Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Those pillars sell for $50 or so. Crazy what they get for plastic. If you end up wanting it then I'm sure I'll owe you for something by then. lol.

Shane surprised me by getting my car on the dyno today! He said he had to raise fueling by 10% in the higher rpms. The Bosch flows pretty well compared to two Walbros, in other words.

I'll try to go grab the Evo over lunch tomorrow. It's a PITA to transport the car around since I live alone. Will have to have my Dad help me retrieve the beater on Saturday. I was thinking of running over to that MAP event on Saturday anyway...I'll have the cool car now. :)

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Still at 430ish I am guessing? I don't know if I have ever seen a graph at that level...do you have one? Would love to see torque, spool, all that good stuff.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

I'd assume so. He said 25psi. My boost gauge read 24.2 on a pull the other day so that's pretty darn close. Shane said that the ECU pulls timing at about 7k rpm due to running out of MAF, so the graph wouldn't look very pretty.

I have a track day on the 26th but hopefully I'll have an intake and will have Shane retune with that and the ID2000's...end of the month or early Aug.

My goal is to have the car DONE by the Cookout. It's totally do-able. I just have the APR splitter and the brake upgrades to do...along with a few quick things (bushings, endlinks, corner balance, etc).

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

It's still in the 390-410 range. It's isn't running that much boost or timing yet. The fuel gets a little sketchy when it gets close to maxing the MAF. I assume we will go for more a bigger power tune once the 3.5" intake is done and the 2200s are back in. It's just something for him to drive on for now.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Ah, gotcha, fair enough. I knew it wouldn't be a ton just because the MAF was going to be a problem.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

If you need a ride or something, or someone to cart back teh beater I'm usually around my list is getting smaller everyday so that means i have more free time to help out.

Good to hear its running

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Went over to Shawn's Dad's tonight. Installed the Torque Solutions driveshaft bushings, the o2 sensor, and some adjustable end-links for the rear sway.

As usual the o2 install resulted in both the o2 and the boost gauge not working. I guess I'll be fiddling with wiring, yet again.

Might be my imagination but those driveshaft bushings seems to have made shifting smoother. Even small improvements are noticeable since the 6 puck has made smoothness more difficult for me.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Got the gauges working. Now my front o2 keeps throwing CELs. Not sure what's up with that...did it the first time on my way home from DB a couple days ago. Always something.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

For sure man, less slop in the drivetrain! See how you like the rear diff bushings when they go in, they should help a bit too :)

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

I have an appointment for Wed at Stellar Autoworks for corner balance, alignment, and Road Force balance on the tires. I went to their open house the other day...the owners seem nice.

I'm debating between -2/-1 and -2.5/-1.5 on the alignment. I'm leaning toward the former since I care more about road course than auto-x. I have a little time to ponder it.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Gonna daily drive it?

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Depending on the tire pressures and how aggressive you drive will determine the "correct" number for car camber settings. The type of racing does not really matter for camber, the goal is even tire wear depending on how agressive a driver you are. No one wants to throw away a set of tires prematurely. I would focus on the rear toe and caster setting as this will determine how fast the car rotates. What are some of the track guys telling you?

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Not really. The car is no fun in stop-n-go and I won't drive it in the Winter, other than to a shop.

There isn't much agreement on the alignment threads other than a difference of 1 front to back. CBRD runs -1.8 and -1.

I'm surprised that you run -2.5 considering your long commute. Most people say that it'll wear the tires.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

I showed you my tires, they have nice even tire wear @ 7000 miles most of that a 80 mile a day commute. Id say dont listen to all the interweb hype ;) 2.5 is fine.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

^I agree, Robispec and some other very trusted people run -2.5/-1.5. That's what is on my car right now. But my biggest factor was trying to get as much as possible to fit my wheels, lol.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

The PLX gauges are a pain. They use a .NET app and it wasn't written to use Admin permissions on Vista but yet they try to write a file to C:\. So the app crashes with the flash memory wiped out. Nice. I spent an hour getting them back to defaults again. I think I still need to upgrade the sensor database on them because they are only half seeing the AFR/Boost sensors.

The NAV is acting like the GPS antenna is unplugged. Need to find a diagram for that.

I'm dropping the car off at Stellar at Noon for the corner balance/alignment. Good equipment and friendly guys, so hopefully they have some skill as well.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Wiring/electrical issues FTL!

Have you talked with Primo yet? Just curious how long they will take when they get the MAF flange...Bill@MAP said end of this week for those so I will probably drop that off on Monday or Tuesday to them hoping for something done by next friday. You can PM if you want. Did they ever give a price either?

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Stellar is keeping the car overnight. They gave me an `01 A4 to drive. That's kinda fun since I'd never driven an Audi.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Picked the car up. It feels very different at -2.5 front, that's for sure.

I noticed that the black coating that Perrin put on my fmic has begun peeling off. Nice. I dropped them an email to see if they can do anything for me. Not sure how good of a fix rattle-can would be if other sections keep flaking off.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Yay for badass alignments! Audis are fun too, but idk...evo is so much more fun!

