And so the build begins....

Did some carbon fiber inside. Did the shift paddles and Mitsu symbol on the steering wheel. Actually looks nice. I still can't get over how sweet the Engine cover, fuze box cover and spark plug cover came out. With the gold flake in the sun, it changes colors. It's amazing.

 

Pics are posted in my Progress report

 

So I found out that my guy is going way above and beyond with this build. He is not only doing the head work, but redid the ecu with some inline thing with reflash connector and Hex connector. Basically it is ready for a turbo if they ever fix the CVT issue. Its pretty much an Evo X ecu set up. All total, parts come to about $2200. Thats with the plugs, oil, wheels painted, engine covers painted, etc. Parts for the head alone are a little over $700. He's only charging me $50 an hour for all the work. I'm getting excited now hehe In 2 days everything will be done!!!

 

I didn't get the PM... But I will be at Street Wars 7 (as long as the build is done) on Sunday at 9:30 ish. I will be leaving my house at 8:30. I have been working on my show and tell board for the extra points hehe. But If you were thinking of going, lemme know. I'll give you my number and you can call me when you get there. I wish we had more people going we could go as a car club.

 

Not all is going as totally smooth as I'd like... He couldn't get the bolt out of the stock pulley to save his life. After heating it up to a bright orange he was able to finally get it and it was stripped and had lock tite on it. He thinks the factory torqued the bolt with an impact wrench and (the factory)used lock tite when they stripped it out. He said it was bad. Now I am all worried that he won't be able to get a new bolt in because of stripped threads. He swears it will be good as new with the new pulley, but I'm still a little concerned. I am the master of stripping bolts... I couldn't put a swing together without stripping out a bolt. Thats why I hire guys to work on my car. So I know what a pain in the a* it can be. But let me reitterate...He didn't strip it.. It was stripped.. Whoever put the factory pulley On (back on? I got the car used) WAY over tightened the bolt. So when he finally got it off he noticed that it was stripped. He thinks whoever owned my car before me may have had a pulley on it before, then put the stock one back on and over tightened the bolt and put lock-tite on it.


15 hours later.....


Fuckin tuner got me good.. My heart rate is still going down after an hour... So he finally calls me back. And I was like dude, what's the deal... Were the threads inside stripped, did the bolt work etc etc...And he's like Um yeah.. About that.. We are going to have to replace the crank or the engine because it's stripped bad.... My heart STOPPED... After like 3 seconds of complete silence he said.. Nah I'm just kidding man, everything is fine... He had to re thread it several times, because it's aluminum and he didn't want it to curl and didn't want it to expand too much. But he finally got it, and the pulley is on and all is well. I'm too old for this...

 

Build is coming to an end tomorrow. Pick my car up. He's still working on the map. Fine tuning. All the work is done, but now he's doing the tune. Last dyno run was about 210 whp. But he thinks he can squeeze out a few more. I'll post the dyno sheet when he gets it to me. Not quite the numbers I was hoping for but not shabby. I can't wait to drive it!!!! Oh That is without the Cams BTW..... So once the cams are done, it will be even better.

And 1 more thing... He doesn't have the wideband so once I get that he will tune it some more.

 

Well, today is the day! I am psyched! But I did want to let everyone know, thank you for your support through this build. You guys are awesome!

And to any doubters, haters or nay-sayers, I just want to say...

That 1 dyno could have been a fluke.. I don't know. I am having 3 passes done hopefully sometime this upcoming week. Saturday I have family plans, and Sunday is Street Wars 7. So I won't get to the dyno this weekend. But I will post my honest review after I get the car back. Hell for all I know it hit 210 hp but idles like shit...

I knew basically, being a pioneer with this build I was going to be subject to speculation, doubt, and critiscm. Because I felt each and every one of those things myself. There wasn't a day of this build that I didn't think to myself 1) WTF am I doing?, 2) I call bullshit on the claims my tuner was making, 3) I'll believe it when I see it and 4) WTF am I doing? What makes it worse is I am a complete and total moron when it comes to tuners and tuning and the whole thing. I'm originally a Jeep guy. I can talk Jeep's all day long. Put me with a tuner, and the dunce cap comes out. So I have to take my hat off to guys like Dadsgts and some of the other pioneers in their respective areas, because these guys really know their shit. My whole build motivation came from my tuner who is a Mitsu guy, but more specifically an Evo tuner. His shop speciallizes in Euro tuners. He is the only Mitsu guy. So when i took my car to them for the intake etc. They were instantly buzzing about turbo. If I'd have had the money at the time, I'd be one of the busted turbo cvt's. But my guy did his homework, got as much info about the possibility of going NA.. Presented it to me as an option and all I could think was... I'll do anything to get rid of that low end lag... We talked about costs, risk vs. reward, possibilities, you name it we covered it. So I Just said, f* it one day. Let's do it.

Like Sam Cooke (an old singer for you young guys) once said "It's been a long time coming; But I know a change is gonna come;"

My point is, I have nothing to bullshit about. No reason to post any falsehoods. Or to say something is if it isn't, My goal is nothing but benevolent and that I want people to go through my experience as I did, so they can do the same thing without any issues. I will be the first to tell you if it's fucked up or if something goes wrong. Anyone that haas followed this post from the beginning can tell you that I have had doubts and problems the entire trip. So with that... I gotta get back to work I'll post my review as soon as I get home from picking my car up

 

Yeah, I'm getting some slack on another forum about the dyno results, but they were a prelim run and may be higher (or lower) than the actual run. I don't have any details yet. But when I do, I will absolutely post them. And I wonder if they can tell my cars been "worked" a little for warranty purposes

 

Hey Sine... How far are you from OC? May be making a weekend trip soon....

 

Ok... this just got interesting. My tuner has been working on my tune for over a month and was getting extremely frustrated. So I decided to ease his pain and pay the 250 bucks to have Works tune the file, then my tuner could tweak it from there. What should have been an easy thing for them (since they are 1 of only 2 that has the cracked ECU files) turns out to be a headache for them as well. Apparently what my tuner said was true. In that my ECU was messed with either prior to my owning it or by NTB when they tried to reset my TPMS. But it's not right and Works is working on fixing it. Kind of scarin me.... I dont like not knowing why my ECU was altered or tampered with or whatever...