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Old 09-17-2012, 02:45 PM   #601
NAZSTI
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Nice job Ken! Cant wait to see it all together again. Did ya do the HFS Setup?
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Old 10-04-2012, 01:45 AM   #602
Evil Imports
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Ken and i were working on his manifold tonight, coming out great since we only spent about a hour or so on it so far




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Old 10-04-2012, 12:17 PM   #603
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Quote:
Originally Posted by djelly84 View Post
damn that looks good!!!



hahaha I know how you feel! That looks sick as hell man! I'm glad you did before and after pics, love the transformation.

OK...i'm assuming you already know (reply that you do to make me feel assured/look stupid) but otherwise listen carefully...if you haven't re-assembled ABS already...before you bring brake fluid (aka "devil juice") anywhere near the car...at every brake fitting, ABS motor, pretty much the entire ****ing engine bay, like cover with paper towels and shop rags and anything else you can think of. What I did was put paper towels below all the brake fittings/junctions and then towels around the whole master cylinder/ reservoir area...and still, like one drop somehow got spilled on my shock tower and really ruined my whole decade. I ****ing hate brake fluid. God i hate brake fluid sooooooo much. I hate it.


but seriously like one drop. and now there is a quarter size spot of metal amongst the paint. i ****ing hate brake fluid.

that looks awesome though...god i hate brake fluid.
Yeah, I always manage to screw something up on reinstall. I'll scratch it or it it with brake fluid probably. On the bay, I'm going to put some drop cloths down to try to block any fluids or grease of junk. We'll see how it goes. But I totally understand where you're coming from.

Quote:
Originally Posted by azscooby View Post
Might be too late now but Space Age sells a clear that has a hardener in it (or catalyst or whatever it is that make auto paint so good.)
They can actually put it in a rattle can, though it does has a short shelf life, like 24 hours or something. They told me about it when I did my last project.

You should look into getting a bead blaster. We have one at my work and it is freaking amazing! I'm slowly bringing in my car piece by piece....

But I'm sure you'll get the same amazing results with all of the time you put into it!

Remember I've got dibs on the vf36!
It is too late. I used a caliper clear that should be fairly hard, heat resistant and chemical resistant. We'll see how it holds up. If it ends up going to ****, then I'll do it again when I get the car painted next year or two (it will probably get done anyway). I just tell myself it couldn't look much worse than the factory paint job that it replaced where you could see the primer in several spots. Again, not a show car, I just want it to look nicer.

Quote:
Originally Posted by 02blkwagn19 View Post
Looks great Ken! Much better than the crappy base coat subaru throws in there.
Thanks, I can't wait to see it back together.

Quote:
Originally Posted by KP View Post
It really sucks that this Ken guy is such a tasteless ricer...
Quoted for truth.
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Old 10-04-2012, 12:24 PM   #604
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Evil Imports View Post
Ken and i were working on his manifold tonight, coming out great since we only spent about a hour or so on it so far




Thanks for the help, Jay.

I was having a hard time starting on this because the manifold was, by far, the cleanest STi manifold JDM or otherwise I've ever come across. I really didn't feel like cutting it up. But then Jay showed me a small scratch on it and said it was already damaged. Put this down as second stupidest thing I've done. Right up there with cutting a hole in my wagon's roof. But the results will be worth it hopefully.

We still have a fair amount of grinding and smoothing to do on the cut off parts and a general polishing of the casting lines and all. The stock mani is amazingly rough in places. It should go fast though now that I understand what I'm doing.
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Old 10-04-2012, 12:33 PM   #605
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kpluiten View Post
now that I understand what I'm doing.
and what exactly are you doing? i don't understand it.
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Old 10-04-2012, 12:42 PM   #606
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BACANA View Post
and what exactly are you doing? i don't understand it.
I am removing all the extra mounting points and chunks of aluminum that will not be needed on my setup. The stock V8 Spec-C manifold is covered in useless (for me) mounts. This should help to clean it up and make it look a bit nicer.

I wish I had taken some before shots, but I forgot. I found these pictures though which show exactly what mine looks like.







If you compare this to the above pictures, you can see what I removed.
  • Top Grounding Points
  • Throttle Cable Mount
  • Fuel Rail Cage Mounts
  • etc

I will also need to use some aluminum solder to fill some of the small holes left behind, but that should be easy enough. Jay and I are hoping to make it to powder coat early next week.
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Old 10-04-2012, 01:14 PM   #607
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oh. thanks for the clarification! When i saw the pics i thought you were polishing...and I was like..."that's good progress?" and "just take it to a sand blaster" haha. now i understand. Yeah that is a super good idea and will look way better. I regret not doing this on mine. what color powder coat or is it a secret???
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Old 10-05-2012, 06:43 PM   #608
joebud
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I like the super clean look on the manifolds. It's little details like this that make the build!
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Old 10-05-2012, 08:39 PM   #609
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Quote:
Originally Posted by joebud View Post
I like the super clean look on the manifolds. It's little details like this that make the build!
once the manifold is powder coated it should look great with all the things shaved off. wish i took a pic of it before i dropped it off at our powdercoater today
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Old 10-30-2012, 09:13 PM   #610
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OK, I think it's time for some updates. Work has been killer and time is tight so I've been doing a lot of this in shorter 1 to 2 hour intervals late at night or in between plans. As a result, my work is scattered and poorly documented.

