Things that are being fixed (with pictures!!!)

Dave and I worked on the car for a bit this weekend. We did some minor work, such as plugging firewalls and filling the radiator. We also changed the broken front strut mount.


Here's what an intact strut mount would look like.




Here's what ours looked like:




So we trucked on over to Auto Zone to rent a spring compressor. An hour or so later, we'd replaced the strut mount on the strut and thrown it back on the car.








Since I haven't posted actual images in forever, here's a brief overview of what else we've done this year (in part):

Dave and I plugged the firewalls with 3/8" bolts and 1-1/2"-2" washers.




However, two of the holes in the firewall were behind our pedal assembly and unreachable from inside the car. So I had to improvise.




I also installed the ZX2 radiator and the motor mount from last year's Autobahn donor car:




The ZX2 radiator had an extra out for heater hose, so I had to plug that.




Johnny and I also put the seat back in and mounted the harness.




Finally, one of the problems we've run into when swapping harnesses is the difference between the light assemblies and the related connectors. The solution? Sheet metal screws and ZX2 taillights. I'm pretty sure these are JDM, right¹?




Finally finally, I finished painting the rollcage. It looks pretty great from at least 10 feet away.




And here's a picture of the car I like looking at:





¹ Is joke, yes?

Blah blah blah fixed stuff blah blah blah

Since I didn't take any pictures while working, here's a summary of the last two weekends working on the car:

- Finished painting the roll cage with a coat of white paint. Looks great from 30+ feet.

- Replaced the destroyed front motor mount with one from last year's donor car (a.k.a. Alan's old daily driver)

- Swapped LX radiator/fan out with ZX2 radiator and fan to accommodate ZX2 wiring harness easily. The quicker fix would have been to just swap fans, but the bolts that hold the ZX2 fan on are stripped or something.

- Tied up the wiring some more inside the cabin. This is clearly a never-ending process.

- Put rotors and mounted pads on the car. Super stopping power again!

- Mounted seat and harness

- Mounted wink mirror higher than last year, improving visibility by probably 10% or so.

- Swapped in new ECU to make a couple more horses at the crank.

- Wired up main brake lights and rear turn signals.


Naturally, in doing these things, we found more things to do/more broken things:

- The ZX2 radiator has an outlet for the heater core that the LX radiator did not have. This hose outlet will have to be stopped up and clamped. We'll have to flush the system of antifreeze and check the water pump before we can fill it with H20 for testing and racing.

- The wiring could be a little tidier, and we still need to find some way to mount the instrument cluster. A 5-inch tachometer and shift light may be in the works.

- We will want to flush the brake system and use DOT 3 & 4 fluid. We'll need to bleed the brakes anyway, so this shouldn't be much more additional work.

- We'll still have to wire up the high-mount brake light. And the brake lights currently stay on when the battery is hooked up. And there's the gauges, which don't work. But hey, who needs them anyway? Oh, right. We're pretty confident these electrical quirks are the product of poorly or completely ungrounded wires.

- What we initially thought might have been a bad front left wheel bearing appears to actually be a blown left front strut mount. We bought a replacement for $32, which is considerably cheaper than a new bearing. Still have to put it on, though, which should be exciting.


There are a handful of other tasks to take care of, but the engine runs and the car could probably move on its own, though we won't try too hard to do that until the radiator is hooked up and fully functional. As a point of reference, the car didn't drive on its own until mid-September last year. Yay us!