'Smoke' ~ Update

Hey, Team.

Update.

Intercooler reservoir arrived. Beautiful workmanship. Sits on top of the a/w intercooler. A pair of small fans for the intercooler rad arrived along with a pair of scavenge filters for the dry sump.

Found a home for the high output coils/igniters (cradled beside the intake plenum/throttle body/intercooler). Tight.

Fuel rail and 1000cc injectors fitted. Bit of work to get it snug, but all good now.

Exhaust system. !@#$%^&*. Don't ask. Full update next.

Fuel system mocked up. Looking like mechanical porn. Designing a twin-tank to sit behind the fuel system which will incorporate (a) a 4lit swirl pot (old cylindrical 1.5lit unit just wasn't working, ports in the wrong places, too small etc) and (b) a 6lit water/methanol tank. Fits nicely. I need to buy some more hose fittings, but everything looks tidy so should fit in. Tight.

Found a corner for the water/meth pump in the rear/right tank area.

Designed a timing wheel for the traction control. Sketches with my CNC man now, he is programming it in and will produce a simple template for me to try. Thinking about senders for the front wheels. Bought some DTM female plugs to complete the wheel sender wiring.

Saw a beautiful series 3 BDA lotus completely destroy itself at the Scope Classic. Chap was a bit broken but survived.

I'm chasing the same look as the Swedish Hahlin7 (do a YouTube search on this car, Uber Impressive) so am going to get a full roll cage off Frasers and have bought a pair of wings from Hong Kong.

NGK wide band Lambda sensor arrived. All calibrated and ready to go.

Contemplating a polished body with CF guards, nose cone and dash. Hmmmmm.

Stay tuned, same bat channel, same bat time! Biff, Zowie, Pa-Pow!

DTA S80 and AIM MXL Strada

Mmmmmmmm. Shiny. DTA S80 (+ wheel speed sensors) and AIM MXL Strada arrived. Hooked up a battery and managed to get them talking to an old windows box (no Mac s/w, curses). The RaceTech Dash2 and Link Extreme + Knock Block all went on TradeMe and sold pretty much straight away. It's the start of the V8 Super Tourer season and everyone's looking for bargains. Also managed to sell the OEM CT20b turbo and 540cc injectors. The 540cc units just couldn't flow enough juice for FR500, so tried to find a bigger side feed OEM replacement. Bzzzzzt. It's all top feed, so bought a new OBX Racing fuel rail and a set of matched (all four injectors in the set are 'Dead Time' matched) Injector Dynamic ID1000cc top feed injectors are on the way. Mmmmmm, shiny.

Fuel System et al arrived

Phoooarrrh. Aeromotive. It's like mechanical porn. Also ordered a bunch of FPS fittings for the fuel system, the intercooler plumbing and the balance of the oil system. + a sh1t load of spares for a rainy day. Hmmmm, shiny.

Exhaust System, 2nd attempt

FR500 got bundled onto the transporter and is currently at the fab shop for exhaust work. After the lads had stopped laughing and picked themselves up off the ground, after seeing my Plumbers Lagging and Tie Wire mock up header, 'we' decided to stick with the original bottom mount S/S header arrangement. The header will be tidied up and port matched then a divided entry waste-gate 'shroud'? will be fab'd and sit between the manifold and the turbo turbine housing, with the 38's hanging off the side of this. Stay tuned!

(FR500 looked like a lost wee child sitting in amongst The Big Scary Cars in the car park. Man, these cars are small! Love it).

New Parts

New parts are drifting in. I like this stage of the build. Xmas every week.

DTA Fast S80 Pro ECU. Wheel speed sensors. Peterson scavenge filters. 7" fans for the intercooler rad. Speaco/Turbonectics A/W I/C (compare this to the original wee midget..) Everything seems to be going 'SuperSize' on FR500 recently...

Pulled the original Link/3S-GTE loom apart with a view to using it on the DTA. The plugs are compatible. Should be able to wrestle it into shape.

300hp 3S-GTE Haynes ~ aarrgghh!

Evan (7ish) kindly let me drive his 3S-GTE/T04/Altezza 6spd Haynes several weeks ago.

O. M. G.

300hp at the crank. 1st is useless. 2nd and 3rd spin up on a dry road with 10mm of throttle. 4th? Neck hurts. I shudder to think what is going to happen when I poke the go pedal on FR500 once it's all operational. Neck brace, anyone?

Got home and promptly put my Link G4 Xtreme and Knock Block on TradeMe. Bought a DTA Fast S80 Pro and a handful of DTM wheel speed sensors off Richard at MSEL. Traction control ESSENTIAL for 500hp. Not an option by any wild misguided stretch of my fertile imagination. Also dropped the RaceTech Dash2 on TM and bought an AIM MXL Strada. Thanks to Rowan for the heads up on these two pimping pieces of kit. The DTA has arrived but still waiting on the AIM (FleaBay).

Goods on the water

...and too add a bit more colour to the site here is a quick look at products currently on the water:

A capacious Aeromotive fuel system, dual 7" fans for the A/W I/C rad, Peterson dry-sump scavenge-line filters, heeeuge K&N (7" x 8" w/4" entry), custom 7 litre reservoir tank for the A/W I/C system (will sit on top of the Speaco I/C above the footwells), custom 2-278 Spearco/Turbonetics A/W I/C via Summit Racing, Aquamist HFS-4 Water/Meth injection system, ... that's about it for the moment. Not much more to buy, which is good news. We are on porridge and water for the next year or so...

GTX3071R and Tials

Some detail shots of the OEM CT20b and the spanky GTX w/billet compressor wheel. 'Sex in Aluminium'. The GTX is smaller and lighter than the OEM, this was a surprise and a huge bonus, in terms of packaging challenges in the Fraser's shoe-box engine bay. Shows you how far technology has come in 15 years. Pic of the twin Tial 38s and the 50mm BOV. There is nothing like billet ali. Mmmmmmmmm.