The Project Pad

At Dave's enlightenment I put some octane booster in the tank this evening and shortly after the car started running better. Which means that ghetto gas station I went to and only put in 4 gallons of "91" ended up being shit gas.

What does one do? Go E85 of course!

You guessed it my friends, this young lad is making preparations to buy/find a flex fuel sensor, a pig tail and some wire to get my corn juice flowin'. Lucky for me there's an E85 station just 10 miles from my house and it's on the way to school.

Is there anything on the VEMS unit I need to make sure of as part of this upgrade? As I'm no tuner, I'll have to get help with that.

Needless to say I'm happy to have good friends like Dave that help me figure out that Utah gas is crap and I need to make sure and fill up at Chevron from now on. Until my car changes fuel taste

Any updates on your VEMS transformation?

Thanks for the bump

What I thought was bad gas ended up being a combination of sorts. Yes, I did get some bad gas from a crap gas station. I also ended up with a chewed up plug wire because it got all caught up in my steering rack! After I found it and replaced it, the thing ran smooth. Did a couple log files and got some tunes back. Ended up with around 20psi in 3rd.

The next thing would be to improve the start up (it hates the cold weather) and idle. Whenever I shut down the thing it doesn't do it quite smoothly and I think it just needs some fine tuning I'm unable to do. Which brings me to my current game plan:

- Purchase 01E 5 speed - done
- Purchase Iroz Motorsport trans mounts - in process
- Locate and purchase 4000 driveline - in process
- Flush out trans fluid and cleanup trans
- Install all that fun stuff
- Install new (used) dashboard that's in way freaking better shape.
- Rebuild all the chassis fun stuff: Subframes, control arms etc. This includes stripping and painting before reinstall.
- Purchase Iroz Motorsport K26 Hybrid - in process of saving
- Drive down to Iroz Motorsport for a day of tuning

I also found a daily driver/commuter. A 2000 Jetta 2.0 with a 4 speed automagic. It's a decent car that's comfy and doesn't promote fast speeds. Plus my wife can drive it which is nice when I need to use her truck. It'll be very nice to have a commuter and be able to work on the 90 as I have time and not worry about getting it ready to drive to work the next day.

Do I regret going with a stand alone ECU? Not in the least bit. I love the fact that once I get this K26 I can simply take some log files, get a new config and run it. Even more now that my car is solely a project car.

I guess it's not for sale anymore.

So for your average economy 07k build, what is the verdict on the stock valves and springs in the head? It looks like the exhaust are sodium filled so that is good I guess. Hank has mentioned before that springs might be necessary at high boost.

Leave it stock and run it, or screw it and drop 800 on new valves and springs? http://www.performancebyie.com/ferrea-v ... -20v-5-cyl

Darin you are correct - not for sale and will be going under the knife soon enough

Jim I think you may have me confused with someone else? Unless the 07k fairy visited over Thanksgiving weekend there's still a 3b under the bonnet

No before and after pics but I did spend a good amount of time cleaning and painting my 01e (5 speed) trans. Also picked up a 4k driveline and the trans mounts are coming. I'm doing a full chassis rebuild over the next couple months and then it's a trip down to Vegas for some tuning and hopefully a K26 hybrid. After that it's a refresh of the interior

Is it perfect? No. But it's way better than a week ago! I need to go pull the linkage out of a URS4 but since it's so cold anymore not sure when that'll happen exactly.

Tools


More tools


clean and primed. I used your run of the mill Rustoleum rusted metal primer. We'll see how it holds up. I'll be following it up with some gloss black of the same brand.

Transmission looks nice! I am not sure how that post ended up in your thread. I have noticed Tapatalk doing some strange things lately.

Phase 3 will include:
- 01E 5 speed trans
- K26 Hybrid
- New Injectors
- New Dash
- Tablet Mount for being awesome with a tablet mounted on my dash
- Rear subframe/control arm rebuild and paint
- Front subframe/control arm rebuild and paint
- Get some paint on engine parts: Intake Manifold, fuel rail, respray the valve cover.
- afterrun pump hooked up.
- Get the low speed cooling fan operating correctly.


So far I've been able to get the junk yard sub frame cleaned up and painted with rustoleum. I'm using the high temp chemical resistant top coat in gloss black. Mostly for the chemical resistance it has. My worry with the rear sub frame situation is the rear tie rods. If I can't get them to be adjustable again for the re-alignment I'll have to bite the bullet on some of 034's.


Pics because those are more fun:







Got this dash locally and I ended up getting brake clean spatter on it!!! turned the spots white but luckily the Lexol leather conditioner has worked some magic.




Old dash starting to come out.

