95naSTA

lol. No jacks involved.

Yeah it blows.. I'm just way too stubborn to let it knock me off the tracks. It is dipping into the winter which sucks but I'm no stranger to working outside in the dark, cold, and snow.

So, the car stopped running. I had spark, fuel, fuel pressure, it cranked. Eventually I pulled a valve cover to see my rockers not moving when I turned the engine over.. rear bank: Cyls 3&4 are the only ones that didn't make contact. I could probably use the block but I'm done with it. I'll be sending the heads back to Abbott to have a few new valves, valve job for those valves, and guides + port work if need be. Turns out the cam bolt came loose. So it was my fault.. and the cam key slot on the cam is egged out so I'll need another one of those.. So, the plan as of now is, get new Abbott cam, already ordered a new low mile (18k) L26 and drop it in with everything but might wait on the heads/LIM/ported rear cover. I know getting the heads back might take some time. However, Abbott did say they would get right on them and they went out today. Thankfully I just worked a crap ton of OT so this isn't going to set me back real bad.. This is part of the reason I didn't do any real block work. Sure it would have been nice to do all those real oil mods and get the bottom end balanced and blueprinted. But, if something were to go wrong, that's a lot of money I would be out, and for minimal performance. So, I'm glad I didn't. I might see the engine this week or next. The only real annoying part about doing an engine swap on the street are the TC bolts.. I'm saving cardboard for that. And the rear fuel rail was still leaking at the fittings. I'm going to JB Weld them in. According to JB Weld, once cured, it's impervious to fuel. And I'm definitely not worried about changing or getting rid of the rails at any point.

Sick.

Placebo = awesome

Here's what that's like live. I saw Flux Pavilion and Dr P a couple months ago.

It's hard to say. I've been slacking lately due to a grad class and a midterm coming up. Thinking about it.. I could probably bang out the wire tuck + ICM/coil relocation + custom spark plug wire routing in 1-2 days. I have a spare harness. The coolant bottle might be in by the end of the week. The alt, I'm not real sure what's going on with the shaft play so I can't say how long that will take. And the polished valve covers will go on as soon as the engine harness is tucked. That'll take 10-15 mins. Other than that I still need to: Mount the ABS brain (might happen next weekend) Clean up a little body wiring in the d/s bay. Make bracket(s) for the trans/oil coolers. I just figured out a way to do it real easy. woot. Get/install the fail safe hood hook bracket off my painter buddy. Smoke the upper engine to find why I'm only pulling 11-12" of vac Redo the full exhaust in 3" (I took measurements so I know what I can fit) Install dual widebands Bolt up the front end (vs zip ties) Put the rockers back in and hook up puddle lights Make lower air dam to block off engine bay from the road debris And all the while I'll be tuning.

The polished alternator pulley and fin have play somehow and the plastic fin was rubbing against the alt body. It's gotta come back apart again.. The old alt is on there for now. I got a buddy of mine to get a 99+ GP coolant tank from the yard but it's a lot bigger than it looks in pics and comes no where close to fitting in the fender. I wanted to drive it around a bit so I just got a few feet of hose and used that as an expansion tank for now. I drove the car around for 20 mins or so last night and it runs/drives ok. The plan is to get it inspected next weekend.. I just ordered a civic coolant tank after some ebay searching. It looks like it'll fit in the fender pretty good. And I got MSD black custom spark plug wire parts to route/hide them along with relocating the ignition control module/coils. Civic tank:

Shake harder boy!

Good news: The new booster is in and I have brakes. Bad news: the vac is still low. I might have to get to a buddies shop to smoke the upper intake. I have the new p/s pump but I still need to swap it in.

I got some maintenance stuff done on the i30.. I replaced the lower rad support since mine finally took a dump. This involves drilling out 50+ spot welds and welding the new part back in. Add to that my front end being mangled a couple different ways and it gets interesting.. I had to use a 10lb slide hammer, mini sledge, various pliers, and clamps to make it all line back up. After I got it in and welded I por-15'd all affected areas. The alignment is pretty decent. A lot of the damage associated with the bumper and rad support was fixed. The fog brackets need adjusting as well asthe driver side bumper support could. But, at least the front end is one piece again. Other new parts: bumper support, support brackets, hood struts, and cross member bolts.

Lol. Yeah I was upside down in my drvers seat for 20 mins with my head on the floor mat and the front of the seat digging into my upper back.. getting at the 4 nuts for it up under the dash. I needed u joints to get two of the 4 nuts out too.. just a big pita. Flipping it off and taking a pic was the least I could do.

I'd say brakes and power steering are worth the trouble! Lol.

No coilovers this year.. sad face.. I still cannot wait to see that meat meet the arches.