But everyone likes pictures, right?

I've started reassembling the bay. Slowly. I'm almost done now (minus the motor).

Just getting started:


Unmasking: Paint flakes and dust EVERYWHERE.





Fuse box back in place. All harnesses into and out of the box were stripped and re-wrapped.


I also used this opportunity to remove any extra wires from the harnesses. This included ones for pumps,factory alarm, day time running lights and the like.

The gray plug on the right is for daytime running lights (the module) and the one on the right is for the OEM alarm horn that is normally mounted on the passenger-side strut tower (my can never had one). Both cut.


Wires isolated:




Installing loom to cover the harness:




After that, the entire harness was wrapped with high temperature electrical tape. Heat shielding will be added.

This general process was repeated for all the front clip harnesses.

Last edited by kpluiten; 10-30-2012 at 09:23 PM.
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Old 10-30-2012, 09:53 PM   #611
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I purchased a new Deka EXT20L light-weight battery after having bad experiences with two Odyssey PC680's. The Deka is about $74 compared to the Odyssey PC680 at $125. It is as small and about as light. Deka actually makes the Braille batteries which sell for $200+. The Braille batteries are literally Deka's with some fancy coverings and carbon fiber stickers. Oh, and Braille lies about the battery's output by claiming peak values for CCA's rather than sustained.

The Deka model I have is commonly rebranded as "Big Crank"...

Anyway, I decided to install it on it's side. Being an AGM (absorbed glass mat) battery, it will not leak in this orientation. I used a Kartboy Tie-down because it looked nice and I like Kartboy and lost my OEM part, but the stock tie-down should would fine. I used the brass battery lugs off the old Odyssey battery.



In this position, the ground cable to the engine works perfectly, but the 4-gauge wire to the starter is too short, as is the 8-gauge wire to the fuse box. Rather than messing with extending the factory stuff, I bought the supplies to make my own cables. Most of the parts came from McMaster Carr, an industrial supply house online.

This is the longest write-up you'll ever read on making a simple battery cable, but perhaps someone, somewhere will find it handy. Making a high-amperage cable is not the place to cut corners on your car. After seeing some of the stereo/electronics installs people do on their cars...

I bought 3 feet of 2-gauge battery cable. This stuff is heavy duty. Battery cable often has a much thicker insulation than cheap stereo stuff you buy at Wal-mart or the dollar store.


I bought some 2-gauge (#2 AWG or American Wire Gauge) loop terminals from Pico. These were the most robust ones I could find. They are coated to help with conduction and prevent corrosion.




Check out how much thicker this Pico unit is than a typical cheapie loop connector. Those thin ones do not hold up well to repeated use/vibration. This particular one came with a stereo install kit I got a Fry's Electronics a long time ago.


Wire stripped and shrink wrap installed:


Ready to crimp:
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Old 10-30-2012, 09:53 PM   #612
kpluiten
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Squeeze in a vice with aluminum jaws:


"Crimp" completed. The factory has better tools for this crimp, but for only 2 crimps, it wasn't worth the money. I hung the loop on a nail and could not pull it off so it should be nice and tight.


Shrink wrap in place. This is the "adhesive style" shrink tube with glue inside. It become hot and the glue melts creating a nice seal to prevent corrosion. It's marginally more expensive and worth it for outdoors connections. It's also very thick. Which you want to prevent wear and grounding.


Heat the wrap with a heat gun evenly. This is the result. Notice the glue that is pushed out on the edges:
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Old 10-30-2012, 10:22 PM   #613
chubbsub
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Nice write-up on those terminals man! That engine bay looks sexy btw
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Old 10-30-2012, 10:48 PM   #614
05bluesti
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Finish this already, didn't you learn the first time to not take everything apart lol
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Old 10-30-2012, 10:49 PM   #615
amroof
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NOW GET THAT ENGINE DONE! <3 you!
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Old 10-30-2012, 10:56 PM   #616
Evil Imports
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Quote:
Originally Posted by amroof View Post
NOW GET THAT ENGINE DONE! <3 you!
We are going to get the engine done and in right after SEMA
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Old 10-30-2012, 11:07 PM   #617
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Evil Imports View Post
We are going to get the engine done and in right after SEMA
Do it now, what's stopping you?
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Old 10-30-2012, 11:21 PM   #618
kpluiten
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I got some STi headlights a few years ago which come with the headlight levelers. While the light portion is plug and play, the levelers were not because it wasn't an option on the WRX. On the 2006 Headlights I have, the leveler system uses a three pole connector. Earlier years like 02-05 use 6 pole terminals.

