Jumbo's Silver FX - 2nd custom build
- Thread starter jumbosrule
- Start date
Dyno Results are in. Pretty big difference in Torque. Blue was the original config. Red is the new twin scroll turbo config but at the exact same boost levels. Green is higher boost levels, but still inside the transmission torque limits - so this will be the new baseline. It will just feel like a V8 rather than a Turbo V6.
This also means that tuning is done with new spark plugs and an oil change, now we are going through some daily driving testing to make sure cold & warm starts, odd accel and deccel events, general driveability is being ironed out.
And we have a couple other angles on the splash shield.
I'll be picking up the car this Friday so I'll be able to take her out this weekend to stretch her legs...
This also means that tuning is done with new spark plugs and an oil change, now we are going through some daily driving testing to make sure cold & warm starts, odd accel and deccel events, general driveability is being ironed out.
And we have a couple other angles on the splash shield.
I'll be picking up the car this Friday so I'll be able to take her out this weekend to stretch her legs...
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I dunno... A lot of V8's don't put THAT much power to the wheels!!!
I'm not gonna argue with ya - but we are just talking about throttle response; the torque curve is similarly shaped... mine's just bigger.
Hehehe. I said mine was bigger.
Scheduled pick-up for 1pm tomorrow! Can't explain how much I miss driving this car since I've been relegated to the family Tahoe for the past four months. Ok to drive but doesn't give me near the pleasure the FX does. I miss the cabin, the sound system, the sun roof... going to cars & coffee, meets and cruises... and I plan to hit a few of those this weekend.
Hehehe. I said mine was bigger.
Scheduled pick-up for 1pm tomorrow! Can't explain how much I miss driving this car since I've been relegated to the family Tahoe for the past four months. Ok to drive but doesn't give me near the pleasure the FX does. I miss the cabin, the sound system, the sun roof... going to cars & coffee, meets and cruises... and I plan to hit a few of those this weekend.
I would do a big EMOJI thumbs up if I knew how...
dragonh
Member
Looking awesome Brad! Especially with that Radiator brace.
Picked her up on Friday and stopped by Ruby's in Redondo Beach on my way home. It's a weekly Friday car show/meet during daylight savings.
As soon as I got home from picking her up, the radiator brace went on. I'm pretty pleased with the fit and quality of the piece. Considering the bar is not adjustable, it has to be spot on - the mounting holes are slightly oversized so the bar relies on the clamping force of the fasteners to lock it down. After driving I don't see any evidence of movement - it seems to be pretty well mounted. I havent had the chance to really feel the effect of the bar yet, but I do think it eliminated some front end shake & NVH at certain speeds on the highway. That alone was a plus. Coupled with the STB and I've got to believe where one is good, two is better to box in the big engine bay.
And I decided to go for a caliper upgrade... now that I work for StopTech and need to represent! I went from the red ST40 to the natural anodized STR40:
Before:
After:
Supercar Sunday this morning. I've missed this car.
The turbo obviously spools up faster and I can tell she pulls harder too - the difference in torque according to the dyno is pretty big - almost 20% more. I need some more seat time but I think that the dual wastegates make the turbo more responsive to changes in throttle so driving around the city and getting onto the freeway is more natural and less violent... if that makes sense.
As soon as I got home from picking her up, the radiator brace went on. I'm pretty pleased with the fit and quality of the piece. Considering the bar is not adjustable, it has to be spot on - the mounting holes are slightly oversized so the bar relies on the clamping force of the fasteners to lock it down. After driving I don't see any evidence of movement - it seems to be pretty well mounted. I havent had the chance to really feel the effect of the bar yet, but I do think it eliminated some front end shake & NVH at certain speeds on the highway. That alone was a plus. Coupled with the STB and I've got to believe where one is good, two is better to box in the big engine bay.
And I decided to go for a caliper upgrade... now that I work for StopTech and need to represent! I went from the red ST40 to the natural anodized STR40:
Before:
After:
Supercar Sunday this morning. I've missed this car.
