Toph6888

Well after a year and some change, its finally ready. I got all the little wobbles and random noises out (changed the rear rotors today and rear sounds a lot better, and except for the whine from the PS pump which is always loud there aren't any weird noises.) and took it for a drive today and had pretty much zero issues driving it. Car would go into each gear well, accelerate well with just a 1/4 throttle, and idled well. Engine sounds healthy, and rear axle doesn't have any weird noises. Got it up to about 35mph in the development (which I can't leave bc I don't have the bumper on yet) and rode well. Gonna drive it this weekend a bit more around town, and then hopefully next week take it to the tuner.

Got my last brake line in, got the exhaust back on, drained the water from the radiator and refilled with coolant, and got all the little things buttoned up, warmed it up for 15 minutes or so till it cycled the thermostat a couple times. Idle was pretty good, just kinda jumping between 800-1000rpms and afr bumping between 13 and 15 with it. So it just needs the tune dialed in. Once it got to temp it settled down to 900 pretty even, and sat between a 13.5 and 15 afr with 12in vacuum. I figured why the hell not, lets take it out. Got it out of the driveway, and I have some wobbling from the back, so I'm thinking its from the rotors because its very consistent with wheel speed and coming from the sides of the car. I put on the old rotors that came with the IRS, and they were pretty worn, so I imagine they are warped. I have some new ones I just got today, I'll put those one tomorrow. Over all the driving went well. Gears are a little louder then stock, and I'm also super paranoid while driving it right now so everything sounds like its going to explode to me right now haha. 1 and 2 sound about the same, 3 is pretty noticeable louder although I didn't get it up past 1500rpms in third bc of speed. So I think I just need to get it up to speed a little higher. I have read that the gforce trans is louder in 3 and 5 so I'm hoping thats just the case and nothing is wrong. The clutch is also brand new too and needs to be broken in as well. Overall it went well, sorry for now videos, its pitch black anyways. I will take it out tomorrow when I get home from work and get a video or two and see how it does. I might take it a bit further out of the development where I can maybe get up to 35-40mph, about the fastest I can go in my development is 20 with all the other cars on the road and the turns it has. Tomorrow is another day.

Got most of the way through moving my proportioning valve last night. I needed to move it, because well it was touching the exhaust directly and I don't want my brake fluid boiling. Also, with it moved out of the way its easier to get the exhaust in and out. Got the old one off after lots of remaining fluid decided to pour out, glad I had lots of extra towels for it to drop onto (i covered everything up so as not to destroy the paint in the engine bay) Ghetto bracket! I was originally planning on mounting it to the wall, but didn't have room for the lines. I spent maybe 5 minutes on this bracket, and honestly just needed something to work. it goes on/off very easily, so I will make a much nicer bracket during the winter, I just need to get it done for now. Got the lines hooked up except for one of my master cylinder lines that was too short and the shops were closed. I'll get another line after work, make it fit, then I will get the exhaust back on and hopefully get it warmed up and out on the road. We will see, its getting pretty cold in ohio haha.

It turned out that I was an idiot and didn't think of the master cylinder. With the hydroboost it is mounted at an upward angle, quite good at forming air pockets. the Cobra MC has two brake bleeders on either side. I bled those and wham, instant brake pedal feel, no going to the floor. I drove it a bit more today, PS pump seems happier (no griding, just loud) so I am going to leave it for the time being, and like I said I got the brakes/master cylinder figured out. Let it get mostly warm (but not all the way) and got impatient and tried to drive it again. Well it didn't like that, didn't give it a chance to get to closed loop, so it was struggling and missing a little bit. And it was beyond dark, so I decided to call it quits for tonight instead of messing it up. Tomorrow and wed I'll be out of town, but thursday night I will let it get to temp and let it get cozy and then try driving it again and make sure its in closed loop. It did just fine the other day in closed loop (besides the PS pump wailing) so I'm hoping things will be better then. The transmission is noticeable louder, and I don't think I messed anything up during the install. It is a gforce trans, so the gears are going to be louder. I'm pretty sure I'm just not used to it haha. Would be better if everything would just work, I mean honestly, I only changed everything...

This build is beyond awesome. Mad props for tackling it yourself headfirst. Thats the way I did it too, I feel you get a lot out of it vs just buying a car. Keep up the good work!

