Arca_ex

iTrader: (10)

Yep it works. The bolts go directly into the engine, and you still torque them even though there's silicone. A thin layer of a gasket material won't soak up that much deflection.

firecran

iTrader: (3)

any updates?

Arca_ex

iTrader: (10)

Not really, getting parts together and still waiting on that oil pan. I guess I can post some pictures of all the heat exchangers that I got awhile back.

Also picked up a new trailer. Big enough for the Miata and the RX-8. Now searching for a truck to pull it as well. Picture is of the same model I have but not the actual one I got, was too dark to take any pictures and is still being stored until I can take delivery.

Brettus

iTrader: (2)

wow ......nice IC design . Details on pricing ?

Arca_ex

iTrader: (10)

It took me a lot of digging and research to find someone that made these types of intercoolers still. They are not as efficient as a bar and plate so they need to be bigger than what you would normally use, but the pressure drop across the core is almost nothing even at 1000HP worth of air and they are a little lighter than a bar and plate as well.

I got this on a special deal right before their manufacturing costs went up a significant amount, if you wanted this same core now (24x14x4 inches) it would likely be in the $1500 USD range. They are all one off, custom built to order. Mine was a two week lead time which I thought was very reasonable. They made my dual pass radiator pictured as well.

iizuka

Nice trailer! Gonna need a big truck to pull that!

yurcivicsux

went from those red wheels to this.... great job and good luck. enjoyed the read.

ScubaSteve8

Badass trailer!!

Arca_ex

iTrader: (10)

Yeah looking back they were pretty terrible hahaha.




Thanks guys. Yeah everything just fell into place for this thing, it belonged to Paul Yaw at Injector Dynamics and he threw out a deal that couldn't be passed up.

I'm going to look at this F-550 probably within the next couple of weeks if it's not gone by then. Need to sell the 2007 F-150 and open trailer right meow.

iizuka

^That would do! Man, I'd love to have a double, but there's very few events where I could do TT and Drift. For now this is my setup:

Arca_ex

iTrader: (10)

I went to go look at that truck in the picture and it turned out to be a pile of **** and the place that was selling it was super shady. Some little used car lot, the office was a trailer park type unit. Wouldn't even start after cranking it for about 10 tries. Then had to jump it because that drained the batteries and it finally started. He blamed it on being below a quarter tank of diesel, but it's not cold here and a quarter tank in those trucks is still like 10+ gallons. Even after it started and was idling normal it was still smoking, turbo probably needs a rebuild at that mileage and they wouldn't budge from 12k. I would have bought it if they came down to 8k with all the work it needed but screw it. Still searching.


Anyways. Some of you may know that the build has been on hold mostly because I committed to buying this awesome oil pan and the project never came together. They made the FD versions but couldn't do a shallower version for me, so I got a refund for it. That was 10 months of waiting for that and now there aren't any good options for oil pans that don't look like they'll suffer from starvation issues at super high lateral loads.

I don't like how expensive the Mazdaspeed/Ratech dry sump cover and setup is, so I've decided to make my own hybrid setup. I'll use a two stage external dry sump pump, and the oil tank will feed the stock oil pump through the normal pickup flange.

I picked up some aluminum from the local metal supply store out of the scrap section for 60 bucks, after some machining and welding it will be a one off dry sump pan and I can go from there.

dannobre

iTrader: (3)

I used a 1/2" plate for the bottom of mine. I think the added rigidity is worth it. I got it water jetted for the holes and it worked great.

You using the stock FD front cover?

Arca_ex

iTrader: (10)

Yeah I am thinking I'll mill the flange to 1/2" then the center part I'll mill out to 1/4" for some weight savings then I'm using the two rectangle tubes to make two suction troughs that will get welded in.

FD front cover.

Also ship me that adapter for the filter stand!

Arca_ex

iTrader: (10)

Oh also I'm not sure if I posted this before. Picked up a 5 speed for use until I can afford a real racing gearbox to turn the boost up.

Ian_D

Nice intercooler cores there. What are you doing for end tanks to the 24x14x4 core I presume you're using for your intercooler?

Also, what exhaust system are you going to use?

Arca_ex

iTrader: (10)

There's only one intercooler core, the larger unit is the radiator and the smaller ones are oil coolers.

For the intercooler end tanks they will be fabricated from sheet aluminum and welded together. Whatever fits best.

For exhaust, both of the wastegates will be vented to atmosphere, I'm going to try to route the screamer pipes out the right side fender, if that's not possible they will just dump under the car. The rest will be a custom fabricated 4" diameter exhaust system with one Magnaflow oval straight through muffler in the area where the stock gas tank used to be.

kbrewmr2

updates?

Arca_ex

iTrader: (10)

Alright so what I've been busy with lately... I finally have what I consider "real" employment. No more 1099 contract bullshit, no more near minimum wage pay, no more complete lack of benefits and retirement plan. I work for the government now, specifically the US Postal Service. I started about 3 months ago as a Maintenance Mechanic after nearly a year long application/interview process. I work at the huge mail processing and sorting plant that handles all letter mail for Arizona.

