Project Lex

[A//// Guy]

Good stuff!

Party at your place next week! Shawty!

[Halon]

fire up the boat in the driveway!!

[asshanson]

Nice, hope you make some good progress.

[Halon]

Back from cabin. So we'll see what all I can get done. But here's where I'm at so far.

- Got parts back from powder coat. They look great, however the 'contrast' color that I picked, I'm not sure I like it. I had picked 6 colors, this was my least favorite one of them but it was the only one they had in stock so I just went with it. Now that they're done, I'll just install them because I want to move forward. They look really nice in direct sunlight, almost a very light sparkling silver with a touch of bronze, but in any other lighting (overcast, shadowy, artificial) it kind of just as a cream look. I do think eventually I'll get them coated in a different color, but just moving on for now. But the fine textured black looks phenominal, very happy with that!

- Got the new valve covers installed, replaced the OEM bolts with some nice button head fasteners instead. Also have my new 'vents' in place as well.

- Mocked up the new flywheel and clutch arrangement. Flywheel looks really nice, and clutch fits on it so thats good, lol. So time to just start putting that back into the car.

- In general, wherever I can, and wherever it makes sense, I'm going to try and replace all OEM bolts with nicer fasteners.

- Test fitted the new intake manifold. I love the smaller plenum / footprint. However the guy that made it lied. He said it would clear the battery and the stock Power Steering reservoir. It's not even close to clearing the PS reservoir. The TB would hit it, not even close. Not a huge deal, I'll just run the remote mounted one, but it is frustrating when people flat out lie about their stuff. Plus the guy still owes me $100 which I've already just written off as a lesson into his character. Funny how you can learn a lot about someone over a few bucks...

Here's just some random pictures.

[A//// Guy]

Nice progress! Colors are nice and oem style, clean and simple, I like it!

[Halon]

Well, I've been making progress, but much slower than I had hoped. But progress is progress, and I'm just aiming for next year at this point. Here's where I'm at.

- Stock pilot bushing removed. Learned a new life hack in the method, removed it with 4 wet napkins and a punch in about 10 minues! Lol. Then new Collins one installed in it's place.

- Flywheel mounted (M10 x 1.25 x 40mm ARP's). Torqued and Loctited.

- Clutch mounted. Torqued and Loctited.

- Got the slave modified for -3AN and remote bleeder (Collin's has kits he is selling now for this).

- Shifter arrangement finalized. Made some spacers to replace the stack of washers. Shifter ends up 31 5/8" back from the block.

- Attempted to install the transmission, but it's just so heavy. It was getting late so I just decided to call it a night and will try again tonight.

- Got the AEM Infinity harness ran through the firewall. So will start connecting it up after the transmission is back in.


















[img][/img]

[Kracka]

What material is the flywheel friction ring made out of? I've never seen a green one before!

[Halon]

It's steel, like most friction surfaces. The green is a coating applied by Fidanza from the factory to prevent moisture/rust while sitting on a shelf. I wiped it with some brake cleaner before putting the clutch on, so a little rubbed off.

[A//// Guy]

Green machine! Looks good, getter done for late summer or fall cruisin!

[Halon]

Been awhile since I updated this. But things have been progressing, slowly, but progressing none the less. I've pretty much considered this year a bust, so I'm just trying to take my time, do things nice, do them right, and fix things where they need to be.

- Infinity is mostly wired in. The items that are not wired in yet shouldn't really matter for getting the car running (flex fuel sensor, ABS sensors for Trac-Control, etc).

- Slowly installing all the parts, routing wires and all new vac lines in as clean of a manner as I can.

- Installed new serpentine tensionser since I noticed the old one had a small chip in it.

- Installed a new OEM Denso radiator. The old one was just filthy. While I'm at it, I removed the clutch fan setup and will be trying out an OEM IS300 electric fan setup. It's kind of a no-no to go away from the factory clutch fan because electric ones often just do not cool as well. But the IS300 setup is supposed to be the one that actually works decently. So I'm going to give it a go. If it doesn't work for any reason, I'll put the clutch one back in. It's just my fan shroud is broken, and it's just so big and bulky, while I'm in there I might as well give a clean electric fan setup a shot.

