The ultimate street galant in the making? Cheekychimp's

[toybreaker]

Quoting curtis:
Crate has been moved out of the shop area and next to the door. That wasn't an easy task. Everything in the shop including the car had to go out then back in in pieces. Had a couple people slow down like i was getting ready for a yard sale.




... prolly thought they were shooting the intervention segment of a new reality show "autoholics" ...

 

[misterfixit]

At that price you could have Curtis come contract on the car in HK for a little bit?

Quoting cheekychimp:
Well the car won't be coming to the States anytime soon unfortunately /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif. The shipping companies are charging $8,000-USD to ship a container one way to the States. Either they just don't want to do it or they are trying it on. I'm talking with Curtis and trying to decide what the best plan of action is now. The idea was originally to get everything fabricated first and ship everything at the same time. Unfortunately what has happened is that the crate that was built to ship everything is now occupying much of the middle of his workshop. This is making it very difficult for Curtis to get his own car into the workshop properly to do all the measuring and test fitting for some of the fabrication work. I think we'll just have to bite the bullet and ship that crate first to get it out of his hair and give him room to work. There are also one or two pieces in the crate which I am now going to need anyway since it looks like a lot of parts will have to be installed at this end.

On a positive note, the car does run. As we speak, flanges are being made/welded for the exhaust. It's a nice exhaust but everything was slip fit (and leaked!) It was either clamps or flanges and I decided on flanges.

Things left to do before she drives include plumbing/welding in a recirculation fitting for the intake pipe, fitting some boost control and fitting the rear sub-frame bushings to see if that is the cause of our noisy rear end issues (I am praying it is the solid bushings and not a drive train or rear LSD issue!!!).

The twin port actuator and bracket has been machined to fit on the turbo and we had gaskets custom made here. All the oil lines and fittings have now been sourced/modified and installed.

After that it comes down essentially to wiring in gauges, electronics etc, fitting the interior, bodywork and paint.

So mechanically, 90% of it is done but there is a still a lot of electronics and wiring that needs doing.

Paul.

 

[curtis]

We talked about that but Paul doesn't have a garage and my tools would be here. What tools Paul has would have to be toted down from the 3rd floor to work then everytime we needed something he would have to go it it because if I walked into a store for a can a paint I wouldn't know if it was a hardware store or a whorehouse. So with a language barrier on top of no tools the project would go from a week or 2 to 4 months really fast. Its just not an option.

 

[VR_IV_MR]

with the in-dash car PC screen, did you consider putting it where the HVAC controls are and using relays to control the HVAC through software such as centrafuse?

 

[rgeier11]

I absolutely hate this thread. Going nowhere fast since 2005.

 

[toybreaker]

The man has a family, and he's made them the number one priority.

I can respect that. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif


When it is done, it will be well worth it.

 

[JNR]

Yep, I know how that goes having something being put on hold for years, so can relate. Family, other projects, work, etc...My Galant has been sitting since 2006 and my chevelle since 2000, so it could be worse, lol. One reason I don't put up WIP threads anymore, as I don't know when I'll be able to finish them. But yeah, when it's done it'll be worth the wait.

 

[RedTwo]

Paul's busy cleaning up Hong Kong - I'm just not sure we'll get a John Woo film about his story though /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[JondoeVR4]

Just spent the last few hours reading this build thread. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

 

[GSTwithPSI]

Lol...Scrolling thorough the pages, half of the people in this thread are unregistered. How's it feel being father time of the .Org, Paul? I bet Mark's beard was just peach fuz back in 09' /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rofl.gif

How bout an update on this beast?

 

[strokin4dr]

You're wrong, Brett.

2009:
That seems like forever ago!! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jawdrop.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rofl.gif

 

[cheekychimp]

Quoting GSTwithPSI:
Lol...Scrolling thorough the pages, half of the people in this thread are unregistered. How's it feel being father time of the .Org, Paul? I bet Mark's beard was just peach fuz back in 09' /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rofl.gif

How bout an update on this beast?



Sadly there isn't a great deal to update. Priorities changed with the birth of my son and over the past few years I really haven't had a great deal of disposable income to throw at the car. It is back together and it drives, in fact it passed it's annual inspection just a few weeks back.

There are a few issues. I got kicked in the teeth over brakes. I built an entire front setup from plans I got from a rally car fabricator. I bought specific calipers, disks and even specific brand wheels to allow me to fit the biggest brake setup that I could. I even had adapter brackets custom built and got everything installed with the correct clearances. Then the Government changed the regulations over night, making it illegal to use adapter brackets to fit the calipers, so I had to pull everything to make the car legal again. The calipers and brackets are currently with Curtis. We were mulling over the idea of having someone mill a rear half to each caliper with the same dimensions as the adapter bracket so that the whole caliper would bolt directly onto the stock OEM brake mounting holes. It doesn't seem as if anyone is willing to take that job on though and without that the Government here won't approve anything that isn't VR4 specific.

I also need an ECU that will work with a JDM car and that can be tuned for the 2.3 litre engine. The car is just not fun to drive as it stands. Unfortunately finding someone to take that job on over here has also been a never ending story. I had hoped to get into the Swede Density setup having had no luck with DSMLink V2 or the EVO 8 ECU. Unfortunately I just don't think I have the technical knowledge/expertise to do it on my own. It's a real shame because if I could just get the car to run properly, it actually isn't far off completion. It looks rough on the outside but that was because the exterior was deliberately left until last.

So unless anyone knows how to get hold of Kim (Swede Density) or fancies a holiday to Hong Kong to help tune the car, I 'm afraid things don't look desperately good for the near future. It's a shame really but I really bit off more than I could chew. Lesson learned.

 

[GSTwithPSI]

On the brakes, did you hit up Jason (jeverts)? I don't want to speak for him, but if needed custom mill work done, he'd be the guy I'd ask.

As far as the ECU, I guess I never gave much thought to what the JDM guys did for tuning. I assume there's no JDM EPROM ECU?

 

[cheekychimp]

There is a JDM EPROM ECU but it seems there are some issues with DSMLink that I never solved. It may still be possible and the problem may well be with something I am doing wrong or haven't done. Unfortunately as I said, tuning and electrics in general is not my strong point. We made changes to the ECU harness a while back due to confusion over the DSM '90 and '91 onward ECUs. I assumed the '90 JDM ECU was equivalent to a '90 DSM ECU. It transpired that this wasn't the case and that only the '89 JDM ECUs had the different pin configuration. It is therefore quite possible that we now have two pins in the ECU harness swapped that shouldn't be, and that really needs to be established 100% before I can be confident that any ECU I install is correctly configured.

As for brakes, I may send Jeverts a PM if that's the case. If I can make some progress it might motivate me to push on. I have a number of ECUs here. I'm sure with a bit of work we ought to be able to find one that works with the correct chip. I have some chips that Jeff (KeyDiver) burnt for me for the 2.3 litre engine. I'd need to get the correct sized injectors but if I had a correctly configured ECU to install one of those chips in, it should work infinitely better than the ECU currently installed.

 

[fuel]

Be aware that even the Oct 89 onwards jdm ecu will have the same pin layout as dsm 91 style.

 

[cheekychimp]

Yes I remember the pinouts changed some time in 1989.