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Incredible work CF work! Where did you learn how to do this and how time and labor intensive has the whole process been?
thank you for the kind words. I learned everything by experimenting and trying in my 1 car garage. Unfortunately it's been incredibly labor intensive and time consuming, but that's primarily because of all the learning process and mistakes. There are so many secret handshakes and little tips and trick at every level of progress with CF work. If I had to start all over again it would likely take a fraction of the time just because I wouldn't have to make so many mistakes.
I definitely recommend trying it; its highly rewarding.
I decided not to get a cold air intake because I like the sound of the JWT Pop Charger and I like the heat shield. Since I can't bring the filter to cold air, I brought the cold air to the filter instead. I made this poor man's air scoop with dust vacuum tubing and put an L shaped bracket behind the rings for extra support, though frankly it doesn't really need it. The scoop is jammed pretty tight between the bumper and the fender liner, it doesn't budge.
Its mounted right below the crash bar and comes up in front of the air filter behind the hear shield.
Overall its a pretty stealthy mod, can't really see it behind the front grille. I will be lucky to get 1/2 HP out of it but it does make the air intake sound more angry. Worst case scenario is that I have high speed wind cooling stuff under the hood.
Last edited by Polishthrust; Sep 8, 2020 at 03:25 AM.
Changed out my spark plugs to NGK LFR6A-11 (one step colder for nitrous), first time since I bought the car 60k hard miles ago. It was occasionally breaking up at WOT after cruising at high speeds on the freeway for awhile. 5 plugs looked good, but cylinder 4 looked more worn than the rest. Anybody have insight as to what's going on in the following 2 pictures (closest plug, rightmost plug)? Would oil in the spark plug wells cause this (fixed now but ran it like that with these plugs for a good 30k)
Anyways it runs great now with NGK , smoother and noticeably more power all around.
Things left to do before spraying nitrous:
Install Z1 fuel adapter, gauge, and pressure safety switch. Compression check cylinder 4
Route nitrous line under car (5 minute job)
Tap coil pack ground wire for RPM window switch (ordered spare harness before proceeding)
Bottle heater wiring
Buy a new car so I have something to drive when the G blows up
I'm also building a new exhaust since I have like 3 separate leaks and one of my OEM cats is getting noticeably hotter than the other. Going to have Amazon universal HFCs welded to the stock pipes, going into my existing Magnaflow 11386 straight through muffler, going into a Amazon Y pipe, then another 20" 2.5" glass pack all the way back to a V-band right after the sway bar. Then my existing mufflers in series stacked behind the bumper.
For daily, that'll be 4 straight through mufflers in series. At the track, I can take the V band off, drop 2 of the mufflers, and have a much lighter and much louder exhaust system.
In the future, the mufflers will be replaced by a rear mount turbo. Going with that option because a rear mount turbo kit will work regardless of what motor is under the hood, and spooling won't be a problem with the nitrous installed..
Last edited by cswlightning; Sep 16, 2020 at 10:29 AM.
Your spark plugs are heavily worn, probably due to mileage. There is also a lot of deposits (all that fuzzy crap) which is everything that's NOT gasoline/air that makes it's way into the combustion chamber.
Run copper plugs initially for your NOS setup, they're a LOT more forgiving than plat/irridium. Once you've got some of the bugs worked out of the system then pull out one plug, install a new one, make one good solid rip on it and pull that plug out to "read the plug". That will tell you a lot about how things are actually working in the combustion chamber. If it all looks safe, not hot, not fouled, then run the 1 step colder plat/irridium plugs (make sure to read a plug with them also). If it looks a little off then stick with the copper plugs for an extra level of safety.
I'm recommending this route because you don't have a wideband and tuning software. You should really consider adding a wideband though so you can watch A/F on the dash and adjust your wet system as needed.
I've already installed copper NGK LFR6A-11 gapped to .035" on the advice of a local VQ35DE tuner (nitrousg35 on YouTube). After installing everything I'm going to do a few runs on his dyno with a wideband hooked up to verify safety. In addition to a RPM window switch, WOT switch, and fuel pressure safety switch. The only thing that could go wrong once the tune is sorted is the nitrous solenoid sticking on, which it shouldn't because it's new and rated to like a 400 shot.
With the performance and smoothness difference I felt upon installing the new plugs, I think I'll stick with copper and change them every 10k miles as a preventative measure, with the way I drive the thing these days.
Last edited by cswlightning; Sep 16, 2020 at 02:50 PM.
Well, not really a today thing but this past week I decompressed the fuel lines, installed a set of 1,000 cc injectors, a larger fuel pump, a thermal spacer, a custom fabricated enlarged upper plenum, an oil catch can, a new valve cover gasket set, a larger throttle body, some colder spark plugs, and proceeded to start my forged long block up again. The DE started, had a rough idle [obvious reasons], and eventually the engine cut off throwing me the following codes: P1111 (Intake Valve Timing Control Solenoid Valve), P1065 (ECM Power Supply Heater) ,P0113 (Intake Air Temperature Sensor 1 Circuit). In turn, I looked them up, did some research, and now troubleshooting what can potentially be the problem(s). In my opinion, a tune is required due to the fact my injector sizes are larger than stocks, thus, the ECU can't atomize and/or read the proper duty flow for my new injectors as a new map is required. Any other suggestions? Thoughts?
