10th February 2007
"OMG he's done an update!"
Hrmm. almost 5 months since I last updated... (2 fast 2 furious quote) "Do I even want to know where the Edition one is?"
She's safe and sound. It's been living outside my house since it left the workshop, but nothing has been done to it since. The brakes and (hydraulic) clutch were completed before I moved it which made light work of getting it off the back of the recovery truck without sailing off down the street in an unstopable manner
The Steering was connected and ready to rock. I could probably put PAS fluid in the resevoir, but I haven't. The departments that still require attention are: The exhaust, boost pipes, water pipes and engine management. There are still a couple of small things I also need to do to the wiring, but nothing major - I hope!
So the exhaust. I already had the full 2.5" system made up from the other car, but as I'd changed the turbo now the original downpipe was no longer useable. The original k03s setup had the outlet pointing towards the back of the car so the downpipe was simple. Now I'm using the k04 setup the outlet comes off towards the side.
Quantum Performance Engineering (Qpeng) make downpipes for easily converting a mk1/2/3/corrado to the 20vT engine, but the price wasn't far off £300 when you added VAT on
. Last year funds were a bit tight so I couldn't afford to get the downpipe I needed. This week after deciding this car had to be finished I checked again on their website not only to find that you can now order on it, but the price had been reduced to £200+vat which with the postage costs came to a nicer £242. One was promptly ordered up
The downpipe comes in 2 peices which makes fitting so much easier. the first section can be attached to the turbo and once the engine is installed the section with the flexi can be connected and cut to fit the existing exhaust.
I haven't got round to fitting the new shiney gifts yet as I'm not lying on the floor outside my house when there is snow all around me! I also found an eBay shop by a company called Pipe Werx which sells shiney intercooler pipes in various bore sizes and in varrying bends making the larger pipe easy to sort out without having to goto an exhaust shop to get built on the car. These pipes don't come with the outlets for the dump valve or boost control valve so I'll have to get those welded on beforehand else I won't be able to drive the car.
I also need a couple of Samco hoses to connect my throttle body to the intercooler and the intercooler to the boost pipe. I've messured the bore on all the parts I need to connect to so out came the Demon Tweeks catalogue to find out which sizes Samco do. All my hoses will be in Black rather than the usual Samco Blue everyone else has
The problem I now face is bridging this gap...
Originally I was thinking a 90° 70-63mm reducing elbow off the throttle body into a 90° 63-51mm reducing elbow onto the intercooler, but after looking at the car again this won't work. The 90° bend off the intercooler would point the pipe straight up and miss connecting to the thottle body hose. Hrmm. so I need to think about this one. a 45° hose would be perfect for this connection... but Samco don't make 45° reducing bends!
I think the way it has to be done is a 63-51mm straight reducer off the intercooler into a small 45° metal bend and then into the 70-63mm 90° reducing elbow onto the throttle body. I'm going to order up those hoses this week coming and see where I stand then. It might require cutting of the hoses to get them closer to the intercooler and pipe, but I'm pretty confident this idea will get the job done.
As for the other side of the intercooler. Another 63-51mm straight reducer will go onto the intercooler and a peice of pipe will then connect that to the pipe which is already connected to the turbo. The only thing I need to work out now is how I'm going to route this pipe and how much of a bend I need in it! I was original thinking of making a new intake pipe from a straight peice of metal which would cut out the sharp and tight bends the original intake pipe makes. This will still be done, but I think I'll be using the original pipe for now until I have a few more pennies to get that done
My ECU needs to be posted to
Steath Racing so that Vince can upload a base map for my engine onto it and order a wiring loom from DTA for my engine. Once he's modified that loom to accept my plugs I'll be paying for it + a map sensor which will let the ECU know how much boost the engine is recieving.
With all those things attached I think I can fill it up with oil and water and turn the key!