Spyder Build Thread

[mjannusch]

1) Country music DOES suck

2) A Setrab clone is good enough for me right now. If I somehow hit a limit on it, I'll swap cores later. It'll be easy with it front-mounted and a '99 front on the car.

3) If you leave the core behind an intercooler and beat on the car on the dyno - yeah, that's a recipe for a potential bad day.

4) This is a pretty large core, directly in the center airstream, the frontmost cooler. It'll stay cool. Cooler than my old setup which was a kind of diagonal-mounted stock cooler in the side, with IC pipes in front and behind and no ducting. That was doing fine, I expect this will be fine as well.

5) I put so few miles on my car in a year that oil changes are yearly and about every 600 miles (for years where the car isn't sitting on a lift all year). There's not much time for the oil to degrade.

6) 6G74 crank shouldn't flex as bad as the 6G72, so that should help keep the middle bearings in better shape.

7) I'm not on the throttle for long periods of time. Just doesn't happen at 540+ awhp. You run out of road quick. Not that much time to bake the oil badly.

8) I guess I could put an oil temp probe in and feed it to the AEM for logging/alarm just in case.

9) I like Taco Bell's Dorito Taco Locos Supremes. Really - a lot. They are tasty.

[DCIV]

[quote=""Jeff V.""]As long as we can all agree country music sucks, then I think we can build on this foundation of mutual understanding [/quote]

I agree. lol.

[quote=""Chris GTO TT""]In my experience, country music sucks (my wife likes it), good coilovers ride shockingly well with high spring rates, and bad coilovers ride badly at any spring rates.[/quote]

I have owned tien flex, the one with the controller...mine didn’t have the controller but it could have. They sucked. All I ever heard was they ride great. Work great. They suck. No matter what, raise them to stock and put them on softest...suck.

Anyways, maybe other lighter cars have a better chance with them and Hans if you bring a coil over vr4 to brg then I will meet you there fri (have a swim meet sat and sun) just to ride in a coil over vehicle that doesn’t ride like crap.


Coop

[Jeff V.]

Nacho Dorito Locos are wonderful. I was somewhat underwhelmed with the cool ranch one though. It's all the more disappointing because the actual cool ranch chips are like mana from heaven.

Coop, I found an oil cooler for you.

[vr4]

[quote=""Jeff V.""]Nacho Dorito Locos are wonderful. I was somewhat underwhelmed with the cool ranch one though. It's all the more disappointing because the actual cool ranch chips are like mana from heaven.

Coop, I found an oil cooler for you.

[/quote]

Now just mount it in the rear.


IIRC flex had very high spring rates and is under damped. It'll be bouncy and uncomfortable

[mjannusch]

Coilovers...

Unless you've got something valved for your specific car/setup, you really need independently adjustable damping and rebound. Most of them combine the two, so you are stuck with a pair of compromise settings. I think the KW coilovers have at least some separate user-adjustable damping and rebound, so should be a lot more tunable for feel.

I haven't been real impressed with coilovers for our cars either, but haven't ridden in a KW car. I think there's also a lot of people who think that firmer is better, when really it is all about suspension control more than straight firmness. Rock hard with no rebound isn't going to give you great cornering grip unless the pavement is perfect.

[vr4]

The guy I bought my HAs from replaced them with the flex. About 2 weeks later he wanted them back.

[Jeff V.]

That's why I went with Bilsteins. They were specifically built for a 3S. It was one of the few good decisions I made for that car.

[DCIV]

[quote=""vr4""]Now just mount it in the rear.


IIRC flex had very high spring rates and is under damped. It'll be bouncy and uncomfortable[/quote]

Throwing pressure loss out the window, that oil would deff be cooled by the time it got back up to the front!

But no, that guy went to a lot of work to make that ride (ugly) into something. Then to put an oil cooler like that? I don’t get that.

I know Matt knows what he’s doing when it comes to vehicles. He doesn’t need anyone’s advice really. But sometimes just a nagging reminder of what is best isn’t a bad thing. Didn’t mean to offend anyone.


Coop

[Jeff V.]

If you're bored, go to Google Images and search for 'bosozuku'.

[DCIV]

Yes they were on that last episode of top gear wasn’t it?


Coop

[Hans_GZP]

[quote=""DCIV""]
Anyways, maybe other lighter cars have a better chance with them and Hans if you bring a coil over vr4 to brg then I will meet you there fri (have a swim meet sat and sun) just to ride in a coil over vehicle that doesn’t ride like crap.