I've been putting some time in but it hasn't been going very smoothly. I bled the crap out of the brakes and they were still crappy, feeling like there was no vac assist. I was only pulling 11" Hg at warmed up idle which I thought was the issue so I hunted for VAC leaks. I didn't want to pay $800 for a smoke machine or spray stuff all over the place with how much paint etc. I have going on. So.. I ran my compressor down to 10 psi, hose clamped a bag to the TB and ran pressure into a VAC port. The booster line fitting was leaking.. Its a L26 (3800 Sereis 3 with aluminum upper intake manifold) fitting since it doesn't have a vac nipple up top like the L36 (Series 2 with nylon upper). The L36 one doesn't fit with the fuel rail. I had a L36 booster line fitting that I cut just before the vac nipple for some reason at some point, so I put a bolt in it with a rubber vac cap, and put that in the UIM to pressure test again, it fit more snug and there was no more leaking noise. These parts look identical too which is strange. I got the calipers out and measured on either side of the o-ring and the o-ring groove. The L26 fitting was ~0.3mm smaller in those 3 areas and the o-ring more easily compressed and slightly skinnier. So, I made a new fitting out of the cut old L36 one by drill/tapping it and putting a NPT to -6AN fitting I had laying around, then hose clamped the booter line to that. This was Friday.. I did a temp hook up on the exhaust today. The parts store didn't have a 3" to 2.5" so I made my own via slits and crimping. Then I just clamped it to the rear header with one of those frozenboost band style clamps. I took some measurements too so when I get parts for the 3" full exhaust, I'll now how much room I'll have left for a res after the flex, cutout and cat. Since I had the welder etc. out, I decided to make a mount for the driver’s side fan. I found a bracket with a hole in it roughly the size of the back of the fan motor, cut that up, added some legs, welded, rounded off the edges, drilled holes, and POR-15'd it. It's taking it's time drying. I still had a vac leak on start up.. pinched the booster line between the UIM and HVAC nipple, Vac increased from 11" to past 15", pinched HVAC nipple, no change, pinched line right before the booster same 15"+. And I could hear a leak coming from the driver’s side cowl area with my head on the windshield side of the open hood. Checked the check valve too and that was fine. Clean up most of my stuff, stood there looking at my phone (the time, only 5:30) and the car, and drudgingly went back and pulled the brand new ACFailco booster. I'll order another soon. I don't have power steering with full fluid for some reason. The pump came off a newer Grand Prix IIRC and has no electrical plug, so it's of the non two flow type which I had stock. That, and I ran it with super low fluid at first. So, it may have been ok but I may have killed it, and in any case I was planning on getting the correct pump in there anyway. So that has to happen too and when it does a proper bleed procedure will also happen. If the new pump and booster work out, I should be sittin pretty good.

Once I get the major odds and ends finished, feel free to stop by.

HAHAHA LOl. Yeah when I was messing around with the vac gauge (the dark unreadable one) the rubber coupler got unseated a little and leaked vacuum. I pushed it in more and it stopped leaking. That said, the car runs and drives but the tune is miles off.

I got the alt back together, installed and took a vid. I threw the vac gauge on to see what it's pulling but in addition to it being hard to see, it's markings are confusing..

Tuesday I repolished the tensioner assembly and got through 2 out of 3 steps on the shine/seal for it and the remainder of the polished stuffs. I took off yesterday and this stuff happened: -Misc wiring including the IAT sensor. -Charged the battery (took 3 hours at 10 amps..) -Slick finished (step 3 to sealing) the tensioner assembly and installed. The crazy witch doctor thread sealant is holding in the coolant elbow plug at the moment -Por 15'd the battery tray, air bag sensor bottom, sensor bracket and installed. -Sync'd the new bin onto the emulator And I drove it a couple blocks! Wooo. Power steering didn't work due to not having enough fluid, that's fixed. Still feels a little choppy though. I only got 4 codes, all of which are fine. 2 for cruise, 1 for EGR, and 1 for passkey which I always get. The brakes were hard as hell to get working.. I'm thinking the ABS wasn't fully bled. The level did go down a bit too. Oil pressure is good. The trans shifted all the way to 3rd I think.. Kinda hard to tell with so much going on. The engine coolant temps were almost hitting 200. I honestly forget what thermostat I have in there.. and it's not fully bled. I also have to re-do the fan turn on temps. Both do work though. It's tough to hear over the open headers but I think I have a vac leak. Possibly at the rear rail. I thought I had one on the front so I pushed the rail back, bending the legs, and I can't hear anything from the front now. I just need to poke around at the rear. I'm not 100% sure I have the vac res and HVAC vac lines hooked up right either. The ECC has 3 dashes on it and doesn't work.. The radio also doesn't work.. Still have to check those fuses. The HIDs, turns, and 4 ways work. The bin I have now is a stock 94/95 series 1 L67 bin with 3.43 programming and a couple small tweaks. I started with this since it'll have lower overall timing to start, and I'm running those injectors. The old bin would start and run the car but definitely not as well. My fuel trims are kinda high at idle but I don't want to start messing with fueling till I'm sold there is no vac leak. Sorry no pics of yesterday.. I know I know..

