Project Lex

[turbotalon1g]

progress is progress!

liking all that free swag

[URV8SUX]

So...... about that T56....... or what are you going to run?

[turbotalon1g]

Originally Posted by URV8SUX

So...... about that T56....... or what are you going to run?

He already has a CD009. Proven to hold 1000whp.

[Halon]

Yeah sticking with cd009 for now. T56 is a sweet setup but I'm already pretty deep into my cd009 setup so it will stay for now.

[Goat Blower]

Looking good B-man, makes me miss building motors a bit.

[Mark Leasure]

Your car is going to be an animal with the new motor! How much power are the rods good for?

[Halon]

They are quite strong. They have a very similar design to Carillo's, which used to be the go to rod choice for the big dogs (now turbo tuff is probably equally as common), which is interesting being that they are h-beam and people tend to think of h-beams as weak. There are guys running these at 1300hp and revving to 9-9.5k. Most of them run the upgraded arp625 bolts, however those are more to support the increase in rpm and less with power, but I'm sure they still help a little with power. I would say mine with the standard arp2000 bolts are probably comfortably safe to around 1200hp or so. They are such a great value being only like $100 more then the budget h-beams like Eagles, but significantly stronger, and significantly less expensive than the higher end rods like Carillo or the Turbo Tuffs. IMO these are the best value in rods out there, which is why I chose them.

The pistons are in a similar boat. They are not that expensive, but off the shelf they can be ordered with the stronger pin of you just order the Extreme Duty version. Geo from Real St ran these pistons at around 1300hp to the wheels thru an auto, so probably 1500hp at the crank. Again probably one of the best value off the shelf offerings.

I paid around $1300 for the piston rod combo. If you shop 2jz stuff, you'll see that is on the very low end of the cost spectrum for rod/piston combos. That's why it such a great value.

[Halon]

Old motor is out. New motor is in. New accent color is gold vein.

[Halon]

Updates from the shop. First I'll mention that so far this has probably been one of the best shop experiences I've ever had. I receive multiple messages from Brett/FenFab per week. Sometimes on a daily basis. Tells me what he's done, anything he ran into and almost always with a recommended solution to move forward. Lots of photos. This is a pretty small operation, just the owner with 1 employee that I know of, relatively unknown compared to the larger 2jz shops. But they have shined when it comes to communication and that's been great, especially when I seem to run into lack of that all too often. Hopefully when I show up to get the car, the in person quality matches the photos and everything I've experienced thus far, and hopefully don't have to take this statement back lol.

So anyways, here's where we're at. The motor is in obviously. He's fabbed up the new 1pc aluminum IC piping (2.5" hot side, 3" cold side), nice rolled lips, and powder coated texture black. Photos look on point! He made a new fuel tank top hat for the new dual 450 pump setup (1 always on, other turns on with AEM when needed). It'll bolt up to factory feed and return for now, but setup for running larger lines in the future. 1ZZ COP brackets he made and powder coated, all installed. Battery relocated to the trunk using a full sized SC300 battery. Fastened downed and properly mounted in a battery box. Cut-off switch installed for the track. It's ran through a spare taillight I bought for dirt cheap. The arm is removable so I can just run my original taillight fully functional for 99% of the time on the street. For track day all I do is swap in this other taillight and connect the push/pull arm. Exactly what I had requested, and he nailed it on the execution.

That's about it for now. Car is basically done and ready for initial fire up. He's trying to coordinate that with the remote tuner Vlad as a whole new base tune needs to be done, I highly doubt the car would fire up on the old tune. So hoping for some good news soon!

[A//// Guy]

Looks awesome! So glad its going smoothly!

[Halon]

Car is getting close. Unfortunately this PnP harness has been not so PnP.
- Wrong Alternator Plug
- Wrong TB Plug
- Wrong Starter Plug
- Wrong coolant sensor plug
- Coolant sensor plugs routed to wrong side of engine (GTE is exh side but GE is int side)
- Starter wire pinned incorrectly where it plugs into chassis harness
- TB plug wired incorrectly (working through that currently).

So on Monday Brett/FenFab worked with the remote tuner Vlad to check things out. They planned to start the car. Everything seemed to check out with the exception of the TB. Something isn't wired correctly there so they are working through that. Hopefully get it started soon.

I'm setting up a plan to drive back on Friday next week to bring it home. So pretty pumped about that.

In the mean time, I had shattered my new front poly lip loading it on the trailer on the way out there. So I bought another one. But I can't keep paying $200-$300 to have these damn things painted if I just keep breaking them. So I decided to try wrapping for the hell of it. Picked up some Vvivid CF wrap for $30. It's not perfect, but for my first time ever wrapping I'm actually quite pleased. And way better than spending money on painting it again!

[Halon]

https://youtu.be/SAkP-eOE1GQ


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAkP-eOE1GQ&hd=1

[Halon]

Starting to make some baby steps. Pump gas conservative tuning, 2nd gear pull. 18psi feels so good after the long winter!!

Also took it to work today. So far so good, nice to have it back out in the wild

[A//// Guy]

Nice!!

