JJ's 818s Build

[TouchStone]

Finished and installed the harness today. Install was easy and uneventful. I was planning on widening the hole in the front firewall to fit the ABS connector but surprisingly I was able to fit it with a little bit of work.

Side by side comparison makes me happy. I weighed the two, donor (after my tear-down) was 37.8 lbs and the new harness weighs 14.8 lbs.

[Tamra]

22lbs off and easy to install sounds like a win!! How many hours do you estimate that you put into it?

[Bob_n_Cincy]

Great Job Touchstone.
I'm sure you spent lots of hours, but the personal satisfaction is priceless.
Bob

[STiPWRD]

wow great work on the harness!

[milkman dan]

Great looking harness! Also curious about how many hours you put into the harness.

[TouchStone]

I put about 20 hrs into the design and 60-80 hrs build time over 3 weeks. Total material cost was about $650, however I have lots of left over wire due to minimum quantities I had to buy. I have enough wire to make 3 or 4 more harnesses.

[Hindsight]

Very clean harness! What brand of wire and braid did you use?

[TouchStone]

Everything came from Waytek Wire. I used primarily 14GA GXL & 22GA TXL Cross-linked wire and bundled it with various sizes of Flexo F6 Split.

[TouchStone]

Painting my brakes, for the second time, I'm using red G2 caliper paint. It looks a bit orange too me but they are still drying. I built the stand to hold the brakes and bracket separately but decided not disassemble the brakes to do so. Setting them on top worked just as well.

[nkw8181]

Man looking great!

[TouchStone]

Made progress over the Memorial weekend.

Mounted and bled the brakes. Also bled the clutch.



Installed air intake




Mounted some of the electronics and ground points to the chassis.

[TouchStone]

A part I was waiting for came in earlier than I expected so I was able to install the turbo, inter-cooler and exhaust. Then put in engine oil, gear oil and coolant. Installed some temporary wiring, then fired her up.



I was surprised by how quiet the engine was without a muffler. I suppose the cat dampens the noise quite a bit but after hearing this I'm temped to just run straight pipes.

[TouchStone]

Wouldn't start a second time since the battery was low (starter makes nasty sounds). Pulled the battery out of my Focus and gave it a another try. This time some fluid, probably gas dripped out of the exhaust. I haven't seen this happen again after several more starts. My guess is their was some build up from the failed starts.





I do have a cooling issue, I tried doing something different by running the heater hose to the water tank instead of to the bypass line to help limit the amount of water bypassing the radiator. The engine temp sensor works with this configuration, even turning on the fans, but the thermostat just doesn't get enough hot water to open. Easy to fix but should have just followed the directions.

[billjr212]

I was surprised by how quiet the engine was without a muffler. I suppose the cat dampens the noise quite a bit but after hearing this I'm temped to just run straight pipes.

Congrats on the milestone! That decibel level rises pretty dramatically as it revs and under load, so you may want to hold off on the jump to a straight pipe until after your first drive (though many will do it and enjoy every minute). I had the exact same thought when I did my first start a few months back. After my first few drives, I'm leaving the cat in for now to serve as a "muffler."

[nkw8181]

Wow! Congrats you beat me to it! So when's the first Drive

[Tamra]

Congrats on the milestone!!

I'm curious how much quieter ours will be with a cat installed (will be installed before our trip to the DMV). With no cat, but one bullet muffler and one additional muffler, we will not pass sound at an SCCA solo event on a cloudy day (and we barely squeak through on a clear day). We'll have to do a turn down or something else to stay legal. Might be something to consider if you plan on attending any events with sound regs (our DMV also requires a muffler).

I also agree with Billjr. Ours is pleasantly quiet while idling, but when you get on the throttle it sounds like a beast

[Bob_n_Cincy]

Congrats on the milestone!!

I'm curious how much quieter ours will be with a cat installed (will be installed before our trip to the DMV). With no cat, but one bullet muffler and one additional muffler, we will not pass sound at an SCCA solo event on a cloudy day (and we barely squeak through on a clear day). We'll have to do a turn down or something else to stay legal. Might be something to consider if you plan on attending any events with sound regs (our DMV also requires a muffler).

I also agree with Billjr. Ours is pleasantly quiet while idling, but when you get on the throttle it sounds like a beast

Jodhua,
Great job on the first start.

We have a cat in the up-pipe and another cat in the down-pipe. Nothing else.
We were also surprised at how quiet it is.

