Jaime's Western New York Build

[Jaime]

I'm happy to be doing something non-electrical for a change of pace.

Got some stuff in the mail:



That's a tube and rods ends to make a rear support brace, some aluminum bar for wiring harness support, a 0.1 inch thick 1'x4' piece of aluminum for an upper rear firewall to mount the ECU to, and a 0.1 inch thick piece of 1'x2' aluminum for the base of the fusebox.



This is a horrible picture of a 3'x3' piece of 0.040 aluminum to make new interior rear sides. I want to eliminate the sedan mount bays and extend to cover the area left open when installing a smaller tank.

[Jaime]

It's amazing how much hose you need to run both heat and air-to-water intercooling. If I splurged on silicone, that would be $200 of just hose. Instead, I went with good old Goodyear heater hose.

[Jaime]

A test fit showed my lower radiator hose rubbed on the steering rack boot. Instead of trying some sort of spacer, I took the Neanderthal approach:



The end result looks OK:

[Jaime]

Almost done with wiring...

[Jaime]

I got this in the mail on Friday:



After a test fitting, I need to swap a few pieces of silicone out for alternates. I should be able to install it around the end of the week.

[Bob_n_Cincy]

Hey Jaime,
Great NEAT job with the wiring. I'm impressed.
Love the AWIC's also.
Bob

[metalmaker12]

Nice job on wiring !!

[Frank818]

I love AWICs.

[Aero STI]

Your wiring looks outstanding!

Where did you get all of your AWIC parts from?

[Jaime]

Where did you get all of your AWIC parts from?

frozenboost.com. When I actually get it installed, I'll post more details. If you buy what's in that picture, you'll have interference problems with the shock tower brace.

[07FIREBLADE]

Your awic setup looks very similar to mine. Depends on your routing you could do all routing with some creativity and bov setup.

[Mechie3]

I'm using the same (I think) AWIC core, but a different heat exchanger. My routing is a bit different as well (clocking housing) to shorten up the piping. I'm (slowly) working on brackets to mount everything.

[Jaime]

I planned on pointing the three inch elbow 45 degrees down and connecting that to the reducing 45. That both pushes the AWIC up too far and is too long to let me get my BPV in before the elbow to the turbo outlet. I'm trading in the big elbow and the reducing 45 for a reducing elbow. It will give me a really compact feed to the AWIC with only about two and a half feet of total silicone. I also bought a hump reducer for the throttle body, which frozenboost doesn't carry.

I'm still experimenting with the bypass routing. Doing it neat is really expensive - a handful of silicone elbows and stainless joiners quickly add up to around $100 for just the bypass hose. I'm going to try to get away with carefully routing a 1 inch long hose around the intake manifold.

[Mechie3]

Try to position the BPV to reuse the stock hose.

[07FIREBLADE]

Already tackled that problem. Agreed it gets expensive fast.

[metalmaker12]

Aluminum tubing is another option with some bends and just couplers to attach to turbo, throttle body and awic. It will also not collapse under boost

[Jaime]

I finished the fuse box today.

Here's the box wired but empty:




Loaded with components:



And finally with the covers on:



In case anyone's wondering; there's 168 wire terminations, all crimped and soldered.

[Bob_n_Cincy]

Jaime
Great job with the fuse box.
A couple of questions.
Where are you going to put it?
How many hours of design work?
How many hours of assembly fab?
Are you thinking about selling them?
Bob

[Jaime]

Jaime
Great job with the fuse box.

Thanks

Where are you going to put it?

Under the right hump.

How many hours of design work?

It's hard to say. Most of the design was part of my wiring clean-up. Once I knew how many circuits and relays I needed, it only took me a few hours to figure out a layout that fit in the space available.

How many hours of assembly fab?

About 10 hours.

Are you thinking about selling them?

It crossed my mind. I have an idea for version two that I'd definitely sell. I want to make sure there's enough clearance under it before I give it too much thought. Version two would be based on a fabbed circuit board, so it would be quicker to assemble. Circuit board fab is a bit expensive for a single board, but five to ten are pretty cheap. That lends itself very well to being sold.

[sponaugle]

I finished the fuse box today.

Here's the box wired but empty:




Loaded with components:



And finally with the covers on:



In case anyone's wondering; there's 168 wire terminations, all crimped and soldered.

That is sweet. Really nicely done!
Jeff

[metalmaker12]

Very nice!

