20071125: I spent about 4 hours pulling out all the Autometer gauges and the associated rats nest of wires to get my new Volt gauge in and fix some ground crosstalk issues that had been nagging at me.
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20071223:
Got a new set of wheels for the beastie. Decided on a used set of Motegi Touge wheels. 18x9 in front and 18x10 in back. They're skinned in Sumitomo HTRZ II in front. The rears are in need of tires but I'm planning on matching the Sumitomos in front with the same tire in back. Front tire size is 265/35/18 and in back they're going to be 285/35/18. I'm putting my 95' Cobra R wheels and tires up for sale to cover the cost of the new rear tires and then it's off to the races. |
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20071229:
Got my tires in and on. Sumitomo HTRZ II 285/35/18 in back and 265/35/18 in front. They're a cheap tire so I don't expect much from them other than 12 miles of commute a day. After the front and back are worn out I'll go for something more aggressive. |
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20080114:
Finally got off my butt and washed the car. Took out the good camera and took some good clean pics. I'm lovin' how it's looking lately. Got a couple minor changes to the external appearance (rear diffuser, grill delete, ...) but this is the basic look it's going to have for a while. The flame dealie behind the cargo net is actually copper filament made into a paper of sorts and cut out in the flame pattern (my first try). It's in the cargo net on the headliner. I like it ... just a little touch inside. I also used the copper paper to make wear patches for the seats. It's doing great at keeping the harnesses from wearing holes in the race seat fabric. |
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20081115:
Longtube headers are well under way. Using 1.75" tubing anbd having the prototypes all hand made, then computer bent and then finally they'll be coated for up to 1400deg F operation. |
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| 20081120: More pics of the headers being made. Lots and lots of work and expense but will be worth it. |
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| 20081228: New header pics. These shots are of the driver side just before finish welding. The word(s) amazing(ly expensive) come to mind. Sorry about the poor quality of the pics. They're taken with my cell phone. Forgot the damned digital camera that day. |
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| 20090226: New header pics. The headers are done and being installed. Here's a couple pics of the finished product and a video clip of the car running off the bare shorty headers. |
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20090227: Pics of the headers being installed and more intake manifold stuff. This is the NEW HPS 5.4L Hardball'r Intake Manifold . It's got a number of improvements over its little brother and fits like it was born there. I really couldn't be even a little bit happier with the new intake. It also gained 10hp/10tq over its little brother and ported Reichard Racing intake adapter plates.
You can see the coolant crossover line being plumbed in the pics to the right. Below you'll find some great pics of it installed on the car. It installs with about an inch of clearance to the hood. I might just be able to get my strut tower brace.
Big thanks to TPS Motorsports for their efforts. They had to install the longtubes which were exceptionally tight fitting into a car with an engine that makes longtube headers a major bitch to install anyway. They did it fast, and inexpensively. |
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20090402: Pics of the car on the dyno (underhood shots), a quick vid of the car doing a dyno run, you know... good stuff. The "same basic results" you'll hear is me referring to a timing increase not netting any real benefit of higher numbers. Not surprising.
The longtubes were worth 20hp like you'd expect. I didn't lose any torque which was moderately surprising. The car is a fucking beast now even more than before. Couldn't be happier (for the time being)!
More HUGE thanks to Mark Olson and TPS Motorsports. I'm a pretty picky guy and I wanted only the best tuner to touch my car. Mark is that sort of guy. He's a real hardcore techie, and a car nut bar-none. His tune is perfect and he was a pleasure to meet and work with. I have to pass more thanks and credit to Mike Mak (owner) of TPS Motorsports for arranging to have Mark tune the car. Mike Mak has been my source for vendor references during this whole project and has gone to great lengths to make sure that I had the best craftsmen in the industry work on the beastie. Mike and Mark, you're both rock stars! Thanks a bunch. |
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20090417:
Some idiot lady decided to be impatient and turned left in front of me causing me to T-bone her car with my baby. So it got to spend a month in the body shop. Got the car back from the body shop (and subsequently TPS Motorsports again) yesterday and decided to take some crappy pics. I'll update these later with some higher resolution shots. Big thanks again to TPS for pimpin' it and keepin' it real. Out of the whole mess of wrecking the car TPS hooked me up with a screaming deal on a 99 cobra bumper and a 2000 Cobra R' hood. Really pulls the Fauxbra R' thing together really nicely. |
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| 20090430: Put on my Momo steering wheel. I've had the damn thing for a year and just finally got around to putting it on. Granted I haven't actually had the car for most of that time as it was stuck in header jail. Now that I have it back the build is kicking into high gear. |
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| 20090522: Decided to go completely nanners with the build. Went out and got a Lightning blower setup and we'll let that and the nitrous try to amuse me for a while. The sale of my HPS intakes paid for the blower and the labor to install it. With 10.5:1 compression I'm limited on the amount of boost I can safely run on pump gas but I think I'll be happy with 400+rwhp on boost and another 150-175 with the nitrous running. Should be ok. Have to cobble together some plumbing and a front mount heat exchanger and pump but nothing I'm really worried about. I have the pulley bridge and lower pulley coming in a few days. |
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| 20090524: Started painting the blower setup. I figure if it's going to stick out of the hood it should match the body color scheme or at least get close. Doing a flat black to the bulk of it as black dissipates heat the most evenly and accenting it with a nice bright blue to echo the main body color. Did the lower manifold in pure blue. The mid plate is mostly black with a nice 25% wide stripe of blue. The blower itself is amost pure black with the Eaton logo and a few of the fasteners treated to some blue accents. The upper plenum is mostly black with blue on selected areas. |
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| 20090530: Ported the runner outlets on the lower manifold to match the heads, which so happen to match the gasket. After all that I had to have a little fun and set the whole shootin' match in the valley to see how it'll look. I like it. Looks good despite the enormous height. This is just a mock-up setting right here. I still have a hell of a lot of work to do re-routing every single tube and hose under the hood, replacing the alternator, crank balancer, fuel system, moving the battery to the trunk and figuring out what to do about a heat exchanger and pump and a set of 60lbs injectors. I also need to find a methanol injection kit. I think I have a line on one of those though. |
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| 20090713: I picked up an AlkyControl methanol kit, upgraded the tank to a 1 gallon unit, put the battery in the passenger side rear seat well, mounted the methanol pump, got my new 42lbs injectors (no need for 60's yet) and set up my relay/electronics board |
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20090830: Lots of movement lately. Got the battery relocated, swapped out the 00' Cobra R hood for a stock 03GT hood. I thought it was a shame to chop up such a bitchin' hood so I swapped it with a local college kids' stock hood. Charged him 50 bucks and called it a day. Now someone else can start out with a cool looking car.
Installed and cut the new hood for the blower, permanently installed the blower, finished up the fuel system components under the hood. It's now all AN from the hard line to the rails. Russel makes the 5/16" quick disconnect (LS1 pressure side is same size) to -6AN fitting needed to adapt the system nicely. Aeromotive makes a 99-04 4.6L FRPS (fuel rail pressure sensor) adapter fitting that mates nicely with any of their fuel rail kits. I had to get a set of Lightning fuel rails from them and slapped some 42lbs injectors under them. Getting really close...
There's a little bit more to do yet. Most of the electrical system and vacuum system are in some level of disarray. All in time. |
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