The turbo obviously spools up faster and I can tell she pulls harder too - the difference in torque according to the dyno is pretty big - almost 20% more. I need some more seat time but I think that the dual wastegates make the turbo more responsive to changes in throttle so driving around the city and getting onto the freeway is more natural and less violent... if that makes sense.
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Picked up DragonH's STB to match the radiator brace I bought from him two weeks ago. Fitment is perfect and the shape of this brace is just sexier than my old GTSpec brace. Been a long time since I made a change under the hood like this. I'm sure the two together work better than either alone.
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dragonh
Member
Sexxxy
Tks Brad for putting up those pictures..Your Bay looks so sexy now with my braces(Haha) and take it from me or listen to the master Brad..These are the best quality braces on the market(No one even comes close)
Very surprised that the interest from other first gen members is relatively non-existent for these master pieces! Hopefully after seeing these photos and reading Brads review on the braces, more of you can own one of both of these custom made to order braces.
PM me for any questions.You won't regret it!
onthemove
Member
That missing check ball is probably the same one I confused myself with when installing the transgo. IPT said it didn't even need to be removed, yet it was in the instructions to be removed for cleaning? Whoever did the install forgot to put it back in. Too bad they didn't do what I did which was install the check ball & spring reversed or they would've known right away.
Damn, thought I was doing something original with the shift knob/steering wheel. If I look around enough, everything has been done by someone, somewhere and at sometime by someone driving something. Ha. Your FX looks real classy JR.
Time for some odd jobs. First trip back to the shop since the twin scroll turbo upgrades.
Got some silver powdercoated rear calipers & new pads, oil change with new cartridge and a check up of all systems. I took off the under-panel while doing some inspection and had to take a shot of the wastegate setup. Don't think I've posted it before.
Turns out I have a couple minor fuel issues. Two injectors are leaking past the seals, so all injectors are coming out to get re-blueprinted at RC engineering. We are also re-making a couple fuel lines for better routing.
My AC compressor is leaking... so that's going to get replaced as well.... and the fabricated under-panel was slightly damaged on the road - I sheared off three of the four fasteners on the back of the panel and they will need to be replaced/re-welded.
Only the AC compressor will hit the wallet harder than I wanted. Everything else is mostly labor and won't cost much in the way of parts.
Got some silver powdercoated rear calipers & new pads, oil change with new cartridge and a check up of all systems. I took off the under-panel while doing some inspection and had to take a shot of the wastegate setup. Don't think I've posted it before.
Turns out I have a couple minor fuel issues. Two injectors are leaking past the seals, so all injectors are coming out to get re-blueprinted at RC engineering. We are also re-making a couple fuel lines for better routing.
My AC compressor is leaking... so that's going to get replaced as well.... and the fabricated under-panel was slightly damaged on the road - I sheared off three of the four fasteners on the back of the panel and they will need to be replaced/re-welded.
Only the AC compressor will hit the wallet harder than I wanted. Everything else is mostly labor and won't cost much in the way of parts.
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The minor fuel issues grew a little bit... but they are related to the original fuel rails that were installed when the motor was built back in 2009. Apparently there is a new fuel rail design from CJM that changes the angle of the rail relative to the injectors so that the injectors seal better. Also, fuel dampers were added to the rails to eliminate pressure pulses. So I have new fuel rails and new fuel lines feeding them - all now forward compatible with E85 fuel. This is pretty much a natural evolution of their product - this is now the third and latest fuel rail design for the VQ35DE so I should be up to date!
I honestly believe I have had some form of fuel issues since I took delivery of the car four years ago. The only place it ever showed up was in my catch cans - they were always heavy on fuel as compared to the usual oily blow-by sludge. Nobody could ever really answer why that was the case because the car was not down on power until the external leak showed up a few weeks ago.
And on the good news front - the AC compressor wasn't actually bad. The oil leak was actually coming from above it and it dripped onto the compressor. After cleaning it up the compressor seems to be working normally. So what I thought I would spend on a compressor went towards the fuel rails instead.
The custom under-tray does need a minor repair and maybe minor re-design to attach it to the subframe in a different way.
