Alpha's DD Project Log UPDATE: Thread back from the dead

Fresh wax pics











New shift knob, Blox 490 Limited

Began ripping into the suspension today...

Pulled her into the garage


Removed front left strut and UCA


Unfortunately that's about all I was able to do today, 80% of the time was taken removing a seized bolt on my Skunk 2 UCA plate. Ended up braking out the angle grinder and trimming the bolt head completely off. I really should find an alternative for those bolts rather than use the stock Skunk 2 ones. :frown:

Also, Croftgate tire shine is pretty much the $hit. I applied it over 2 weeks ago and while it lost the "shine" the tire is dirt free and still BLACK. Not only that but you can use it in the interior, and because its not oily, its actually much better than Armor-all - non oily and still looks very fresh inside. This pic was taken today, the tire is a very healthy looking black:


This bug wasn't so lucky! :biggrin::biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:


More updates to come as I make progress

:frown::frown:



The ebrake pin is giving be a bit of a hard time....gonna let em soak in PB for a while

Ended up just taking the spring and arm off, which helped give me more options to pull the pin. After a little fight with some pliers, a mix of WD40 and PB it came loose. I had to do the same for the right side as well.

Long overdue update...

Basically I had the whole suspension torn out at one point, and got busy blasting away some old cheap undercoat in all the wheel wells I had applied a few years ago. Using a drill, wire brush, and some simple green - it was a nasty, challenging chore, but for the most part I was able to remove 95% of it. Here is the how it sat a few days ago, looks almost to good to put on the road!:



I think all my labor was well worth it, as you can see I also refinished the trailing arm, shield, and other odds and ends. I also ended up replacing my blox rear camber kit with Skunk2, blox bushing just don't seem to last. :frown: You can also see my new Fortune Auto coilovers are now sittin pretty. Since this picture was taken I also installed some SS brake lines along with new Centric brake components.

More pics will be on the way, at the moment the car is 95% reassembled, I may get it on the ground today, but before that I need to torque everything to spec, finishing mounting the front sway bar, and re-attach the exhaust. Then it'll be test drive time! :vtec228:

This has easily been one of the biggest undertakings I've ever done on the car and has taken 100% of my free time, much of the work has been attacking rust though, while it wasn't to bad, I want to stop it in its tracks before it gets out of hand.

Rear fully assembled:



Front fully assembled:



SS brake lines installed and ready to rock:



Lightningteg's no BS bolt on big brake upgrade with ITR calipers :icon_twisted:



Basically new skunk2 pro series with Hard Race bushings and hardware:



The rear suspension goods:
PWJDM endlinks
Skunk2 Camber kit (The bushings on my old Blox kit took a ****)
F7 LCAs


All mounted onto the ASR subframe brace...so perdy



I expect her to be on the ground tomorrow FINALLY, I'm seriously going through withdrawals right now...lol

The suspension install is OFFICIALLY COMPLETE! Yesterday I took note of the ride height and made adjustments to all four coilovers to get the ride height I was looking for:



I can fit one finger in the gap, don't really want to go any lower since this will be a DD. The sound in the front left I heard yesterday was in fact the ABS speed sensor moving around, thankfully it didn't appear damaged, so I mounted it and all seems good! I also followed Jared's brake bleeding guide and bled all four brakes again. The left front caliber seemed have contained a lot of air, enough to be noteworthy. At any rate the brakes feel MUCH better than they did yesterday. I also finished bedding the pads.

Benen tri permanently installed:


The Fortune 500s are easy to adjust and don't require a tool like my old Konies...which is nice.


Updated pic of the engine bay:

So it has been almost a week since the suspension was completed, here is my official review of my new suspension, as of now I already have almost 400 miles on the new setup.

Ride is very comfortable on the softest coil over setting, ride quality trumps my old setup which is expected due to the softer spring rates. I'm sure the Fortune Auto 57mm pistons help with this as well.

Handling seems to have improved three-fold, I've been nothing but ecstatic on how well this car handles now. Hitting curves at the max speed I'd hit them on the old setup, is cake on this setup, its just begging for more in the corners. The ITR sway bars as expected greatly reduced body roll, and keep the car confidently planted.

Steering response is fantastic, partly due to new bushings up front, I'm sure it'll be even better when I adjust the coil-over damping to a more aggressive setting.

Acceleration has also been improved, before my worn bushings caused some wheel hop...which is now non-existent.

...and no squeaky bushings! The only odd noise at the moment is a random slight "knock" sound at low speed, usually heard while in reverse. It sounds like its coming from the front left side. Sometime this week I'll pop the wheel off and ensure everything is still torqued to spec. Other than that if I'm not careful the exhaust resonator may hit the road going over some tracks at my workplace entrance. The resonator sags a little lower than the rest of the exhaust, so I may have a shop install some extra hangers or something - if possible. Any input would be great, open to other possibilities. Beyond that I just have to get used to the new ride height.

The day after completion it was a picture perfect day, so I went to Ash Lawn (the house of James Monroe) for a mini-shoot.

One of the issues I came across while installing my F7 LCA's was how to route the ABS lines. I've read some people use zip ties, but to me that's just kinda ghetto, so I hacked the ends off the OEM bracket, trimmed them up nice and painted:



Then using one of the 3 sway bar mounting holes on the F7s I hung the bracket and routed the ABS line:


I then used some metal clamps to help pull in the wire near the gas tank. Anywhere the wire comes in contact with metal or tends to hang a little low needed some extra protection. So I took some clear tubing I had hanging around, trimmed to the appropriate length, and cut a slit across the entire length of it and slipped it over the wire. Two small zip ties on either end hold it in place.

I don't have pictures of the finished product yet, I'll snap some later and post them up.

Took the car down to a small car show an hour away last weekend, I had my dad drive so I could tune my air fuels while cruising on the highway. I haven't spent much time going 65-75mph on this tune and some areas of the map were running quite rich. At 70mph I was dipping well into the 13s...yuck. It had to still use the gauge though because I had disconnected my wideband input to the ECU a while ago, which was my project today. Logging is fully functional again, tomorrow I'm going to play around with on-board logging. I've also yet to touch my secondary fuel map, so I'll dial in the secondary maps tomorrow and test on-board logging as well. The good part about this....WOT pulls and mohhrrr power! (Well a bit anyways ;-) Temperature should be ideal too, 75-84 through most of the day.

Last weekend next to my buddies turbo teg: