he plans to track his car though, so he'll be in the 5-7k range a whole lot, where the engine tends to want to pleasure you like the premium vibrator that it is

*edit: was talking to pdexta.

I guess doesn't apply to hornet since you track your car too

 

I track constantly. Keep watching for something bad to happen around the throttle body due to the missing brace. Nothing so far. YMMV.

 

Yep.

 

I love you all, everyone gets props!

 

I haven't run my brace for the last 30k miles. Most of that boosted, with about 2.5k track miles (all boosted).

Edit: but most definitely epoxy the throttle plate screws. With or without the brace.

 

Yeah, come to think of it I removed and never replaced the brace on my previous '00 either.

I guess I'm just being too OCD.

lol

 

+1 ditch the brace. Just make sure that your intercooler pipes have enough play and your engine mounts are solid enough. I always tell customers to run a hump hose on their pipes to keep stress off of the intake manifold and the intercooler.

 

Hmm on the subject of epoxy on your screws. Do you think copious gobs of red loctite will suffice instead of epoxy? When I reinstalled my butterflies I figured that would be plenty...

I reinstalled my brace, but I also don't have that fancy schmancy gasket. I figured more bracing could only help.

 

Aluminum is starting to look better and better. My brother seems to have a chunk from the same source that looks to be ideal

My HF has the 18" in stock, so we'll see what kind of mess I can make.

 

I think anything permanent and tolerant of 100C temps would work.

 

As for the throttle body... of the 4 cars that we fielded at the 25H race, 3 were using Skunk2 throttle bodies and one was using a stock throttle body + epoxy. I took a picture of said epoxied throttle plate, but I can't find it now. It was a great big impressive gob of epoxy.

I'll give you one guess which car lost a motor due to the ingestion of throttle body parts.

With a turbo car I doubt its as much of an issue. My totally scientific basis for this is that with more low end power, you aren't spending as much time @ WOT and winding out the motor to get all the power. With N/A, its a bit different. How many turbo racecar guys have complained about breaking throttle shafts compared to N/A racecar guys?

Need to call Skunk2... again. FML

 

Call em!

 

I have a big *** sheet of ABS plastic leftover from my intake shield. If you don't mind coming down to south San Jose you can have it.

 

I just did. They never replied to my support request so I called the sales department directly and had them look it up. Apparently they do not stock replacement parts. The sales guy said, and I quote:

S2: We will have to scrounge around in the warehouse and see if there is one lying around. I think there was also some other guy looking for one as well."

Me: Yeah, that was probably me.

S2: Oh, well I guess no one has gotten to it yet.

Me: I've called you at least 3 times about this since last week, plus emails. I've received no response.

S2: Ok, let me get your number and we'll give you a call back.

Me: When?

S2: As soon as we find the part.

Me: So, never?

S2: Just as soon as we get a chance to look in the warehouse.

Me: Humm.

Thanks for the offer, but I think I'm OK. I think my brother has something that sounds workable.

 

It'll be cheaper to do it with aluminum. Luckily I had plumbers tape and heat shield wrap otherwise it would have been pricy to heat proof the ABS. I just had so much of it I made everything with ABS.

 

It's mind-boggling that they could be that careless. Whether they are normally or not, it's just amazing that you can do business like that and survive.

 

I ripped out the MS3 this evening and started pulling the wiring apart.


Look upon my soldering and despair! Smallest wire I had was 18awg for the CANL & CANH connections in the DB37. Turns out its a little big. I hope my abysmal soldering holds up. You can really tell 8 & 9 are mine


Also discovered wild widebands and extra sensors breeding in my garage


Its seriously like an episode of Hoarders in my garage.

 

 

I know, right? I had an AEM UEGO in that pile for a while as well.

Either the MTX-L will probably end up in my F250 dentside so I can finally bring the carburetor into some sense of tune. The LC-1 will get sold off eventually.

I've got an email in to Rev requesting clarification on a couple of things then its off to wiring hell again tonight.

 

In other news, one of the guys from Skunk2 actually called me back! They didn't have my part but they wanted to let me know that they hadn't forgotten about me. So that's cool I guess.

Rev answered all my silly questions like a boss so wiring shenanigans shall commence upon the eve. It's not that I don't know what I'm doing (ok, I don't know what I'm doing) but it's nice to get confirmation before I let the blue smoke out of my devices.