After fixing the fuel system, the car now starts on the first crank; something it had not done for a couple years. Picking her up tomorrow and very much looking forward to hitting up a cars & coffee this weekend.
I honestly believe I have had some form of fuel issues since I took delivery of the car four years ago. The only place it ever showed up was in my catch cans - they were always heavy on fuel as compared to the usual oily blow-by sludge. Nobody could ever really answer why that was the case because the car was not down on power until the external leak showed up a few weeks ago.
And on the good news front - the AC compressor wasn't actually bad. The oil leak was actually coming from above it and it dripped onto the compressor. After cleaning it up the compressor seems to be working normally. So what I thought I would spend on a compressor went towards the fuel rails instead.
The custom under-tray does need a minor repair and maybe minor re-design to attach it to the subframe in a different way.
After fixing the fuel system, the car now starts on the first crank; something it had not done for a couple years. Picking her up tomorrow and very much looking forward to hitting up a cars & coffee this weekend.
I'm down for our annual drive at the end of the month for sure! Went to Supercar Sunday yesterday and everything seems to be good. Daily driving every day through the end of the year.
Problem free relative to a custom car... I take the car in for repairs and maintenance about once a year. I can count on the FX being down for work about 6 weeks each year but almost all of these weeks are planned during my work travel schedule. Luckily the car has never stranded me so I can work around the down time.
The guys at SpecialtyZ suggested new reservoirs for my power steering and coolant overflow. The modified catch cans are not as large (or as functional) as they should be, so a new set of custom reservoirs may be in my future. Also, since the twin scroll piping was completed, my Canton oil filter is much tougher to remove. A relocation kit might be the solution there. Both discussion points for the next visit to SpecialtyZ.
The undertray was adapted as I suggested. The subframe was tapped so we could fasten it directly to the car and expose only the bolt heads. That should be a long term solution, I think.
New rear silver powder coated calipers look good - I had to ignore my rear red calipers since going Trophy on the front StopTechs but now that they are installed, they look like they belong and have always been there. I should just do this to any OE caliper I plan to keep from now on.
StopTech STR40 BBK on 355x32mm slotted 2pc floating rotor
Centric Remanufactured OE core, powdercoated silver on a slotted OE replacement rotor.
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After running the GTSpec STB for close to 8 years... I finally decided to give something else a try. DragonH hooked me up with a dual brace set - an original STB and a matching Radiator brace. While these might actually do some good, with an improvement they can be much better. I talked to a couple fabricators about the design of the brace and we got some more bar stock to tie the two pieces together, making them much more stiff than before.
Bars were stripped, welded together and then powder coated before re-installing.
The original braces:
Bar stock mock-up:
The new custom Jumbo Strut Tower Ladder Brace, or STLB, powder coated semi-gloss black. Mounting plates are silver anodized.
Thanks to Brian at Afterhours automotive for fabrication.
Oh yeah, and I almost forgot because it was SO easy - changing pads on my BBK was pulling out the 2 bridge bolts, removing the bridge & old pads, compressing pistons and popping in the new pads. Both sides took a total of 30 minutes.
Coming out are the StopTech Sport pads - 309.06090
And going in are the StopTech Street pads - 308.06090 (no burnish required)
This is my third pad change in 8 years... so I get about four years of service out of each set! Rears last even longer but I go ahead and change them at the same time.
Bars were stripped, welded together and then powder coated before re-installing.
The original braces:
Bar stock mock-up:
The new custom Jumbo Strut Tower Ladder Brace, or STLB, powder coated semi-gloss black. Mounting plates are silver anodized.
Thanks to Brian at Afterhours automotive for fabrication.
Oh yeah, and I almost forgot because it was SO easy - changing pads on my BBK was pulling out the 2 bridge bolts, removing the bridge & old pads, compressing pistons and popping in the new pads. Both sides took a total of 30 minutes.
Coming out are the StopTech Sport pads - 309.06090
And going in are the StopTech Street pads - 308.06090 (no burnish required)
This is my third pad change in 8 years... so I get about four years of service out of each set! Rears last even longer but I go ahead and change them at the same time.
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Sweet STLB! I like that!
