K swap FRS : Freddy McShreddy part deux

You have done a hell of a job with this car.

Every time I open the thread I want to buy one and k swap it follwing your recipe. 

Good job. 

In reply to Slippery :

Thanks! If you can swing the initial cost it's totally worth it.

Slippery said:

You have done a hell of a job with this car.

Every time I open the thread I want to buy one and k swap it follwing your recipe. 

Good job. 

Yeah! What he said. ^^^

captainawesome said:

In reply to sobe_death :

A fellow K swapper with a full 4 Piston 360 street motor sent me the part number he was using : 280750474

I googled it and a handful of other part numbers the were cross referenced. I don't see any specific part numbers that match my search criteria but somehow I stumbled on a listing for two New out of box TBs that were supposed to be for a Ford Transit. The pics said otherwise so I sent an offer for $48 plus shipping and they accepted it. I figured it was worth a shot but still possible to be the wrong pics. Probably should have bought both but the other is already sold...... LINK TO AUCTION

In other words, pure luck?

Hah, I found one too! An 84mm version for about what you spent.  Should be here by Friday for confirmation.

In reply to sobe_death :

Heck yeah! With purchase protection I think it's worth the gamble. Fingers crossed you get what you wanted in the package.

Since I started this journey I have been waffling about exhaust. You could say I'm exhausted on the subject.......

I'm super happy with sound right now but if I'm going to shell out thousands to gain more power then choke it back down by 10 or more ponies with a tiny exhaust, that just seems silly. The problem is there really isn't much out there for 3" exhaust and what does exist is super loud. I think 2.5" could support the power with a small amount of restriction but that lingering sensation that I’m leaving power on the table makes me uneasy. From what I can tell an oval muffler with a side entry and two exits just like stock seem to be the quietest. I almost gave up my search as there didn't seem to be anything off the shelf to buy. Then yesterday I stumbled on a catback from a company out of Australia called XForce. It was less than what I would spend buying a pre-bent mid section with a custom axleback made in my garage or locally so hopefully it does the trick. It’s also 3” and stainless. Oh, and recently Kpower mentioned there should be a flex pipe right after their header connects to reduce chances of cracking. So this would fix that as well since one is incorporated into the system.

Hopefully it’s not obnoxiously loud. I can live with a little more noise as it’s fairly quiet until I’m hammering down the throttle now.

The exhaust showed up today so I guess I get to throw it on this weekend and see if my ears bleed at all. If I can remember I'll try to capture some audio as well as decibel readings to try and get some sort of comparison. The flex pipe looks different in picture than in person and I forgot they give you a set of titanium blue tips if you so desire. I don't want, and quite frankly would have gladly paid less to opt out of it. It's also worth mentioning the box with all parts including extra tips is 54 pounds where the factory catback is said to be 42 pounds. So chances are I'm not saving any weight, quite possibly will be gaining, but I think that's because the muffler is so heavy. I'm hoping that's a good sign that the packing material will do a good job at deadening the screams of Vtec throughout my neighborhood. The two exit pipes are also only 2" where I think most systems I've seen at minimum are 2.5" or 3". It would be sweet to dyno test the difference between the stock catback and this but I doubt that's something worth spending money on.

Not good that the exhaust pipes out of the muffler neck down so much.  Gotta say I'm over having a loud exhaust.  The techtonics exhaust on my corrado has 2 resonators and then the rear borla muffler.  Sounds perfect, not loud or drony in the car at all.  The AWE exhaust on the 996 Turbo is on the edge of being too loud for me.  The land cruiser is totally silent!

In reply to docwyte :

I'm no expert in exhaust flow but two 2" outlets are more area than one 3". Either way this will flow considerably more than stock with a good amount of the tubing being a hair over 2" on the stock system.

New exhaust sounds good. Not much louder than before. A bit deeper tone overall but I really like it. At lower revs it's super tame and when uncorked sounds a bit more exotic than before. The tips that came with the kit aren't really my favorite but luckily the stock tips still fit. Maybe it's just me but it seems more responsive? A little more pep? I took some video of both while also using the same decibel meter. It doesn't seem too accurate as it was almost the same reading for both. Either way I'm really stoked that it worked out.

