FD-5.3/glide/twin turbo/samberg straight axle 8.8

[151]

Fitment on the 8.8 kit is awesome. At first I was kind of "meh" about bolting it in. But I think it literally took me longer to log on and post this then it took to bolt it in...Honestly, the squares cut in body where the rear bin's go took twice as long as bolting the subframe in. I'll have some pictures of it installed this weekend..Kit was worth every penny hands down.

[151]

8.8 subframe and front subframe install photos. figured I'd do this before work









excuse the dust on ^ and v

[151]

Me and Justin have been doing some work together on a easier way to make racing suspension work. I am going to run QA1's and he designed a bad ass way to make them bolt straight in while NOT using QA1's stud top kit.
(get with Justin Samberg for details)

[spacevomit]

That's a great color. Nice build. Your welds ain't that bad.

[1point3liter]

Me and Justin have been doing some work together on a easier way to make racing suspension work. I am going to run QA1's and he designed a bad ass way to make them bolt straight in while NOT using QA1's stud top kit.
(get with Justin Samberg for details)

very nice. I like it.

[151]

Yea the color turned out awesome, pictures don't really do it justice.

As for the shock mounts...I kinda had to keep talking him into doing it, but he did, and they turned out awesome. He mentioned he's going to sell them for 75$ a corner. He's already had some interest on the no rotors Facebook group, hopefully my aggravation will help him build himself even more.



Decided to send some front end stuff off to powder coat. I was going to just POR-15 everything but decided to powder coat everything.



My door handles looked pretty rough and faded and with the metal handles I figured they would look decent powder coated. I'm happy with them. Probably would have looked better sprayed out of a gun, but atleast I know they'll hold up hopefully, if not I'll strip and redo them.




Grannas Racing, (Joel Grannas- 2jz Fd guy) makes this steering rack. Tt was the missing piece of the puzzle for the front end to look like "MMM MMMMMM." He makes them in different ratios. Stock is 16:1. He makes a 20:1 which is more for drag racing and a 14:1 which is more for drifting. Paid a little more than I actually wanted to, but its only money, right?

[1point3liter]

Grannas Racing, (Joel Grannas- 2jz Fd guy) makes this steering rack. and it was the missing piece of the puzzle for the front end to look like "MMM MMMMMM." He makes them in different ratios. Stock is 16:1. He makes a 20:1 which is more for drag racing and a 14:1 which is more for drifting. Paid a little more than I actually wanted to, but its only money, right?

nice rack! I was tempted, but decided to hold off and try building my own custom setup next year.

[wickedrx7]

This is a great build! I absolutely love that color!

[151]

Thanks guys!

 I had bought some of the OE 99 spec side skirts and when I first saw them I thought to myself, WTF? They were a rubbery/foamy material and had some cracks that look like dry rotting or something so I decided not to use them. I was able to recoop some money from them but lost my ass. But since then, I did find some ShineAuto OE style  FRP side skirts for a really good price so maybe it wasn't so bad after all.

[151]

Powdercoated door handles installed. I cleaned the inside of the door handle and used some lithium grease for the spring and mechanism. Pulls much smoother/lighter now.

[151]

Ok so I forgot to add a mess-up on my behalf while installing the 8.8 Samberg straight axle sub-frame. Justin had told me to knock one of the studs out (which I didn't) and use bolts that he provided (that I disregarded lol). So in order to make my sub-frame fit, I had to cut an extra 3/4-1" out of the bottom of the squares where it sticks through the body. I don't really mind since the car will be a fair-weather, quote-unquote "racecar" so I if I notice any issues later one I'll address them. Here's what mine looks like, had I cut it as the template intended me to, there wouldn't hardly be any gap, it fit pretty tight. If you scroll back up to the other pics you can maybe see my mistake from different angles.



I really  need to get back to wiring it, but the struggle is real. I have grown to absolutely hate wiring. I wanted to build this car solely by myself, but now I'm thinking about farming out the wiring  just because I don't want to do it lol. for two reasons
1. I don't really have time
2. I don't want to do it lol

[151]

Mock up idea of how the QA1's brackets are going to work/fit.

[151]

My next adventure. I didn't really want to put the battery back where the rear bins are. One reason is because the battery is a optima yellow top and it wouldn't fit through the hole with the bin in the car and since the car will have a cage that will be a hassle in itself. My idea was to mount it up under the chassis. This isn't exactly where I wanted it but I couldn't find any other place to suite me. The battery, mounting hardware and tray put 50lb right behind the axle on the passenger side- why? because racecar.


This is a rough idea, I still have to make it look nice/clean, but you get the idea. For whatever reason the 'gap' looks a lot bigger on the sides of the tray in the picture than it truly is, must be the camera.

[Coda734]

Love the color man.
I'll be following the build. This is the guy who bought your old fd rack 👍🏻

[151]

Thanks! let me know if you have any problems with getting the rack. Idk why you haven't gotten it yet.

I found out that EVO brakes can fit on the FD with minimal effort, I'm thinking about it, but I'm not really how much different and how much better they would be other than just being able to say, "I have Brembo's" I might have to have a parachute anyway so I'm sure I'll be ok, we shall see.


I took all my bolts from the subframes/suspension down to Fastenal and bought all stainless bolts, they all came in today, and of course half of them were wrong. Smh. No real progress made today.