[Jaime]

Here's what it looks like on the car...

[AZPete]

The innovations and skills on the forum are absolutely amazing. I love this place and admit I'm addicted.

[Frank818]

Pretty nice install!
Hopefully there isn't too much heat going there, as usually fuses don't really like constant high heat, but it looks like a nice location, with a plate underneath for protection.

[Bob_n_Cincy]

Pretty nice install!
Hopefully there isn't too much heat going there, as usually fuses don't really like constant high heat, but it looks like a nice location, with a plate underneath for protection.

Fuse are not that big of a deal with heat. I'd worry more about the microprocessors in the ECU, some mounted to the hot side of the fire wall.
Bob

[Jaime]

That area is the intake tract for the intercooler, so it sees a lot of fresh air. I'm not worried about impeding flow because I'm running an AWIC.

[Jaime]

Changing gears a bit - Boyd tank is placed in it's new home -



Still awaiting fittings.

[Aero STI]

Very neat and tidy. Great work.

[Jaime]

Now that my Boyd tank is installed completely, I can fix the side cockpit aluminum.

I bought a piece of 3'x3' 0.040 aluminum a while back. First, I traced the dog shaped piece onto it:



Added a bit to cover the gap left by my Boyd tank:



And there we go:



In my opinion, everyone should do this. If you are using a harness or the wagon belts, then the holes up by your shoulders are useless and ugly. If you are using the sedan belts, then you should change your mind and get a set of wagon belts. I couldn't make the sedan belts work properly.

[Boog]

Looks good. Do you have a picture of the wagon belts mounted?

Edit: Also, why did you decide to not have the back of the panel run vertical? It seems like it would nicely seal the tank area. Do wires/hoses get routed out the sides?

[Jaime]

On the driver's side, the brake and clutch lines go through the very bottom of that space. Mostly, I did it because it would be difficult to install if it filled the entire space.

[Jaime]

Do you have a picture of the wagon belts mounted?

[Boog]

Cool, Thanks.

[wleehendrick]

Now that my Boyd tank is installed completely, I can fix the side cockpit aluminum.

Looks great! I wish I had done this, but I installed my side Al before ordering the Boyd tank.

[Jaime]

Looks great! I wish I had done this, but I installed my side Al before ordering the Boyd tank.

I did too. When I looked into filling the space, I found that it was easier to just replace the entire side rather than creating some sort of extension. I only spent $40 and I both fixed the tank side gap and eliminated the belt spool cover. The best part is that the final part has no bends and no internal cutouts, so anyone can do this with only a pair of tin snips.

[Jaime]

Did some more work on the cockpit rear wall today.



I bought four feet of 3/4 square aluminum, cut it into three sections and bolted them to the steel floor from the bottom with button head screws. Then, I drilled and tapped in four places and bolted the lower rear panel down from inside. Now I can remove the panel without going under the car.

Here's the rear almost done:



All that's left is a row of rivnuts on the top edge.

[Jaime]

I had the rear aluminum bent for the Boyd tank and it fits perfect. What worked for me was to have the top piece bent 20 degrees short of 90 (110 degrees) and the bottom piece bent 10 degrees from flat (170 degrees). There's a high-end metal shop down the street from where I worked, so I had it done there - it ended up costing me $60 for two bends, but they did it on a CNC brake, so they hit the numbers I gave them perfectly.

I trimmed the bottom of the top piece right at the top of the two cutouts. It mostly lined up with the top of the center cutout, but not quite. I did this one on a table saw. If you've never tried it before, a table saw makes straight cuts in aluminum very well. Just remember eye protection and stay clear of any potential kick-back. I've made four foot long cuts in 3/4 inch thick aluminum plate in the past. I used a jig saw to cut a new center cutout.

[Jaime]

Here's my coolant tank relocator:



Two bucks worth of bolts and spacers. If you're using the stock intercooler set up the way the manual tells you to, this will be in the way.

[Jaime]

Intercooler radiator is mounted.

I first made some spacers with 8 degree angles cut in them. Short ones for the top and longer ones for the bottom. Here's the short ones:



I used them to mount the top tabs of the intercooler radiator to the top radiator mount tube with rivnuts.



Then on the bottom, I mounted a 3/4" steel tube with similar spacers and mounted the bottom tabs of the radiator to this tube with rivnuts.



Here's the whole thing from a bit farther out:

[Jaime]

My first weld ever...