gibbon

bollocks. 1985 from 2005 is 20 years earlier whereas 2001 was onl-HOLY SHIT ALL LIFE IS FLEETING HOLD YOUR LOVED ONES

reminds me of when i sold my 1992 mx6 to a guy who was "really into these oldschool coupes"

does it matter that the only "oldschool" car currently at my disposal is a "classic" 2001 SP20?

Confession time, I couldn't find my welding gloves so did the job today with a pair of rubber gloves. Nothing soothes finger burns like a cold can of beer. Parrotdog IPAs today

Yeah I'm really looking forward to pushing my car out into the sun for the first time and seeing how great the paint job really is :/

Any photos I'd share at this point would be more at home in the Design Disasters thread, but let's just say a new dump pipe has been tacked up which is miles away from the booster and about an inch and a half from the clutch master. What a mission

Goodnight sweet prince, sic itur et cetera

@kws @cletus What sort of clearance should I be aiming for? I do have the stock heat shielding here but I think it is pretty restrictive

I think there might be an old stick welder lurking around the back, thanks for the suggestion. I think I can reshape the main pipe on the bench, abuse the flexi to get access to weld it back in, then finally pop the top end back through the flange. Can either get the last bit around the outside with a stick as you suggest or just give up and weld that bit on the inside only As frustrating as it is, I'm really enjoying puzzling it all out

going with a bellmouth would have saved a bit of headache had I done it initially, but the wastegate pipe isn't really part of the problem now so I might just leave it, pointless or not (I was moaning about access in the above post but I realise that once the mainpipe is cut from the flange, I can seperate the two pipes easily enough to weld on the underside of the mainpipe, thank god for flexis). I didn't really have the option to join it before the flexi as the angle was going to be miles too tight to weld between the pipes where it joined (is there a trick for this?)... and I couldn't bring it away from the mainpipe and then around on a more perpindicular angle in a big S as it was fouling on the manifold. So I figured I'd run it all the way down where I could get a better approach angle.. even then it was marginal, I shouldve allowed it to loop around just a little more and come up from underneath

I haven't replied because i've been down in the garage staring at this bloody thing. I've got a few options really firstly, what's the consensus on a reasonable clearance to aim for? Is a heat shield with half an inch clearance on either side enough? This might immediately rule out denting the pipe as an option I could push the main pipe forwards and reshape it so it hugs the wastegate pipe all the way up from above the flexi, that's the closest thing to what I would call a "walled bellmouth", but some of the access is going to be pretty friggin tight to get a welder into, and it'll require a custom radius - I guess I'll get to have a go at one of those cool segmented jobbies Or I could push it inboards into the gap that Bling mentioned, that'll require some funky compound bending where again welding access might be a bit difficult (I can see why the bellmouth idea is so prevalent as it sorts out all the plumbing off the bat) this style also will keep reasonably tight clearance to the clutch master the flexi makes both those options possible without cutting and reshaping the bottom section I'm a little surprised that there's so much recoiling in horror about the prospect of fitting a smaller booster? I acknowledge that I cocked up and the pipe is too close to the hydraulics, but for the price of a $90 booster which will give me 2" clearance off the bat, I'll need to go out and buy a bunch more metal - (this pipe used exactly one 2.5" U and one 1.75" U) and spend hours on the welder either making a segmented radius or a compound one

my original question was about whether or not it was OK to massage the booster. oddly enough some people on another forum have said they have done it without any ill effects. Not really that keen to though. your input was really helpful though

the long wastegate pipe was just to try and keep the main downpipe flow nice and smooth, there was no real science to it. I don't quite get what you mean by a bellmouth? This particular turbine housing has a wall between the two outlets so I can't really just block up the wastegate flange and have everything exit out the main pipe If the dodge booster is as bolt-in as they say, it'd surely be less effort than reshaping the upper pipe... actually I suppose the flexi joint means I could lean the upper pipe inboard and try to curve it around