I would mainly vacuum up dust and perform preventative maintenance on the various multi-million dollar machines that are used to process and sort mail at a staggering rate. Some of them can handle up to 40,000 mail pieces per hour and we probably have about 100 different machines there. Then just two weeks ago I got a massive promotion. Huge bump in pay, so I just finished paying off all my credit card debt that I had stacked up while I only had part time employment, and now I have a lot of expendable income to do racecar stuff. Now I'm a Mail Processing Equipment Mechanic so I get to do more involved work, diagnosis, and reactive repair to the machines that we have. I was in the right place at the right time, did well on the interview and test scores and beat out a lot of other people in order to jump up that fast so I'm pretty stoked.

Here's a video that has in it some of the machines that I work on if anyone is interested. After the video, I have more of what I've been up to lately.





So. Truck stuff.


Found a 2000 Ford F350 Crew Cab Long Bed 2WD dually in long beach. Had everything I wanted including 6 speed manual, 7.3l Powerstroke with the forged rods, and only 113k miles. I was super pumped. Test drive went fine, it looked super clean etc etc. But then on the drive back, it would start to overheat going up hills... I thought okay maybe the radiator is plugged up with casting sand (common problem) not a big deal. I started to tear into it and multiple things were fucked. Foreign object damage to the turbo, the metal from the compressor wheel went through the engine and destroyed the turbine wheel as well, intercooler was packed with metal and air filter cotton, cooling system needed to be gone through, fan clutch was seized solid, charge pipe couplers were all leaking, the list goes on.

Then after I did a bunch of work to it, the throwout bearing destroys itself and the truck was stuck at my dad's work. So had to drop the transmission and replace EVERYTHING since it destroyed everything when it failed. Very lucky that the input shaft on the transmission didn't get jacked up. Also that thing is heavy as ****. Never want to do that again.

Only thing left on the list is probably getting a PHP Hydra Chip to load a +20hp heavy towing tune on it to reduce EGT a little more. I'm also using an Edge CTS2 Insight to monitor all sorts of things like temps, boost, injector and high pressure oil data, and EGT.

List of stuff replaced and pictures:

Engine and Drivetrain:
Garrett GTP38r 67mm Turbo Upgrade
S&B Cold Air Intake
Magnaflow 4" Turbo Back Exhaust w/ Straight Through Muffler (It's as quiet as stock so I'm happy with that. Exactly what I wanted)
International Bellowed/Flex Turbo Up-Pipes
CSF 3" Thick Bar and Plate Intercooler - Weighs 55lbs LOL (stock is 2" thick tube and fin)
Reflect-A-Gold on cold side charge pipe
Replaced MAP sensor hose
New o-rings for turbo pedestal oil connections and compressor v-band outlet.
RiffRaff Diesel CCV Reroute
RiffRaff Diesel Charge Pipe Coupler Kit
RiffRaff Diesel T-Bolt clamp kit
RiffRaff Diesel Plenum Inlet Aluminum Reinforcement Rings
RiffRaff Diesel Air Intake Heater Element Delete and CEL Defeat Kit
Gates Fleet Serpentine Belt
Gates Belt Tensioner assembly
Gates Idler Pulley
Oil Change, 4 gallons Rotella T6 5w-40 and Wix Filter
Wix Fuel Filter
Replaced rotting hose on fuel bowl connection (previous owner did this and didn't even tighten the clamps, and it looked like cheap heater hose that was disintegrating and diesel was leaking from it WTF?)
Sachs HD Clutch Kit (45lbs total)
Sachs Single Mass Flywheel (50lbs)
New Updated Ford Clutch Fork

Cooling System and Other Fluids:
Performance Radiator All Aluminum Radiator
All new Gates radiator hoses and degas to radiator hose
Motorcraft Thermostat
Motorcraft Fan Clutch (stock one was seized solid, sounded like hurricane Katrina under the hood)
Dorman Degas/Coolant Bottle
Motorcraft Degas Bottle Cap
Sinister Diesel Coolant Filter Kit
Rotella Gold Ultra ELC coolant for diesels
New Transmission fluid, 1 QT Valvoline Syncromesh and 6 QT Mobil 1 Synthetic Mercon V ATF (yes it specs ATF)

Arca_ex

iTrader: (10)

I know, not a whole lot of updates or progress. When I got promoted at work I went to night shift and it's been killing me. Have only been able to manage to sleep for about 3 to 5 hours a day no matter what I do, so I'm a zombie all the time now.


Thought I would post because these showed up along with the rest of the body kit and they are super ******* cool. Front door is 16.5lbs and rear door is 11.4lbs. I think between all of the doors, going from stock to this is more than 200lbs of weight savings. Not pictured, complete widebody kit to fit 18x12" wheels and 315mm tires, carbon fiber roof, and carbon fiber trunk. Stock hood is already aluminum and of comparable weight to wet carbon hoods so I skipped that.

firecran

iTrader: (3)

Glad to see a update... you have lots of nice parts there, gonna be bad a$$

I have plenty of experence working nights from my tours in the fire dispatch center man I hated them nights.

oh yeah... you gonna love that efr

Jaydogg888

Are the doors on the car yet? Any updates?

Arca_ex

iTrader: (10)

Nope. Still stuck on night shift, have pretty much no energy or motivation to work on cars anymore. Haven't been to the track in forever either because most of my vacation requests get denied as well...

Warrior777

iTrader: (11)

Don't give up...hopefully you can get a break. I'm in it for the long haul, there is always something taking higher priority than the race car. For me it's a new house at the moment.

Jaydogg888

Fair enough, we've all been there. At least you're accumulating funds and something will change eventually.

TeamRX8

iTrader: (25)

zombie bump