Well we got her on the road today. I put her up on some stands to get the brakes bled, and also checked the diff fluid which was full, and also changed the engine oil. This time with the proper MAF and tune the oil came out nice and golden the way it went in a couple days ago, so I'm not dumping a bunch of fuel into the oil anymore which is good. We still are having trouble getting all the air out of the brake lines, I'm going to have to have my buddy bring over his kit to pressureize the master cylinder instead of using the pedal in order to try to get all the air out. The pedal only grabs about the last inch or two of pedal travel. We started her up and let her get to temp and were working on trying to get all the powersteering fluid in it. We kept filling it but every time I turned the wheel from lock to lock we would get what sounded like a bearing grinding noise. I know I hear from people that the new powersteering pumps are very loud to start, but I'm not sure if this counts. I know there are a lot of lines though since I have the hydroboost, so I'm going to try to keep going back and forth the next night or two to see if I can get the air out of the hydroboost system which may be causing the noise. I can always get another pump or put my old one back on, but I would rather avoid that since its such a pain in the ass. Decided to say fuck it since the PS pump was loud (didn't have any leaks) and the brakes were good enough to stop it at slow speeds, so I put the clutch in, put it in reverse, made sure it would grab, then went to first and drove her around the lot. I was making a turn and my gauges cut out on me which was weird but it was only for a second or two and they came right back on. Didn't have any otehr issues with them which was wierd. Only took it around the cul-de-sac once or twice, then turned it off. Apparently its a 2stroke, because it does not like starting up warm. Once it cooled off for 30-45 mins it started right back up, so I think the tune just needs to be dialed in. Putting on the front bumper, AINT NOBODY GOT TIME FO DAT Quick video of it driving Gonna give it a couple more goes tomorrow/tuesday, see if the ps pump gets better, if not I will go ahead and assume I destroyed it and get a new one. Till then.

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No worries. I decided on going with the dual bc I got it for cheap ($100) and the IRS just looks better to me with the exhaust around it. Plus I still wanted some mufflers in there and I really like how it sounds, not too loud and a decent note.

FINALLY. After a full year, almost to the day, it runs on its own. So what was wrong. I spoke with a lot of people at work and another tuner, and we were all trying to figure out why the maf was giving such high numbers (it was around 300-350 counts, which for idle it should be around 120-180ish). When I talked with Brian at Dynotunemotorsports, we were talking about the piping and I said how everything was 3", and he knew that the sct BA2400 maf needed a 90mm (3.5") housing in order to read correctly. So essentially the air was flowing too fast, creating a false signal, making the engine dump a bunch of fuel into the car. I realized thinking back that on the stock mustangs, the CAI's you buy have a 3.5" tube from the filter to the maf, then it steps down to 3". Eureka. Luckily I still had my old CAI and didn't scrap it (Woo, remember not to throw parts away when you are building!) and went online and bought some couplers, tbolt clamps, reducers, another 3.5" pipe, and a lightning maf since I couldn't find any housings for under $120, and the lightning maf was $75. Here is the difference between what I was trying to use and what I needed to use: I mocked up the new bends with my old maf, but this shows that the two pieces before the maf are 3.5". I have about 7.5" of straight before the maf, and about 1.5-2ft of 3.5" before the maf total. New housing and tubing in Fender forced me into a couple 90's and a little extra tubing, but thats how it goes. Later on I think I am going to get a new intercooler where the inlet/outlet are on the same side so that I can get rid of A LOT of my piping. Having the turbo outlet go to the otherside of the car for the intercooler inlet is probably about 3-4ft worth of 3", thats a lot of air to fill haha. Everything all set to go: Before I started it up I reflashed the ecu wtih the original tune I got wtihout any fuel taken out of it because I wasn't sure if with the new maf the car woudl go super lean. Glad I went to it because initally it was jumping around 13-15.5 afr, and would go up to 16 or 17, drop to 12, and so on while it was trying to dial itself in. We just let it go and let it get warmed up and were rewarded with an idling car, I didn't have to give it any gas at all. Once it got to temp the afr would be between 13.5-15, and idle would stay between 800-1000rpms. Vacuum was at 12-13inHg. Oil pressure held around 35-40psi, and then would go up to 75psi when you would give it gas. Water temp was between 180-195 as the thermostat would open/close. Only leaks I had was at my mid pipe letting some condenstation out so I will have to try to seal up those connections a bit. All thats left for the car is to get the brakes bled completely, check the diff fluid/trans, change the oil, drain the water from the radiator and put coolant in it, adjust the front suspension a bit, and then take it out. and finally, VIDEO!!! (Copyright for 3pointH8 goes to Slowsix)

