CamryOnBronze

Well, the people of the internet were right- lol. After not being able to get the car to fire up after filling all of the fluids and buttoning everything up last night, about a dozen people told me it was the grounds. I never knew these had such a big effect on whether or not a car will crank. I got home from work, tightened up all of the grounds, and sure enough- the car cranked.

My battery was a little too dead from the winter to get the job done, so I pulled the battery out of my daily and tossed that in the car. A couple of cranks later and the car fired right up! Nothing beats the feeling of starting your car for the first time in six months. Feels like a great accomplishment, and a huge relief. FEELS GOOD MAN.

The car did the standard Power FC weirdness for a while, but I think it is all straightened out now. I need to adjust the idle a bit, but there are no leaks so far- pretty cool!

I was super motivated to get stuff done after that, but the busy week with not a lot of sleep really took it out of me. I got the fenders installed, and am hoping to have the whole front end & headlights back on the car tomorrow. As soon as that is done, I will move on to the interior! Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

Damon

Sorry about not posting an update yesterday- I don’t think I even made a week of posting every day, lol. I’ll try to make up for that this weekend, though…

I got all of the remaining stuff sorted out (or so I thought) and added all of the fluids to the car last night. Unfortunately, it’s not starting at the moment. I’m going to test a few things and tinker with it tonight. I am guessing that it is something simple- the fuel pump runs when I turn the key to “START” and I can hear the starter relay click. I have MAF voltage, so that should take care of both fuel and air. I’ve got to check to see if the signal wire is sending a signal to the starter or not.

Stay tuned- it’s gotta be a small, stupid issue. I’ll be sure to post up when I figure this out!

Damon

I was looking at Zilvia posts from the previous owner of my car today, and found that the Photobucket link to this one shot was still active. This is my car, circa October 2008, shortly before I bought it. This was one of the pics from the original Craig’s List ad:

So that’s how the car looked the first time I saw it, rode in/drove it, and decided to buy it. Pretty wild! I can’t believe it has been 3.5 years since I bought the car.

Damon

So I just realized that yesterday was my busiest day ever with 344 views- thanks to everyone who has been checking this out! Not anything to brag about, but it feels pretty cool to know that people are checking it out and enjoying my rambling!

Tonight was another busy night, but I managed to sneak into the garage for about twenty five minutes or so to get some work done. When we replaced the metal where the battery tray used to be, I didn’t have a way to tell where to cut the hole for the intercooler piping without dropping the engine back in. Since that would have been a lot of work, I decided to just cut it after the bay was painted- even though I had no idea how I was going to do it.

I’ve been thinking about how to approach this for a while now, and am pleased to say I figured out a solution today. I’m sure there are easier ways to go about it, but this is what I came up with:

1. Wrap the intercooler pipe that needs to pass through the sheet metal in painter’s tape, sticky side OUT. Wrap tightly so that you get the exact shape of the piping:

Wrap it again, this time with the sticky side towards the piping. You should have the pipe covered in tape without any stickiness touching the outside or the pipe itself.

2. Carefully cut the tape off of the intercooler piping. Be sure not to smash it up or anything so that it maintains its shape:

3. Tape the “mock” pipe back together along the seam that you just cut to remove it from the actual piping. Install it into position, trimming away any extra tape at the bottom until the mock pipe is flush with the metal of the bay :

4. Draw a circle onto the metal (or tape over the metal in this case) to show where the piping will run through the sheet metal:

5. Cut the hole in the sheet metal. I used my power drill and a 3.5″ hole saw bit that I picked up from Home Depot.

And wallah! If things went well for you, you should have a pretty solid looking pass-through for your intercooler piping. Mine could have been centered a little better and the hole diamater could have been a little smaller probably, but I am really happy with how it turned out. The size of this hole matches the one in the other side of the bay that was there when I bought the car.

I’m really pleased with how the bay is coming together. Keep in mind that I have to make a second pass through and add some more small details- nice hardware, new valve cover setup, -AN fittings and lines, a new fuel setup, etc. For now I am just going to get the car running to ensure that the wiring is in good shape, get the interior back together, and then get into the fine details while I wait for my wheels to be done!

Not a lot else needs to be in the bay. The coolant overflow will be under the cooling shroud, so that won’t be seen. The only other items coming into the bay to make the car run will be the MAF, intake pipe/filter, and the boost controller. Should be pretty happy with it when I am done!

Thanks a lot for reading guys- appreciate it!

Damon

I love the sound of fuel pumps priming in the morning…

I had some unexpected free time this afternoon (best wife ever) and managed to get a good amount of work done on the car! I got the exhaust bolted up, the lower engine harness lengthened/stripped/ installed, put the downpipe and catback on, hooked up the battery, and finished a lot of other random details. I’m happy to report that the car has power!

It’s always a great feeling to hear the door chime, see the lights come on, and hear the fuel pump prime after a long winter. I’m looking forward to firing it up by this weekend!

I managed to sneak in installing my clutch fan, shroud, radiator, hoses, and intercooler before leaving for the in-laws for the weekend last night. It’s coming together!

I am hoping to finish tossing it together with my existing parts and fire it up for a test start by next Sunday. Once I know it runs and the wiring is OK, I will work on the small details within the bay. Stick around, it should be a good time!

Damon

I didn’t accomplish nearly as much as I wanted to last night- but sometimes life doesn’t go according to plan, lol. The good news, though, is that the fuse box is mounted, the battery wiring is all sorted out, and the engine harness is installed. All I need to do is extend the lower engine harness and install that, and I should be all set on the wiring front!

The dash and seats are just sitting in the car, but I should be able to actually bolt both of them in at this point. It will be really nice to have the interior all back together:

I ended up making a bracket for the fuse box out of some angle iron I had laying around, and used some existing studs from the HVAC system to mount it up. The box won’t be visible when thew glove box is installed, but will still be pretty easy to access and give me full use of my glove box. Not my best work, but it should serve its purpose:

After I spent what felt like forever messing with that stuff, I installed my new Do-Luck RXB that arrived yesterday! Really stoked to have finally found one of these- let alone a brand new one! Install wasn’t fun, but was fairly straightforward:

Really happy with the new interior additions this winter! I’m excited to have it all back together by sometime next week. I’m going to try to focus on getting the engine tossed together just so that I can confirm it runs correctly. After I have fired it up and everything seems to be in good shape, I will go back through it to add some new additions and further pretty things up.

Had to replace the VOLK plate frame with a BLITZ one, of course!

Seats aren’t actually installed, but man am I stoked to get the interior back together…