wow the jig is a work of art, it can be displayed at MOCA
turbocad's custom fx
- Thread starter turbocad6
- Start date
as far as the transmission goes my plan right now is to get it running & driving as an automatic first. I have a solid plan for a way to build the getrag 6 speed to fit and confident I can do it but don't want to really get into that yet, because it wil just delay this turbo build even further. the turbo build & tune & wiring of the engine swap is the real challenge, once that's done the tranny will be easy in comparison, I'll need to mount a few parts to machine plates to be milled & then have to build an alignment jig to weld 2 bell housings together, but I'll built all the custom welded stuff ahead of time while I drive the fx, then hopefully when the tranny is ready to install, the whole swap may be a down time measured in just weeks.... hopefully :tongue (2): this of course is counting on the auto lasting even that long too, might blow it up pretty quickly too
honestly bro, these may look great to most compared to a lot of crap that's out there, but to a real pro these are really not that great. really to me there adequate at best. I'm sure they will do the job fine but in a way I'm disappointed that they didn't really come out as good as I really want them. honestly half way through, after a few welds that weren't great I got really frustraited... actually started considering redoing at first just this tube, then maybe that one... there are a few other things I may have done better if I redo them again too but I just got to be real here. this project turned from a custom twin turbo engine swap build, into just a turbo header build.... I need to get past these damn things & finish the whole build.
a few weeks ago I wasn't happy with the way these were going & I actually started looking into just ordering all the materials to redo these in 321 SS now, complete all out with pro built collectors, build a really professional set, kinda stuff you'd see on a pro race car but if I start going that route right now I'll never finish this damn thing. so now I'm just finishing these headers & trying hard to settle with adequate... gotta just face the fact that they aren't the best set I'll ever build, accept the reality that there's just no way I could ever expect they will be as good as if a real pro with 15-20 years experience welded them... hopefully the next will be much better, truth is the only way to build a really great professional header is to keep building them.... like anything else I guess, the more you do it the better you'll be at it...
plan now is to finish this whole twin turbo engine swap, get her running, then build the tranny, then eventually build a new set of really killer headers.... if I ever get to building another set of headers then great, if I don't that's fine too, because even though I'm not 100% happy with these headers right now, truth is they'll probably last just fine as-is for many years too. part of me knows I'm just being way too critical at this point but I can't help it, I put so much effort into this at this point that anything short of perfection just kinda feels like failure, so I think I need to tell myself that I can & will redo them again in the future just to be able to convince myself to move past them & settle for these for now... yeah, I'm not crazy
nah man, all my own gadget
it's just built from 2 craftsman hydraulic adjustable stools, the second one I just removed the seat & flipped the base over & made a base for the arm. the reason for the wood base is it ties them together for further stability & so things don't move around when I get on & off this thing. I need the work piece stable relative to the seat. since the whole arm table is grounded for welding, I used wood instead of metal to tie them together because I didn't feel comfortable having my balls actually grounded to the work piece with a tig torch in my hand :smile (2):this evolved from me battling with getting the right position for comfortable hand position for any point on the work piece while being able to adjust for any point on any weld to be in the right spot & right orientation, then be able to rotate the weld joint while keeping everything else still in the right position for the whole rotation. long ago I started with just the articulating arm which is built from a heavy duty adjustable monitor arm, modified vice grip at the head to grab & seal the pipe end & feed the purge, it was just mounted to my workbench. but at different points of adjustment to get access, at the same time it may wind up being too high... I was welding tubes while reaching up overhead or some while bending way over because it was too low... one main reason why the first 2 tubes I welded were not great... in frustration I just had to find a better way
that's when I came up with this final design for the more adjust ability. it's actually pretty wild in use, you kinda get up on it & straddle the thing with the seat backrest against your belly, then from there adjust everything for the next weld and because of the amount of adjustment between the 2 extremes of seat all the way up, table all the way down or vice versa, I can adjust for perfect positioning for any point on these pipes. the pipes I welded with this came out so much better than the ones before it for sure.
---------- Post added at 01:35 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:18 AM ----------
the new ride... may as well put a few pics here. I don't have any great pictures of it yet because I just finished the paint job a week or 2 ago, just a few night time shots I grabbed in a parking lot one day. this benz was originally a black pearl but I winded up changing it slightly, went with a benz color called designo mocha black, limited to only the designo custom models from mercedes. I love this color, kinda like the Infiniti's midnight mocha but much darker... still catches the light & gives a mocha tint to it, a classy brownish bronze look but still pretty much black... this is very similar to my fx black but where it's pearls go more towards the blues & greens, this one goes towards the orange brown side, and it's done with metallics instead of pearls.