Doing some research on the lights, I found that most guys simply cut the connector off the headlight housing and hard-wire the levelers into their car. I didn't like the thought of this since I prefer factory connectors and I want to be able to remove my headlights with ease. I got my hands on a 2006 STi harness but found that the connectors for the levelers had been cut. So I got on the internet and began searching Japanese connector suppliers until I found the source of the connector I needed. I was able to order samples. Enough to make 5 pairs. Now it was possible to wire these in like factory.

It should also be noted that the 06-07 STi uses a different style switch than the 02-05's. You can interchange them, but it's not straight forward, so I stayed with the 2006 style switch. I was able to pull the switch harness connector off the STi harness so I didn't have to hard-wire the switch either.

The connector consists of 4 main parts: the housing, the terminals, the seals, and the lock (green square piece of plastic):


First you strip the wire back and install the silicon/rubber seal. The terminal is then crimped into place. It has two sets of crimp legs, one set for the contact with the wire and one set (the taller ones) to hold the seal/insulation in place. There are special tools to crimp these properly, but I don't have them. Instead, I simply used pliers to carefully fold the crimp legs down. You have to be careful not to distort the terminal too much or it won't fit in the connector housing. To make sure they were strong, I soldered the wore to the terminal ever so slightly. This isn't needed if you have proper crimp tools.




After you have your wires and terminal crimped, you simply insert them into the connector housing until they click.


Then you insert the teal/green lock into the front of the connector. This locks the terminals into place so you can't yank them out when working with the connector.


The wire I used was a bit thick, but it works. These connectors were designed for #18 AWG, but I used #16 AWG because it's what I had on hand.




In that last picture, you can see the wires leading into the factory harness. OEM-esque!
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Old 10-30-2012, 11:33 PM   #619
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I ran the wires for the leveler system (two total, Power and Signal) into the cabin by running them with the factory harness under the driver's side fender. At this point, it was just a bit too hard to split the loom and tuck these two wires, so they got their own smaller loom next to it.


There is a rubber boot near the left side of the pedal area on the driver's side of the car where the factory harness comes in. On it, there is a small nipple that has no wires going through it. From the inside of the car, I poked a coat hanger through this nipple and used it to pull the wires into the pedal area inside the cabin.

Inside the car looking at the boot:




Outside hooking the wires:


Pulling the wires through:


After the wires were in, I finished the wiring to the factory connector for the switch. Basically, there are 5 wires to deal with: Ground, Illumination reference, Signal, Power, and Illumination power. I was able to tap the Fog Light switch for the necessary wirse which also means it's now fused on the Fog circuit for protection. It's the connector on the right.
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Old 10-30-2012, 11:37 PM   #620
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This is the finished product with the headlight assemblies in the car. Hard to see, but it's there. You can see the red, green and black wires slightly.
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Old 10-31-2012, 02:33 AM   #621
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So I have a set of Redline hood actuators that I'm installing. As a result I don't need the factory hood prop anymore. Which means I don't need the hood prop holder on the radiator mounts anymore either.

First I cut the tabs off the brackets with a hack saw.


Then I ground them smooth and rounded. They will be powder coated and used to hold my Koyo unit in place.


Here's some other random pictures of wires I removed from the factory harness. These wires were for the emissions pump.




I followed the wires back for a long way into the harness. I completely removed the ground and clipped and isolated the supply. I repeated this process a few times on various extra unnecessary connectors.


Gone.
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Old 10-31-2012, 02:43 AM   #622
kpluiten
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I also dressed up exposded wires in the engine bay with expanding nylon mesh sleeve material. Here is an ABS sensor harness lead. First I carefully removed the terminals from the connector body. Then I slid the sleeve material and shrink wrap tubes on the harness and reinstalled the connector. The finished product looks pretty neat.

Connector removed:
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Old 10-31-2012, 02:44 AM   #623
yman
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you didn't happen to keep the yellow tab on the radiator bracket did you?
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Old 10-31-2012, 11:21 AM   #624
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Quote:
Originally Posted by yman View Post
you didn't happen to keep the yellow tab on the radiator bracket did you?
The one that holds the prop rod? Yeah, I still have that somewhere if you want it.
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Old 10-31-2012, 12:41 PM   #625
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Nice work on the leveler Ken. Just picked up the switch with pigtail for mine on the RS, might tackle that project soon.
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