Alrighty here's the story...against my better judgement but in response to what my heart told me I blew off work for most of the day in an effort to try and get this thing on the road. It was a rollercoaster of a day but man I can now say it was WELL worth it!
Ronnie at RS Motors. Holy crap I cannot say enough great things right now...the dude just seriously bent over backwards for me. This build started as a fun project but there were some serious bumps and Ron just took care of me the whole way. Part of me feels extremely bad for not using DB Performance or MAP for this build but honestly for the time, the car, the situation, this just worked out. Ron seriously knows his stuff and he bends over backwards to get cars running right...with a huge smile on his face the whole way!
So I posted above that the turbo was smoking...that was friday. Bummer way to start the weekend but it was what it was. I know everyone is saying, 'have MAP rebuild it!!' but you should remember this: it's Spring, they are selling the hot turbos on the market right now, and even though they will bend over for me too they are 3 weeks away from helping me....first event I want to run this car at is in two! So...I am running all over to try and find a solution and not break the bank. I ended up with this from MAP:
Yup, I was thinking about rebuilding the FP White...maybe myself, maybe Ron, maybe together....idk. Then I was thinking hey, let's rebuild the blown stock turbo! Less risky. Ugh, still, if we had a known good turbo we would be in such better shape troubleshooting-wise.
So then Ron tells me he has a turbo that is known good that he will swap on as a test and that I can borrow it. It's a freaking Evo6.5 TME. Look it up online, these things are not cheap!!! But.....it was known good, it was the best option we had to make sure we had the right troubleshooting step solved. I agreed, and before I knew what to do it was Monday and Ron had the turbo swapped.
Like a fool I was running around back and forth the last few weeks from RS and 'trying to help' I took some of the extra parts home, including the red ebay samco-style intake that Rosey had on the car to begin with. I sent some parts back with Spazzy since he was headed that way anyways and whatever....not the red intake ended up on the car. He had some straight ETS intake on it and while the car started it wanted to stall and dip idle because of its design.
So we have a turbo, an intake, a car that runs and guess what: NO SMOKE! Literally the only thing swapped was the turbo and like a boss the thing ran nice and clean. I met Ron & his crew at El Loro for some lunch and found out that through all of this it was his birthday! Happy 21 Ron!
So I hop in the car afterwards and head back to his shop and the front left spring situation starts to rear its ugly head...just horrible noises coming as I turn in the parking lot.
Doom and gloom? Nope! While I was at MAP sorting the turbo situation I happened to order up a set of Swift SpecR springs
Unfortunately they are being drop-shipped to my house so they won't be in for a few days but screw it! The car runs and drives and I'll be careful in the corners....The snow tires on it are done with life anyways, I'll just kill'em a little early.
So, hop in the car, off we go! Stop at Holiday for some freshy fresh E85 and as I pull up to the pump I hear rubbing the entire circumference of the wheel and a pretty big creeeek. I crank teh wheel left and right and it kinda sits up again but the front left is definitely hanging a little low. Ugh. So, top up, head back towards Ron's shop and then BAM she drops down a good smidge and the noise is back with a vengance. I zip over the overpass, the shop is only a mile...noise louder...LoudeR......LOUDER...Goosh! Tire pops, dragging shit, I pull over. FML!
I am just besides myself. It's not Ron's fault, it's my fault for thinking I could drive it like this. Just dumb. So I get a ride back to the shop, sit in my VW TRUCK STUFF VW and call in for a quick conference call for work. 60 minutes later, ass bleeding, I walk into the shop and there's the Black ValentNine. What? Ron and/or his guys ran over to the car, brought a known good wheel/tire, put it in harm's way, jacked the car up and fiddled with the spring enough to get it back upright. On the side of the road. While I was pouting.
Even better? They have a spare GTWORX spring set sitting there. They offer to swap it on while I run home for wheels/tires. Remember, it's Ron's bday. I show back up with these ghey black wheels w/ tires on them and my new set of EvoX GSR Enkei's. '10 minutes, let's do this!' says Ron. He has a tire station on his shop. Wow. I help however I can and 15 minutes later the tires are swapped and we are mounting them on my car. Ron goes off for birthday time with his family and I am just happy as a clam!
Tires mounted, we roll out, stop for a quick photo as I am just DIGGING the new wheel setup....and roll on home. I'm NOT impressed with the POS ETS intake....maybe its fixable with tuning but yeow. Part-load throttle input is just junk, the car falls on its face when trying to even cruise on the freeway.
photo by spazlicious
photo by rosey mcawesome
Car makes it home NO PROBLEM even with the goofy spring setup...I let it cool down, swap back in the red ebay intake (of awesome) and it idles and drives like a dream again. About 60 miles on the clock and I'm already just making devious, fiendish plans in my head about because race car....
Thanks Ron! Thanks Paul! Thanks RS! Thanks Spaz! Thanks Rosey!!!!
To be continued...I have a pile of parts ready to install and a lot of vacuum pulls to get through
...
Re: Project Black ValentNine
Linear Mode