I I also just had to get rid of the stock 16" wheels, made it look like a checker cab, so I grabbed a set of amg 19" wheels from craigslist, nothing fancy, just enough to have a good solid wheel on the car. the stock size 19" tires were a bit low profile though, def making it look like the thing needed a drop.
dropping these things is very easy, it's air suspension so dropping it is as easy as either putting a few washers in the linkage of the height sensors, or hooking it up to a STAR (mebe's version of consult) & programming your drop. lots of guys drop them, but without getting into a long boring explanation of why this sucks with air suspension I'll just say that this sucks with air suspension. it goes lower but it also gets a lot softer instead of stiffer as a spring would... so it then starts to bottom out very easily.... if you drive it like a baby on nice roads its ok, but that's not me... I need something that can take the hits, so instead of lowering I put a taller tire on it.
stuffed 245/45-19's in there, used continental DWS all seasons, nice amount of rubber to take some hits & fills the wheel well nice. doesn't look like it's begging for a drop any more. I had to trim the upper ball joint & modify the wheel wells to get these to fit but I like the look more than others with the stock shorter tire.
Nice color on the Benz:top:
yeah man, there pretty reasonable to buy, but the reason is because there just crazy expensive to fix... honestly if I couldn't fix a car like this myself I wouldn't even own one I think... you can easily spend the whole purchase price of the car all over again on just maintenance & repairs in the next year or 2 of owning it... to own this car you've either got to be a mechanic or have a lot of disposable income. the saying on the mercedes forums is "there is no such thing as a cheap mercedes" because the cheaper the used mercedes is, the more it's gonna cost ya to own it & keep up with it. 3,4 & 5 thousand dollar repair bills are not uncommon at all on these cars, & I'm talking just maintenance & repairs here... the air suspension alone will def be a big ticket item & believe me, by the time there this old & used there going to need work period.
I picked this one up dirt cheap, was blasted in the right side, needed 2 doors & the center pillar was pushed in pretty good... car came with the 2 replacement doors already, the guy bought them himself thinking that they just needed to be slapped on after seeing how much it would have cost him for me to fix it plus all the other problems this car had on top of the accident damage, he decided to just get rid of it, so I picked it up from him for $3,500... but it cost a good amount to get it to this point too... in the beginning I thought I'd wind up way ahead, but like I said there expensive to fix & there are a lot of expensive things that need to be done once your dealing with an over 10 year old car like this with ~100k on it, so in the end I didn't save all that much after fixing everything that needed fixing, but at least it's a nice car now after all I've done to it
I've actually wanted one of these S class' for the longest time, I almost bought one before I got the FX but never came across the right one for the right price. after owning it now I can def say that it does not disappoint, awesome car with an awesome ride, the 500 has plenty of power & flies even bone stock... I love it so much that this is the next one to either twin turbo or super charge for me after the FX is done, BUT, on this car it's way different than the FX... on this car, the best way to upgrade the power is to simply sell this one & buy either an S55(supercharged V8) or better yet an 03-06 S600 (V12 twin turbo monster) which is what I ultimately want, hopefully trade up to an S600 in a year or 2...
now since I'm thinking of getting rid of this thing eventually to trade up to an S600 I didn't want to butcher it all up for a whole system. on a car like this that would wind up costing a whole lot, just to wind up making the car worth a whole lot less, so def makes no sense. no one in there right mind is going to buy a butchered up car like this no matter how "awesome" I may think the modifications are .. had this one been considered a "keeper" then yeah, I would have ripped it apart & done a full blown PC install system & all, but here I had a bigger challenge of being able to install a computer or at least some form of "live" dash, but also keep it easily reversible with no permanent custom work. that can sometimes be even more of a challenge than all out custom.
the stock command/navigation system in this thing may have been cutting edge over 10 years ago when it first came out, but by today's standards they are nothing more than useless antiques... at first I just used my android phone for navigation & internet music streaming, but a phone mounted & used like this just feels kind of tacky... better than nothing but not that great. I really wanted something built into the dash but in a way that's easily reversible, so this is what I winded up doing:
aside from not allowing myself to do any extreme mods to the dash & electrical systems and nothing irreversible, the first thing I wanted was to also try to keep FM. my wife's been bitching at me for years because even though I may have large touchscreens & internet streaming & many hundreds of gig's of music at my finger tips and what I think is an ultra cool custom system, for some reason she just sometimes misses just normal radio... I don't but she does... so here I wanted to keep the FM. I also wanted to keep the steering wheel controls and to keep the whole benz system intact for easily reversible. the mercedes system is complicated, between can buss integration & fiber optics used on all audio connections this meant that I'll have to either keep the factory head unit or gut everything, so the head unit has to stay.
