sigh

Last weekend was spent tearing the engine in the 240 down, the top half at least. With oil in the coolant and chocolate milk lookin' oil, all signs pointed to a blown head gasket. Only one way to repair that...What a rat's nest the engine bay is. I hope I can figure out all the vacuum lines....

Looked at the block, it didn't look cracked, haven't checked for warpage though; looked at the head, it didn't look cracked but had some warpage between cylinders 2 and 3 that is close to being out of tolerance; and looked at the head gasket, which looked to be OK. To summarize, nothing obvious jumped out as being the problem. Damn. I'm hoping that since the head (block?) is aluminum, the old age and high miles just worked their voodoo and caused a leak, and a tear down/rebuild fixes it. If it doesn't, it means the car won't be on the road at all until I can drop an SR20 in there.

Recently I've been going over my whole 'Phase 1 and Phase 2' plan in my head. Increasingly, the line between the two is blurred, as I occupy myself with taking things off the 240 that won't be going back on. That has got me to thinking....

As I see it, there are six stages of car customization: stock, aftermarket, tuned, track, race, and show.

Stock: Car is more or less the way it was bought. Some convenience items (step bars, mud flaps, floor mats, vent visors) and dealer accessories fall into this category. Streetabilty is factory, or slightly improved.

Aftermarket: Parts are bought 'off the shelf' with the intent to improve appearance, with some improvement in performance. Things like kit-exhausts, tuning chips, 'cold'-air intake, regular wheels, non-functional body kits, lowering springs, etc fall here. The majority of vehicles that have 'work' done to them are found here. Streetability is slightly reduced in most cases, but still very useful.

Tuned: While still using mostly 'off the shelf' parts, more advanced and 'tunable' parts are used in a serious attempt to improve performance. Adjustable coil-over suspensions, functional body kits, boost controllers, and even hand-held tuners are here. The car is quicker then stock, and may be tuned for a specific kind of racing, but car see only/mostly the street. Streetability is reduced quite a bit.

Track: Here parts start coming off the car to lighten it up, fabrication is involved. The car is familiar with the track and has been adjusted and tuned to excel on the track with sacrifices for the street. Streetability is all but thrown out the window, but still may be 'street legal'.

Race: Special parts, lots of fabrication, and extensive testing and tuning and adjusting. You know its a race car when you see it. Not street legal, and there is no streetability.

Show: This is a floater of a category...and it can involve any aspect from any of the other categories. The difference here is that lots of time, money, and effort has been put forth to maximize the looks. Whereas a track car may use lightweight, shallow lipped wheels, a show car uses heavier, deep lip wheels. Car sees little street time, and even less track time; though the car may be fully capable of performing very well on the track. Most magazine features, unless they are actual race cars, are show cars.

Now, with all that said, I was originally going to go with a Aftermarket car with Phase 1, and Tuned/Track with Phase 2. Then I kinda decided to go full Track. Now I'm thinking of going full Race. Just I'm not sure if I'm ready to take that huge leap from Track to Race. I'd love to have a RACE CAR, I mean, who wouldn't? Just I'm not sure if I want to sacrifice the street of it. Of course, the '66 isn't much of a street car....so the leap isn't that big really.

just add paste

You can now find a widescreen wallpaper version of the Ford Fairlane lineart/vexel/vector I recently completed. Even though I feel this is one of my weaker attempts, I'm starting to dig it...link fer the lazy.

'nother line art...finally

Yup, I finally got off my duff and finished a line art/vexel that I've had lying around half-finished for awhile now. Find it over at deviantart. I'll be making a wallpaper version soon and add it to my library here.

good....feels so good

Got some pics of the of the new "DTM" style mirrors up...find 'em here.

BETA BABY!

Am I happy? Yes. Why? I'm gonna be participating in perhaps the biggest and most hotly anticipated video game's in recent history Beta test. What's a Beta test? It's an unfinished version of software that is released, usually in limited numbers, to a select few individuals to test and find bugs, among other things. What is this game? None other the Halo Fucking 3. Yup. Exactly how many will be in the Beta? I'm not sure of exact numbers, but I'd say maybe 25-30,000 people. Sounds like a lot, but really, it isn't. I'm really looking forward to it.

