Teddy-2000RS

If I can make steady progress like I am, I'm really hoping to make a few late season meets to ruffle some purist feathers.

My mig skills are slowly improving but yes I'd have to agree they're on the cold side. I've got an Eastwood MIG 135 and an Eastwood TIG 200. Love them both. The steel sheet I get from a local metal supplier. I acquired the aluminum from an estate sale of the guy who designed transmissions for Ford in the 80s believe it or not. I should have enough sheet and tube to pretty much finish off the car other than the hot and cold side for my turbo.

Teddy-2000RS

Smaller update than I would have liked but the garage peaked at -38°F this weekend and my bullet heater quit so it was a little chilly to make the progress I intended. My structural portion of the tube front, ie. the steel bits, is about halfway done. No pics of that until it's finished. In the mean time all 4 of my TIAL packages showed up off of back order.

I'll be using two 44mm wastegates and two 50mm BOVs.




I've got a buddy who's a Vibrant vendor so I'm hoping to order my Hot side parts sometime this week.

Rocknrace03

Viren is the man

Teddy-2000RS

I was hoping someone was paying attention. They're VS Racing branded, a TIAL rep I suppose. They use a TIAL diaphragm and TIAL clamps so they're essentially the same guts with a different skin.

Teddy-2000RS

Ninja edit haha. He really is. Customer service is spot on, as well as the quality of his products.

Rocknrace03

haha, I didnt want to come off as a jerk calling you out in front of all your internet freinds haha. I love this build man, im glad you found your way to sloppy mechanics and viren. Knock offs or not, the products are solid!

Teddy-2000RS

No worries at all haha. I've picked up some extremely useful information from that particular page. I appreciate the kind words!

Teddy-2000RS

January was a rather cold month, seeing too many days that were -40°. This made progress slower than I would have liked but I'm still plugging away.

The first order of business was to support the strut towers. I boxed and plated the sheet metal portions and ran tubes down to the now super short frame rails. No longer does the front end sag after letting it down onto stands.





Next on the list was the core support. I opted to make the entire support a one piece bolt in affair. It's essentially an upscale subframe connector. I started with the lower portion that is going to support the intercooler. It bolts to the underside of my front subframe. It comes out level with the front bumper.



I scavenged some solid rod ends from a discarded Jaguar E-Type alternator tensioner and cut out some brackets to bolt the rod ends too.



I followed the profile of the stock radiator support pretty closely to leave plenty of room for headlights, and my radiator/intercooler ducting.







I also scooped a almost brand new water pump and alternator bracket from an 03 Silverado for the stellar price of free-fifty. I chopped the lower portion of the alternator bracket off because I have no intentions of running power steering. I have a good friend with a 2015 STI that just changed out his steering rack because the seals were blown. Thankfully for me, he's throwing it away and I'm going to pick it out of the metaphorical dumpster tomorrow. I'm really curious how much quicker the 13:1 rack is.

Next weekend I'll connect the top and bottom portions because I ran out of time, aka I was dialing in my dad's sled's suspension on our moto x track. For now it's doodles.

Teddy-2000RS

Work sucked last week so it was nice to make a ton of unhindered progress on the car. I don't think I mentioned this in here but the goal for my tube front was to be under 20 pounds and still be strong enough to support what needed to be attached. The stock front clip weighs in at roughly 50 pounds, and the USDM bumper beam is 44 pounds. A 70 pound drop puts me almost in the aluminum block territory. After puzzling out some math based on how much tubing I used (33 feet) I calculated the tube front weight to be 11.7 pounds. A staggering 88.3 pound drop from factory components. The best part is, I accidentally jacked the car down without blocks under the tires setting the entire car onto the front end, which at the time was merely tacked together. To my surprise it held with a little more than a slight deflection of the tubing. It's safe to say that it's plenty strong and ties the subframe to the chassis even more so.











And after removing the two nuts and two bolts, it slides right off the car.



Now I just need to full up the empty space with all the hot and cold side goodies.