I eventually figured out a way to keep everything intact & easily reversible, yet still allow me to have a custom touch screen live dash and still be able to acess the factory FM & cd changer too... what I did was relocate the head unit further into the dash, enough that I have enough room to mount an android tablet in front of it flush... when the tablet is docked you'll never know the stock head unit is behind it, and the row of buttons I built above the tablet allow me to still acess the factory head unit behind it... the buttons are lined up in away to push the original buttons right behind them, so I can select FM, CD or android tablet as source and the FM & cd changer can still be controlled through my steering wheel buttons and the display for these functions can also be displayed in the instrument cluster so there very usable even with the whole stock screen blocked by the tablet. finally, when the tablet is undocked, the factory head unit is still there & usable so car can be used without the tablet no problem...
this thing isn't 100% done yet, still have to figure out a way to relabel the buttons to match the benz style & illuminate them to match the factory illumination. still a little cleanup needed here & there but overall I'm happy with how it's coming out & I'm really happy with the functionality this thing gives... pandora & shoutcast internet radio, google maps, co-pilot live maps & live traffic with traffic based rerouting & traffic based real time estimates for travel, internet browsing & endless mp3's accessed from an on board in car network with a terabyte HD & a usb port for further expansion , not to mention all the other toys like bluetooth obdII readers & custom displays & a lot more... in the end the android tablet gives me most of what I'd get with a full blown pc install and then also gives some things that even a pc wouldn't, like dual touch pinch to zoom, almost instant startup & easy in & out, and most importantly it's easily reversible. all the custom work is in the bezel itself... it would take like 15 minutes to return it all to bone stock, just remount the radio in original position & pop the original bezel back on... unplug the wireless router & network hardrive in the truck, done
anyway, enough of my endless typing, here's a few shots of under construction. only one shot shows the buttons I used, any first gen guys wanna guess where those buttons came from?:tongue (2):
I picked this one up dirt cheap, was blasted in the right side, needed 2 doors & the center pillar was pushed in pretty good... car came with the 2 replacement doors already, the guy bought them himself thinking that they just needed to be slapped on
after seeing how much it would have cost him for me to fix it plus all the other problems this car had on top of the accident damage, he decided to just get rid of it, so I picked it up from him for $3,500... but it cost a good amount to get it to this point too... in the beginning I thought I'd wind up way ahead, but like I said there expensive to fix & there are a lot of expensive things that need to be done once your dealing with an over 10 year old car like this with ~100k on it, so in the end I didn't save all that much after fixing everything that needed fixing, but at least it's a nice car now after all I've done to it I've actually wanted one of these S class' for the longest time, I almost bought one before I got the FX but never came across the right one for the right price. after owning it now I can def say that it does not disappoint, awesome car with an awesome ride, the 500 has plenty of power & flies even bone stock... I love it so much that this is the next one to either twin turbo or super charge for me after the FX is done, BUT, on this car it's way different than the FX... on this car, the best way to upgrade the power is to simply sell this one & buy either an S55(supercharged V8) or better yet an 03-06 S600 (V12 twin turbo monster) which is what I ultimately want, hopefully trade up to an S600 in a year or 2...
now since I'm thinking of getting rid of this thing eventually to trade up to an S600 I didn't want to butcher it all up for a whole system. on a car like this that would wind up costing a whole lot, just to wind up making the car worth a whole lot less, so def makes no sense. no one in there right mind is going to buy a butchered up car like this no matter how "awesome" I may think the modifications are .. had this one been considered a "keeper" then yeah, I would have ripped it apart & done a full blown PC install system & all, but here I had a bigger challenge of being able to install a computer or at least some form of "live" dash, but also keep it easily reversible with no permanent custom work. that can sometimes be even more of a challenge than all out custom.
the stock command/navigation system in this thing may have been cutting edge over 10 years ago when it first came out, but by today's standards they are nothing more than useless antiques... at first I just used my android phone for navigation & internet music streaming, but a phone mounted & used like this just feels kind of tacky... better than nothing but not that great. I really wanted something built into the dash but in a way that's easily reversible, so this is what I winded up doing:
aside from not allowing myself to do any extreme mods to the dash & electrical systems and nothing irreversible, the first thing I wanted was to also try to keep FM. my wife's been bitching at me for years because even though I may have large touchscreens & internet streaming & many hundreds of gig's of music at my finger tips and what I think is an ultra cool custom system, for some reason she just sometimes misses just normal radio... I don't but she does... so here I wanted to keep the FM. I also wanted to keep the steering wheel controls and to keep the whole benz system intact for easily reversible. the mercedes system is complicated, between can buss integration & fiber optics used on all audio connections this meant that I'll have to either keep the factory head unit or gut everything, so the head unit has to stay.
