Well, all in all, glad you were still able to fix it.

 

Spent all day finishing the lighting up.

And one of them went out right when I put it back together, despite me testing it earlier in the day. Oh well, must've shorted the leads together or something at least it's an easy one to swap out.

My scan button on my radio is dimmer than the rest, the diffusers in the radio suck and there isn't really a way around using them that I could see. At least not one that wouldn't be a huge PITA.

I probably should've thrown some white ones in there somewhere.. haha

I thought about doing the backlight for the HVAC/Radio display board, but I would've had to unsolder both the LCDs to gain access to the LEDs for the backlight, decided against it.

 

Nice job-it looks good.

 

Thanks

Another mod done yesterday, installed the 14k BTU B&M external trans cooler and a magnefine filter.

I've got the RJ kit coming too, had to wait a while for it to be made ... it's on the way, been waiting until I get that done to put up more photos of the exterior.

 

wow so cool

 

the only thing I recommend with the external filter is dont run both the lines sooo close to each other....have the return line insulated a little bit....

the external cooler will only drop the temps ~20 degs, if you have it very close to the supply line, you are further reducing the the advantages of the cooler....

 

I was thinking about that, I actually re-did the lines the other day.

The kit came with like 5/16" hose and I bought some 3/8" hose for it instead.

I had also plumbed it backwards, the input was supposed to be on the bottom and output on the top and I had it reverse from this when I first installed it.

I kept the hoses apart more when I re-did it as well. You can really feel just how hot the hoses get with the car just idling.

 

 

great work on the car so far, keep it up

 

I did a little more work to the car yesterday.

Removed the front rotor splash shields - annoying rattle is gone now and it provides for more cooling for the rotors.

Installed EBC Yellowstuff pads, to replace my squealing Hawk PC pads. I installed them to EBC's recommendations not using any grease on the shims. The front shims are interesting, since it was a 3M rubberized sticker thing that you cut to the shape of the shim and put on the back of the pad. The rears come with their own metal shims that have some coating on them.

I did put some Molykote M77 on the metal piece the pads slide in and the metal tabs on the ends of the pads. I also did use some grease on the reverse of the rear pads. Not very much at all though. All OEM shims are now removed.

The pads already have better pedal feel than my Hawk PC pads that I had on it for about 20k miles and they're not even fully bed in yet. Also already has more stopping power, I've been taking it easy on them though, for the first 300 miles per EBC's recommendation, went for a drive last night and have about 160 miles on the pads now.

Also already no noise on the EBC's, unlike my Hawk pads that sounded like a stuck pig up front. I already had EBC's USR Quiet Slot Rotors on the car before.

Last I did a 1x3 with 1qt Redline D4 & 2qts Redline Racing ATF. When I installed the trans cooler I ended up adding about 2/3 qt of Redline Racing ATF.

I just wanted to get anything out of the trans that the cooler may have imparted to the fluid, it was brand new but I put the magnefine filter on the input to the cooler instead of the output. Figured I should do this for good measure.

 

WOW I have been using Hawk HPS pads without an issue....I have them with Powerslot Slotted rotors....

Rotors have ~96K miles on them....front pads have ~50K and the old set had 45K when I replaced them....and the cold stop (1st one in the morning) has a little squeal but then no more squeal/squeak and stops on a dime....


but yeah seems like you got a lot done

 

Their HPS pads may be better, I was using their performance ceramic (yellow box).

Couldn't stand the noise anymore.

 

yeah...are they the HAWK HP+ ? they SUCK donkey dick LOL....

...so I have heard

 

After a long wait this just landed on my doorstep. . . .

 

^Congrats! Have not seen Ron Jon in a bit! In for pics installed once painted!

 

Love me some RonJon Aero Kit!

 

Finished mocking up the bumper and going to be scheduling to take the car in for them to prep the RJ kit and paint it.

Here's a few photos, I had to make a custom bracket for the front license plate. Used some of the parts from my trans cooler install that I didn't need for the cooler and a piece of 1/8" aluminum sheet for the inside so it doesn't rip through the poly bumper.

I was going to use a skene bracket, but it removes about 1" of ground clearance from the front. I also measured the height of the RJ front bumper from the bottom of the grill opening to the bottom of the bumper and it's an inch or two longer than the stock bumper meaning I'm already losing front ground clearance from just installing the bumper. This appeared the best option to me, so I don't lose anymore clearance or have to make visible holes in the bumper. Unfortunately state law here requires me to mount a front license plate.

 

great work buddy....

 

Wow, very nice work! I can't wait to see this painted and installed.

