Frankiman's street/track GTR project

[Rush_in]

this thread is like a damn drug! i just cant get enough!

[Samwest]

Heey! nice diffuser, exactly what im after to, where did you get it? cheers. Nice thread btw!

[frankiman]

i got it from Generis Labolatory, C-Unit on this board

[scottygtr]

Heey! nice diffuser, exactly what im after to, where did you get it? cheers. Nice thread btw!

I agree, I always look forward to Frankiman's updates!

[motoking332]

awesome thread, keep up the great work

[Xeno-Vibe]

I loved reading your last 39 chapters but I read them all at once and have since forgot what happened. xD

[Redone]

05/09/2011

What boost level?

[frankiman]

peak boost was 17,5psi, peak power was @ 15,5psi

where did you find this?

oh.. my teasers..
i should take em' down

[Woodly]

That diffuser is awesome looking, and love the clearance hah

[frankiman]

Chapter 41 - Caged in
week4 - 2011, part 1/2

disclaimer :
the following story depicts actions that occured between May 22 and 26 2011
information is recalled purely from memory, endure with me

if you've read the last chapter, you have probably been wondering what the last picture was about?

well during the winter, i worked my arse off to find something i needed rather than wanted,
so i got this;




long story short, i couldn't find an affordable cage in Quebec, and didn't want to have it shipped since it would cost so much,
the reason i needed it was simple, to be allowed to use a racing harness during a time attack event, a roll bar was needed,
but the only things i saw for sale were full cages when i only wanted the rear half, and no one wanted to sell half of theirs,
so i got in contact with a shaddy caracter here in Quebec, who said he'd sell me his full cage cheap,
but then he tells me he sold it to someone else.. crap,
luckily that someone else knew what i was looking for and contacted me and offered to sell me only the rear portion of the cage he had just bought since he needed just the front bits,
and that person was GTRC's SKYGTR,
he even agreed to drive halfway (between Montreal and Quebec City) to meet, super cool guy,

what i got was 3 pieces of the rear section of a genuine Cusco roll cage, it was all wrapped with a protective foam,
i took it all off, and threw it in the garbage (i think)

so since at the time of the install, i was working full time at an internship, and i wanted so modding done to the cage, my dad jumped in again to help,
he brought the cage to a welding shop, literally around the corner from my house,
since i wanted to fit an harness bar to the cage itself, i had brackets welded to the cage at particular spot that i had measured;




i also had a simple L bar made to fit with the brackets



then, since i had previously removed everything from inside the car, i test fitted the cage's hoop,
and since i was keeping the carpet, the cage was a bit tight and i needed to wack it into place with a rubber hammer;



then put the L bar in its place to see if my approximate dimensions for the brackets was working out;



i even bolted the driver seat in and saw that the brackets didn't go far back enought,
the seat would hit the bar when slid all the way back, how i drive;



but before any of this was done, i had gone to another welding shop next to where i worked to get a cross brace made,
since i didn't have the Cusco original
the dimensions i gave the fabricator were based on measurements i took of a friend's Cusco cage during a meet earlier in the season;



and this is what i got,
not too bad considering it cost me 30$ in all;



but the day i was supposed to pick it up, he still hadn't made it,
he told me to go get something to eat (i was after closing time and he was alone in the shop),
and it would be done when i came back, but i was pissed because he asked me again the length of the bar,
in a hurry i think i told him the wrong length,
anyway, when i came back a full hour later it still wasn't done because other people had came by,
when i pressed him to finish he was drilling the holes, and i told him i'd take care of it,
but they were mostly done, at the dimension i told him;



if finished them with my trusty press drill;



using a pneumatic sander, i smoothed it all to death;




took off about 1/2 a pound of metal in total (with the holes)



while the main hoop was in, i placed the other 2 pieces of the cage pretty much where they would go,
and attempted to fit the cross brace;



but obviously i didn't, since the length i told the fabricator in a hurry was 42" not 43....


the next day my dad offered to bring it to the shop next to our house to get it fixed and also have the brackets modified on the cage
i had longer brackets welded more towards the back, and also added one on the passenger side...



to go with this,
a full width harness bar that would be much stronger;



the cross brace only had a bit added onto it to make it 43" long



i firmly attached the cage upright to be able to work on it without it falling on the car;



i drilled some holes in the brackets (not fun drilling something that isn't rigidly fixed onto something, it vibrates..)





