My rolling project- Mik3ymomo LS3 FD

[Mik3ymomo]

So I bought a car as some of you may know. It already has a running LS3 with T56. TII 3.90 Diff among other things.
It arrived needing some attention and a transformation from a street car to a car that can safely go on a road course.

I also have plans to make the car a bit more refined and freshen it up from some years of neglect. Everyone here has been helpful/friendly and I have decided to document my projects here in this thread.

The first order of business was to replace a lower control arm. At first I thought the diff mount was busted as the whole car would shift upon on/off throttle and braking.

After getting under the car and manhandling everything I found the problem. The snap ring had come out of the groove and the control arm had a lot of slop in it.

Instead of reposting all that. Here is the thread I posted about it.
Here
http://www.norotors.com/index.php?topic=16726.0

Also I added the Rotary Extreme hood dampers. These are really nice and is a necessity as I had no hood prop.
I also have a thread for that here.
http://www.norotors.com/index.php?topic=16888.0

As soon as I bought the car I ordered a roll bar from the race shop and another set of Work Meister S1R 2 piece wheels. These I ordered in 18x10 +50 on all four corners for the track.

I should have those in a couple weeks. It takes 90 days and you need to pay 100% up front on the wheels as they are all custom made with whatever offsets you want.

I sent Work the cross section of the Sakebomb AP racing BBK and they said the O Disk would still clear those brakes so I went with that. The O Disk gives a bit more lip then the R disk which have more BBK pad clearance for calipers.

I am going to mount Dunlop ZII 285 30 18 tires on them.

Pics as soon as they get here.

I also bought a pair of Spirit R seats with tilt rails. Should have those in a few weeks as well. Pics will follow.

This brings me to my current project besides tracking down a wiring problem wi my gauge cluster.

I bought Halfspec's custom A/C lines, control module and harness. I have already started the prep for the install which will begin as soon as I finish the prep.

So after reading Lane's prep instructions I thought about just ignoring his advice and taking the easy way out and just hooking it all up and skip the prep. I mean how stank could my evap really be? The car prob spent most its life in a garage.

But I have been talking to Lane for several weeks and he really knows his stuff. I decide he isn't adding these prep instructions just for fluff and I pull the passenger air bag and remove my MANA evap from the car.
He said there would be some stuff in there that would make my A/C stink like old car or worse if I didn't clean it out first.

Well Lane... You saved me from hating myself every time I turned on the A/C in the future. Have a look at my evap guys.







Now clean



I also disconnected all but one side of the valve and flushed it. Tried to take it off all the way but its frozen on and I started to destroy the evap so I stopped. I need something better to support the pipe before I replace the valve or I may be forced to try and reuse it and see how my luck is.

I flushed it with this. Smells like fast orange and is under pressure so it flushes it for you.



I also purchased a used catback as my exhaust came missing one. It's not pretty right now but I have a can of eagle one never dull polish coming. Well have exhaust done after I get the A/C Finished.

Here is the exhaust as it arrived. It's 3in


This should kick things off for now.. More to come...

[Skeltic]

First off, nice to see the start of your build thread !
Looking forward to your adventure.

Second EEEEEEWWWWWWWWW

Kill it will FIRE

what the hell did the last guy use his Hvac system as the central vac for his house?!?!?



I guess that is what "old car smell" looks like

[Mik3ymomo]

Yeah that gray stuff was dog hair or Yeti hair or something. And it was not something I wanted to smell for the next several years. Think there was a crunchy dragonfly in there as well among a lot of other alien things...
Glad it's cleaned out!
Don't skip the prep guys!

[Mik3ymomo]

Here is a quick peak into the box I got last week from the Halfspec A/C group buy.
Will be installing this the next couple days after work.
12 hour work days then 3+hrs in garage working on car.


Also I have my Race Shop 4pt Roll bar. Its currently still packed up from Freight.
This is how it ships. Easily fit in back of my Pathfinder for transport.
Another sneak peak. Will install this with my black carpet and Spirit R seats in a week or two.

[halfspec]

I don't think I've ever seen an evap that bad. I think I may link your first post in my prep document as an example of why people should go through the trouble to check

Keep at that expansion valve. Try some PB blaster. I think you'll feel better knowing that you covered all your bases and there isn't any chance of it malfunctioning.