 

Picking up more parts.. I'm working on a 4" UBI CAI, the 3.7 mani & ZDX TB and dressing up the engine bay a little bit.

Picked up these valve covers from another member and cleaned them out today, they'll be going in for powder coat early next week.

Also picked up some of the fastline compliance bushings from heeltoe, I'll be putting them in either tomorrow or monday.

 

 

Got the new compliance bushings in today.

Had a little problem with two of them, it appears that I received the wrong ones from heeltoe.





And this is why I decided to go with the PCI bushings. This happened on both sides and my front driver's side tire is down to the wear bar on the inside now. I just had my car aligned not long ago, so I figure it must've been the bushings.





Went ahead and popped one of the bushings out, just so I could get a good photo of the problem to send to heeltoe. Hopefully they make lower ones the right size for the TL, otherwise I just paid $300 for 2x compliance bushings, was hoping to be able to use all 4.

Its late, I'll give them a call tomorrow.






Time to go for a ride and see how it feels with the new compliance bushings.

 

Picked up some new front end parts, I replaced every ball-joint on the car (except passenger front, that one just got a new boot and grease) earlier this year and after I saw my tire wear on the driver's front, and since I was ordering parts from delray I decided to just go ahead and do the tie-rod ends as well.

I also have new front wheel bearings that'll go in when I put these in, for now I replaced the factory grease with Redline CV2 grease.

Here's some photos of the process I've used with every new ball-joint that I put in the car, as well as when I regreased the passenger front.


For tie-rod ends there isn't a circlip, so you just need a thin flat-head screwdriver to carefully pry up the boot. I suppose if it was an old one, it wouldn't matter, since you'd probably be replacing the boot anyways.



Then I just work my way around and before you know it, the boot is off.



Next step, cleaning out the old grease. For the tie-rod end itself I just use shop towels, wipe it out and move the ball-joint from one end to the other, cleaning out the old grease. I try to get as much of it as I can.



Then for the boot I wipe out as much as I can and then use this..



Any household dish soap should do the trick, it'll remove all the left over grease with some water. I just dry out the boot with some more shop towels afterwards and I end up with this. Only doing this since the boot is good, if it were on my car and I went through the trouble to pop the ball-joint I'd just replace the $6 boot instead of trying to re-use it.




And this is what I've been using to pack my ball-joints..



The little dispenser helps direct the grease, otherwise its quite a mess.



There we go, time to put the cover back on. For the tie rod end since this one is brand new its pretty easy to just slip back onto it. If it were a ball-joint you've got a circlip to play with and hopefully not cut your new boot. I think they make some tools to make it easy to put them on, but I've never bothered with one and I haven't cut a new boot yet.



Then I wipe any grease that may have gotten on the threads or outside of the boot and spray the boot with some of this and wipe it off.



Here we go, two new tie-rod ends ready to go in the car. Removed the OE grease and re-packed with Redline CV2 grease. Figured why not, I have a whole tube of it laying around.

 

Mzilvar....I just send ya a PM

 

Damn bro love you thread

Grat job

 

Thanks .. lol I feel silly the other spherical bearing is for the trailing LCA bushing, the one on the inside on the subframe

Oh well, guess they'll go in later.

 

Wow, well done!

 

More work.. lol got the 3.7 IM and ZDX TB. IM is at the powder coater being done wrinkle red with the valve covers being done matte black. Re-painted the top cover and throttle body today, here's some pics.

Taped off, sprayed with dupli-color prep spray and allowed to flash off .. ready for the engine enamel self-etching primer.



Primed.





Painted - wet still.







Color match?



Not quite, hoping it dries a little lighter since the base coat is gray from the primer instead of black like it was on the sample.

Drying..





I'll get some better photos once they're dry and I've removed the tape.

 

Dude, you've been busy-nice work.

 

Yah, I've got quite a few boxes laying around haha.. still waiting on the estimate to get the RJ kit painted and installed too.

Going to start working on the 4" UBI intake soon, just waiting on a few more pieces and another tap before I start.

I need to fix the manifold cover top plate, may end up re-painting it. The throttle body came out nice, but the top plate has some mottling on it, I got the can a little too close on a few sprays

I've got my random orbit sander out, so tomorrow I'm going to try to remove the paint from the Acura emblem (carefully with the sander) and polish it while scuffing the paint with scotch-brite pads (blue / light grey) to try to even out the finish.

I actually thought about spraying it with the paint remover to strip it off and taking it in for powder coat as well, but I don't think its a good idea with the top cover since there is a bearing pressed into it for the shaft that the butterflies run on.

