Thanks for the encouragement. I should be in the garage, but I'm feeling lazy so I'll type instead. Been a while, I've been working away at things. Most of it isn't that exciting, but the car is coming along so I'm feeling good. I'm trying to focus on things to get it more street worthy so I can put some real miles on it. I'm starting to really sweat inspection with the exhaust, just going to have to give it a shot.
Also can't recommend Kenny's tuning services enough. We've been going back and after a few hours of work I get to reward myself with tuning drives. I haven't checked the spring in the wastegate but it seems to be holding 10-12 psi and it's a lot of fun as it is. It's certainly not a quick spool (real hit is around 3,500rpm) but it's not bad. I'm hoping the RSI cam will help that, I'm sure opening the head up would be good too.
I've got some kind of concerning clunking coming from the rear that I haven't pinpointed the source yet. That and a small leak from the tail shaft of the trans are the only real issues coming up from driving so far. I adjusted the struts and shocks and took a lot of stiffness out of both; it's a lot better for the roads here now but I'm doing too much bouncing so need to play with rebound. I'm used to tuning dirt bike suspension so still trying to learn to really feel what the car is doing. I do need to get the front end aligned asap though, it's just thrown in and kind of all over the place. It was easy to get a little carried away playing with the power and realizing you're doing 75 on back roads with a cross eyed front end, no seat belts and no back window... and mom in the passenger seat! don't worry belts are in now, didn't realize I couldn't do old car buckles with new car latches.
So why was the back window out? Well, like an idiot I saw someone say on tbricks that you could fit a 242 headliner out the door. So when the windshield was out of the car and my Dad said "you should do the headliner" I said nahhh I'll do it later. Well bullshhiitt on fitting the headliner out the door. Unless you beat the hell out of the thing we could not make it happen, and that's with no interior. So we got to pull the back window out, although it did give me a chance to touch up some hidden rough spots.
I also scraped what I hope to be my last pieces of stupid tar/sound deadening from this car and replaced it with the Raamatt. I'm all in love with this stuff.
I wanted to go for a darker headliner, but am not a huge fan of straight black as it always seems to make the inside too dark. Ended up picking a dark grey in a nicer padded material, and had the C pillars done as well.
It proved hard to get a good picture of it in the car. I used SEM vinyl trim paint (Landau Black) on all of the trim and the sun visors, came out great.
I had ordered a bunch of heat shielding stuff and needed to get it on since I'm driving it now. The header is jammed up against the strut tower, plugs are right against the DP etc. I got a set of plugs, wires and some DEI boots that were a huge pain in the ass to get on. The smaller side has a wire ring in it, so they had to go on from the dist. end and I had to do all sorts of gymnastics with safety wire, silicone spray and needle nose to get the booties through. Nice once they were on though. Also, I have to pull the downpipe out to get at the plugs. Thank god for v-bands.
I also couldn't find a plug to fill the hole in the '92 firewall plate with the AC pulled. It's a big oval not two circles like earlier cars. I ended up just making a plate to seal it off.
I also got some self adhesive DEI shield to do the body. I really screwed myself on this one by not doing this earlier, because I didn't want to deal with pulling the turbo and header. I had to loosen the motor mounts and lift the engine to one side so I could get a 1/4" of space between the header and the body to lay the sheet. It was a real chore laying it out like that, especially with the big contours of the tower. I cut a piece that was a little bigger than the actual template and had to make two relief cuts but managed to lay it out well. It's nice to work with, very sticky. Also did the firewall behind the downpipe and down under the car a bit.
I also finished up the trunk and sprayed it with undercoating. I did the buttcheeks and the wheel wells at the same time.
Sharp eyes may notice where we were beating on the wheel arches. A few weeks back we visited Paul Curran who was nice enough to lend me an Eastwood fender rolling tool and show us his enviable collection. He warned that he didn't have much luck with it but I figured it was my best bet - I was worried about cracking the paint or some body filler I couldn't see in the panel. We did the driver's side first and it actually went really well. Used a ball peen hammer to do most of the folding with a deadblow on the outside of the panel. Also used a heat gun to get things hot. The Eastwood tool put a lot more outward pressure on the quarter, but it did smooth out the fold. Part of the reason it went so well was because that side is a replacement panel and the lip was half as deep as the other side. The passenger side, the original metal, was a lot more work and the tool was pretty useless on it. Ended up just working it with a hammer, and it was a lot of work. I'm just happy I didn't crack my paint and I can lower the back of the car a bit now.
Also cleaned up the wiring inside the car some. The jumper connector that was on the EZK harness was kind of cobbled together so I eliminated it since the car is never going to run LH anyways. I also modified the LH brain mount so I could put the bulky ABS stuff up out of the way.
The next part my divide the crowd a bit... but while I was working on something my Dad pulled the front bumper of the '92 and put it up on the car. Once I saw it on I was sold on running it. Now I
know there's a commando lover crowd, and I don't completely hate them, but mine are ugly cracked and corroded. The '92 bumpers are in excellent shape... they just look better. Oh and weight blah blah whatever they look cooler. Yeah the commando trim doesn't fit perfect, but I can always swap the later trim. And no one's going to notice except Redwood Chair.
I put the H4 Hella lights in a while ago. They are on their own relay harness with 80/100w bulbs and are the brightest lights I've had in a car yet. They make the corner lights look like candles.
Threw the back bumper on and it's not as nice a fit. Doesn't work with the commando trim, kind of playing with the idea of moving the bumper up and trimming the ends to more match the indent of the panel. Not sure... do skinny bumpers fit better? I cut a few bucks off of my exhaust. I'm not sure if they made it as a "cut to fit" or something, but even with the mile deep commando's on it was a danger to shins everywhere.
I got to hear it from outside the car for the first time and I really like the way it sounds (excuse the damn lawnmower).
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I really really want a set of Recaro's for it, but nice ones don't come cheap. For now going to keep working, driving and enjoying it!