Still working on figuring out the tuning issues. Got a couple nicer pics of the car though. This is after running it that first night with the afr around 10. Its not shadowing, its soot haha. Go diesel. Nicer pic of the engine bay: Also went and got an AC delete pulley. Since all my refrigerant blew out, the compressor doesnt have any lubrication. So I will run this for now and then in the summer if it gets unbearable I will have a shop refab up some lines and reinstall it. Lots of space now: Hoping to get the car to a tuner this weekend, will keep you all posted.

Well I spent yesterday and today tuning up the car and spending some time with the GF. Took the exhaust dump off so that I could get to the spark plugs and clean them up since they were all fouled from running so rich. (Now bc I have to take them off it will probably take me about 3 hrs for a sparkplug change) Took the 02 sensors off and cleaned them up to get the carbon off of them. Sealed up my dump tube to turbine housing with some copper RTV sealant, hopefully that helps and can hold up to it. I also refitted my intake cooler piping so that the maf should get a better reading now bc there should be less turbulent flow. I got another tune from Dalke (my tuner) and ran that for a couple minutes, was able to keep it at about 1000-1500 rpms with the afr around 12, pulling 12-15inHG vacuum, and sent him the recent datalog. Working on trying to just get this thing to idle so I can get some better checks in on everything else. I'm hoping that Ill be able to borrow a truck from work this week/weekend so that I can just tow the car up to Dalke and he can tune the car as he sits in it, this back and forth is killing us and I feel putting excess wear on the engine right now. Other then that, when it is running and held steady it sounds pretty healthy, I'm not hearing any knocking and the valvetrain sounds pretty good I believe (i'm not expert, but nothing sounds strange). The one thing I am getting though is a very slight metal sliding sound, which I believe is coming from the AC compressor because it doesn't have any oil/refrigerant in it (the way it was explained to me is that these fluids are pretty much one in the same) so I think I am going to just buy the bracket to delete the AC, and then I will worry about getting a new one in the summer if it is really that unbearable. So all in all, things are going ok, pretty positive right now, just need to get it to Dalke.

Finally, what everyone has been asking for. Videos. But first, got to talk to Dalke today about the tuning, he sent me another file with 20% less fuel, and I got all my datalogging stuff set up so that I can help him dial in the tune better. Uploaded the tune, brought it outiside, adn started her up. She did a lot better, vacuum was between 10-15inHg of vacuum, the afr at 1000rpms was around 13 or so, and at 1500-2000 rpms it would drop to between 11.5-12.5 And now videos! First up, is the "second start" of the car with the new tune. And then a walkaround so you can hear the exhaust: I also found that I didn't tighten up one of my vbands on the dump tube so I need to tighten that up, and I also need to seal up the turbo/dump mating surface because they aren't quite the same size, so I need to get them aligned a bit better (got some soot coming out). All in all a productive day, hoping to get the new tune from Dalke tomorrow, get that on the car, have it idle on its own (fingers crossed) and then get the water out and coolant in it so when I leave this weekend I don't freak out. Still looking like a couple days away from driving it, but we are getting closer.