[Halon]

Update:

(5/4) - I had gotten a few misc items buttoned up and wanted to take the car for a spin. While wiping down the motor, I all a sudden noticed the T-Belt was half way off the cam gear, ermagrd. How does that even happen? It sawed right thru the plastic lower timing cover. I started taking it apart and realized that the little guide plate that is supposed to be on the outside of the crank sprocket was missing, which is basically like a large thin washer looking thing that keeps the belt put and doesn't allow it to walk off. So that same day I order up a replacement T-Belt and that guide piece from Real St. for $50. I think they source it from the dealer so it'd be a few days until they got it and then shipped to me.

(5/8) - I had gotten things torn down a bit. I had to order a crank pulley puller because these crank pulleys are a bitch to remove. But this thing was a beast, took the pulley off like butter, so glad I have this puller now. Anyway I get it all torn down and then I notice the oem t-belt tensioner is still installed. I ask the shop where's the billet one I included? They said they never knew I included a billet one and never saw it. I know I included it, but tore the garage and house apart looking for it (didn't find it of course). He looked around his shop and didn't find it. Great, $180 tensioner is gone. I'm not putting this back together without one because the factory ones are known to crack/fail once you start stressing the t-belt more (springs/cams). So I have Real St. add one to my order since they were still waiting on the other parts to show up (another $180). I also go ahead and order a new plastic timing cover since my old one got sawed to pieces (another $60).

(5/14) - All parts have arrived over the weekend, except Real St package scheduled for this day (monday). Get home from class and the package is there, yaay. I should have everything to move forward now. Open the package, in it is the T-belt and the guide deal, but no gawt-dam tensioner!!!! I write them letting them know the tensioner isn't in there, but it's late so no reply. So I make what progress I could. Reinstall some interior trim. Then I do a re-torque of the head studs which all I did was pull cams, throw tq wrench on each stud and checked at 90ft/lbs to make sure nothing was loose (and they werent). So I reinstalled cams. Can't really do anything more without a tensioner so call it a night.

(5/15: today) - I find a local guy has an old Dave H billet tensioner. So I'm going to go grab it soon as I can (hopefully tonight). I talked to Dave H (hardcore supra racer from fargo) and he still has one of his old ones left he will sell me and ship it to the guy I'm taking it from so we should all be straight. I say sounds great thanks! So I write my contact at Real St, continued from my message last night, saying just cancel the tensioner order, I found a different one since you guys missed the shipment. He replies pretty quickly "It's 7:30am, I'm still in bed. The order shipped in full." Fuck me in the goat ass, are you fucking kidding me?!?!?! I'm basically just throwing money away at this point. I just reply telling him to him me up when he wakes up then. So yaay I found one so I can make progress, but literally I'm on my fucking 3rd tensioner at this point, and they aren't particularly cheap. And it really is hard to argue "yes we did, no you didn't, yes we did..."


Here some photos

[Halon]

Well maybe I have some 'proof'. Will see how this goes. But here is my package. The billet tensioner would have to be weightless if it was included. I measured roughly 0.4kg (~1lb) on our scale at work with the package and all the contents it came with. UPS site confirms, saying it was roughly 0.9lbs. I'd bet the tensioner weighs a couple pounds...

[A//// Guy]

That is some riduclousness. How did the show that did the install of the motor not know about the washer Tbelt guide? Or was that supposed to be installed by the engine builder? Not sure if you got it as a long block or all in pieces.

Id be fuming at not getting that part covered by the shop that lost it. You have proof you bought it with the original receipt.

[Halon]

Putting on that guide would have been the shop that worked on my car, not the engine shop. They had the piece, he even remembers having it, but said he had to pull the crank pulley off a couple times and so it must have fell off one of the times and they didn't realize. So he admits it was him. But not much he can do, I'm not driving it to detroit for him to fix. He offered to cover half the timing belt, but I told him thanks but no thanks as it was only $50 (so we're talking $25). Then later when I hit him up about the missing $180 tensioner, he just said we never talked about a billet tensioner, and he never saw one. I told him it's true we may never have talked specifically about it, but just like I didn't tell him specifically that I brought new gaskets, new t-belt, and other new peice parts. It was just included with those, and if you know anything about the 2jz a billet tensioner is just one of those things you run with a built motor. If anything it surprised me he put the OEM one on without asking me "hey did you really want to still run the OEM one?". I have proof I bought the tensioner like a year ago. I have a picture of it in my dresser drawer where I kept it lol. But that doesn't prove I borught it to him in Detroit. It's he said she said, and he gave me such a deal on the work, and did a bunch of rework to the messed up harness for free, as pissed as I was I just decided to let it go and focus on moving forward.

[A//// Guy]

Yea that makes sense. Crappy situation but glad you caught it before the belt fell off!!

[Kracka]

Wow, what a mess! Regardless, sure am glad you caught the belt before it was thrown of the cam gears! I would definitely be doing a credit card charge back on this latest tensioner from Real Street unless they can prove it was shipped. Possibly getting drop-shipped from elsewhere?