I'd either run the risk of destroying the bearing and messing up the powder coat job due to the grease off-gassing while the powder is curing or trying to remove it (doesn't look easy, its pressed in and no way to get behind it) and probably damaging it in the process.. so paint it is! I may repaint the top cover if I can't get it satisfactory and be more careful next time.

 

Well, I wasn't very happy with the paint job I did on the top cover so I stripped it off.

I managed to get it all apart first, without damaging any of the components and I can press them back in later.

Since I got all the rubber/bearings/etc out of the top plate and its just a chunk of aluminum now it'll be getting powder coated, here are some pics of the match on the throttle body and the top plate stripped.

Paint on the throttle body isn't a perfect match, but I'm not tearing that part down to get it powder coated. It's close enough.



Carefully popped these out without damaging anything. I had to use the butterfly shaft with a nut on the end, the stopper piece and some plates against the end to pull it out by tightening the nut on the end of the butterfly shaft.

The seal I popped out with an allen key, it's a press-in seal that goes behind the bearing. It's safe for powder coat now!






Powder coater does a better job if I bring him clean parts lol



Don't forget the gloves with this stuff, its nasty. And I don't mean the little vinyl ones, need some PVC chemical resistant ones it'll melt the little ones people normally use working on their cars with.





Some scrubbing, rinsing, and more scrubbing with maroon scotch brite and then a second shot of the paint stripper.



More scrubbing and rinsing and viola! Paint is gone, in all of about 15 minutes. That stripper will destroy plastic though, so it has to be removed first. I thnk they make a plastic friendly one too though.

 

Haven't been on for awhile and damn :o nice job

 

Wow, if you're bored, come on over! I'll put you to work on my Type S.......

 

Great work brother....eager to see the outcome...

 

Thanks everyone.. it'll be around 7-10 days for everything to come back from powder coat. What started as being inexpensive and just the valve covers quickly racked up to $210 in powder coating lol .. I'm having the top plate done matte black with a fire engine red Acura emblem. It was going to cost just as much to have him just tape it off so I could keep it polished so I figured why not, its about the same color as the wrinkle red but glossy instead of matte in appearance.

Paint on the TB is still curing, takes like a week, I was just using a heat gun to speed it up a bit. Some guys bake their parts in the oven at 200 degrees for this, but I'm not willing to stick the TB into my oven with the plastic parts on it. I'm sure the engine bay gets hotter, but still not doing it.









Also sent an e-mail to king motorsports to see if they can port the intake manifold outlet, gasket matching it while getting deep enough into the tubes to prevent them from going from smaller --> larger at the exit. Ideally it'd go from larger --> smaller at the exit to speed up the airflow.

Would have to be able to do it without opening it up. Seems like they probably have the equipment to do it right, instead of me taking a dremel to it.

 

PM me your address, imma ship you stuff to get painted and powdercoated

 

Haha, yah I figured I wasn't paying as much as other guys.

It's only about $60 for me to have valve covers done, $80 if they're two-tone; thats for a pair. I'd have to check again but its around there. That includes sand blasting, masking and chemical hanger spray, but I have to degrease the parts and remove all rubber, and bearings prior to bringing them in. I spent an hour or so using some degreaser to remove all of the oil from the valve covers I picked up.

I'm probably going to have my old IM cover and valve covers done and part ways with them in the blackmarket once I have everything done and installed.

 

^^^ not bad at all....

the reason mine were more because of the custom catch can....they had to be drilled and capped to bypass the PCV

but other than that, thats not a bad price....I remember paying around $100 for my manifold and cover a while back....

 

Thats not bad, I think he'll do that part for like $60-$80 because of the masking so it'd end up being about the same if you did it two-tone with the lettering a different color.

Saikou Michi finally shipped my oil catch can. I bought one of his swirl tank design catch cans like this:



Very reasonable price, was like $100 shipped and its being painted gloss black with a white logo.

Only thing is he has a backlog through the summer usually, I ordered it back in September and it just shipped. So I had to wait about a month for it to be made and painted.

I'm going to stick it in the passenger fender, near the windshield washer reservoir.

Almost forgot lol .. I knocked the casting marks down off the IM cover before I took it in, so its smooth around the edges and sides and the top doesn't have as sharp of burs on it so the powder won't stick up. I didn't take a before photo before I took it in, but spent about another hour or so on it after I stripped it.

 

^^^ yeah I like them....I was thinking of them but since we have 2 pipes to route to (front head and rear head), either you need 2 of them with a valve in the rear or a custom one....I ended up going the custom route