Teddy-2000RS

A small but significant update, atleast for my feels. I absolutely despise looking at my car In a dismantled state, so the addition of a front end, in this case headlights, really warms my heart.

After talking to Scott (Tsidreams) I was able to iron out a simple way to mount the headlights. I utilized the factory fender mounts, which I'll replicate onto my fiberglass clip when the time comes. Next I drilled and tapped some round stock spacers for the grill side mounts.



A bit of square tubing and a squirt gun and I whipped these up.



For not having beams to align to, they came out spot on. Once I run the leds to them I'll be able to shim them which ever way I need to but as of now they line up just fine the current body lines.

ryeguy2006a

iTrader: (27)

Something to be said about how little things keep you motivated. Nice work so far, I'm curious to see how that turbo mounts up!

Narxoleptic

Wow, i havent been in here for a while. Congrats on the job at such a cool place and great progress on the car!! Looking like a car now!!!

Teddy-2000RS

It's bolted in a few posts up. The Hot side parts are in the mail of that's what you were meaning.

Thanks man! Slowly but surely! I'd really like to drive it this year.

Teddy-2000RS

My hot side parts showed up earlier in the week so progress was had. I spent all week at work attempting to perfect a 4-1 merge collector because that was on the only portion of fabrucation of the hot side that I had never tried. Much to my luck I had 4 unsuccessful attempts with a varying degree of issues.

By the 4th one I had worked out the quirks and was able to cut out 4 pieces that closely resembled each other. After a bit of bench grinding and a few tacs I came out with these.





I'm rather rusty on stainless but atleast my gas lense makes me look better.



A few more welds, mixed in with copius amounts of fowl language, I erected my first successful 4-1 merge collector. 5th times the charm right?



After extension research I came to the conclusion that a 1.625 ID primaries and 2.125 ID crossovers would be ideal for a fast spooling smaller cube engine while still flowing enough to crest 4 digits. Among that research I came across an article that suggested that 2.125 inch ID tubing would oval out near perfectly to a t6 flange. That proved to be incorrect, atleast for a s480 t6 flange. Not a huge deal but it's still annoying. Since I solid mounted to Turbo to the frame rail rather than the engine my crossover required a flex coupler. I also added a v band in order to make removing the drivers primaries easier.

A few pie cuts, a couple of tacs, and I ended up with this.





There's an ample amount of room to make the primaries equal length as well as adding the wastegate provision.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

ryeguy2006a

iTrader: (27)

Nice work on the merge! Once my project is on the road I really want to get a tig welder.

Teddy-2000RS

Owning a tig welder opens an entirely new realm of possibilities, although everything here can be done with flux core and mig if aesthetics aren't necessarily a concern.

Teddy-2000RS

Another weekend, a bit more progress. Again I started out with a collector. I chopped off about an hour of assembly time making it this time around. I was happier with the fitment to the vband this time around.



I spent the majority of my work time cutting and prepping pieces of pie. Although they are more labor intensive prep wise, I find that pie cuts are easier to get the fit and finish to a higher quality. If I had a vertical bandsaw my statement would be different. Alas I don't, so I spent a few hours with a die grinder cleaning out dross. The fruits of my labor:





As you can see, I have plenty of clearance between the pan, as well as the ground.



I noticed this photo op of the turbo peaking out and had to ham it up.



I'm bringing a length of tube to work this week so I can prep the cuts and just jump right into the puzzle next weekend.

brawls43

The best diy bandsaw option is a portable bandsaw and the swag offroad kit. They make them for multiple saw options from Harbor Freight to Milwaukee. Love this saw kit.

http://www.swagoffroad.com/SWAG-Port...ries_c_35.html

Teddy-2000RS

I was hesitant to get into a portaband due to the blade length. I've used that taxable setup before and I was going through blades every 10 cuts or so on 3" stainless. Even with cutting oil it was chewing it up. I keep my eye on Craigslist for a good used industrial up right one.

brawls43

Yeah stainless will crush blades regardless. Blades and drill bits just get eaten up by stainless.