- My lawn mower battery is pretty much shot. So instead of buying another one, I bought a WPS Featherweight Lithium Ion one for $99 shipped. It's tiny (5x3x5) and weighs 2lbs. Has 290CCA (compared to my lawn mower which was 230, or an Odyssey 680 which has 180). Excited to see how that works out.
http://www.powersportparts.net/WPS_H...p/490-2517.htm



That's about it for now.

[asshanson]

Nice call on going to Lithium, I really hope that's big enough for the car. All specs point to it having enough power, I had a 4.5lb Shorai that was about 8x8x3. Price and specs sound about right, just over double the volume and weight, and price was around $200. Definitely take it inside for the winter though, and if your car draws any power while off, keep it on a tender (keep in mind some Lithium batteries require a special charger, not the normal chargers) if you don't start the car more than once every few weeks. Once they die, no guarantee they're coming back.

I had a cutoff switch on the battery itself so I didn't have to worry if I planned to take a 3 week trip or had the car down for extended maintenance or something, just turn the switch and didn't have to unhook the terminals or remove the battery from the car. Highly recommend.

EDIT - couple more thoughts: Those Lithiums can crank out some serious power for their size, but not for an extended period of time like the lead acid or AGM. Just less overall capacity, even though max output is the same. That's why you have to be extra careful about leaving it sit for extended periods of time. A higher capacity battery can sit for a month with no issues, and CCA has nothing to do with that. Amps just means power delivery output, Watts is the total energy storage capacity which unfortunately isn't a highly advertised number.

Say your battery at 2.5 lb has 290 CCA which is amazing for being so light. I haven't done research on numbers but let's say it has .3 kWh total energy, it can expel that energy very quickly to start a motor, and being fully charged from driving, after shutdown can maintain the car's parasitic draw for 2 weeks.
And a 5 lb lithium can maybe do 330 CCA, not much more max output, but double the weight. However, with total capacity of .6 kWh (double the mass and stored energy capacity), it could last a month with parasitic draw.
Of course a Lithium will have many times more energy capacity per weight vs AGM or Lead Acid, but going so small will really reduce the number of days you can let the car sit if you don't have a battery cutoff switch for the car, solely because of the constant draw that cars have.

[Halon]

Thanks for all the input man. I guess I'll just have to see how it plays out with the whole storage capacity thing. As for the charging, that was the one thing I liked about WPS batteries, everyone says standard chargers work with them. But maybe I aught to get a tender just to be safe.

In the end it was $100 so if it fails, it's not the end of the world.

Fwiw, I'm not sure what the stock battery weighs, but my lawn mower one came in at 16lbs, so nice to knock another 10-15lbs off.

[SlowWhite]

I've never dealt with lithium car batteries. But as far as the R/C world goes and Boeing airlines found out the hard way. You have to be very careful not to scratch or break the coverings. As they are prone to catch fire in some cases almost instantly.

[Halon]

I was planning on hitting it with a hammer before I installed it, might have to rethink that now though, thanks.

[turbotalon1g]

hammer hammer hammer.

Nice progress, you going to wire the infinity for traction control?

[Halon]

Eventually yes. I need a functioning ABS sensor on 1 front wheel and 1 rear wheel. Unfortunately if you read early on in this build, you will see that I removed ABS from the car. So I need to reinstall a couple sensors and then I should be good to go. But, not a priority at the moment as I don't need those to get the car running.

[A//// Guy]

Speakers going hammer. lolol

Good progress! Ill be interested in hearing how the battery works out for you too.

[turbotalon1g]

sorry I forgot you removed the abs

[Halon]

Got the radiator mounted with the new IS300 fans. Had to make up some fairly simple brackets from aluminum angle, but they are on there solid. I like the new look over the big clutch fan. Also I like how this fan shroud has a built in overflow reservoir.

I need to wire it to an Infinity output, so that still needs to be done yet.

[turbotalon1g]

Nice!
It's crazy how much stronger the angle stuff is vs flat stock.
Looking good!!