Cspence's Build Thread
 

Just wanted to start a thread where I could share my current projects for the car. On the inside, I wanted to hide the cd player behind the glove box door and make some gauge mounts in the double din opening. In the engine bay, I wanted to clean things up with some sheet metal pieces, so I mocked everything up and am making everything at work. As of now, I plan on painting the bumper airdam black to match the stripe, the headlight scoop white so it does'nt stand out as bad, and then clearing the radiator cover after scuffing it with a die grinder.....Got all my pieces punched today!!! Let me know what you guys think....I'll update with pics as I continue with this.

Guage Cluster / CD Player support:
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BEFORE
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1st mock up:
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2nd Mock up:
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Making the Parts:
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you are from CT??????? i wanna see this car, love it! come to the uconn car show april 19th!!

where do you work??

Awesome work dude! Looks like you even made some extras, I'm sure you'll have no problem finding people that want them.

Thats cool that your cleaning everything up and doing it right. I cant wait to see how it all turns out. :bigtu:

Yeah I'm from Meriden. I would go to the show, but trying to get a friend of a friend of a friend who is supposed to be a MS guru out to check on the tune to make sure its legit before I go romping on it. I'm new to this turbo deal, so don't know much about it yet, although I am very mechanically inclined. Also, the car isn't registered yet since I just bought it from MXV in South Carolina, had to finish the exhaust and was hoping to get a "lean" tune for emissions....anyone know if they still do inspections in CT besides just the vin verification / emissions....like checkin headlights/wipers/blinkers/ etc. If they do, it'll be a while before I'm on the road.

Ya, definitly made extras, figured I might share the wealth lol!

i am so jealous, great work there

Gauges below the top of the dashboard may as well not exist. Just FYI, if you plan to track the car.

IMO thats why you keep the more "steady state" gauges down there... like water temp, oil temp, battery voltage, i guess oil pressure, ect. Keep the things that change rapidly like boost and AFR up top.

I have also never been on the track, only heavily autoxed..... and well, if you are looking at anything but cones when you are autoxing then you are FUCKED anyway.

Yeah same here....I don't plan on tracking the car much....just an occasional event or so. The gauges are primarily just to tune and keep an eye on here and there. My primary focus is going to be keeping the car on the pavement, lmao! I'm going to put a oil pressure and water temp guage in the open spots....and in the future others if need be with the other clusters I made up(egt, oil temp, ??).

You misunderstood me. It doesn't matter what you keep down there - they may as well be in the glovebox or hooked into your ECU and only visible on a laptop screen. If they aren't above the top of the dashboard, they may as well not exist.

cool stuff. I'd be interested in the gauge face plate piece if you sell em

very nice! Id be intrested in a radiator cover and that shrouding for the bumper.
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Im glad this car is in good hands

Which one....3 centered...3 top....5....or 6? Lemme know.

Not sure how it would fit on your car....everything was fitted specifically for my application so it may fit like crap for you....maybe not

I'm digging the stripe and the front end's whole look.
I concur though that gauges below your eye line just don't matter. Even for a street car, I guarantee after a few weeks you won't look at any of those gauges often enough to notice if your water or oil temps are unnaturally high, let alone the AFR gauge which there is no way you can keep an eye on it except when it doesn't matter i.e. cruising.
My boost gauge is on the steering column and I hardly even notice it these days. The only times I check oil/water temp are when I look over and happen to notice them, and they are on top of the dash. Even then, I look at them less than I ought to. My AFR gauge is on top of the gauge hood (copied Savington on that one), where I can't ignore it because anywhere else it is useless.

The rad cover might not fit since yours appears to be higher than normal but the nose ducting shouldn't be a problem.
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Got the radiator cover and bumper airdam formed up today....not perfect but a good start. Prolly going to redo these.

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wow, excellent work there.

great ideas how to maximize air inlets.

I wonder about exiting the additional air - maybe hood louvers, or side fender extractor vents?

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re: reading guages. IMHO, at a track driving on a long straightaway, there is a second or two to glance at other guages, e.g. oil temp.

I agree that there's no time to peek during autoXing...

plus tuning guages, e.g. A/F, fuel pres, even maybe boost, don't need monitoring.

Figured I'd throw up some pics of the $40 exhaust. 3" all the way back. Tubing bought on ebay.

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Love the ducting work. I'd kill for a press to do that stuff... I have a decent amount of my own to do... very soon.