At are local autocross event I asked a lot of others to listen to how loud we were. They say we are only average.
You can watch my videos and get a good Idea of sound.

www.youtube.com/channel/UC3EKhwG0mrhAIjOAxAc8opw

Bob

[Hindsight]

Congrats on the first start!

[Buzz Skyline]

We have the same exhaust on our 818 as you do in your video. We took it out for a spin today, and it's pleasantly loud from the cabin even with all the body panels on. To my uncalibrated ears, it seems like it will probably pass SCCA noise limits for autocross (100 db at 50ft), which is consistent with Bob's experience. You won't need ear plugs, but it's loud enough that we couldn't talk to each other when I was getting on the throttle.

[TouchStone]

We have the same exhaust on our 818 as you do in your video. We took it out for a spin today, and it's pleasantly loud from the cabin even with all the body panels on. To my uncalibrated ears, it seems like it will probably pass SCCA noise limits for autocross (100 db at 50ft), which is consistent with Bob's experience. You won't need ear plugs, but it's loud enough that we couldn't talk to each other when I was getting on the throttle.

Did you mount the cat somewhere? or does it just hang off of the turbo?

[nkw8181]

. You won't need ear plugs, but it's loud enough that we couldn't talk to each other when I was getting on the throttle.

That is a new way to end an argument or just to shut someone up

[billjr212]

Did you mount the cat somewhere? or does it just hang off of the turbo?

You can make a simple angle bracket and run it over to the transmission.

I made one just like Quiny's in this post except I used aluminum:

http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showt...l=1#post173354

[TouchStone]

Cooling system is fixed and managed to get another half gallon in the system. Added a steering rack limiter sized for the donor wheels. I needed one of these for each side, which reduced the turning angle by quite a bit. Made them in 2 halves so they can easily be removed and re-sized when I get new wheels.



First time putting the wheels on. Now its finally starting to look like a car (or go-kart).

[TouchStone]

[TouchStone]

[Hindsight]

Congrats on the milestone!

[Tamra]

Looks great and congrats on the first drive!!

[nkw8181]

Awesome!

[TouchStone]

Happy Birthday to me.

[TouchStone]

Got the MX-5 Hand Brake installed. It fits very well with a set of brackets and spacers. Was even able to reuse the donors pull cable L/R balancer as is.

[Flamshackle]

So good! Well done :-)

[TouchStone]

Just getting started on the body work.

[TouchStone]

New wheels and tires installed. I went with FFR wheels and 235/40R17 front and 255/35R18 rear tires. I'm a bit concerned about the clearance on the rear tires, anyone know the required minimum clearance?

[07FIREBLADE]

Go with the vcp wide trailing arms. You will be fine. I have the size on my rear and there's plenty of clearance with different arms.

[Tamra]

That's interesting that their wheel + recommended tire size does not fit with the OEM parts. The rears will rub.

We have 17x8 et 45 with 255/40/17 tires on the rear. For regular street driving style, they don't rub, but at autocross, we left rubber on the OEM trailing arms (upper was fine), purely due to tire deflection under hard cornering. With those wheels being an extra 1/2" wider (so stick in .25" closer than ours) but only .19" (5mm) lower offset, you should have even more rubbing. Either the VCP arms or a small spacer should fix that for you.

Your fronts will rub at full lock too but only because of your choice of tire size.

[STiPWRD]

I have almost the same wheels (DR31s) and had a similar rear tire clearance. I fixed it on the cheap with some 10mm spacers. Bringing the tires out wider may also make them more flush with the body.

[TouchStone]

I added 5mm spacers all around. Still dont get lock to lock on the fronts but I do get much better turning than with the donor wheels.


Here is a picture of the increased space in the rears.

[Frank818]

You mention lock to lock on the front wheel but show a pic of the rear wheel, is that a typo?

Here my regulation tells me I need 5mm space between any moving parts (that include belts vs frame, tires vs shocks, vs links, etc., but does not include vs fenders, for the fenders as long it does not touch at any compression point they are ok).

[TouchStone]

Installed Wayne's exhaust. Much lighter than the donor cat. I should have taken weight measurements.





Started the headlight installation. This is not an easy task. I can imagine that once everything is finally seated well, then the headlight alignment will be way off.

[07FIREBLADE]

Since when did wayne offer an exhaust? Specs, sounds pretty good.