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Sand blast it and either do a good rattle job, or powder coat it. (Can you even successfully powder coat an fmic?)

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Perrin customer service is pretty quick. Their guy told me that it is a powder coat. My guess is that the surface wasn't prepped well enough, otherwise this big piece shouldn't have come off.

I'm going to take a pic to send them when I get home. I hope they swap it for a new one. $650 (or whatever) should look good for more than six months.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Why not do a thermal dispersant coating to release heat instead of keeping it in? Or anodize it. That is if Perrin won't do anything for you.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Zac had a black perrin FMIC and the same thing happened after like 6 months. He ended up just getting a silver/unpowdercoated one.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Sand blast it and either do a good rattle job, or powder coat it.

edit, wtf I posted this twice.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

The thermal dispersant idea andrew had sounds nice, but when I talked to Jesse @ Primo, he made it sound as though they helped some parts lots more than others. I thought about getting my SMIM done, but for near twice the cost it wouldn't have been worth the cost for the difference it would have made. Something worth asking about though I suppose

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

That was the first thing that crossed my mind. Wish I'd gone with ETS on more of my parts--they anodize.

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/a...02010/fmic.jpg

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Got my gauges figured out again...the OBD module had terminated the daisy chain again since the config was reset.

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/a.../alignment.jpg

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

How's that rear toe gonna treat you? Also, with that big flake off the intercooler, it seems to me to be something wrong with the surface in that area, like you said. But keep in mind, there are always going to be rocks/sand/dust hitting it that will eventually take off any coating except maybe anodizing, still, that's only a surface treatment of the metal, right? So a big rock could gouge right through it. You should see the stuff in my intercooler.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Justin was very insistent about the rear toe. The car comes with that stock so I've never driven a car at 0 to compare.

What's interesting is that my car is out of spec for caster and it isn't adjustable on the X. I'd have to have the PSRS installed (which I do have) to add caster. I guess that's a possible Winter project.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Debadged the trunk and put a number of scratches in it. I was careful, too. I'm really loving my Mitsu paint. :toiletp:

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/a...0/debadged.jpg

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Looks good!

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

What did you use to remove the badges?

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Unless you're set on this car being a track beast I'd get that rear toe zero'd out. .13 on each side is a ton and will chew through your tires. If you insist on running rear toe I'd go factory spec with .06 (.12 toe-in combined).

I take it this shop doesn't have much Evo experience? You're going to be hard-pressed to find a suspension shop with Evo experience to recommend running toe, especially that much, on a street car. Why not just go to Jeff since he's proven, and my guess, cheaper?

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

I tried a hair dryer & dental floss but it kept breaking so I ended up prying them up instead. If I ever do it again I'll make sure that I have fishing line and two people.

He doesn't seem enthused about corner balancing and I needed that along with an alignment.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Corner balancing is definitely overkill for for any street car and even most recreational track cars. I can understand why you'd want one though, I'm overly anal like that too :) Hopefully you set your tire pressures exactly to whatever spec you plan to run, had the same amount of fuel in your tank you plan to race with, and were sitting in your car. All those things can completely throw a corner balance off. I was actually amazed to see how much even an extra 1-2 psi in one tire can make. Mind me asking what they charged you for the whole package and how long it took? What kind of alignment rack and scales do they use? Did they have the fancy Hunter EagleEye laser rack with scales and tire pressure hoses at each corner to keep the tires at a constant?

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

The same could be said of coilovers but I have them. Might as well set them up. Eventually my car will be track-only. I hope to buy a tow vehicle and get rid of the Acclaim in the next year. lol.

http://www.stellar-autoworks.com/services.html

These guys have a killer setup. You're right that they don't have extensive Evo experience but they have a lot of combined experience setting up track cars. I wish I could remember the name of the place that they worked for...something 'truck service'. They've now hung out their own shingle. In their opinion there are only 4 alignment guys in town of their caliber and Jeff was among them.

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Regarding the weights...they did put my weight in the driver's seat using barbell weights.

Fuel in the tank shouldn't matter unless the tank isn't centered (it looks like it is). I actually didn't know what a corner balance was and had to have them explain it--it's making the weight on the drivers rear & passenger front equal the weight on the passenger rear & driver's front wheels.

I had RS Motors slap those coilovers in back in December...the rear was riding higher than the front. It was in pretty sad shape as far as balance goes.

I had them use 32psi but 32 turns into 38 when the tires are hot. It's still the same volume of air.

They had the car for a full day but gave me a loaner vehicle so I didn't have to miss any work. That was a plus considering how much work I've missed dealing with the car (the amusement of my boss only goes so far).

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/a...nerbalance.jpg

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Well, how was the track day man? Did the car do ok? You have fun? :D

Re: Evo X upgrades
 

Snapfish bought Motionbox so now my videos are half the quality (surprise).

This is just a few turns at BIR.
http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/sl...NAME=snapfish/

Front o2 threw another CEL. I lost one of the muffler bolts on the track. Didn't realize that until the ride home, though.