Thanks! I'm not too worried about that AC line. I'll figure somehting out, I'm just happy it starts. I'm thinking maybe its purely a fuel related issue for the vacuum. My thoughts being that bc its so rich, I'm having to put a lot of air into it, and like I said I have to stay on the throttle, so I'm not really sure how much vacuum I should be pulling with the throttle blade open. My understanding was that if I don't have the throttle open it should be like -15inHG, and if I am on the throttle just a couple inHg is correct. I know the cam is a lot bigger then stock too so that should lower the vacuum the car pulls at idle too. I'm not really sure overall though. I need to get the AFR figured out first. Yah that start up was nerve racking. It felt good that it started right up after a couple of cranks that that I wasn't missing spark or fuel or anything. I always watch engine building shows where they are trying to figure out why it won't start, so it felt to have it light up right away. I spoke with my tuner, and he said that it shouldn't be at 10 AFR for obvious reasons. He told me not to run it anymore unless we can get the AFR up to a better ratio, so hes gonna send me another map tonight and I'm gonna try to get a good log done so that he can figure out where the issue is. Probably only run it for 1-2 mins that way we can get the log. I'm hoping that if the AFR gets back to around 14, that I won't have to give it throttle to keep it running and it will pull the correct vacuum for the intake. All that fuel was getting into my oil, so I will have to look into that. I'm not sure if its washing out my walls or not and causing issues with the piston rings. He said I probably didn't destroy my rings, but definitly avoid doing that anymore.

IT RUNS Worked on gettting it all set to start tonight, becuase well the water is in the block and good ole ohio is deciding to hit the high 20's at night, so I was super worried about water freezing in my block and messing things up. Filled up the trans fluid, filled up the PS fluid, filled the radiator (no leaks!) double checked all my connections and spark plugs, and made sure everything was good to go pretty much. Reprimed the oil to make sure the turbo would get oil, checked the oil level, and then I sat in my car for about 5-10 mins thinking about everything that I did while my GF, roommate and roommate's gf and my other friend stood by eagerly. Interesting thoughts go through ones heads at that moment. So then I decided to man up (my legs and hands were shaking haha) and I turned the key, car started cranking, and after all of 4-5 cranks it fired right up. Now, I will have to check on the tune, but I was holding right at around 10 AFR, so I was running really rich, and my vacuum was holding at -10inHg. So I have a leak somewhere. Oil pressure sat right at 75 psi during the cold running period. I had to hold the throttle to keep it at around 1500rpms. Then we here a big pop and a lot of hiss sounds and a lot of smoke. Turned out that the AC lines that I "gently" bended out of the way for the exhaust didn't bend so gently, and it blew. So no AC, but at least I don't have to worry about that in the winter. I will have to get custom lines made up. So we washed that all out, and started it back up again, same story. We let it run for about 15-20 mins, holding it at 1500rpms with my throttle, and no visible leaks were seen (just some vapor coming off the freshly coated exhaust so no biggie). Afr held steady at 10 the whole time, and vacuum dropped to -2inHg. Water heated up to 195F, thermostat would open and drop to 180F and close again, so that was all good. Kept it at operating temp for 5-10 mins and then shut her down. Let her cool off to around 125F (based on teh water gauge) and drained the oil. It was black (im assuming from running rich and also from the ARP assembly lube). It sounded super thin, like water, and I pretty much freaked out, but I pulled a decent chunk from it into a glass container to see if it separated, and it looked fine, so I'm hoping its ok. It also did thicken up. Granted, the oil is 5W20 or 5W30, so its pretty thin to start with. I am gonna let it sit tonight to make sure. I decided not to drain the radiator and put coolant in it because I didn't want to risk there being a water leak into the block and causing coolant to get on my bearings. I put my space heater in the garage to help keep the temp above freezing, and it should be ok since its just a couple of degrees. All in all everything went really well (except for the AC line blowing haha). I'll try to get a video up tomorrow, I'm gonna try to get some sleep haha.

Lol whys that?

Well. Interesting night I suppose. Some good news and bad news. Bad news first. Didn't get a chance to get the car started. The thermostat housing was leaking fluid when I was filling the whole thing up with distilled water. This I found after we had let it down and pushed it outside and going over all our extra checks. Good news: When I installed the thermostat, I just used the gasket, didn't use any rtv, and the housing and tube look to be smooth, so I put on a general coating of RTV and sealed that baby up. But I have to wait for it to cure before I try to start it, and I'll be on a buisness trip tomorrow but be back late wed, so I may start it then may wait till thursday. Also, when I was checking my radiator hoses, something irked me in the back of my mind, and I decided to pull them off to make sure everything was clear, and here I still had the tape paint over the water pump inlet, so I'm really glad I checked otherwise I wouldn't have been circulating any fluid. Also happy to know that there is water in block, I was really nervous that it was just going to be dry during start up, and my buddy and I kept wondering where it was all going haha. Also very glad we were using distilled water so that none of the other gaskets/RTV seals got hit with any coolant so they should all be ok. Decided to check the spark plugs one more time, and had one that was hard to reach that wasn't quite tight, I must have missed it when I was tightening. Also the spark plug wire wasn't on all the way. Got her some 93 octane and filled her up a 1/4 tank, and also when turning the car to the on position I could hear the fuel pump priming, so I know I will be getting pressure at least and that I didn't mess up the wiring when I had to splice in the harness. So I have oil pressure, water in the block, and fuel in the line, and I got a couple of little things fixed that I looked over before, so at least I can sleep easy knowing that. I would much rather have the issues now before I start it then during or after. Till wednesday or thursday.