Thanks man. It's definitely nice to read stuff like that. I've been planning the performance aspect for a long time.. and I wasn't how sure I was going to take the aesthetic stuff. It's probably the only time in my life where I'll have the free time and money to do something like this.. probably for the next 25 years, so I tried to take it as far as I could. I did get some more work done since my last post. I was happy to get it running before I left for Japan a few weeks ago though. I got back and figured out the leaking fuel rail was a two part problem. 1. The sealant 2. When I re anodized the pipe plugs it shrank them. Anodization permeates the outer layer of aluminum and the only way to get it off is to chemically strip it, taking that outer layer. This resulted in the plugs sitting deeper in the tapered thread and not sealing correctly. As of right now, it's not leaking with permatex form-a-gasket and new stainless plugs. I found another leak with the Aussie Ecotec (our series II) coolant elbow I'm using. It's aluminum vs. nylon which is why I used it but takes a bit of adapting. Part of the adapting is it originally had a bleeder and a little dog leg for mounting which doesn't fit. I grinded the leg off and put a pipe thread plug where the bleeder was. That plug was leaking. The PTFE I used didn't hold, form-a-gasket didn't work, so I moved onto a pipe thread joint compound which expands when it cures. It even says corrects for mismatched thread. I looked at the theads and they are a little jacked up. I'm not sure when/how that happened. I cleaned the threads as best I could and applied the compound last night. It takes 24hrs to cure. With the fuel leak, it almost starting stripping the rear LIM paint but quickly diluted it with water, and after that and removing and reinstalling the tensioner assembly, I'm sure I ruined the clear sealant on it. So I have to reseal that. Hopefully I get that in today. Other stuff I did: -Installed the passenger side stock fan and extended the wiring. I needed to space the bottom leg out a little to clear the monster radiator. -Wired up the slim fan I got for the driver’s side and tried to figure out how I wanted to keep it in place.. Everything I thought of was going to take a couple hours which I didn't have. So, I temporarily rigged it with coat hanger wire to keep it in place and away from the header. It's pretty solid. I'll revisit with a welded bracket that uses stock mounting points and probably powdercoat it because I'm an idiot. -Wired up the HIDs and installed a few brackets. -Torqued down the mounts -Add the rear x-over v-band -Add the extra t to the brake booster line for the HVAC -And wire up a relay for the electric WP. Some pics:

So it started.. But the rear fuel rail was peeing fuel everywhere. I knew this.. and have used yellow teflon before, but for whatever reason I decided to use ptfe on the allen plugs and inlet fitting on the rear rail. Fuel dissolves ptfe super fast. The rail is back out and I'll use something intended for petroleum products this time.

I plan to, just after I know the engine runs right. It's just one less variable for the initial start up and break in.

Getting closer.. The new p/s pump is in, lines are hooked up and fluid added. Both coolers/lines are ran, hooked up, and fluid added to the coolers All the suspension bolts are tight, ball joints and tie rods are greased. Engine harness is on for the most part. I still need to plug in the oil level sensor, hook the rear ground up, and solder in the rear knock sensor wire. I died a little bit inside putting the dirty non-tucked harness on.. A/C lines are all hooked up. Added trans fluid/oil/coolant. I put 2.5 gallons in the rad before it filled up. :shock: I also died a little inside putting a rusty pinch clamp on the thermostat housing. (bought a new clamp today) New to do list before I turn it over and try to move it: -oil dip stick -plug wires -finish installing engine harness -ball joint cotter pins -purge feed fuel line and hook up feed/return -find other x-over v-band and install (was in my hand thurs.. fml) -hook up vac crap -install at least one fan (need to extend wires) -tighten STB bolts -temporarily hook up electric water pump -make trans vac modulator holder thing till I get to JY -tighten engine mount bolts The goal is to at least start it before I leave for JDM land Sunday. I'm sick, on the Zpack as of today, and have something planned for every day of the week after work till then.. except for tomorrow. lol. Pics right before the sky opened up Saturday: I'll worry about the polished VCs and alt after it's running ok and I re-do the engine harness.

I guess there are just too many things like this for me to care? lol. I don't really like it, or most badges/decals at all for that matter. If someone else gets their jollies from adding a transformers badge, more power to them. Just like everything else it'll blow up and go away.

Lol. I was just creepin in there last night.