Never ending quest of badassery

[mrkrinkle]

Today was a good fucking day. Started off nice and early at the shop where I met Chuck, the guy who is making all my boost piping. He brought a damn mobile machine shop with him. Band saw, welding table, tubing bender, drill press and of course his welder. I only have 110V at the shop so that meant welding the piping to the turbo housing was a little difficult, but he got it done. That guy can weld. Holy shit. If you've ever seen any GrimmSpeed products he's the guy who makes them all.. Pretty damn quick at doing it all too. We didn't quite finish up, but we'll be back at it tomorrow. Have to finish up the diverter valve tubing and the tubing coming off the turbo to the inlet of the intercooler.

I'll let the pictures do the talking..



Since my car has a custom United Motorsports tune on it I have to run a ProMAF. It's ugly as hell, so I had him machine a 3.5" to 4" piece that presses onto the plastic housing of the ProMAF. Anybody who has ran one knows just how ugly they are.. This is probably the best solution to eliminating a need for a silicone coupler IMO. I could have had the whole housing made out of billet at my work and I may do that in the future as they have rapid prototyping capabilities, but it's hard to get time on the CNC machine as they're always using it.. Also, I don't know how sensitive the ProMAF is to changes in the materials used. I don't want to fuss about with that, so this was the next best thing. Little ears need to be welded onto the piece so it can physically be bolted to the housing, but that's easy enough. He may be willing to make more of them, so if you're interested LMK.. I'm sure the more he can make, the more motivated he'll be to actually do it. The piece was turned on a lathe, and came out wonderfully!



The reason I put a v-band on the inlet was for this. At show's I'll be able to pop the ProMAF off and run this velocity stack. Yes that velocity stack will be gold plated :laugh:













Then this little bitch ass v-band clamp decided to seize on me. Had to cut it off. Vibrant v-bands it is.. Can't have this shit do this on me once its all gold plated...



I'll post the finished pictures tomorrow. Hopefully have the motor out of it late tomorrow evening too..

[mrkrinkle]

Nope. Gonna be brushed aluminum, but I may polish them.

[mikey G]

Will the hardlines be gold?

[mrkrinkle]

Thanks dude!

Was concerned about the gold tarnishing over time as just touching it with my bare hands darkened the gold unless it was buffed off immediately. I was recommended this stuff called "Shine Seal" that it looks like some dude makes in his basement. Its really fucking expensive but oh so worth it.. Three step process, clean, seal, buff. Super easy and simple and I'm amazed with the results. I immediately did the lips on my wheels. Not only did it shine everything up but water runs off it like crazy. Super hydrophobic! I would recommend it to anybody that wants to keep polished things looking polished.

During the process I found out just how thin the gold plating is. I definitely do NOT want to polish this stuff again. If I do I need to be really, really careful. On a couple of the fittings the very edges got a little thin, so much so that you can see some of the nickel under it.. Oh well.

This is turning out wayyy better than the picture I had in my head.





Chuck will be melting some metal for me tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully we can get all the boost piping finished so I can then yank the motor on out, pull the trans off, and have everything off to the right places to get things really rolling..

[lamsv]

This is slowly becoming my favorite build on this site. I hit this thread every time I log on. And I'm never disappointed! Looks most excellent.

[mrkrinkle]

Lol, yeaaaah.

[mikey G]

At least it's getting fixed. Fuckin' father in laws

[mrkrinkle]

Dude said his father in law packed them up. He must have dropped it. Who knows if that's the truth, but I'm going to bring it back to him tomorrow and he's gonna strip and re do it for me.

[superturbodiesel.com]

Looks great!

[mikey G]

How did any shop let that leave? That's a bummer man. Hopefully you get it resolved as im sure you will.

I love the paint on it though. The gold flake is a nice touch to match all the other gold.

[mrkrinkle]

Got the tanks and water traps from the powdercoater today.

Not really happy with one of the traps. Looks like it was dropped..

[mrkrinkle]

I'm leaning towards the white on the alt. I think it would be too much since it'll be so exposed.

[mikey G]

all gold everything, that is the law

[Miroteknik]

all gold everything, that is the law

[mikey G]

Powder it white/ gloss black. A nice contrast will do wonders and save it from overkilling it with gold. Just my .02