then i placed the bar where it would go, marked some spots with a sharpie and drilled them on the press drill



more about the cage in the week5 update....


but its not over for week4, keep reading -->

[frankiman]

Chapter 41 - Caged in
week4 - 2011, part 2/2

disclaimer :
the following story depicts actions that occured between May 22 and 26 2011
information is recalled purely from memory, endure with me

during the 4th week, i worked alot on the cage, but during the days where i didn't have parts of the cage because they were at a shop,
i had to find something else to do

so i had a friend help me, the good friend who helped me with the turbo swap,
the plan was to change the location of the Climate Control Module, again...
in 2010 i had placed it in the glove box to liberate space in the center console to put electronic gizmos theres
but the fact that beeing in the glove box, upside down, far from the driver, made it very unpleasant to use, at all time
so i decided to move the control module much closer

before moving forward, we had to take some steps back, what i did in 2010 had to be undone,
the glove box was removed and also the module's wiring harness



this is what the harness looks like,
i knew it was seperate from the rest of the wiring, since i had sold that harness from my old GTR,
its comprised of 2 different main sections, one for each plug, with 18 wires each
since there isn't an infinite amount of main colors in the alphabet (wait.. what?) not all 36 wires were of different colors,
so repeating colors were identified with matching zip-ties at each end;



now came time to lengthen each wires, 36 wires meant 72 solders (ouch)
so i made my buddy a comfortable work station and gave him all the necessary tools and materials;



after more than an hour, him working on the wiring and me on the inside of the car, we both got pretty tired and started messing around;



at the end of that particular day, this is what the partially completed harness looked like;



more on this in the week5 update



---------------------------------


while the wiring was beeing done, i was working insinde the car working on something to replace the rear seats with,
because of the cage, i wouldn't be able to use the rear seats,
and i didn't want to simply remove them and have to look at the car's ugly sheet metal, i still have all the interior in place after all, its a street car

so the idea was to make some sort of deck, that could be used to store stuff, anything, while still looking appropriate, OEM-ish

using trusty -simple to work with- 1" x 1/8" aluminium bars, i made custom supports,
since 1/8" i pretty thick, you have to bend the bar with a big radius or the metal with crack;



the bars were bent multiple times, to make sure they were level, while still using existing fixing points



the end result;



then i added a brace between each support and the drive-shaft tunnel;



by tapping the brace at each end, i could fix it to each support with a simple tapered screw,
so there wouldn't be anything protruding upwards of the supports;



then using part of a huge cartboard box, i outlined the basic shape i wanted with a sharpie,
then cut it with an exacto knife,
after that it was just simply tying to fit it, and make adjustements, cut more and more of it,
till i had the final design down;



more on this in the week5 update



---------------------------------


another thing i was working on was the refurbishment of my Rays ''duralumin'' lug nuts,
during week3 i had buffed them all to bare metal,
the new color would be done with Dupli-color MetalCast anodizing effect spray paint



i had setup a sort of paint booth (not) since it was windy that day;



i was really much liking the color;



and since i wanted to have multiple coats on them to resist better against the element,
i had to find something to hold them, all 16 remaining, between each coat,
so i used every big impact socket i had, with any pen-type items i could find,
it looked like a field blooming with blue flowers;





----------------------------

while those were drying, i worked on my ARC cooling plate

i had previously drilled out the rivets holding the nameplate and painted the thin aluminium sheet metal with epoxy semi-gloss paint;

(don't worry it dried evenly)


i got small-a.s.s. screws and nuts from a computer store to put the nameplate back on;



it ended up looking pretty cool, much sleeker;





----------------------------


during that week i also purchased fasteners for the cage, high grade nuts and bolts from a speciallty shop
this is no home-depot stuff fool !




also picked up special fittings for the catch can from an hydraulics shop;



added some more trophies to my trunk;



and.... got this in the mail...





thats all for week4

more to come about week5 soon, stay tuned !!

[rmiguelcar]

Itīs a awsome story, itīs a great project too

[LuckyGTR]

Great guy too !!

[frankiman]

next chapter will be posted tomorrow morning!

[cschepp]

Can't wait!!! This is awesome. Love how you put it all in chapters man. Alot of valuable info here