I eventually figured out a way to keep everything intact & easily reversible, yet still allow me to have a custom touch screen live dash and still be able to acess the factory FM & cd changer too... what I did was relocate the head unit further into the dash, enough that I have enough room to mount an android tablet in front of it flush... when the tablet is docked you'll never know the stock head unit is behind it, and the row of buttons I built above the tablet allow me to still acess the factory head unit behind it... the buttons are lined up in away to push the original buttons right behind them, so I can select FM, CD or android tablet as source and the FM & cd changer can still be controlled through my steering wheel buttons and the display for these functions can also be displayed in the instrument cluster so there very usable even with the whole stock screen blocked by the tablet. finally, when the tablet is undocked, the factory head unit is still there & usable so car can be used without the tablet no problem...
this thing isn't 100% done yet, still have to figure out a way to relabel the buttons to match the benz style & illuminate them to match the factory illumination. still a little cleanup needed here & there but overall I'm happy with how it's coming out & I'm really happy with the functionality this thing gives... pandora & shoutcast internet radio, google maps, co-pilot live maps & live traffic with traffic based rerouting & traffic based real time estimates for travel, internet browsing & endless mp3's accessed from an on board in car network with a terabyte HD & a usb port for further expansion , not to mention all the other toys like bluetooth obdII readers & custom displays & a lot more... in the end the android tablet gives me most of what I'd get with a full blown pc install and then also gives some things that even a pc wouldn't, like dual touch pinch to zoom, almost instant startup & easy in & out, and most importantly it's easily reversible. all the custom work is in the bezel itself... it would take like 15 minutes to return it all to bone stock, just remount the radio in original position & pop the original bezel back on... unplug the wireless router & network hardrive in the truck, done
anyway, enough of my endless typing, here's a few shots of under construction. only one shot shows the buttons I used, any first gen guys wanna guess where those buttons came from?:tongue (2):
very nice bezel , Im always amazed at your attention to detail.
Great job, as usual:top:
The back-purge setup is gnarly! I saw you on the weldingweb forum asking for some tig input, just wanted to see the work in here :P
Just like everyone else it's normal to be tweaking your new DD, especially when you own a shop like you do.
Glad the headers are close to being welded, instead of tack'd together. Once again great work and amazing job, finding ways to make your welds consistent and allow you to work in a comfortable environment :top:
---------- Post added at 11:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:45 PM ----------
Btw can you provide more info on the HTC android carputer setup? I have a Xoom tablet laying around that would have better use as a carputer than anything else!
Thanks
Just like everyone else it's normal to be tweaking your new DD, especially when you own a shop like you do.
Glad the headers are close to being welded, instead of tack'd together. Once again great work and amazing job, finding ways to make your welds consistent and allow you to work in a comfortable environment :top:
---------- Post added at 11:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:45 PM ----------
Btw can you provide more info on the HTC android carputer setup? I have a Xoom tablet laying around that would have better use as a carputer than anything else!
Thanks
I think I might put a thread up with the tablet install when it's finished, even though it's not in an fx it might give some ideas, help and inspiration for an fx install too. I had to make my own buttons which was a challenge, here I should be welding headers & instead I'm working on trying to get a tiny android to look right in the dash of a benz, luckily it's almost done & I can get back to fx surgery
a peek at the buttons, yeah the android and the antenna is a little crooked, can't correct it, it's already epoxied, gonna have to live with it like that for now don't look so bad when installed really, not that noticable 
haven't looked at them so much as there pretty scarce, plus was thinking closer to the 20k range... who knows, in a few years the S550's may wind up coming into range too, right around when they bring out the new S class, probably be able to get an 07 S550 for ~25k. that would be a whole other animal as far as a system install, major challenge there... might just wait till they become affordable in a few years too...
nice new car john! I love the S classes!
I really didn't want to take a break from the fx but I'm screwed up like that, if something on my daily driver car bothers me enough it winds up consuming me till I make it right... the benz was a nice treat but I couldn't live with the stock dash at all...
few more days to finalize... just need a few clear coats on the buttons, then sand to perfect & then a final satin clear finish then fine tune the illumination to match the stock benz buttons... these buttons turned into as much work as the bezel itself but the buttons are a make it or break it type thing I think... if they don't look good enough then I'd have to redo them again & I really don't want to, just want them good enough that they don't annoy me, I think these are going to be good enough
few more days to finalize... just need a few clear coats on the buttons, then sand to perfect & then a final satin clear finish then fine tune the illumination to match the stock benz buttons... these buttons turned into as much work as the bezel itself but the buttons are a make it or break it type thing I think... if they don't look good enough then I'd have to redo them again & I really don't want to, just want them good enough that they don't annoy me, I think these are going to be good enough