/T cold side piping (the auto GT-A piping is heavier steel for supposed "noise reduction") and M/T turbo inlet pipe for when I do the M/T swap.
  18. In its new home And test fit confirms with the M/T bracket the CF lid now works
  19. @mjrstar because I was worried my original pipe wouldn't fit the IX turbo I went and checked, and phew thank god it fits as if it's factory with no stretching. Maybe the inlet size difference is between Evo 4-6 & Evo 7-9 turbos? @ThePog if you ended up fitting the turbo to the DynaFari yet was there an inlet size difference between your old turbo and mine? The inlet pipe is definitely auto specific, it has more of a 60-75deg bend to clear the transmission and a little dimple right by the AFM to clear the inhibitor switch. As the M/T box pipe is more 45deg I was worried I would be left without a pipe that wouldn't work with both the IX M/T turbo and A/T box. Another thing that is auto specific is the air filter box bracket as it mounts the filter box at a slightly different angle (no idea why) and this necessitated a different air filter box lid and snorkel specific to the A/T models. The different air box angle prevented me from using the Ralliart one piece CF airbox lid and snorkel, so swapped on a M/T bracket I had picked up while in NZ. M/T on the left A/T on the right. In hindsight I may have got away with just bending the original bracket a little.
  20. At this point probably not, I think replacing the front sway bar necessitates dropping the front subframe/steering rack and I wanted a stiffer rear to somewhat counteract the AWD tendency to understeer - having said that the Evo VII-IX chassis is supposedly well balanced already, though not sure of the effects of adding an extra 50kg/100lbs to the rear end would do to it. This guy doesn't seem to have any issues throwing it around the track though:
  21. I think with the stock stamped/pressed steel j pipe you can get away with doing that but the meek pipes are cast aluminium. original oil and coolant lines were retained and do work with a little tweaking but I am adding IX specific coolant and oil feed lines to my next amayama order to have on hand for when the turbo is ever off again. They seem to start corroding fairly quick so want to swap them out at some stage. Didn't think about the compressor inlet pipe, the current one is specific to the auto trans cars as it has a little indent to clear the inhibitor switch, hopefully I can get away with continuing to use it until I go 6 speed when I will swap it out for the IX M/T specific pipe.
  22. Didn't take much effort to fit, I have to fiddle around with it before tightening up the mid flange bolts and at the cat converter because the downpipe isn't attached to the turbo right now so the exhaust wont be in its final position until the turbo goes back in. I'm not usually the biggest fan of 'ricer' type exhausts but I picked it up for next to nothing, it's a quality brand and it weighs significantly less than the stock exhaust. I think the look is growing on me. I need to give it a clean now, sitting for almost 5 months in the garage means it's covered in dust
  23. So now that the turbo swap is on hold until I receive the replacement outlet pipe(s) I shifted gears to focus on the rear end. The stock rear sway bar is still quite beefy at 22mm: But swapped it out for the 25mm SuperPro one anyway, plus this one is now adjustable if I wanted to tighten up the rear further While I had the rear section of the stock exhaust dropped down, I figured I may as well undo the remaining two nuts at the cat and pull it off completely to compare with the Kakimoto exhaust I had picked up some time back
  24. So keep running into issues with the turbo outlet pipe which means I can't finish off the swap. The Meek outlet pipe I picked up seems to be for the Evo VIII turbo despite the seller claiming it was definitely for the Evo IX turbo, it definitely looks different enough from the stock Evo VIII style outlet pipe which is why I thought it for sure was the correct Evo IX one: But no matter how I try to jiggle it (I even slotted the mounting holes to twist it around somewhat) it keeps hitting on the starter motor/solenoid and prevents the exhaust manifold from sitting flush up to the cylinder head. And that's without even slipping the outlet hose on too which no doubt adds another 3-4mm of clearance needed. Have ordered up the correct Evo IX outlet pipe from Meek and hopefully it should get here within the next couple weeks. Also bought a stock IX outlet pipe just in case I need to fall back on that one too, also waiting for it to arrive next week.
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