No foam, its tight and doesn't move at all.

Pretty slick and clean but it blocks the HVAC controls which kinda kills the whole 'function' aspect in all but a pure race car. What is nice is that it doesn't get in the way of a passenger at all

Takes 2 seconds to pull it out to have access to the HVAC. How much to I use the HVAC in the summer anyway? I don't have A/C so almost never. My HVAC is the window switch.

Like this mod! Clean and super functional! Well done Jason!

2-60 air conditioning!

2 windows down, 60mph

Cool summer evenings I love cranking the heat and both windows down. I like being toasty.

I do the same occasionally, still can.

Like I said, it just slides in and out so it's not like I lost the use of anything.

Here's a little video demo of it.

Well done! Ok.. I like it.

Lot more stable than mine will be in a hard corner

Seeing Jay's thread reminded me to post that I installed my Evo 8 Recaros a few weeks ago

That... now that is proper. How are you liking them?

Very much so, much more firm than the 2g seats. Does for sure take a bit of getting used to. I'm looking forward to not scalding the backs of my legs when wearing shorts as well.

You'll probably find them a lot more comfortable too on long trips!

I've ridden to the shootout in them, they're decent.

You make your own brackets?

Congrats, looks really good. I will also get a set once i find one

I drilled out the rivets on the 2g seat brackets and welded them to the Evo rails.

That would have been easy.. I had to bend cut and weld to get my brackets to work. And mine don't slide.

Have you tried sitting with a helmet yet?

*easy* yeah, lol. I have about 8 hours of work into modding the brackets. I tacked, cut apart and readjusted the drivers seat about 6 times before I got it where I like. The last time was to move it over a 1/4" to the center.

Yeah I test fitted it with my helmet on, it's tight but feels good, they do sit slightly higher than the dsm seats.

So, most know a month or so ago I was out attempting to nail down my 10 second pass, I made 3 passes, made a new personal best of 11.2 @ 128, decided to give it a couple more psi of boost and I think the combination of hot lapping the car and a trans that was initially shimmed tightly, now well worn in after 3 years of abuse and lots of mileage finally gave up, took out 4th which also took out the casing.






Still managed to pull off a 12.2 @ 124 with the trans broken lol.

Sourced a replacement 90 gearset and while I waited for that to arrive, I decided to coat the casing.




Gearset arrived, pressed off my double syncro 1-3 gears which were still good and put them on the new intermediate shaft and got it assembled and took my measurements for the shims. I ordered the shims through Tim Zimmer(TMZ Performance), he got them to me in 2 days flat.

I also decided with this tightly shimmed trans that I would give it the best chance possible by installing active cooling in it. The actual pump and rad will be a winter project but it was now or never basically for getting the fittings installed in the trans. I chose to direct cooled oil onto 3rd and 4th gear, the two that are the most common to break. I installed a 4 port manifold for the option of expansion in the future if it all works out well.




I will pick up a Tilton electric oil pump and radiator over the winter and plumb that in. Not sure if I might add a temperature switch to activate the pump or maybe just have it run manually, that is still to be decided.

Fast forward to a week ago, took the car back to the track for the last SSPA event, plan was to go all out, competition wise and to get that damn 10! I had done a few pulls on the highway at 35 psi and the car felt very good, I was pumped.

First time up at the line:



It was a very loud bang from within the car, when I exited the car I saw liquid on the track, my heart sank and thought the worse, the trans had blown again. To my surprise, it was coolant. The good news is the trans held the launch, the bad news is the rear axle did not and I had a coolant leak somewhere. I noticed in the video a good puff of white smoke, which initially I just shrugged off as typical water vapor, as it was pretty cold out and other cars were puffing white vapor as well.

I had brought a spare axle with me and I would have just swapped it and continued on if it wasn't for the leak. After pushing the car back to the lot I looked it over, the coolant appeared to be coming from behind the t-stat housing, I figured in pulling the trans and whatnot, perhaps the gasket got disturbed so I gave the bolts a little more torque and started the car up, ran normal, no leaks but decided not to risk running it again. The axle was also broken inside the boot so from past experience I figured it would be ok to drive home easily(welded center diff). Got about 10 minutes into the trek home and the broken axle was rattling around like crazy, so in typical dsm spirit, stopped off in a Home Depot parking lot and pulled out the broken shaft lol.







Back on the road in about 15 minutes with no more noise and still no coolant leak.

Damn man you can't catch a break this year! That's a much easier fix than a stripped 4th though, I'm pretty sure you'll be back out before the season ends

After I got home I swapped out the axle and resealed the t-stat housing. I took the car for an easy drive and all seemed well.



The next morning I took the car to work in the morning and gave it some boost, when I arrived at work, it was leaking coolant pretty bad once again. At this point it was time to pull the head. I found the culprit.



After draining the coolant into a pail and it sitting for a while, there were several little globs of oil sitting on top of the coolant, this almost went really bad, no signs of coolant in the oil at all, so that's good.

While tearing it apart, I believe I found the cause of the head gasket failure, when I pulled the vac line to the AFPR, gas came out. This is the second time the diaphragm in this Fuelab AFPR has failed on me.



So as of tonight, the car is all back together, with a Felpro composite once again, just waiting for the new diaphragm to arrive on Wednesday. Plan is to throw in some L19 head studs over the winter to help prevent this again.

As much as I'd love to go back out, I might hold off.

I'd really like to go back to back to a 4 spider center diff and pick up a set of slicks. We'll see how the weather pans out. For now at least I'll be able to get in some nice fall cruising.

Good thing you caught all that before something worse came from it.
Is fuel lab replacing the diaphragm for you?

Nope, this is the second time I replaced it. I'll just add it to the yearly maintenance from now on to put in a new one, $20 is worth it for peace of mind.

Forgive my ignorance, but how does a failed diaphragm cause your head gasket to fail?

Massive drop in fuel pressure=lean condition/higher combustion chamber pressures.

Gotcha. I was thinking about it all wrong.

Bout time I update my thread

2017 Update!

Pulled the motor at the beginning of April to start my upgrades.

First upgrade was to remove the welded center diff and replace it with a 4 spider.

New cross shaft from TMZ Performance



Diff housing before machining



Housing after machining



Oil scoops added



All parts ready to go





Finished

Next mod, Kiggly oil pickup mod, helps reduce oil starvation.







Installed

Kiggle Racing valve springs









Also installed a Kiggly HLA



And ARP L19 head studs

One of the last thing to do was to change my exhaust. Want to look as stock as possible.

I opened the OEM GSX muffler and change the inlet to 3" and 2x 2.5" outlet and stock top still fits perfect.



3" Aluminum stock



3" V-bands



Making a jig from the old exhaust



First I cut the downpipe and welded on the steel v-band



Now connected to the downpipe with an aluminum v-band and first section made



Making the final section to the muffler



Sandblast and ceramic paint



Installed



All done with oem tips installed

Nice work Jason!! Why do we need to machine the housing?

Thanks.

Because there isn't room on the other axis for the added gears. I also had it machined for double washers.

Do you have more pics of the dissected muffler? It's cool you hacked apart the stocker.

Ah ok cool!! Wicked job!

I do, I'll get them up later