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Bought some pointless and/or less important things to tide me over for a bit. Got some sparkplug wire protectors and an exhaust trim ring for the fender. Also have a pinion flange showing up this week so I can get my driveshaft measured and built.
Even bigger news, finally going to be getting into a good sized shop rather than my 10'x18' garage, so that will help with my motivation of working on the car haha
Shop is a 30' wide x 60'+ deep shop with heat and exhaust fans. Also has an office and a bathroom. It is conveniently located next to a bar, which will be nice Me and two buddies are splitting the rent on it (which is only about $300/month) so its pretty much a no brainer!
Very nice build and very helpful! It's really cool to see you in Nebraska as well, I'm down in Fremont! Working away one build as well with an 87 lx convertible with a spiny exhaust thingy lol
Ya no joke lol! Nice little money pit, but I'm getting there. No I haven't been to any of the local tracks, I've had a few street cars in the past couple years.
You should definitely make me a copy crossover!
Been getting a lot done lately but have failed to take pictures and upload them haha
I made a custom gauge panel that fit inside the stock housings. Nothing too fancy. Just did some trimming and tossed in some gauges I already had and others that were cheap (hence why they don't match). Took me about 4-5 hours total of work doing it all my tin snips and knife. I feel as if a dremel would make this job quicker.
Also got some summit brand racing seats for cheap and made brackets to get them mounted. Got my trans, stall, and trans cooler installed. Shifter in place but still need to run the cable.
Also got my driveshaft made and installed. Got to take some pics as it was being welded. Managed to get my rear brake line swapped from the 7.5" rear end to the 8.8 that way everything lines up again.
Working on tuning, bleeding brakes and installing the shifter cable and linkage this afternoon. Hopefully an idle video to come later tonite! Pics below of what I did take pictures of!
Tried starting the car with a base tune, getting good fuel pressure at the rail, vats removed, maf tuned out, etc. Will crank over but not fire. I need to check if I have spark and check some fuses later this evening. I'm hoping its something simple. Check back!
Got the car started and running decently. Done a few tuning revisions to get it somewhat close. Had an issue with my converter making a knocking sound. Pulled the converter off the flexplate and started it to see if the sound went away...and it did. So I had a mechanic friend suggest to put some spacers in between the flexplate and converter and retighten everything down. Did all that and the knocking sound went away. Put probably a few miles on it with no noise but this morning I drove it to work and the noise was back, but not as bad. No idea...maybe one of the bolts loosened up?
Also, according to my boost gauge, I cant build boost. It reacts correctly to revs but stops right before 1psi. My turbo is spooling because I can hear it but I'm wondering if I have a line hooked up wrong for my wastegate or boost controller.
I need to get my fans wired in so the coolant temps don't fly up to 230 in the matter of a few minutes of driving haha
Had a cooling issue that I couldn't seem to get resolved. I had fans going, good flow across radiator, new water pump, lines and radiator, new fluid with water wetter, thermostat removed...still would climb to 230 in no time. I was about ready to buy some high dollar fans and saw that a few people mentioned burping their cooling system. Figured that was worth a shot since its free and ill be damned if I didn't burp it and dump in another 1.5 gallons of fluid. Cools just fine now. Took it around on a 20 minute drive yesterday and it never got above 170.
Took it to a transmission shop for the converter knock sound because A) I don't have time to mess with it this week and B) they would diagnose the problem for it for free.
But on the way there I eased my way into some boost (under 5psi) and my god this is going to be a fun car haha I got a little scared.
Last weekend I got a little motivated and decided to try a poor man's sound deadening. I got some aluminum backed peel-n-stick roof repair, undercoating, and foil tape and went to town. My carpet has been out for a while so I removed my seats and cleaned out the floor real good. Then sprayed a couple light coats of rubberized undercoating on the floors and up by the firewall. then I layed the roof repair over it all, slightly overlapping. Then once I had it all done, I went back with the foil hvac tape and sealed all the seams to help clean up the edges but mostly to help keep any possible smell down considering the Peel-n-Stick is somewhat asphalt based. Then I layed new black carpet over the top to help clean up the interior. Overall project including the carpet cost me like 175 bucks and I can noticeably tell that the cab is quieter...and certainly looks better. I snapped a few pics while doing it all. Obviously I need to clean up that wiring better. Any ideas to mount/secure the pcm and fuse block?
Thanks man! Made a decision today and am just going to have the trans built while it is in the shop having the flex plate swapped. **** it, its only money! haha
I wouldn't be surprised if it's that Freakshow Converter. I had a couple of buddies that used his converters and one looked like a 3 year old welded it, and another one made a horrible noise and performed like crap.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's that Freakshow Converter. I had a couple of buddies that used his converters and one looked like a 3 year old welded it, and another one made a horrible noise and performed like crap.
I hope you are wrong. Externally, the welds look quite good on mine. Seems to function correctly but just has a knocking sound. Transmission shop said they think its a bad/cracked flex plate.
That being said, I have been in contact with Freakshow and they have been super helpful and if its determined that its the converter then I am sure they will make it right!
I am 30 miles north of Hyannis, NE. I am about 3 hours from Scottsbluff.
Right on. I may be doing some traveling to Hyannis for work over this next year. My job is doing the Architecture and Engineering on the school they are modeling there.