I uploaded some audio.

Stock:

With the Xforce:

I think it sounds great. 

At first I thought you swapped it during an autocross. Was wondering how the hell did you manage to have two runs with the same cars and stuff all lining up at the same corner. 

In reply to Slippery :

I think that could have been doable as it only took maybe 15 minutes to swap. Granted that was after the car was on cribbing blocks. The sound is better in person. Especially from the driver seat rowing through the gears. Cold start is similar to the stock exhaust just a deeper tone. Really pleased there's a 3" system that doesn't sound like a fart can.

It's been a rollercoaster the last month. Me and the wife took a long trip in Peru for our anniversary, then a week later our oldest went under the knife for spinal surgery to correct a massive scoliosis imbalance. The trip was awesome but most of all I'm happy to say my kiddo is doing fantastic in recovery. Really glad things worked out like they did. She's a tough cookie.

As for the FRS I've been tinkering on the A/c trying to get it all sorted. I ended up ordering a new compressor, a Deslugger, desiccant bag, and expansion valve. After getting it all hooked up and under vacuum I had a leak.

WTF!!

I was pretty frustrated to say the least. I spent quite a few hours double checking o-rings and any possible area that I touched for possible reasons of leaking. I came up short. Well it turns out the leaks were my fault. I must have failed to turn the valves before seating them on the hard line connections which in turn must have bent the schrader valves. BOTH valves are leaking. I haven't picked up new ones to install yet but it was tough to discern the leak with the manifold gauges hooked up. Really excited to get these sealed up and have the A/c saga all sorted this weekend.

Now for the good stuff. I got notification my CNC head from 4 Piston was shipping last week and would arrive to my office on Friday. After getting back to normal post surgery I was finally greeted with the package yesterday morning upon my return to work. I was relieved to see everything looks tip top and no damage in shipping. Oddly enough I opted out of their cleaning and blast service but they did it anyway for no extra charge. Score! This weekend I'll probably start assembling the valve assemblies and then we wait. For a while. I still need to order parts for the engine to be assembled plus get the block machined and since that all costs money I don't have I get to just stare at it all.

This is the only pic I snapped yet. I'll post up others of the ports to get some opinions on whether there are things I can do to improve further or just let it be.

Here for the port porn.  

In reply to captainawesome :

You are not showing us the fun side on that head!

My friend has 4Piston building him an F22C for his S2000, he is at month four and still waiting!  I know your was only the head but that was a quick turnaround!

Slippery said:

In reply to captainawesome :

You are not showing us the fun side on that head!

My friend has 4Piston building him an F22C for his S2000, he is at month four and still waiting!  I know your was only the head but that was a quick turnaround!

Parker with too many Projects said:

Here for the port porn.  

I'll snap some this evening I think.

As for turn around I'm pretty sure it was right at 4 weeks and there's 6 days of shipping in there somewhere. I can't be certain this is the same core I sent or not but I'm happy with how quickly I got a finished item.

Both exhausts sound great! 

I managed to snap some pics of the port work. The intake side had some aluminum swarf around the guides, but it all cleaned up easily before installing the valves. From the exhaust side there's not as much material removed with some casting marks left behind. I considered sanding them but decided there probably isn't much to be gained on the exhaust side.

Valve assembly time!

After that I decided to at least get the block on the engine stand to dissassemble and clean up for the machine shop.

After a short break I decided to go ahead and start tearing it all down. I've really wanted to check the bearing surfaces out. From what I can tell everything looks pretty good. The surfaces on the crank feel nice and smooth but there are a couple big end bearing spots that have some interesting marks.

Unfortunately it looks like one of the thrust washers has taken a little wear. It looks like the crank surface is fine and a new thrust washer should take care of the situation?

