'99 VR-4 19T Build

[Jimvr4]

I just ordered up some Porterfield R4S pads. Seems to be best for what I will be doing with the car. 90% street and comfort, 10% track.

R4S initial bite when cold may not be as good as stock but when warmed up they will be superior. I also want to say I had speed bleeders for years and didn't have a problem but when I did my last brake service I had one fail and leave a huge pile of brake oil. A second one dripped a little bit as well. And these issues occured when they were threaded in tight. I don't know WTF happened, maybe debris got between the caliper and the seat of the speed bleeders. I went back to my standard brake screws and recruited my favorite helper.

[DocWalt]

^^^good to know!

i grabbed an LC1 a few years back and drove me bananas having to mess with it all the dam time...

...of course, this is when i was driving 3-4k a month, so i was recalibrating every other month

Most of my friends drive DSMs, so keep that in mind

[J-Groove]

3SX is letting me return the HPS for store credit. Thanks 3SX!

-John

[BigTyla]

Very nice of them! They've always been relatively expensive but their customer service is unmatched for this platform.

[Blackmount]

lC1 all the way. Nice choice to stay with it.

[J-Groove]

Very nice of them! They've always been relatively expensive but their customer service is unmatched for this platform.

They really have done a great job of staying with our platform and stocking those random parts.

I was selling a set of PTE 550 injectors, but was missing one of the metal spacers. I found a part number to order up the pieces, but no one stocked them or offered them online and not being a vendor I could not get them from PTE. 3SX placed the order for me at 0 markup. They just used their vendor account to help me out.

-John

[TurboSinceBirth]

You can't blame them for making a living and sticking around either. People don't think about the time it takes to do things sometimes. I don't charge for any of my time or gas to get shipping supplies, box it up, and take it down to the store. I could always have them box it up but then people would complain about high shipping prices. As a business the phone calls, e-mails, parts inquiry with accounts, etc aren't free and is on the employers time. It's nice to be able to get odd ball stuff sometimes too even if it's more than a person on a budget wants to pay. Lol.


You should have a lot of fun with those 19Ts though John. It's definitely noticeable over 13Ts.

[Chris@Rvengeperformance]

you guys are only talking about the positives. There are a few staff members over there that are far less than helpful and borderline inept.

[J-Groove]

I finally was able to make it out to the garage on Saturday and it was awesome! Just relaxing in a way.

Car body is now prepped and ready to have the new frame pieces welded on. I could have done that on Sunday, but really wanted to wait until Adam could help me to make sure I do everything correctly.

I should finally have my turbos back to me by this Friday at the latest, so I will be able to install them this weekend.

The rear header broken stud at the turbine mount, well, that thing is a bitch. I'm trying to drill it out then use an easy out on it. I killed my awesome bit, I let it get to hot. It was the only one I had, so I ordered up 3 of them, they will be in on Wednesday. Hopefully I can get it out without killing another one, but if I do I have back ups. I should be able to get that done during the week, so I can install the rear turbo this weekend.

Since we're coming up quickly on the Texas Gathering in November, my plans have changed. Now I'm going to wrap up the body and turbo upgrade and get her tuned. Once that is done I will look at the powder coating and brake upgrades I'm wanting to do and decided if I have the time do get it all done before the meet or not. I should but that way if I run into issues with getting her running right I will have a month to work all of that out before the meet.

-John

[J-Groove]

I haven't updated this in a while.

I'm just plugging away whenever I get some time.

Well, when I was taking off my old turbos, I broke a few studs. Unfortunately one was on my rear header.

I drilled it out and tried an easy out. Yeah, after WY to long working on it I finally said "F THIS!" and bought a new to me rear header. I swapped this out last weekend.





Then two weekends ago, Adam came over to help me out/teach me how to spot weld. It is really freaking easy. The hardest part is the darn spot welder is not light and gets heavy after a while.

Lining up the new freshly painted headlight bucket, which we will soon have to take paint off from a number of places to spot weld.



Welding it all into place, you can see there were a lot of tacks done, that bad boy is not going anywhere!







This weekend I'm again going to get as much as I can done.

Big plans, put my fender back on, mount the turbos, and reassemble as much as I can. I would like to think i can get her engine back together in a full day of working. Which then I could try to start her, then all I would have is body reassembly and tuning.

But that is probably not realistic.

Word to the wise, get your build done before you have a newborn. It is hard to get out into the garage, and probably will be until they are 1. haha

-John