I'm back kids. Beginning of the year was busy so the car kind of went on the back burner. I got married on St. Patty's Day, so most of February and March were spend doing last minute planning stuff, then between a trip to Ireland, OT at my job, and catching up on other projects, my time was limited. I started to make a lot of headway over the last 2 weeks, and the car is for the most part back together, and will hopefully be running before the end of the week.
First, I upgraded radiators. I planned on ditching the stock expansion tank all along, so I figured why not get a bigger aluminum rad with a built in filler neck, so I could avoid having to put a filler neck in my upper rad hose...not only is it an eyesore, I think it'd be a tight squeeze between the blower and hood. So I grabbed a 3" Griffen and overflow bottle from Summit, as well as a new fan from Frozen Boost.
Surprisingly, I found the perfect radiator hose in one trip to autozone, I just grabbed something off the racks in the back that looked the right length and bends and it worked perfect. I also had to cut off the water necks from the radiator and replace with smaller ones...our stock radiator has a bit smaller than 1.5" diameter necks, and the Griffen lower neck was like 2.75". I also had to trim the upper LSJ rad hose to accommodate for the upper neck being in a slightly different position than stock. Fabbed up and welded some brackets to the side of the tanks, and the rad now bolts to the inner frame rails instead of the upper support.
I've also been catching up on some carbon fiber odds and ends, while I'm doing some wraps for other people. I wrapped the shroud I made for over where the battery tray used to be, as well as one for the opposite side where the front of the coolant bottle used to sit. I'll be using it basically to pass through the braided lines to my catch can in a clean looking way. I also started wrapping the reservoir caps. I still need to wrap the spark plug cover for the valve cover, as well as the ICM/coil bracket, and the plastic radiator shroud.
I am going to have to feather in some airbrushing on some of the edges of parts, I've been trying to use up the random renmants I have left from other c/f projects, so some didn't quite reach to the edges of everything.
Some of you may have also seen this in Tink's build thread, but I figured since I'm at it, I'd share. I'm doing several carbon wraps for him, and the Toyo mirrors were next on the list. They still need a ton of flow coats..I'm doing these by hand til I have my vacuum bag set up finished, and they're definitely labor intensive. Since everything is basically a downward slope, the epoxy just wants to run off, so I'm thinking I'm going to need to do one side at a time. These only have one coat of resin in the pics
I also picked up some pipe and couplers to make an intake...looks more like I stole it off a Freightliner...
And I decided my car doesn't have enough bad habits as is, so I thought it was a nice time to get her hooked on a meth addiction
I figure between the meth, dual pass, and ZZP S3, I should be seeing much better IAT's this season
Ryan (oldskool) came over last night and started flashing the LD9 PCM, we have the reflash loaded, and he made up a basic base tune that should be good enough to at least get the car fired up and make sure everything is functioning properly. He got feedback from whatever sensors do so with just "key on", which makes me feel a little more relieved that I did all my wiring correctly, lol. I have a few odds and ends, mainly running some vac lines, putting on the s/c belt, and finish filling the cooling system, and then hopefully the car should start.
How she stands as of last night
I'm also thinking while I have the suspension out of the car, I may hand over some money to Tein...
Also, any suggestions on the best way to fill a completely dry rad system? I obviously drained the whole thing when I pulled apart the motor, so the water pump has been dry since January, and I'm just assuming that it'd be bad for the pump to run dry until coolant makes it back there (correct me if I'm wrong). Is there a way to basically "prime" the motor half of the system? I can't imagine that by just having the rad end tanks full, that coolant would get hot enough there to expand up to the motor, and obviously on the Eco you can't just pull the thermostat and fill through there like on a 2200. Is there a air bleeder around the water pump housing that I'm missing or something. I can get a vacuum pump to force feed it, but not for a few days, and I'd like to get this done sooner. I'm a newb when it comes to cooling systems other than routine maintenance and repair. Any help is appreciated!