Lane

PS - Nice start on your build thread. Its about time!

[Donthitme]

Nice Mike, put up a pic of the car! 

[spacevomit]

Mike, you don't want those smelly old Spirit Rs... You know what to do. 

Love the brake kit (I looked it up).

[Mik3ymomo]

Mike, you don't want those smelly old Spirit Rs... You know what to do. 

Love the brake kit (I looked it up).

Yeah the brakes I will be buying this fall or winter.
As for the Spirit R seats.. There is nothing old about these.
They are brand new. More on that later..

Here is something else I did recently. Had a buddy wiring up Airbag my Spirit R steering wheel. It has a different weatherpack connector so it has to be hard wired. He did a nice job and used some nice heat shrink with hot glue inside of it.
Here he is. Work faster slave!


For those who do not know, the Spirit R steering wheel is slightly smaller 370mm vs the stock 380mm.
It gives enough extra leg room to notice. I lost cruise control but.. I doubt my cruise control worked anyway...
It is like the other Nardi steering wheels but this has red stitching.
Thought it might add something extra with the Red Spirit R Recaro seats I am putting in a few weeks from now.


I have not been lazy. I am constantly working on the car in my spare time when I have parts in hand to do so.
 Been taking pics all along. Figured it was time to post them since I am hitting a stride.

Installed!

[Mik3ymomo]

More catch you up posts...
With my ODO not working I pulled the cluster and removed the circuit board and replaced the 100 micro farad capacitor on the speedo. It went back together and worked! For a day and then it went out again.

I believe it is a wiring issue I am going to tackle while waiting for other parts to continue the A/C install.
After messing with wiring in passenger footwell my tach is also not functioning. I believe these are related and share a ground.
Either the PO has some poor wiring skills on his booming stereo or its gauge pod wiring hosed up somewhere and tapped into my ground shared by stock gauge cluster.

Here is my work bench.



Oh look it works!(that was short lived)
So I work on it randomly and then email Halfspec to complain its not working still. He has to be tired of me already.
 Sorry Lane! I will make it up to you! LOL

[Mik3ymomo]

One more thing to add. When the car was delivered it had to be raised for transport. It arrived and the rear sway bar was disconnected. It looks like it had been digging into the shock when it was attached leaving a bit of a crease in the shock. Not good.

So I unbolt it from the mounts and remove it. My buddy grinds down the ends and slaps some epoxy on it. Gets rid of the clearence problem and reinstall once paint dries.



It is a racing beat rear sway bar. I had planned on lowering the car back down but car did not come with spanner wrenches. I decided a screwdriver and hammer method wasn't the best plan so packed it up and ordered spanners. Been working on lowering it to about 25 to 25.25in from fender to ground. Seems to be about the height I want.
I believe PO was running it much lower as fenders and fender liners have seen better days.

I am still tweaking the ride height. Its alot of niggily adjusting. Now my preload it too light and ride is too bouncy.
Adjusting coilovers is a headache. It still needs a corner balance and alignment. Will deal with that after track wheels and tires are added.

Recently the front left coilover doesn't seem to want to adjust. Of course its stuck at about 24.5 inches (too low) and free wheels when trying to raise it. Threads turn but hiccups and isn't actually going up. Will try again soon. Maybe I wasn't holding my mouth right.
Is it me or is progress always this elusive? I would hate to have to replace these coilovers right now.
 
Also while I waited for car to make its way I stayed busy and patched and epoxied the concrete garage floor.
shot before and some after.




Here is the car before I started lowering it back down.

[Mik3ymomo]

While working on the car tonight I was tracing wires looking for a bad ground and traced a bunch of wires on to this relay box out in the open in front of the radiator exposed to the elements.

I this normal? Where are you guys putting this?

[halfspec]

That's the factory front relay box and it's pretty close to its factory location in that pic. It's actually mounted to the front crash bar with the labels facing up in the engine bay but a lot of swappers try and tuck it where yours is. Then there are the folks that just relocate and delete it entirely. I can't speak to how reliable that location is in regards to the elements since I deleted mine. If I remember correctly, the box isn't sealed on the backside, so I would be cautious.

Lane

[Mazin]

Looks great man! I love a white fd.

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

[Sho Amo]

I love that car. Beautiful.

[Mik3ymomo]

Been busy ripping out interior and replacing tan carpet with black carpet.