First week of Driving

Well the car has now made a complete week of to and from work duty and weekend running around. So far that's about 200 miles. The engine has run great and strong. The tires are just about at the limit for traction just standing on the gas with the RPM's over 4,000. I've been real easy on the drive line as I haven't strengthened the diff mounts. So no clutch dumps or hard shifts. Even with being easy on it 0-60 comes in 4.5 seconds (per G-Tech).

So far the issues I've found with the swap are: The exhaust is too loud for my taste. I feel like I'm a specticle driving around and the heater doesn't work. I haven't had time to look at the heater yet. It could be the heater valve or the controler.

This saturday I finished replacing the traling arm bushings on the LH side of the car. The car feels more composed with the new bushings. I also put new parking brake shoes on the LH side.

Things on the to do list:
Put the new parking brake shoes on the RH side.
Add another muffler and perhaps a Catalyist to quiet the exhaust down some more.
More suspension upgrades (springs and dampers, Maybe sway bars too)
Reinforce the diff mounts and subframe.

Ready For the Road

This week was good for shipments. The PCM came back from its tach signal tweaking, the 3" dia exhaust pipe for finishing the exhaust showed up and the bushings and bearings for the trailing arm arrived.

Spent saturday replacing all the bearings and bushings in the RH trailing arm (installed RTAB's for an M3). Having a press does come in handy. The wheel bearing on that side was wore out. Looks to me the whole issue was because the previous owner didn't have the lock nut tight enough on the rear axle so there was no preload on the bearings. I'll replace all the bearings and bushings in the LH side next saturday. Bad news is I broke the ABS sensor off when trying to get it out. (rusted in place) and the rear emergency brake shoes were garbage.

So I have to order some more parts and take things apart again.Finished the exhaust. It turned out well except for that it is louder than I like. I drove it to church and a guy commented on it. I said "yah it's too loud" and he said "I thought it sounded great". I dont' think it is obnixious but I'm going for "sleeper" and the sound gives it away.

Lots of odds and ends to do but the car is driveable now. I think I'll drive it to work tomorrow.

FIRST DRIVE

Well it's been awhile again. Been busy. Very busy. Last saturday I spent ALL day on the car. Actually I did take a break to watch my boy's soccer game but other than that I worked on the car. I put in the radiator, driveshaft, part of the exhaust and a ton of other stuff. I ran the engine until it came up to temp and made sure the electric fan came on. The fan did come on and my daughter said the fan sounded like shaking a box of rocks. The fan blades were definately hitting something. note to self remove the fan and check it.


I put the car on it's own wheels. Was funny to see it down on the ground again. I wanted to take it for a drive but it was dark and I didn't have any head lights. Or a muffler. So night driving was a bad idea. However the next day I backed it out of the garage under it's own power. My wife, my 2 kids and I all went for the first ride together. With no muffler it makes quite the sound. Very strong solid sound but nonetheless loud. Still didn't keep me from flooring it a few times though. Then brought it back home and parked it. No lights, no muffler, no front bumper expired inspection sticker it was just not a good idea to drive it much. So the first trip was only 2 miles. All went well though. Only other problem found was the Tach didn't read correctly.




Tuesday I came home at lunch from work and drove it again. Couldn't resist. Wife and I went on another 2 mile run. I got on the gas even more this time. Man that was fun. However, that night i removed the PCM (engine computer) and sent it away to get the tach signal corrected. I hated pulling it out when it was running and driving but have to have the tach working right. The rest of the week I spent intalling the head lights and turnsignals, few more interior bits, Fixing the fan rub (fan blades were slightly bent and rubbing on the fan housing) and started installing the muffler.


I need some more 3" dia exhaust pipe to finish the muffler installation. Doesn't appear that anyone in town has any so I ordered some off the net. Should be here in a few days. By the end of this week I should have the PCM back and the muffler installed. We'll see how it goes.