I had said previously that if a demo of Halo 3 were to become available, that I wouldn't play it in fears of being spoiled. So why did I even attempt to get in the Beta and why and I'm excited about it? Simple, really, and totally not hypocritical. When a demo is out, its more or less done, and is just a teaser. The vast majority of bugs have been found and squashed, and most/all of the playability stuff has been sorted out. If I play the Halo 3 Demo and don't like something about it, there is little I can do but bitch and hope it gets changed...with the Beta, that's different.

However, since this Beta isn't super exclusive, I may just but hoping for too much if I think that any bugs/glitches/annoyances I find and report in the Beta will actually get fixed. Summed up, there is nothing I can do to fix something that's wrong with a demo, but I can help make Halo 3 better by being in the Beta. It's almost a dis-service to myself to NOT participate. Or something equally as geeky sounding.

News on the '66...
The headers we've got installed currently aren't going to work. All that work to get them to fit, and the damn things won't work now. The reason is that the steering linkage won't connect to the pitman arm because the headers hang down too low. Running a drop pitman arm/idler arms won't work either, as they'd then be just a few inches off the ground. I'd rather not have something uber important like steering being the first thing to run aground. Fuck that. So....off the Summit to try different sets...

News of the '89...
I started chipping up some of the tar-based sound deadener thats stuck down everywhere. For the time being, I'm just gonna get it up off where the back seat goes. Eventually, when I make the jump to Phase 2/race car, all of it will come up. Its a bit of a bitch to remove, but it'll really clean up the areas where it was, and more importantly, save a fair bit of weight. The downside is more heat/cold/noise...oh well.

The passenger side mirror on the 240 has something bad wrong with it the glass...its all warped or something, looks like fake glass, and you just can't use it for anything. So I snagged a set of "F1/DTM style" aero mirrors off of eBay for $20. I wasn't expecting too much, and its a good thing, as while they will work out, I do have to drill out the mounting holes and tap them so they'll even mount. No biggie for me really, I'm sure others would curse, complain, and send them back for a refund. I'll grab some pics tomorrow.

progression is better then regression

Got a few new pics up...link for the quick/lazy. They're just a few teaser shots of how my interior will shape up to be. Majority of the panels are just popped into place. I was anxious and wanted to see what everything was going to look like. I gotta confess, I'm lovin' the look. The grey headliner accents the black and blue perfectly and brightens up the whole interior. Here's the lucky bit, I wanted grey suede that was on the blue scale, to tie into the blue suede, and that's just what I got. On sale too. You see, there are tons of way to make 'grey'. You can have perfect grey-scale with nothing but black and white pigments; or, you can have hints of color giving a really desaturated look. That's what I wanted. I'm a lucky boy so far with this 240...I hope it continues.

In other news, I've been shopping for wheels, er, dreaming for wheels. I think I found some that will really work, MB Weapons. Not only are they cheap, about $165 a wheel, but they come in 18x8 and 18x9 widths. I'd like to get some 18x10s for the rear, but I'll be happy with the 9" wide wheels. I like how cheap they are because, well, I don't want to drop $3000+ on wheels. I found some others the I really like, but they are like $600 a wheel...eff that. Something I quite like about them is that they aren't a double bolt pattern wheel, like you see on most cheaper wheels. Hell, both the wheels on the Ranger and '66 are multi-pattern. With only 5 holes instead of 10, it gives the wheel a much cleaner look. I'll still have to do some measuring to see how these wheels will fit, but I'm liking them.

less weight is more good

One of the things I like most about my 240 is that it is more or less the perfect starter for a racer/high performance street vehicle. You see, it lacks power mirrors, power locks, power windows, sunroof, cruise control, HICAS, and just about any other un-needed power/luxury items that add weight. I've taken the stock vehicle a bit further and have removed the speakers (it didn't have a radio), and automatic seat belts.

I've more or less decided to build the car up in two phases, Phase 1 and Phase 2. Phase 1 is getting it into a driver with a few luxuries, such as the suede doors and headliner (which I did today). Phase 2 will come when I get my Silvia nose and SR20DET. That's when I'll go with a racing seat, strip out the interior and all that good stuff. Now, here's the tricky bit, there is no timeline for any of this, nor is it concrete. I may have a few 'Phase 2' bits in 'Phase 1', and vice versa. I'll just go with whatever feels right. I'll listen to the car and she'll tell me what she wants.

