My Garage Imaginarium

 A bit of Das Hammertime finally. No more fluid or combustion leaks! The car felt terrific. I haven't driven it other than a brief slow test last fall and I got comfortable with it after a lap or two. The power, brakes, grip, all incredible. I'm in love with the A7s, they were game ready after one turn. 

A few issues of course. The splitter is too low for this craptastic bumpy track so it hit at high G in bumpy corners and bent the struts. I tried shortening them a bit but it didn't help. The catch can is either too low or the line is too small, after the 2nd session it overfilled with oil. The clutch stop seems too high or the used tranny 3rd gear synchro is a turd, was grinding a lot at first. And at the end of the 2nd session it developed a misfire. Not sure what it is, engine cranks healthy, there are no oddities in the fluids so I don't think it's anything serious. The way it was popping coming off the track makes me think it's a sparkplug or coil. I didn't want to continue with the splitter and catch can issues anyway so I haven't investigated yet. Done for the year, happy with the test and got a list of things to look at over winter in addition to a real transmission.

It looks like you brought a nuclear war head to a knife fight!  Brutal acceleration!

After spending most of the past 3-4 seasons mostly tracking my wife's stock BRZ, I have to say I see the appeal of being the power bully

Great to see the car in person yesterday! As one of the slower cars down the straight (but fast through the corners) that power to just make cars disappear behind you looks like fun.

Adam

Thanks Adam! Yeah it's definitely underrated. Slow cars like the BRZ are fun because you can practice the skills without much drama and do it for hours but having the potential to scare the poop out of yourself at any point on track, be it under braking, cornering or power, is delightful. I've found it's ideal to have both kinds of cars there. I don't want to drive this car for more than a handful of laps at a time, but then it's great to go throw around a softer slower car while in the refractory period.

A few more shots someone sent me today

A few more cool shots someone took. The winter projects are already piling up. As good as the Racelogic is, it's hurting the motor to depend on it so much. The injector cuts are systematic but they are not random. So cyl 1 is having to misfire almost all of the time at high boost and that's what cooked the plug. I changed them and the car runs mint again but it made it clear to me that it's not the way to go. So I have parts on the way to have proper boost control. My ECU has accurate gear detection so we will configure good PID boost control and set targets based on gear vs RPM so the traction control is a remote secondary backup for traction loss.

ANZE is already making me new front strut bodies to have more droop so I can raise the front.

Season over?

Step 1, clean garage.

Step 2, starting making next season's mess. Trans/diff coolers

Done the coolers, just need to mount the fan, then install and plumb. I heard down the grapevine that Vibrant is going to debut a full line of titanium fab components at SEMA... I'm in trouble... especially since I love welding Ti and my exhaust weighs as much as a medium sized donkey.

Project boost control pt1: parts hoarding

More neat shots from the test day. My wastegate arrived... looks like it will be a much more "interesting" project than I anticipated. EXCELLENT!

Drained the water for the winter... definitely putting in a dry break. That was a cold shower.

Pulled the turbo to start mocking up the wastegate. Going to require some major cutting of the fender, the hammer time is no longer sufficient.

Love the juxtaposition of turbo parts and feminine hygiene products on the kitchen table.

Remind me how much boost you're running? I really enjoy your updates.

Haha, thanks! The boost is the reason I'm doing this... I only want around 28-30 peak but I'm creeping to 35, and that's with an 18psi spring in the wastegate. It's a combination of how free-flowing my setup is and how poor the wastegate placement is on the manifold. Without massive exhaust backpressure, it has no chance of doing anything useful other than making lovely noises.

The new gate has a 7.6 psi spring so that will now be my low boost for the first gear or two, and with the 4 port valve I should be able to get the PID controller to get it up to over 30 for top gear.

E36 M3 just got real

WOW.

That looks like serious business. Is there a readily available bellhousing to mate it all up or do you get to be creative?

Yep, a friend made me one. I got a triple 7.25" tilton setup and based on the 6.66" GM input shaft the GSR comes with standard, he made me the bellhousing and we selected a throwout bearing based on the stack height and bell housing size. So I should be in good shape, just need to get a driveshaft made and it sounds like this should be quite affordable thanks to being so much shorter and one piece. Fast Shafts quoted me 300 for a chromoly and 600 for a 3 1/4" carbon.

I remember an editorial from a long time ago from Tim, where he talked about one of the major differences between a novice hobbling his way into the hobby and a mature wrencher is lighting. I finally put a serious fixture over my workbench. I don't know what took me so long. I only had enough 1" tubing to do an arm out of stainless or aluminum so I made one of each.

I've been daydreaming about possible wrap themes, and I dig this BASF procar for various reasons

Not much progress this week, started cutting the pipe to shape for the wastegate and got a yoke figured out for the 4 speed - getting a Mark Williams rapid release one so I won't have to drop the diff to remove the driveshaft.

Mainly been preparing to head out hunting for the first time next week. Really hope I don't come home empty handed. Been watching lots of gutting videos and for some reason the only part that makes me cringe a little bit is where they grab his twig n berries and nonchalantly cut them right off. 

It’s a start. Need to tighten it up and shorten otherwise the WG will stick out of the hood this way but the housing end seems good.

In NY, the twig n' berries stay in tact.   Hope your turbo box has the same kind of giddyap as the box of red tips.

In reply to Dirtydog :

They're close but past 200mph the 300 will pull ahead.

Binged your thread.  Very impressed with your work.  Especially the welding.  Beautiful tight filets, like the proverbial stack of dimes.  Get yourself a lathe and mill, and sky's the limit.

Nader said:

Binged your thread.  Very impressed with your work.  Especially the welding.  Beautiful tight filets, like the proverbial stack of dimes.  Get yourself a lathe and mill, and sky's the limit.

Thanks, I appreciate it! Trust me I've been drooling at them, especially since they can be had for so cheap at industrial auctions, I've even seen 5 axis HAAS CNCs selling for under 10k but I would need to build a new separate shop to house gear like that. I have a friend with a mill and lathe who does that stuff for me when I need it. We're like each other's Jerry Maguire, I weld and he machines.

Part of me would seriously pause at the thought of hacking into a compressor housing, and relying on my own fab skills to seal it back up.

...but, after seeing exactly where on the absurdity scale youre comfortable living at (as this thread explains quite clearly), I imagine the conversation about whether or not to cut into it internally for you was nearly no different than deciding if its a Crunchberries or Frosted Flakes kinda day.

This build is sick and demented and insane and lovely. Quite excited to watch the Ti exahust adventures! I really hope we see this car covered in the UTCC 2018.