Well, not really a today thing but this past week I decompressed the fuel lines, installed a set of 1,000 cc injectors, a larger fuel pump, a thermal spacer, a custom fabricated enlarged upper plenum, an oil catch can, a new valve cover gasket set, a larger throttle body, some colder spark plugs, and proceeded to start my forged long block up again. The DE started, had a rough idle [obvious reasons], and eventually the engine cut off throwing me the following codes: P1111 (Intake Valve Timing Control Solenoid Valve), P1065 (ECM Power Supply Heater) ,P0113 (Intake Air Temperature Sensor 1 Circuit). In turn, I looked them up, did some research, and now troubleshooting what can potentially be the problem(s). In my opinion, a tune is required due to the fact my injector sizes are larger than stocks, thus, the ECU can't atomize and/or read the proper duty flow for my new injectors as a new map is required. Any other suggestions? Thoughts?
you had my attention at the custom fabricated upper plenum. Got any pics?
Also as for the codes. The p1111 seems like you may have left something unplugged. Have you gone back and re-checked all of the sensors?
Funny you guys mentioned going one step colder plugs. I just swapped in LFR6AIX-11 plugs on Saturday. Made a noticeable difference. I had LFR5AIX-11 in it prior, and had been running Boostane on and off, depending on whether I was planning on driving the car hard. My plugs looked fine, with a little orange tint, which I heard is common when using boostane. With the colder plugs in, I noticed the engine seemed to be a bit more responsive and willing to rev, and seemed to pull stronger to redline than it had before. My plugs only had 12k miles, I'd attribute performance gain mostly to one step colder. Very happy with the results thus far, I plan to pull the #1 plug during my next oil change (~600 miles) and see if they are carbon fouling at all.
After burning through 2 Timken press-on wheel bearings installed first by me, then by a mechanic in 10k miles each, I went out and bought a cheap wheel bearing and hub assembly off Amazon ("Evan Fischer" branded). Looks shiny and new, feels good.... We'll see how it holds up.
Also installed the rear portions of the Z1 subframe collars, and cleaned up some of the rust around that area with converter. Leaving the front stock because I have a feeling that if I pull the W brace off it'll take 5x longer than it should due to rust. Definitely tightens up the drive train lash a bit, and that rear end shimmy that happens at WOT on the 2-3 shift is gone. Did a little sliding on my way to work today and there's no wheel hop anymore either!
Two new problems I'm not sure what to attribute to:
1) My heat seems to have two settings: Full cold (when the AC is on, and temperature set to 60) or full hot (when the temperature is set to 61 or higher). Kind of annoying, no idea where to start looking.
2) Front end vibration at 90+ MPH. Been dealing with this forever but ignoring it. Seems to be braking related as it vibrates under braking but ONLY after some hard stops. Once it starts vibrating under braking, it vibrates worse even when I'm not braking. No vibration whatsoever under "normal" driving. But I'd really like to get this thing smooth at 100+ now that I'm phasing it out as my daily driver and putting it on the bottle.... Could a seized caliper cause this issue? One of my front Brembos has excessive inner pad wear. I'm about to install new slide pins, Power Stop Track Day pads, and rebuild the font calipers if needed.
Last edited by cswlightning; Sep 25, 2020 at 01:36 PM.
After burning through 2 Timken press-on wheel bearings installed first by me, then by a mechanic in 10k miles each, I went out and bought a cheap wheel bearing and hub assembly off Amazon ("Evan Fischer" branded). Looks shiny and new, feels good.... We'll see how it holds up.
Also installed the rear portions of the Z1 subframe collars, and cleaned up some of the rust around that area with converter. Leaving the front stock because I have a feeling that if I pull the W brace off it'll take 5x longer than it should due to rust. Definitely tightens up the drive train lash a bit, and that rear end shimmy that happens at WOT on the 2-3 shift is gone. Did a little sliding on my way to work today and there's no wheel hop anymore either!
So did you just install the lower half of the rear shim?? Them along made a big difference? Tempted to add a set of those with my next order.
So did you just install the lower half of the rear shim?? Them along made a big difference? Tempted to add a set of those with my next order.
I did the top half of the rear as well - just put a jack on the diff, removed the brace and rear subframe nuts, and lowered the jack a few inches. Pressed it all tight with the bottle jack after installing top collars and jacking up the diff again
it made a difference, haven't really beaten it hard yet tho. Rebuilding front caliper today, track pads and SS lines
Last edited by cswlightning; Sep 26, 2020 at 12:19 PM.
