I see it now...thanks for clearing that up.

Bryan, do you still push fan air through the upper vent?
I am assuming ducting had to be removed to accommodate for gauges and wiring.
If that is the case do you guys block the air channel to prevent hot/cold air from being spread/trapped inside the dash?

I never have, I don't have AC and in the winter it's always on defog or defog and feet.
No ducting was removed actually, just the vent that guides it.
I haven't blocked it, I am going to move the wires like you said so that air can still easily pass through there if I really want it to.

.

Looks good man!

I'd say, if you want to get rid of the wires in there, you could use felt or very small black mesh (probably the best of the two). Cut it the same as the bezel and slap it behind. Air will still go through, but you won't see anything (or at least less than presently).

Personally, I'd use those two side slits as warning LED lights (warning for boost/O2 or even a shift light if need be). Would take some work, but it would look like it's suppose to be there, be functional and look great overall with the gauges.

PS don't keep the TB....or Batman will hunt you down!

Haha I know, just busting his balls!
That's very fancy!

No hunting required, I know exactly where this 'joker' lives

I have a vent pod similar to that I am going to run as well! I really like them

Yeah I think it's going to take a little getting used to but I am already enjoying the cleaner look.

I cannot see the pic!

try right click and open image in new tab

I keep trying to click it with my left thumb..... still cant open it.

here



^^^ corrected

Still no go..... just a blue question mark. Even tried my right thumb.

now it should work...

Haha, that's weird wonder why there was so much difficulty

Nice little upgrade. The blades on the N/T seemed much stronger than mine and it seems they are cause they do a much better job at cleaning the wind shield.

You use washer fluid on that car???

haha, not very often
It took me 3 years to go through one bottle of washer fluid.

Well here is a small change I made, I liked the way it looked on terry's car so I decided to try this one out.
It's a fake HKS one from ebay, fitment, is tight and not perfect but it looks good once on. I also had to do some trimming so that it would get on.
Overall I would suggest avoiding them though, not sure if those are the ones that Jamie Loo is selling but mine looked identical.
Picture didn't look that blurry before.

My latest upgrade.
The single pot pistons I had on there where warping when they got too hot and the pads look like they weren't changed when the calipers got replaced for the safety when I got the car.
Happy with the performance so far, may give some high end pads and rotors a go next time I have to replace them.

Fresh brakes look good!

Alright so I spend today and yesterday slowly working through engine mounts.
I had picked up FWD mounts hoping that they would just go in and quickly learned that was not the case.

So far I have done the timing side, which is different so the mount that was on the car had to be swapped.
The front roll stop is the most obvious of the ones that are not interchangeable.
I heard the tranny side is different but it looks similar to me.

Why are you installing fwd mounts? You know they make awd mounts..... Install the correct fittings parts, they tend to work better.

I picked up FWD mounts for a good price, pulling the inserts then putting them in AWD mounts.

So as some of you know I have had a bitch of a time trying to tune my car.
After watching rob on youtube mention that he thinks his issues are caused by an exhaust leak I decided I would take a look at that too.
In the past I was always lazy and when I first got the car I was too scared, but this time I removed everything that got in the way of me tightening the manifold bolts so that I could do a proper job.

Here you can see the burn marks from the exhaust leaks.

And here is everything installed, thanks again Alex for the manifold! (yes I know I took forever to put it on)

Good job and no worries it took me over year to install Reza's 6 puck disk.

Looking at the last pic...did you reuse that busted manifold gasket ?

I did not, the one I pulled was an ebay one and the one that went in was a felpro one.

Alright so it only is a little better today, I have a spare lower TB section so I have done the free FIAV delete and will install that shortly.

Alright she is installed, will let you know how my idle tuning goes tomorrow.

Hopefully that fixed it....crank up boost to 20

Haha that's what I am hoping for just want to make sure that I take it step by step this time. Make sure I have idle tune down before starting anything else.

Idle is boring, WOT is where the fun is

Haha I know and I am hoping to at least get close to what I want before the end of the week

It's enjoyable to go through your car and fix all the stupid sh!t you did when you didn't know anything.
My plan today was just to swap out the ecu, but as I was pulling it out sparks flew!
So I took a peak inside and it seems I just wrapped the wires and taped them up but now all the tape came off.


Also did this a few days ago, I am really happy with the way it just tucks in, haven't had a chance to drive it yet so the sounds will be different too as I have always recirc until now.

So the car started up and it's idling better than it ever has.
Thanks to Stephan for telling me to double check the isc even though it was brand new, it seems my fiav was leaking and now that it has been replaced the car idles wonderful and during cold starts too!!
Will finally be able to idle tune it and get the injectors dialed in proper!

Good progress!

I don't think I could count on both hands new parts that I've picked up for various cars that were DOA, quality control seems to be a thing of the past.

Well Stephan and I seem to think it was my fault, when I pulled the TB there was a bit of water on the inner gasket. So I am guessing that the water got into the isc and toasted it.

So after a long chat with Terry I realize that I need to get a list together for this car and start setting priorities.
The next on my list is probably going to be doing the cooling.
I want to switch out to slim fans and throw in the mishimoto rad that I have. Then I have the ebrake cables that I can't seem to get out. The rocker panels that I want to patch up. And last but not least the Roof I want to redo in black.

If the weather gets nice I will probably take another shot at the ebrake cables, if this attempt fails than I will more than likely be taking it to a shop.
I am going to order the rad hose kit now and when that gets in I will drain all the coolant, and put the new hoses and rad in.
I spent a good chunk of the day yesterday cleaning my garage and am hopefully going to get some of the stuff in my garage out so I have some more space.
As long as the rockers get done before the winter I don't really care too much.

Any plan on putting that nice fluidampr of yours on your to do list

LOL, that's a quick and easy thing to do. Most of the stuff I have on my list are the longer things. Coolant hoses probably being the least time consuming of all of them.

Bryan, get a custom brasket made to support your rad resirvoir.
If i were you i would also do a nice engine bay wash so it feels cleaner to work on it we'll keep an eye on your progress. Good luck