Coop[/quote]

I have Tein flex on my stealth and my new VR4 build. Stealth will be gone next week. Not sure I'll have the VR4 built by BRG. Even if I do, it would be tough to consider taking 2 cars on a drive that is 700 miles each way just to have 2 cars. We'll probably take the S600 and cruise in comfort and style... all while amazing people at how quick it handles the dragon. And then, consequently, clean up puke from the kids.

[Hans_GZP]

[quote=""mjannusch""]Coilovers...

Unless you've got something valved for your specific car/setup, you really need independently adjustable damping and rebound. Most of them combine the two, so you are stuck with a pair of compromise settings. I think the KW coilovers have at least some separate user-adjustable damping and rebound, so should be a lot more tunable for feel.

I haven't been real impressed with coilovers for our cars either, but haven't ridden in a KW car. I think there's also a lot of people who think that firmer is better, when really it is all about suspension control more than straight firmness. Rock hard with no rebound isn't going to give you great cornering grip unless the pavement is perfect.[/quote]

Tein makes the Pro controller that gives you individually adjustable corners via speed and G sensor input. It's a neat setup. I may use that on my new build.

The Flex coilovers do take a lot to get setup properly. Most people just adjust things willy nilly and make the ride total shit.

[Jeff V.]

Yes they were on that last episode of top gear wasn’t it?

Yeah, the Japan episode. Rory was doing that segment.

[DCIV]

Totally understand Hans. Didn’t know if you would have that build done and wanna take it.


Coop

[mjannusch]

Intermediate shaft is reassembled. Just happened to have two springs and an extra ball in my spare parts bag that I was fortunate to find.

Can't get the damn intermediate shaft bearing race out of the bellhousing, so can't check the preload. Need some sort of puller, I guess. Heat and prying didn't do the job - usually they just fall out with heat, but welding the reinforcement ring in probably shrunk the aluminum outside the race a bit.

Bearings pressed onto the front LSD. Fit looks good, but no shimming yet. Everything is different, so I'd better check all the preloads if I want it to last.

Still to do:

Clean cases
Transplant input shaft bellhousing bearing (or put a new one in - but my old one was fine)
Preloads
Billet forks (should be fun getting some of the roll pins out)
New seals
General reassembly

Then I hope I don't have to pull this thing apart again for a long, long time.

After that, I get to move onto getting the motor and trans back in the car, finishing the fuel system upgrade (AN8 from tank), converting back to AEM, re-do my gauge stuff to the LCDBC and new climate control display thingy, aluminum driveshaft, and I think that's about it.

Oh, and get the '99 front painted to match the pearl white.

[mjannusch]

Changed fluid in my parts washer from nasty solvent I've had in there for 10+ years to OilEater + water (1:2 ratio)
Cleaned all the trans cases
Billet forks on the appropriate rails (need to put roll pins in with loctite)
Front diff gear off stock diff, ready to go on SCE LSD (loctite)

Ordered a race puller (DT-47865) and slide hammer to get the bellhousing races out to do the preload inspection

Kind of stuck on the trans right now until the seals come from Hans and the puller/hammer to do the preloads. I'll knock out the rest of the stuff tomorrow now that I have loctite. Probably switch to motor stuff if I have extra time tomorrow.

[Hans_GZP]

[quote=""mjannusch""]Changed fluid in my parts washer from nasty solvent I've had in there for 10+ years to OilEater + water (1:2 ratio)
Cleaned all the trans cases
Billet forks on the appropriate rails (need to put roll pins in with loctite)
Front diff gear off stock diff, ready to go on SCE LSD (loctite)

Ordered a race puller (DT-47865) and slide hammer to get the bellhousing races out to do the preload inspection

Kind of stuck on the trans right now until the seals come from Hans and the puller/hammer to do the preloads. I'll knock out the rest of the stuff tomorrow now that I have loctite. Probably switch to motor stuff if I have extra time tomorrow.[/quote]

I'll have that stuff out tomorrow. Been battling having a huge influx of walk-in customers this past week which kills my time to ship stuff

[mjannusch]

No worries, but thanks for getting those out for me!

[mjannusch]

Shift forks, LSD are done. Input shaft end case bearing end play is in spec with the shim I had. Cleaned the flanges of the cases, and just waiting for my race puller to check the preload on the other races and hopefully get this damn thing buttoned back up soon after.

Next step: Get the motor back in the car.

[Hans_GZP]

Sounds like you got that spring fever! haha