Sub'n. Can't wait to see this finished. I love the attention to detail and the cleanliness. I've been staring at your car and Interventions for years before I finally purchased one. I want to eventually get a set of TF Sleepers with the double tinted clear mainly 'cos of the way your car looks with those Mach 5's.
BlueVenom's 3rd Annual Build Thread
- Thread starter BLU3VN0M
- Start date
UPDATE 7/6/16:
Well its crunch time! T-Minus 11 days until I drive this beast down to Mustang Week. This will be my last update before I post a new thread with the finished product.
The last month has been absolutely insane, but i've seen insane progress on the car. In the weeks leading up to StreetCar Takeover in Charlotte, I was very confident that we would be able to make it there with a running car on June 24th and 25th. It didn't happen, but the car did make it there! I spent the week leading up to it working my 9-5 and when I got off I would head to the shop and stay until 2-3am. Ended up getting the car to a point where it was presentable to take up to SCT so I threw the bumper on and went for it.
As far as where we stand, the fab work is 99% done and the car itself is probably 97% done. Since the last update, I got the lower intake plate CNC'd out of a chunk of 1" thick 6061 aluminum. I had this done so I could utilize the stock lower intake and aftercooler; it mounts up just as a blower would to the lower. After that got finished we designed and cut the turbo hat out of a 1/4" aluminum sheet and welded it to the lower intake plate. For the throttle body to clear and be centered on the hat, I had to cut out a spacer out of the same material in the size of the throttle body and welded it to the hat. The headers are now 100% done, and just got ceramic coated last night, so tonight they will be installed on the car for the final time. We fabbed up the 3" hot sides for both turbos and mounted up the turbos to work on the intake piping and down pipes. Welded O2 bungs in right in front of the collectors, and welded in the waste gates in the 90 degree portion on each side. The 3.5" downpipes took no-time to complete, and were done in just a few hours. In order to clear the K-Member, we had to transition to oval pipe right below the steering rack, and then back to 3.5" on back to the x-pipe. The Intake piping is being made out of 2.5" off the turbos and merging down into a 4" pipe all the way up to the throttle body. We will be welding in the MAF flange and an air straightener just before the throttle body, and the blow off valves will be welded right in your face between the two turbos. the only fab work that is left is to finish welding up the intake piping (not much to go), weld in the BOV's, and make a brackets to hold both turbos and a bracket for the alternator.
I have finished up a majority of the wiring, with the exception of a few minor things (I cannot for the life of me find the damn stock fuel pressure sensor plug :cuss: ). I installed 2 12" Perma Cool fans, which were the only fans I could find that flow a decent amount of air but are slim enough to work with my setup. I wired each of these on separate relays to a switch panel i'm going to make right below the radio. I've also wired in my Meziere water pump to work the same as the fans. Though it's going to suck flipping everything on manually, I found this the easiest and required the least amount of wiring in the engine bay, which was the goal. The Jabsco intercooler pump is the only thing I kept tied to the stock wiring harness; It will run off the stock relay, and I am wiring in a jumper switch on the switch panel to turn it on manually.
She goes next Wednesday, July 13th to get tuned so it's going to be a long weekend trying to get it 100% done. Once all the fab work is done, the intake piping will get polished and a few other pieces powder coated.. then we will be headed to the beach!
As always, here are some pictures:
Streetcar Takeover Charlotte
Progress Photos
Well its crunch time! T-Minus 11 days until I drive this beast down to Mustang Week. This will be my last update before I post a new thread with the finished product.
The last month has been absolutely insane, but i've seen insane progress on the car. In the weeks leading up to StreetCar Takeover in Charlotte, I was very confident that we would be able to make it there with a running car on June 24th and 25th. It didn't happen, but the car did make it there! I spent the week leading up to it working my 9-5 and when I got off I would head to the shop and stay until 2-3am. Ended up getting the car to a point where it was presentable to take up to SCT so I threw the bumper on and went for it.