OK, so get this, you know that V8 I built for the '66? Well, it wasn't a V8 at all. More like a V7. Turned out that cylinder #1 has, for some unknown reason, a gallery that runes from the front of the head into the combustion chamber. Without compression, there is no power. So that V8 ran on only 7 cylinders. Whilst at the junkyard yesterday, picked up an aftermarket coil and threw it in to replace the stock, most probably underpowered, coil. So with the V8 compressing on all 8 cylinders once again, and with a better coil, that puppy sounds better. Has a bit better response, but at high RPMs sounds much smoother...and dare I say menacing. My baby is a monster.

tint, be gone!

For the past few days I've spent many hours in award positions breathing various noxious fumes in enclosed places. In other words, I've been detinting my cars windows. Had my mom help me on the rear window, used a heat gun to heat up the adhesive from the outside whilst I peeled and scraped on the inside. Man, it looks effing so much better. Nice, clean, clear windows rock my world. Pics tomorrow...

....180?

I'm not sure...but is this a Nissan 180SX? Either way, hotT car...

good weekend is good

How I do love progress. Work went along on both the '66 and the 240. The '66 now has mocked up (and working) transmission linkage, mostly done brake system. All that's left now is finish up the brake plumbing, fill it up and bleed it; a few front suspension bits and she can finally roll, and stop, on her own. F'n sweet.

News on the 240...I'm starting to get the interior put back together. Got the carpet black and installed, and got the main dash in. Still have quite a few panels left to paint, I'd guess around 20 or so total, but it's slowly coming along. It really looks tons better in black then that nasty brown....the blue bits should offset it nicely as well. Still trying the figure out some accent pieces to mix up the otherwise all black interior.

so many options, so little money

So I've been doing some figuring and number crunching to try to reach my goal of a clean S13 with some good power.

Option 1- RB25DET motor
Cost- >$3500
Pros- 250HP/298 ft.lbs, stock. Bulletproof motor. Unique. Super high HP ceiling.
Cons- Cost, probably have closer to $4500 to get it done. Lengthy and difficult fabrication. Higher weight of motor would require beefed up suspension.

Option 2- SR20DET motor
Cost- $2900
Pros- 'Bolt in'. Cheaper to make higher HP. Cost. Possible RHD conversion.
Cons- Cost, looking at an additional $2000 and still not have the power of the RB25. Common swap. Lower HP ceiling.

That's what I'm debating right now. The SR20 is my default motor, but how effin awesome would the RB25 be? The SR20 is an inline 4, whilst the RB25 is an inline 6, and from a Skyline. I'm just a bit leery on the price of the RB25. I'd have to do a heck of a lot of fabrication to make it work, not that I'm afraid of fabrication, but that would lengthen the down time. I'm anxious to get it swapped. But, I'm looking at near the same amount of money to swap the SR20 and get just some basic performance upgrades (blow-off valve, clutch, radiator, e-fans, intercooler, pipes, motor mounts, plugs, fuel pump, etc), and probably still not get the same HP as the RB25, and certainly not the same torque. But then again, I'd almost have to spend the same amount of money in upgrades if I went with the RB25 as well. And with the SR20 clip, I'd at least have the option of a RHD conversion....

My second dilemma is when it comes to the front end conversion...

Option 1- Conversion w/ afermarket parts
Cost- $2100
Pros- Already have the aftermarket parts I want and won't have to buy seperate or have stock parts left over.
Cons- Not sure exactly everything I'd be getting

Option 2- Conversion, purchase aftermarket parts
Cost- $2200
Pros- On this one, I'd have the option of going back to 'stock' if I wanted. Could possibly sell stock parts to make up the difference
Cons- Extra parts to hold/get rid of. Possibly more expensive.

Now, this may seem a bit confusing, but both options contain the same things. Now on the second one, I KNOW I'd be getting a full body kit (front/rear bumpers and side skirts), and I KNOW I'd be getting a full widebody fender kit. With the first option, it only lists that I'd get a FRONT bumper and 'fenders', doesn't state if it includes side skirts, rear bumper, or rear wide fenders. Now both options are comparing identical parts. Also, with the second one, I could in theory sell the stock parts (front bumper, hood and fenders) and make some money back. The more I think about it, the more appealing the second option is to me. Even though I don't think I want the rear bumper in the body kit, it may decide to keep it once I get it.

So far, I've spent close to $4500 and still haven't touched to suspension of wheels....man, this is getting expensive already.