Delayed but worth it.

Well it's been about two weeks since my last update, and stuff has certainly taken a turn for the speedy.

Before I go on at all, I'd like to put out some good vibes to anyone in Japan right now. I've been in California for the last 10 days on vacation, sipping wine and relaxing on the beach, and while all thats been going on, people have been dying in a massive show of power by Mother Nature, people just me. If you really sit down and think about what life would be like if it all turned black right now, and you never saw anything or smelled food, or listened to your favorite bands ever again, thats what death is like. Just nothing. I hope all of you are doing whatever you can to help these folks in need.

On a much better note, lots of stuff has come in, and gone on, since we last spoke with ya'll.

Transmission:

The tranny was rebuilt with new internals, and shorter gearing (JDM gears) to keep the car in boost more, as well as prevent grinding to allow faster shifts. It's not a dogbox or crazy racing transmission, but it's a street based unit with a race build on it to allow it to hold the power. I slammed a couple shifts though the car today and it is super solid through all the engagements. The JDM gears are thicker than the US ones, so it will hold more power.  Very stoked to shift under load when we can.

Motor: 

Also on the menu when I left was getting the Cylinder heads rebuilt and back from Reid's Performance, who hand ported and re decked them with new valves, guides, and lifters. The cylinder head finally came back in this morning, and was on today. The cams have been installed, and we got the valve cover back on, we still need some gaskets, so it's not 100% done, but the Tomei Head Gasket is on, so the head is secured to the block. Good luck chewing through a steel gasket. 

Also the parts Tomei hooked me up on came in, and they look AWESOME. Big thanks again to Tomei for hooking a boy up. These Adjustable Cam Gears and that Head Gasket (1mm) will keep us safe from the engine going BOOM!! so we appreciate it. 

Also Thanks to Injector Dynamics For these 1000cc Injectors, we got them on today as well. 

Seat: 

After over a month of sitting an waiting, and wishing, and hoping, and sitting again, the Seat is finally here! The pictures I posted before were of the 2008+ Model, but i got the first 2011 Model around! This seat is super pretty and even lighter then the older model, as well has having slightly more breathable padding, all muy bueno points. You can see the OMP brackets in a couple of the shots, Im going to hold off until we're ready to go to caging to put the seat in, so we can get it fairly snug with the Main Hoop and Harness bar sections of the cage. 

Vipec in the mail, trans is apart.

It's funny how things never go quite as simple as you think they will. Even in my personal life, i've got a lot  of craziness giving me trouble these days. Just when you think you have everything under control....BOOM, a wrench.

 Last week my rebuilt and race prepped cylinder heads were supposed to come in, but the valves were "abnormally thin" which is a rare issue. It's possible that a tune which was too rich, burning too much fuel, scorched the valve stems enough to wear them down, but regardless, thats getting fixed, so Hopefully they should be wrapping the head up this week instead.

I know a few posts back I said I was getting some Brian Crower Adjustable Cam Gears, and they seemed like nice enough Pieces, until Tomei heard about it and hooked me up on some Tomei Adjustables instead! GREAT SUCCESS! It's just another reason why Tomei are the company to use when going with race-level applications, because they take care of folks. I run Tomei Parts in my STI, now in my Evo, and whenever I can, they are always first on my list.

These pieces are awesome, and i can't thank Tomei and Alex at DSG for helping a brother racer out. You can't explain how nice it is to feel people have your back, and you guys prove it all the time.

Also in this week's headlines, we have the transmission out and Bill has started the rebuild process, the gears were in good shape, but we decided to amp it up and add a JDM type RS 5th gear instead of my USDM, for shorter, faster shifting on track's. For a hill-climb i'll never hit 5th gear, but for COM events and big track days, it'll take time off my laps.

In slightly less pleasing news, HMS has informed me that my OMP seat will be arriving 3 weeks later than the deadline i gave them. I don't have much of a choice on this, but it really does suck. Getting the seat fitted into the car is a fairly important part of cage design, so I might have to borrow someone else's seat for a test fit, because i can't wait on delays. I don't believe HMS can do anything about it, other then air-ship my seat to me. I still use HMS for all my safety gear, but to say i'm 100% thrilled would not be honest on my part.





Another notable and cool little bit, I ordered my first piece of Aero Kit! I placed an order late last week for an Autovation Front Splitter for the Evo. After looking around, I had either the choice of an APR splitter, the Autovation, or a custom made unit. Frankly, the APR is as stiff as a cardboard box at speed, so that was out of the question.

 I debated a custom made one for a few weeks, but decided the cost was prohibitive. I settled on the Auto model because being made of metal, it's extremely stiff and durable, as well as being a larger splitter to begin with, compared to APR's offerings. It's also approx. 700-1000 dollars cheaper than a custom unit, with the only detractor being weight. I can live with that.

has also been confirmed that my Vipec ECU is now in the mail, so that should be here this week. The Vipec is a race-ready ECU with a host of extremely awesome functions that I really can't explain. It will be hooked into the Anti-lag system we are prepping for the car as well, for hill-climb events.

So this upcoming week:

Wrap transmission rebuild
Get heads back
Get vipec in the mail
Get Tomei parts in the mail
Take lots of pictures!



As always, be safe and have fun,
TLP/Phill