As far as where we stand, the fab work is 99% done and the car itself is probably 97% done. Since the last update, I got the lower intake plate CNC'd out of a chunk of 1" thick 6061 aluminum. I had this done so I could utilize the stock lower intake and aftercooler; it mounts up just as a blower would to the lower. After that got finished we designed and cut the turbo hat out of a 1/4" aluminum sheet and welded it to the lower intake plate. For the throttle body to clear and be centered on the hat, I had to cut out a spacer out of the same material in the size of the throttle body and welded it to the hat. The headers are now 100% done, and just got ceramic coated last night, so tonight they will be installed on the car for the final time. We fabbed up the 3" hot sides for both turbos and mounted up the turbos to work on the intake piping and down pipes. Welded O2 bungs in right in front of the collectors, and welded in the waste gates in the 90 degree portion on each side. The 3.5" downpipes took no-time to complete, and were done in just a few hours. In order to clear the K-Member, we had to transition to oval pipe right below the steering rack, and then back to 3.5" on back to the x-pipe. The Intake piping is being made out of 2.5" off the turbos and merging down into a 4" pipe all the way up to the throttle body. We will be welding in the MAF flange and an air straightener just before the throttle body, and the blow off valves will be welded right in your face between the two turbos. the only fab work that is left is to finish welding up the intake piping (not much to go), weld in the BOV's, and make a brackets to hold both turbos and a bracket for the alternator.
I have finished up a majority of the wiring, with the exception of a few minor things (I cannot for the life of me find the damn stock fuel pressure sensor plug :cuss: ). I installed 2 12" Perma Cool fans, which were the only fans I could find that flow a decent amount of air but are slim enough to work with my setup. I wired each of these on separate relays to a switch panel i'm going to make right below the radio. I've also wired in my Meziere water pump to work the same as the fans. Though it's going to suck flipping everything on manually, I found this the easiest and required the least amount of wiring in the engine bay, which was the goal. The Jabsco intercooler pump is the only thing I kept tied to the stock wiring harness; It will run off the stock relay, and I am wiring in a jumper switch on the switch panel to turn it on manually.
She goes next Wednesday, July 13th to get tuned so it's going to be a long weekend trying to get it 100% done. Once all the fab work is done, the intake piping will get polished and a few other pieces powder coated.. then we will be headed to the beach!
As always, here are some pictures:
Streetcar Takeover Charlotte
Progress Photos
Amazing work! Looks awesome.
:thumbsup:
For a guy who is fairly new to wrenching what you have accomplished in a very short time is very impressive. Look forward to seeing the finished results keep-up the good work!
:rockon:
:rockon:
Thank you! It's been a huge undertaking; a much larger project than I anticipated. Coming from never turning a wrench on a car 4.5 years ago to today, I've learned a lot.
It's done, I'm just chasing down a wiring issue. I have constant 12v to injectors and COP's but not receiving a signal from the PCM. Car turns over just fine but no spark and no fuel. Pulling the harness tonight to see if I can find any issues with it. Hoping there is just a pinched wire.
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Speechless
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Thanks!
Finally got it to run for a few seconds Friday night. She goes Wednesday for the break in tune!!
What was the issue?
UPDATE: 06/06/16
It's been almost 2 months since I've given an update so I figured it was about time. After I finished finals for my 2nd year of law school in May, I was able to come home, and for the first two weeks, work every single day on the car until I started my summer internship last week. Anyways, I dropped the motor off for final assembly at Boosted Performance in my last post-- well, there ended up being many issues with the short block from the original builder. After a few weeks of fighting with the original builder, 2 cylinders ended up getting re-honed as they were too small. I picked the completed motor up from Donny at Boosted Performance (side note: Donny was outstanding to deal with; he was very flexible with me and the issues I was having with the original builder and was willing to work with me in any way possible :reckonanyways, I picked the motor up and immediately dropped the K-member and put it in the car that night. It was slow going on the headers because we didn't have the car there so not much was completed while the motor was gone. In the meantime, we plasma cut the pieces of the coolant tank and battery box out of an 1/8" aluminum sheet and welded everything up. I leak tested the tank when it was completed and it ended up holding exactly 6.5 gallons!
We finished up the primary tubes on the headers this past weekend and cut the tack's off the collectors to weld in the star's and finish them up. We're going to end up having to shorten the sway bar mounts for clearance of the collector, but this should not be a big deal.
I had a friend who does CAD designing to draw up the plans to get a 1" thick chunk of aluminum CNC'd for the base plate on my turbo hat in order for the aftercooler to bolt up to. It was dropped off today for CNC'ing.
I cut the loom off the engine harness, tucked every wire, then re-loomed it. The majority of the wiring on the car is already done, I just need to shorten/extend a few wires once the motor goes back up for the final time. I have mounted the power steering tank in the drivers side fender well, bolted to the existing cruise control module--I just need to run the lines to it once the body is dropped back down on the car.