Didn't get to the point to start it today, but got the rest of the loose ends tied up today. Got all the wastegate lines connected the correct way as well as making sure all the fittings were tight/sealed. Flash tuned the ecu Then I set up the BOV line tee into the intake. Got the overboost switch and the intake over pressure signal light into the center console Made a bracket to hold the oil separator canister and cut the lines to fit it. Was gonna put an exhaust hangar on the midpipe but after tightening up the exhaust from the turbo and the connectors for the catback the midpipe was in there solid, so I'll run it for a bit and see if I have any issues. We also got the brakes bled for all the lines, at least most of the way, so once we get the car running and the hydrboost in there we will finish bleeding the brakes and take it out for a drive. Hoping to start it tomorrow, just need to fill the radiator with water, fill the trans fluid, check the diff fluid, put some gas in the tank, and turn the key. Gonna be a long day at work tomorrow.

Thanks. Yah this whole thing snowballed pretty badly haha. I kept finding deals and figured why not. I figure any car can go fast with the right parts/effort, and it will make people think a bit more about the potential of the V6. I like seeing the new 5.0's and everything everyone has at the car shows, but I prefer the cars people put a lot of effort into rather then the newest show floor model. Yah almost there lol. There will be plenty of videos to come! Not really sure on the goal. Numbers wise I am looking for 400rwtq, and anything more is just bonus. Guy who had the turbo kit before me on a stock engine made 330rwhp/380rwtq, so I think it will happen pretty easily. As far as what I plan to do wtih it, I'll daily it till the weather gets terrible, then in the spring probably take it to some autocross events and what not. I built it more so to see if I could do it rather then have an end product if that makes sense lol. Long day today. I found myself in the garage half the time and chilling the other half, I kind of didn't want to work on it because I didn't want it to be done, I've been working on it so long now that it feels strange that its almost ready to start, and I'm much more a builder then a driver, so its weird haha. Didn't take a whole ton of pics today, most of the work was just buttoning things up. Got the brake lines from the master cylinder to the proportioning valve done. Took two trips to the store because the two fittings on the master cylinder are different (thanks ford) and then the proportioning valve is different from the ones on the master cylinder. Hopefully they all hold. Got the exhaust tubes wrapped for where they may come into contact or will be close to cables or lines Then got the turbo gasket and wastegate gaskets done up and put that and the merge pipe back into the car Got the wastegate lines in, got the intake pipes cleaned up and in, and finally got all of the exhaust pipes in. I did a lot of other miscellaneous stuff (electrical connections, a bolt here and there, hydroboost lines, etc) and I'm too tired to list it all. But essentially EVERYTHING under the hood is in. All I have yet to put on there that I can think of is the BOV vacuum line to the intake and the oil catch can. I'll do those tomorrow haha I'm beat. It is a tight fit for that dump tube. If I didn't have the hydroboost I never would have come close to fitting it. Maybe if my headers were made a bit tighter, but even then its super tight haha. I need to get the battery charged again (or most likely just get a new battery) and then fill all the fluids, the oil catch can, bov vacuum line, get the hanger made up for the mid pipe, then bleed the brakes, try to get the alignment close to where it will track decently, get it off the ramps, and then push it outside, flash tune the ecu, cross fingers and turn the key. We will see what happens tomorrow.