I suppose another option would be to cut the main pipe above the flexi and then bring it in and have it hug the wastegate pipe all the way up, the final seal into the flange would have to be done by welding it up from the inside though

yeah it's not quite as bad vs the clutch master as the photo makes out, the dump pipe does duck away a bit more than it looks I remember reading an article somewhere about the effects of press bending vs mandrel bending on exhaust, and they said the same thing, until you get seriously ridiculous and crush half the pipe, press bending (on in my case, just denting) the pipe had no real effect Because the pipe is siamesed, any adjustments to it have to be copied over onto the wastegate pipe below it. And welding the seams between the two is very very tricky. I keep coming back to faffing around with the booster etc because if I can't ding the pipe (which i probably will) I don't think re-shaping it is really an option without starting all over again

just got word that a 1980 dodge challenger brake booster bolts straight up and is 2" smaller in diameter. The yank starion owners did run into this issue when they started doing v8 swaps (two weeks after the starion was first released)

Not really, I've got a siamesed wastegate pipe directly below that which means there'd be no access to re-weld it I could either make up a separate shield for the reservoir or relocate it I guess.

Yeah I was wondering if there was another booster available... not a lot of starion info around anymore, American knowledge base is still up and running but of course their booster is on the other side so not an issue

But I just made it, it's my prize possession

My hella sweet dump pipe is unfortunately just kissing the outer housing of the brake booster on the starion. It bolts up and all but is just resting against it as it sits, I'm worried about heat transfer into the booster, and what happens as the engine loads up and leans I thought about milling a mm or two from the dump pipe flange and turbine outlet and inlet flanges to try and drop the whole thing down and forwards a bit, but the mongrel in me wants to know if a little tap in the right place on the booster might be all it takes? I know there's a diaphragm in there which would go south if it were upset but I'm not sure where it sits relative to that outer casing Surely someone here has fabbed up a sweet dump pipe and elected to reshape their booster for that little bit more clearance? How did that work out for you?

so what was the final dollar shipping amount to get it to your door? if you dont mind me asking. I often think about importing a car but it seems to be hidden cost hell

I've gotten a few more bits and pieces done. Made up some brackets for the intercooler and oil cooler as they were missing. I've come across a super life hack: old treadmills. Owners are desperate to get rid of their rooted old treadmills, you can buy em for a buck and you get a hundred kilos or so of steel framing, aluminium bracketry, wiring harnesses, fuses, transformers, relays etc. 5 minutes heavy lifting and a short drive with a trailer and you basically get a mystery box of hobbyist components. All my brackets are now made out of treadmill parts. So the front end finally got put back together, I got the bumper skeleton sandblasted, didn't bother plating the remains as it's really just there to keep the shape. Treated all the rust, brushed it down with chassis black and smothered it in LPS which I have since found out is $230 a tin so probably going to stop borrowing it from work... Primed up the front bumper which as mentioned came with the front kit glued to it with fugly silicone. I seemed to recall this car being a lot tidier back in the day, either I was just young and moon eyed or there's been a few cheap and dodgy fixes since then. Anyway I cut away a lot of the silicone and redid the joins in bog, it came out OK, the area where it joins is all below the bumper so not really visible. Finally fitted the bumper up and the whole thing instantly started looking more like a car! One odd thing on the side of the bumpers, they're slotted into the guides as they should but still seem to be sitting too far out... I'm not too sure what to make of that. Might end up removing the guides altogether and seeing how well they fit without. The guides were new in the bag, the thought occurs that they might be for the widebody model and purchased by mistake I finally received the 1.75" flexi for the wastegate pipe so started tacking that up too I walked to the back of the hangar, turned around and zoomed my phone all the way in for this shot so that the quality would be poor enough to hide my shit ass welding. The welder popped by while I was doing it. He saw it and started making sucking noises through his teeth. I told him I was nearly ready for him to come by and seam it up. More teeth sucking noises. Also knocked back the rear bumper and skirt. The car is super almost nearly kinda done

Good to know... in this case it did turn itself off though so a successful mission all around

Oh yip theres a ring still in the old hub pressed around the outside of the bearing housing. Case closed!

Ah OK I just searched "k12 abs ring rear" and found some ring-like components on ebay. Guess I'm going back to work to see if I left anything behind in those hubs...