I've always liked the quattro badge on the 90 dashboards, but never wanted to do the work to retrofit one into my coupe.

What size/kind injectors did you choose for the k26 hybrid? Is it a Volvo turbo or something else?

Quattro badge is awesome and I'll miss it. However the Niagara Falls situation above the steering wheel is worth the trade That and It'll be easier to mount the Ram Mount on the wood panel. I plan on using a Dell Venue 8 as the tablet and will have the signal and charger cables inside the dash with as little exposed wire as possible.

Injectors are yet to be determined. Something around 60lbs though I imagine. Hoping the Injector Fairy puts some under my pillow.

Turbo is a Iroz Motorsport Hybrid K26. Using the core from a 20vt.

nsimps wrote:Turbo is a Iroz Motorsport Hybrid K26. Using the core from a 20vt.

Hey man how are ya? Hope it's not too much trouble but what does that come to price-wise for the turbo when a core is supplied? I'd greatly appreciate your time friend.

Julian

Best thing to do is contact Iroz Motorsport - sales@irozmotorsport.com. They will be able to get you the best info.

nsimps wrote:
Injectors are yet to be determined. Something around 60lbs though I imagine. Hoping the Injector Fairy puts some under my pillow.

I don't think I can just put them under your pillow, but I can give you a great deal on some 60 lb EV14 injectors. Only downside to them is they aren't EV1 connectors, but they more than make up for that with the fact that they're E14s. Let me know.

loxxrider wrote:

nsimps wrote:
Injectors are yet to be determined. Something around 60lbs though I imagine. Hoping the Injector Fairy puts some under my pillow.

I don't think I can just put them under your pillow, but I can give you a great deal on some 60 lb EV14 injectors. Only downside to them is they aren't EV1 connectors, but they more than make up for that with the fact that they're E14s. Let me know.

Chris is now the Fuel Injector Fairy.

haha!

Chris I'll get in contact with you on the injectors.

Dramarider still makes me lol.

Fuel injector fairy sounds a bit light in the loafers

Latest status update:

- Changed out the Dash.
- Added a ram mount to hold the tablet for VEMS logging and such.
- Started the engine bay cleaning.

Pics because they are more fun.

Added foam to the flap:




Did a new distribution block. These were the only pieces available to there ya go.




New Dash:




More Dash:




Steering Wheel and Shelf back in place:




Tablet Mounted:




Tablet:







After new dash drive:




Before the disassembly for cleanup.










Stuff came off:





Before:



After:


Fuel Rail Cleaned Up:

Nice! Good progress. Love the tablet VEMS display

Looks good Nick! Got any pics of RAM mount mounting? Is it just anchored to the dash?

Looking good Nick...way to stick with it.

Is there any way to stick a different air filter box (stock 3b or S4/S6) in there...that cone filter just looks...

Glad you're keeping it. At that price it would have been a steal for someone !!

Thanks guys! Alex I'll get some pics of the mounting and write up some details.

I'm also planning on doing a new air filter situation, most likely some kind of self-made airbox with a new filter. I've seen some of those mushroom style filters but are those the ones to go with? Open to suggestions on that front. Only thing is that it has to stay above the path of rain as this will be driven in bad weather.

Also trying to find a local bead blast cabinet I can use for an hour or so to clean up some bits to paint. Hopefully this week I'll get the parts cleaned up.

Ram Mount:;

I used the following pieces for my ram mount:

Base: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002KO5XVU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

1" Extension: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005KWPJ04/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

X-Grip 7" Tablet Holder: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006OQQ27E/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

USB Extension Cable to go to my serial to usb adapter on VEMS Econoseal: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00C7S1B4W/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Mounting to the dash:
I put the tablet on the mount, extension and base and held it up to the dash to get a reference point on the wood panel where to drill the holes for the base. Once I did that, then I drilled the holes through the base. I can't remember the size of the bolts but I used metric allen head bolts (5mm ?). With the holes drilled through the wood panel, I then put it onto the dash (no need to put the back plates on the wood panel, they are super hard to get off and just not needed at this stage) and marked the the spots to drill through the dash. With the wood panel off, I drilled the dash. I then put the base on the wood panel (off the dash) and decided to put the usb cable hole to the left of the base. This should keep it somewhat out of sight. With that drilled I marked the dash again and drilled the dash. The bolts I used for the base go through the base and the dash. They are roughly 2" long bolts. I also got big fender washers to spread out the load. This seems to work well and even though the Xgrip mount will rock back and forth if you do so with your hand, it stays put while driving.

Pics:

I wish they had these air filters out when I built mine, pretty much identical to what I hacked together.
http://www.spectreperformance.com/searc ... ?prod=9831