Got some more miscellaneous stuff done today. First worked on the brake booster. Go to put it on and realise that the pedal assemblys are in face different from vacuum booster to hydroboost, so most of my morning was spent working on that. When I bought my hydroboost the guy included the pedal assembly, so I was able to grab the brake pedal which is the only part that is different. The assembly was pretty rusty that he sent me and the clutch pedal barely moved, so I just swapped the brake pedals. Taking apart the hydroboost assembly: Brake pedal off of my current one (which I also had the nicer pedals, and only moving one was definitly better then moving two, because they are a PITA to put on) Here is the difference in the pedals (The top is the vacuum, which has the booster arm connection much lower then the one for the hydroboost, on bottom) Pedal assembly finally all back together after making sure I didn't forget to reattach a sensor or something And back in the car, luckily I didn't have to take the steering shaft out to get it in there, its a tight fit between that and the fuse box: And finally the hydrboost on with the lines run on it as well Since I am finally done working on running things under the dash, I put the drivers seat back in for the last time Then started working on other time consuming objects. Got the exhaust lightly sanded and cleaned for paint with VHT ceramic coating, I'll bake it on tomorrow in my grill haha Got the upper intake underside painted: Also decided to paint the pully for the alternator since it was a pretty big eyesore up front While I was waiting for all that to dry I pulled off the accessory port on the oil pump for the oil feed for the turbo and got that line installed And finally I got everything out of the way to put the intake back on for good. cleaned up all the contact surfaces with some carb cleaner and a rag, and then put a light ring of rtv gasket around the ports on the gasket, layed the gasket down, put more rtv on the top side, then torqued all the bolts down. Also got all the spark plugs run to the coil pack, and flipped my IAC the correct direction haha. I believe I can say the engine is officialy "100%" done, just need to get the exhaust and intake piping cleaned up. Tomorrow I'm gonna get the exhaust baked, wrapped, and installed, also going to get the hanger made for the mid pipe, clean up the intake piping, get the two brake lines from the master cyclinder to the proportioning valve done, hopefully bleed the brakes and fill the remaining fluids. Hoping to start it either tomorrow night or Sunday.

Got some more work done tonight. First up, take everything off haha. With all that stuff off I was able to prime the engine. Was nervous at first because I wasn't seeing any pressure, but after spinning it for a minute or two it finally caught and started putting pressure, and gauge shot straight up to 75psi. Took the valve covers off and made sure all the valves and pushrods were getting oil up top, and rotated the crank around a couple times to make sure all the bearings had oil. Feeling much better about that now. Next up got the cam sensor and oil drive shaft on. Took care of my loose connectors on my fuel injectors with some zipties haha And the last thing I finished up was getting the last exhaust header bolt on, I didn't do it earlierbecause when I was trying to get it on before it felt like it was going in crooked and bottoming out. Wierd thing was it would spin by hand for ten threads or so. I checked to make sure it was going in right, still not going in all the way,so I just trimmed the bolt about 1/2" and it worked just fine. Still bolted into the head a good ten threads or so, so I think it will be fine. Friday night I hope to get the exhaust coated and wrapped up and put that on for the last time, as well as get the brake booster and upper intake back on and all the intercooler piping back on. Hopefully I can get everything onto the car on saturday,and then spend sunday working on fluids and getting it started.

Hoping to get most of the car done this week. Finished up most of the welding on the exhaust. I have one piece thta I have to grind the tacks off and take the vband off so I can clean it better, wasn't getting a decent weld so I will try to get that done tonight so that I can have the exhaust all finished up. Once the exhaust is fully welded I will spray it with some VHT exhaust paint and then bake it, and then wrap up anything that will be close to the exhaust. Got the pyrometer bung welded in. Had a hell of a time getting it hot enough to weld and not warp the bung, so its been noted that this weld looks terrible but at least it isn't going anywhere haha. I'm hoping to have the exhaust completely done and on the car by Friday. I am going to try to get all the pieces done tonight, get the engine primed tomorrow, and all the exhaust pieces back on, and then work on all the little left over things (couple wires, rear brakes, install brake booster and fill all the fluids) on friday/saturday, and maybe get the chance to finally start it up. This project only took a year haha.

Started on the welding of the stainless tonight since I finally got my wire in. Only grabbed a couple quick photos, gf was getting hungry and I was pushing my luck with how much time I had to weld haha Getting the hang of this welding thing I believe. Only got two of the pipes done before my wire brush on my drill was out of power for cleaning up the metal, and GF was getting HANGRY, so I will save these for tomorrow I guess. 6 more welds to go.