My goal is to get the rest of the car completed by the end of next week. There is a LOT of work yet to do, however most of the hard and time-consuming work is already done. I really want to make StreetCar Takeover in Charlotte on June 24-25 so my goal is to have a running car by then, even if it just has a base tune on it so I can get some break-in miles on it before it gets completely tuned. Here are the pics of the progress thus far:
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Haha, well it actually ended up being a mistake on my part. When I was running the intercooler pump wiring to the trunk, the only grommet I could find in the passenger side fender well was what turned out to be the main PCM harness. When I was trying to track down my issue I moved the PCM looking at the connectors (car would turn over prior to this) and when I tried to turn it over I got dashes on the odometer, so that led me to believe there was a short in the PCM harness. Long story short, I pulled the grommet on the fire wall and right behind it the PCM harness had been damaged when I was running the IC pump wiring. Snaked the harness out from under the dash, repaired everything, and it fired up!
Can't wait to see this car at Pro show in the fall?
The self inflicted wound. At lease it was a easy fix.
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I should be there!
Got that right.. just took awhile to get everything labeled so i didn't mix up wires and then soldered and shrink wrapped.
She is finally running. Took the car up to Powercurve to get a base tune on it so we could get it running and sort out all the issues before it hits the Dyno. Crappy video below but that was before I fixed some of the small issues we ran into and fixed the idle. She's now back home and idling. Hope to get some tuning done later this week!
https://vimeo.com/178022748
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UPDATE 9/19/16
So its been over a month since i've updated. Things have been going very slow lately getting the car finished since I went back for my last year of law school. I've been limited to working on it on the weekends and it just hasn't been enough time to get everything done. I got the car to the point of taking it for the first drive about a month ago! It was quite possibly the most nerve racking thing I have done, especially considering all that I've done. I drove the car a total of 100 miles in 100 degree heat, stop and go traffic, and on the highway and didn't have the first issue. I saw IAT1 temps around 140 degrees and IAT2 temps right at 100. When moving the motor temps were right at 180 degrees and would creep up to 200-210 in traffic (not too bad considering it was 100 degrees outside and I still don't have everything wrapped in exhaust wrap). Overall I was thrilled with how the car drove and can't wait to get the final tune on it so I can do some pulls!
Also, I can't get everything done for buying new parts :cryying: I ended up picking up a set of '00 Cobra R Brembo's with cooling ducts for the front, and am in the process of getting them stripped and powder coated. I got a sponsorship deal with Corbeau, who sent me a set of grey/black microsuede CR1's with 5-point harnesses, so I took the opportunity to deep clean the carpets while no seats were in the car. And since I've decided to go to a 5-point harness, I'm going to have to have a partial cage fabbed up in order to attach the shoulder straps correctly.
In the meantime, I bought 133' of DEI Titanium exhaust wrap and started wrapping the downpipes, and hot-side's. I got a set of sick gloss black turbo blankets from Boost Resource for both turbos, which look amazing! Highly recommend Boost Resource's turbo blankets to anyone in need of them! I've got a Speedhut boost gauge, Turbosmart boost controller, new 2ga. wiring for the starter, and a few other smaller things that I've got laying around and haven't had time to install.
Since the car and fab work is generally done and finalized, I took the turbo hat, intake piping, and lower intake off this past weekend to have them polished and the lower intake sandblasted so it can be powder coated. I'm really hopeful to have the car completely done and ready for final tuning by the first or second week in October. Its close, really close... just a handful of hours left and the car will be completely done! As always, here are some progress pics:
So its been over a month since i've updated. Things have been going very slow lately getting the car finished since I went back for my last year of law school. I've been limited to working on it on the weekends and it just hasn't been enough time to get everything done. I got the car to the point of taking it for the first drive about a month ago! It was quite possibly the most nerve racking thing I have done, especially considering all that I've done. I drove the car a total of 100 miles in 100 degree heat, stop and go traffic, and on the highway and didn't have the first issue. I saw IAT1 temps around 140 degrees and IAT2 temps right at 100. When moving the motor temps were right at 180 degrees and would creep up to 200-210 in traffic (not too bad considering it was 100 degrees outside and I still don't have everything wrapped in exhaust wrap). Overall I was thrilled with how the car drove and can't wait to get the final tune on it so I can do some pulls!
Also, I can't get everything done for buying new parts :cryying: I ended up picking up a set of '00 Cobra R Brembo's with cooling ducts for the front, and am in the process of getting them stripped and powder coated. I got a sponsorship deal with Corbeau, who sent me a set of grey/black microsuede CR1's with 5-point harnesses, so I took the opportunity to deep clean the carpets while no seats were in the car. And since I've decided to go to a 5-point harness, I'm going to have to have a partial cage fabbed up in order to attach the shoulder straps correctly.