A little later I decided to remove the pistons from the rods. After getting one separated and inspected, I decided to just order some new Scat H beam rods. I don't think the stock ones had any play but the bearing surface on the little end didn't make me feel like the gamble was worth it. I probably could have had the machine shop check tolerances but at this point a few hundred more dollars to have brand new lighter weight rods made sense. I've been on the fence about being cheap on this for a while, and this isn't an area that I would like to do that.

I'll probably power wash the block real good sometime this week, and maybe drop it along with the crank by the machine shop. I'm hoping the crank is all in tolerance with no work need. That will allow me to order the bearings and at least assemble the bottom end.

The A/c is still giving me problems. I think I got it all figured out now but holding my tongue until I have what I need to confirm in my possession.

Nice!

Pretty sure my a/c issue was originally my expansion valve. I swapped out the stock one and then had a leak somewhere. I checked all o-rings and thought it was the shrader valves but also checked/replaced basically everything else to make sure. For whatever reason I was still getting a leak so I ordered another expansion valve and desiccant bag. When I went to replace the expansion valve I saw bubbles coming from the hard lines the valve bolts to. I don't know how but apparently I cracked the line when removing the stock valve? Either way I bought a used set of lines to replace mine but also ordering a new evap cooler since I have to TAKE THE WHOLE DASH APART NOW!

This is kind of a good thing as I have been wanting to get rid of some creaks and rattles but not quite how I planned it. So I have been down a car for weeks cause of this stupid stuff. It's been way too hot to daily drive my normal commute. I took it out for a spin the other night since it cooled down a little and stretched it's legs. I really miss this car. Hopefully the new line install goes easily and I can get back to normal soon.

Yesterday instead of twiddling thumbs I managed to powerwash the block. It's good enough to drop off at the machine shop but I'll probably take another crack at it before hand.

It's been a rough couple of months as far as heat goes. I know I'm not the only one that's been dealing with it but these 100+ days are excruciating.

Just to recap, I still have a car with no a/c that I really want to drive. In fact it's been so bothersome I was ready to sell the car and all the go fast bits I recently collected. Once I get locked into stupid ideas like that it's hard to shake. I keep thinking I just need a car straight from the factory that does what I want it to do. No more tinkering. But that's really not the answer here. At least not for me. Yet....

Last weekend in the early morning hours I pulled apart the dash. It takes less than an hour to do this work so I was feeling pretty good.

I unhooked the hard lines from the firewall in preparation to remove the whole HVAC unit. I noticed zero bubbles popping up where I saw them last! WTF

So of course instead of just replacing the evaporator and piping I decided to toss another few hours at trying to find the berkeleyING LEAK!!!!

Still no luck finding it.

After those few hours of more wasted time I was ready to throw in the towel. I told the wife I'm tapping out. I'll at least replace the evap, reinstall the dash, and then off to some new owner to deal with. As you can probably tell I'm kinda at my wits end with this whole a/c debacle.

With a few days to cool off I'm back with a new mission. Replace the evap and line under the dash like I originally planned. Reinstall all the dash stuff. Check for leaks. If the car still leaks then take it to a local shop I've dealt with before and have them sort it out. It pains me to have others work on my car. Not only for the financial aspect but because I feel it's my responsibility to keep the fleet alive. With that said I always took my cars to get the a/c work done. It's been fun learning about components and how this stuff works but it's time to tap out and call in the professionals.

I have no problem paying a shop sometimes.  I just did it with my daughters XTerra, that was acting kooky, throwing an O2 sensor code even with the brand new Denso O2 sensor in it.

In reply to docwyte :

For years on end I had to do the work due to cashflow, and I think I'm finally at a point where I'm okay with someone else doing the work. Technically I've been in a good position for years but the frugal side of me always wins out.

In reply to captainawesome :

I hear ya, it hurt me to pay them to do work that I know I could do myself.  Especially since I just found 4 brand new O2 sensors in the box of goodies the previous owner gave me.  I could've just replaced them over and over until one worked and saved myself a ton of money.  At the same time I don't have a smoke machine or a scan tool that can force the ECU to go through the test cycles for the O2 sensor, so that was money well spent.  Plus now if there's an issue it goes back to the shop and they handle it...