Well I've been here for a good few years now. probably about time I posted a thread about all the ins and outs of my car and general build thread to keep track of whats going on.
Firstly I should explain the background of the car and the evoloutions Its gone through over the years
Well the saga all began in 2008 aged 18 when I sold my 2.5L V6 FWD '93 Ford Telstar TX5 XRi. I bought it for $2300 and then sold for $4000 after tidying it up a bit
I then used that $4000 to buy a manual Legnum VR4 in late november 2008.
After seeing the auction pic I couldn't wait to go pick it up.
Trademe Pic...
and then then after getting it home and spending a few solid days of washing polishing and waxing it looked like this..
At this point the car was relatively stock the mods it had was
-HKS mushroom filter
-Black duracon ralliart gear knob
-Tein "Low Down Spec Cool Style Master" height adjustable suspension
-Fake HKS SSQV blow off valve
-Rays Gram Lights 57S Pro 17"x7" wheels
The only thing I had done, was the Front bumper was in a bad way and the tow hook cover was missing so another member here Zitchu gave me a facelift tow hook cover he had laying around and I got a local spray painters to re-spray the bumper and attach the tow hook cover. This is the way it stayed apart from the addition of a Gizzmo IBC electronic boost controller until...
In early 2009 I moved to Christchurch to attend university. I joined the Universtity of Canterbury motorsport society dubbed "MOTOSOC" which gave me the oppurtunity to take the car for a blast around the local Ruapuna raceway. Unfortunatly a few sessions out on track the motor decided to snap a conrod punching a ~8" hole in the alloy section of the sump dropping all the oil onto the hot downpipes causing the engine bay to burst into flames
luckily I pulled off the tarmac and blasted the hell out of it with the fire extinguisher and another helpful chap in a skyline helped me push the broken car out of harms way.
After a depressing tow back to the halls of residence and a nights sleep I rung around some wreckers and horray! once just up the road from where I was living had a 6A13TT with only 30,000KMS for $500! SCORE. I of course had nowhere to perform the engine swap so I asked if I could buy it but not pick it up until I could hire a crane, find a car to tow it to a garage and of course borrow a garage for a weeked, to which the man at the wreckers responed "All good mate just buy me a bottle of bourbon and we can do it at my garage next weekend". turns out he was a fan of the VR4's so was keen to help. A weekend of work and a bottle of bourbon later my car was running again! yay
Inevitably, a few months later. Driving the car like the teenager I was caused the AYC to poo its pants and spread oil and gear teeth all over the road. and due to my lack of job at the time caused the car to stay parked up for a few more months until I decided to sell on my Teins to pay for an open ST-R diff. I replaced the suspension with stock stuff so a bit of a downgrade, but yet again the car was back in action!
In this time I also ditched the HKS mushroom for a stock airbox with K&N panel and sold the fake HKS SSQV in favor of a stock quiet BOV
Not alot happened between then and until I found a job due to lack of funds but the next thing to happen was I found a set of Evo 6 Brembos, discs, pads and braided evo lines on Trademe for $650 so snapped them up! only to find out they didnt fit under my +48ET rays, Bugger
So off to see Jeremy at Evoparts, turns out he Had a set of Evo 6.5 Tommi Mak edition wheels with Dunlop Direzza Z1 semi slicks for $1300, bought those and after getting Kalon to Paint up my brembos nice and bright red again everything was fitted to the car and looking good!
The next thing was a bigger FMIC which I decided on a 600x300x76 this required a small P/S cooler to be connected up to bypass the stock one and a PFL drivers side hard pipe. but that all went smoothly, no pics of FMIC install unfortunately
Then as expected from a 190,000km old clutch, it started slipping so on the hunt I was for a new one. after reading disaster threads about people using Evo clutches on VR4 flywheels and Not liking the Idea of the rubbish stock flexiplate flywheel I got a solid CrMo light weight steel flywheel made which weighed just over 5kg's I coupled this with a Exedy 7223HDCB cushioned button clutch as I wanted to retain some driveablility over a 5 puck clutch. this combo was beautiful to drive. assloads of clamp and the light flywheel seemed to give it a bit more go as-well.
Next on the list was urathane engine mounts as the stock ones were well shagged. they got rid of a wee rattle that was coming from the D/S engine mount
After putting up with the tortuous handling of the open diff I picked up another AYC diff for $100 and bunged it back in. which didn't last very long at all so the open diff went back in yet again so I rapidly started searching for Evo LSD's and after getting ripped off over trademe for an Evo 9 unit ~400 bucks out of pocket I found an Evo 8 RS unit which went into the car quick smart.
The rear LSD was installed at the same time as the RWD conversion transfer case I had purchased from Kenneth. and after a spirited drive through the hills this is what happened
OOPS!. Firstly The P/S Axle snapped at the diff. Replaced that, then the D/S Axle snapped. Replaced that and then the diff went KABOOM so out with the RWD transfercase and back to 4WD the car went. along with the LSD going into another ST-R diff case with gears that were in one piece. (for those counting yes that's diff #4 )
Time to end this post I think
To be continued...