In the meantime, I bought 133' of DEI Titanium exhaust wrap and started wrapping the downpipes, and hot-side's. I got a set of sick gloss black turbo blankets from Boost Resource for both turbos, which look amazing! Highly recommend Boost Resource's turbo blankets to anyone in need of them! I've got a Speedhut boost gauge, Turbosmart boost controller, new 2ga. wiring for the starter, and a few other smaller things that I've got laying around and haven't had time to install.
Since the car and fab work is generally done and finalized, I took the turbo hat, intake piping, and lower intake off this past weekend to have them polished and the lower intake sandblasted so it can be powder coated. I'm really hopeful to have the car completely done and ready for final tuning by the first or second week in October. Its close, really close... just a handful of hours left and the car will be completely done! As always, here are some progress pics:
All I can say is WOW.. what a ride this has been. I haven't posted an update to this build thread since September of last year so I figured it was about time I updated everyone with what all has been going on. The last post I made was when I got the startup tune on the car and got it running; unfortunately, that's about as good as it gets.
I got the startup tune on the car and it ran and drove great. I was able to put about 300 miles on the motor to ensure that it was fully broken in before I hit the Dyno. A week before I was going to take it to get the full tune, I decided to go get the alignment done. I few weeks prior I powder coated and installed the 2000 Cobra R Brembo's--I had driven a little over 100 miles (at highway speeds) on the new calipers before all hell broke loose. I left for the alignment shop early one morning and made it less than a mile down the road before I hit a massive dip, proceeded by a huge pothole after being run off the road by an oncoming truck. As soon as I hit the pothole the car jerked suddenly left--I had no idea what had happened. I was able to get off of the road and found that one of the right-front caliper bolt sheered off, allowing the caliper to come in contact with the barrel of my True-Forged's (popping the valve stem off). The caliper also came in contact with the rear face of the spokes of the wheels. I was lucky in the fact that there was no more damage--but I still ended up with almost $2500 in damage from the wheel, tire, caliper, and rotor alone. After this fiasco, I bit the bullet and upgraded to Wildwood 6 Piston calipers and 2-piece rotors since I could not find a lone Brembo caliper. I got these installed and sent off the True Forged to see if it could be repaired (which it couldn't). I'm having a new True Forged made to complete the set, but in the meantime, I picked up a set of CCW Classics so the True Forged's will be for sale shortly .
Over the course of a couple months while I waited on parts, I polished all of the intake piping and the upper-intake. I also picked up a vacuum distribution block and some braided vacuum line and mounted the vacuum block under the cowl. I hid all of the vacuum lines in the fender well's and through the cowl so I could keep things clean. I finally finished some of the little things and was ready to take to get the exhaust finished up at Toxic Detail and Performance in Indian Trail, NC (who has done all of the fab work on my car). They welded me up a killer 3" stainless x-pipe from the downpipes to the catback. I picked the car up and on the following day I drove it to Powercurve Motorsports in Mooresville, NC, to get the street tune. This is where things really start going downhill.
We get the car on the Dyno and we start tuning on it. After a few hours, we could not get the car to pull past 3k--the car was missing quite badly. I did a plug check and found that the #7 plug was extremely fouled. We changed the plugs, did a pull, and there was no change--still no power. I pulled the #7 plug again and it looked brand new (as if it was not firing). Luckily, Donnie at Boosted Performance is right next to Powercurve so he was able to help us troubleshoot the problem (which I greatly appreciate). We put a noid-light on the injector, the coil wiring, and a spark checker on the coil pack, all of which checked out fine. We moved onto a compression test and found that the compression numbers were all over the map. The #1 cylinder was the highest at 175, but every other cylinder was 150 or below. The worst was #7 and #8, which were both 135. We put a bore scope down in #7 and the piston (for being brand new 300 miles prior) was extremely dark colored (burnt oil). The decision was made to pull the motor and find out what the issue was.
The next day I pulled the motor out of the car and dropped it off at Boosted Performance for the teardown. Donnie found that the block was over-bored and just shy of 30 over (it was supposed to be 20 over).The pistons were actually loose in the bore's and the ringlands were visible in numerous cylinders. All of this points back to the builder of my short block, who I will not name. Long story short, I have had to get a new Teksid block, bearings, and rings. I've also had to have the crank re-balanced and new upgraded dowels ordered and installed since I had those done in the previous block.