Got some more work done the past couple nights. Working on getting the tape off of everything and tacking everything in place. I used mild steel wire to tack it and it held just fine, so I'm not too worried about it right now. From all my research, I was orginally gonna have my buddy tig weld it, but he just had a baby and his tig is at a buddys shop, so actually getting it done would take 2-3 weeks. I foudn that while tigging is the best option, the mig with stainless wire and my gas (75AR, 25CO2) will give good results since its just an exhaust and not something that will be used for food or anything, which would require backpurging and a higher concentration of Ar if not going to trimix. I will also be ceramic coating everything, as well as wrapping it and not driving it in the winter, so I'm pretty comfortable mig welding it all together and feel it should hold just fine. I also don't care how these welds look, so Im not worried if they look crappy so long as they seal. (which I asked a bunch of people at work who weld everyday and they agree my plan will be more then fine for the exhaust). And now, exhaust pron. Getting everything tacked together: Fitting the last bend: Tacking the last bend into place, kind of a pain to get to, you can tell because I missed a couple times haha And finally everything out of the car ready to be welded together: I am just waiting on my stainless mig wire to show up that should be here Wed. I will be able to get it all welded then, and then coated and wrapped and ready to go on the car. I will make sure to prime the engine before hand though because its a lot easier to get to the crank pulley with the exhaust out of the way. Last things to do: Weld/coat/wrap exhaust Make hanger for mid pipe Prime Engine Paint Throttlebody/IAC Install upper intake for good Clean up intake piping and install for good Bolt turbo and exhaust up for good Install brake booster Run lines for wastegate/BOV Connect power lines for Boost controller Fill PS fluid, coolant, trans fluid, and diff fluid Install rear brake pads bleed brakes Flash ECU Turn Key

Yah I like mine, its rated at I think 135 amps, so its a decent little welder, but not good for much more then 1/4" with gas, 5/16 to 3/8" wiht flux core (I was amazed at how much heat that gas takes up). The main reason I went with a 110V is cause I don't have a 220V plug in the garage, and my roommate has a 220V at his shop that if I ever actually needed it I could use that. Mine is plenty for exhaust and subframe connectors and any other projects I want to work on lol. Been working on a lot of cars this weekend, seems to always happen. Worked on some basic stuff on my outback, helped a friend with his Accord's brakes, worked on my girlfriends firebird's brakes this morning, and we found out that her floor pans are pretty much gone (I don't know how she couldn't have noticed that seeing carpet from under the car is a bad thing, so now I will be carpooling and she will be taking the outback till we can get her another car or get this one fixed). Anyways, got further on the exhaust today with only working on it for about three hours. First off, garage mod, got my super ghetto garage shelf installed so I could set up my stereo in the garage and have some music to work to. Got the piping from the mid pipe up to the header, and then the pipe from the header to under the powersteering line. I have to trim the one pipe to put the other end of the vband on, but other then that I just need to smooth some edges, tack weld everything, and then give it to my buddy to TIG weld it all together for good. Couldn't tell if it was a better pic with the flood light or not, since it was so dark out, so you decide lol Here you can try to see where I only have the one 90* bend to go from my turbo downpipe to the new piping. I will be on a buisness trip tomorrow night, so I will get part of Tuesday night to hopefully work on it, and then thursday night as well (I have to work wed night). Hopefully I can get it all tacked up by Thursday that way I can give it to my buddy friday and he can take it home and weld it over the weekend. I can then spend the weekend getting all the other little odds and ends finished and hopefully start up the next week or weekend after.

So I was working on fixing my GF's 92 Firebird's brakes today when I went to jack up the car and found that pretty much the entire floorpan on the drivers side is gone....Can see a lot of the carpet through it and can pretty much pull solid pieces off. I was looking online and found that I could get floorpans for around $250-300 per side, and was wondering if anyone knew a body shop that could do the work to put the pans in. I would take the interior out myself before taking it there to avoid some cost, basically need a place that can cut the old pan out and weld the new one in. If anyone knows of a shop, or can give a ballpark estimate for labor ($500? $1000? $1500?) I would greatly appreciate it.