It goes without saying that this has been a very long, hard, and emotionally trying process. I want nothing more than to get this car done (and done right). It's been close many times, but setback after setback has turned the winter build of 2015 into a year and a half process. We are currently waiting on the crank to come back from the machine shop, and then it will all go back together and in the car. In the meantime, I decided to re-powder-coat my oil pan and valve covers. Having the motor out has given me a chance to clean some things up in the engine bay that I wasn't happy with. I'm hoping to have the car back up and running by mid-April so I can enjoy it this spring and summer. Below are some pictures of the progress.
I got the startup tune on the car and it ran and drove great. I was able to put about 300 miles on the motor to ensure that it was fully broken in before I hit the Dyno. A week before I was going to take it to get the full tune, I decided to go get the alignment done. I few weeks prior I powder coated and installed the 2000 Cobra R Brembo's--I had driven a little over 100 miles (at highway speeds) on the new calipers before all hell broke loose. I left for the alignment shop early one morning and made it less than a mile down the road before I hit a massive dip, proceeded by a huge pothole after being run off the road by an oncoming truck. As soon as I hit the pothole the car jerked suddenly left--I had no idea what had happened. I was able to get off of the road and found that one of the right-front caliper bolt sheered off, allowing the caliper to come in contact with the barrel of my True-Forged's (popping the valve stem off). The caliper also came in contact with the rear face of the spokes of the wheels. I was lucky in the fact that there was no more damage--but I still ended up with almost $2500 in damage from the wheel, tire, caliper, and rotor alone. After this fiasco, I bit the bullet and upgraded to Wildwood 6 Piston calipers and 2-piece rotors since I could not find a lone Brembo caliper. I got these installed and sent off the True Forged to see if it could be repaired (which it couldn't). I'm having a new True Forged made to complete the set, but in the meantime, I picked up a set of CCW Classics so the True Forged's will be for sale shortly
. Over the course of a couple months while I waited on parts, I polished all of the intake piping and the upper-intake. I also picked up a vacuum distribution block and some braided vacuum line and mounted the vacuum block under the cowl. I hid all of the vacuum lines in the fender well's and through the cowl so I could keep things clean. I finally finished some of the little things and was ready to take to get the exhaust finished up at Toxic Detail and Performance in Indian Trail, NC (who has done all of the fab work on my car). They welded me up a killer 3" stainless x-pipe from the downpipes to the catback. I picked the car up and on the following day I drove it to Powercurve Motorsports in Mooresville, NC, to get the street tune. This is where things really start going downhill.
We get the car on the Dyno and we start tuning on it. After a few hours, we could not get the car to pull past 3k--the car was missing quite badly. I did a plug check and found that the #7 plug was extremely fouled. We changed the plugs, did a pull, and there was no change--still no power. I pulled the #7 plug again and it looked brand new (as if it was not firing). Luckily, Donnie at Boosted Performance is right next to Powercurve so he was able to help us troubleshoot the problem (which I greatly appreciate). We put a noid-light on the injector, the coil wiring, and a spark checker on the coil pack, all of which checked out fine. We moved onto a compression test and found that the compression numbers were all over the map. The #1 cylinder was the highest at 175, but every other cylinder was 150 or below. The worst was #7 and #8, which were both 135. We put a bore scope down in #7 and the piston (for being brand new 300 miles prior) was extremely dark colored (burnt oil). The decision was made to pull the motor and find out what the issue was.
The next day I pulled the motor out of the car and dropped it off at Boosted Performance for the teardown. Donnie found that the block was over-bored and just shy of 30 over (it was supposed to be 20 over).The pistons were actually loose in the bore's and the ringlands were visible in numerous cylinders. All of this points back to the builder of my short block, who I will not name. Long story short, I have had to get a new Teksid block, bearings, and rings. I've also had to have the crank re-balanced and new upgraded dowels ordered and installed since I had those done in the previous block.
It goes without saying that this has been a very long, hard, and emotionally trying process. I want nothing more than to get this car done (and done right). It's been close many times, but setback after setback has turned the winter build of 2015 into a year and a half process. We are currently waiting on the crank to come back from the machine shop, and then it will all go back together and in the car. In the meantime, I decided to re-powder-coat my oil pan and valve covers. Having the motor out has given me a chance to clean some things up in the engine bay that I wasn't happy with. I'm hoping to have the car back up and running by mid-April so I can enjoy it this spring and summer. Below are some pictures of the progress.
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