FML, just spent all day changing in a new power steering rack.... And the main hydraulic line pops out because hours ago I cross threaded it without noticing. So now I have a pair of non working power steering racks.

Depower time?

edit: depower time- ordered kia tensioner and plugs

Just got the mani/turbo/dp back from the ceramic coating guy. Also, have stage 8 fasteners for everything now. Tonight/tomorrow I reinstall everything, alignment on sunday, back on the road monday.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2c3143318e.jpg

Getting an alignment, guy just ignores everything I ask for, tells me "that's as far as I can get it to adjust." Then, like Rick James, in the same breath, says "I can adjust it further"..... the fuck?

Anyway, he got sort of close to what I wanted but according to him, I can't​ run less than 5.3 degrees caster and I can't run more than 1.3 2.0 camber in the front and -1.8 in the rear. And the rear camber was bumping up against the toe in I wanted.

Ideas for how to fix the caster? I have big man arms so the pump I get at low speeds is tolerable, but I kind of got the impression that there are bits not aligning right.

The car handles relatively awesome now btw- I think going back to the stock rear sway helped a ton. I can push the car and it doesn't get scary anymore.

Rear window stitching came out while I was cleaning it, now I can't park in the rain. New soft top in the way.

You know what's more fun than replacing a soft top? Replacing a soft top with a head cold in 90 degree temps and 96 percent humidity. Dripping sweat like I'm a melting snowman. Bad times. Top still isn't 100 percent finished (still have to tighten down the side rails and stretch it enough to close the last half inch, but it's as done as it's going to get until I'm better. Black soft top looks much better than the old tan one. Dunno why people say dark blue looks good with tan.

But everything else is going solid. The exhaust mods (new gaskets plus everything machined flat with good ($$$$$) fasteners) completely cleaned up the exhaust leaks. Boost builds unusually fast even with boost control off, which confirms the leak was pretty bad. I'm suddenly running 15 psi wastegate base setting instead of 10, so I should probably loosen the rod a bit to appease the clutch break in demons. Over 100 miles now with no only minor problems, knock on wood.

Pics, dynos, etc all coming sooner or later.

Minor update time.
Everything mates up perfectly, all exhaust leaks gone, everything shiny and chrome. I now have more invested in fasteners than the manifold originally cost.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f3b5b3168b.jpg

Dzus fasteners now available in rattlecan black. I wish I had found out about these fuckers years back.
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...bcc550295f.jpg

Softtop also available in black, now with window you can see out of and no leaks.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3794e8509b.jpg

But that isn't a dzus fastener

Congrats on getting those exhaust leaks sorted. Exhaust leaks are so irritating.

The more you know.

I thought all fasteners made by dzus were dzus fasteners. Didn't know it was only the quarter turn screw ones. I got them from Pegasus after seeing some ricers on YouTube with "jdm bumper clips" (rubber bands stretched around posts drilled into the bumper and fender) and it occurred to me that there was probably some sort of non garbage fastener for keeping the bumper on without fishing around under the fender to attach 10mm nuts.

Minor update:
-clutch and engine are broken in, slowly raising the boost and checking for knock and A/F weirdness every day during the commute
-so far everything seems solid, but taking my time on this
-hopefully should be up to a safe 18 psi by the end of the week

Dunno why but at some point I dialed in a ton of timing on the 60kpa to 120kpa range, which has now been removed.

Was also running 1 degree at idle instead of default 10. As I added the timing back in I could literally hear my idle getting stronger.

Everything seems a bit rich in vacuum, might be the new fuel pump and filter. And yeah, I'm running the line from the manifold to the fuel pressure regulator, it's not that.

Misery and weirdness autotuning. ECU thinks the AFR is 10:1 with the engine on or off, insists on pulling fuel no matter what.

I ordered a new UEGO to replace my 15 year old hacked together setup, hopefully there isn't anything wonky with the circuit board on the ECU itself. Amazing how cheap they've gotten.

New gauge in (AEM 4110 LSU4.9).

Fixed several wiring oddities including

• My AFR gauge was connected to the wideband but the ECU wasn't. Found the wire for that just chilling at the back of my intake manifold. So I've basically been running open loop for the past 300 miles.
• The switched 12V I was using for the wideband wasn't giving a consistent supply of power for whatever reason but only the new wideband got upset over it (that I know of, the output to the gauge seemed normal but who knows). I'm now spliced into the 12V black/white wire for the ignition.

So yeah, I fucked up. Fortunately nothing bad seems to have come of this until I started trying to auto-tune my vacuum fuel rows using the wideband-> ecu signal and my idle got fucked up.

About 90 percent sure I have an intake manifold leak.

Idle won't behave until everything is decently heat soaked and even then it's not 100 percent.
Every tube, vacuum line and fitting I can see is sealed up tight.
Idle fuel and RPM is as close as I can get it to stoich and a well behaved RPM, throttle bleeder screw is shut tight, idle duty cycle is bottomed out... what could it be but a leak?

Ordered ARP studs and gaskets, taking everything apart this weekend to properly unfuck this.

Have you tried a smoke test? Burn something like incense/a cigarette/whatever floats your boat near where the intake manifold bolts to the head, or anywhere else you wanna check, and see if any is sucked into there.

I've got a flattop and a reroute, so access to the place where it meets the head isn't really great. I also think it's a decently small leak, so better to just take everything apart and then carefully reassemble over the weekend.

I must be getting old, doesn't anyone check for vacuum leaks with carb cleaner anymore? Spray some around suspect areas, if there's a leak, the idle speed will increase. Obviously this won't work if you have been fattening up your VE table to compensate for the leak though.

Phenolic spacer gone, ARP studs in.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...52b442b608.jpg

And the idle has been unfucked! Car sounds just plain normal at idle. I used like half a tube of RTV on all the intake/throttle gaskets, but it was well worth it.

Also swapped out all the dash lighting for LEDs while I was at it and reconnected the stock temp line to the dash.

Fucking mosquitoes. When it hits 4pm here, it's like that scene in Jurassic world when everyone suddenly gets attacked by like 300 pterodactyls.

And 6 hours later, I find the ground wire that I messed up putting it back together. Good times.

But holy shit, I feel so gangsta with my stable 850 rpm idle, sucking 20 inches of vacuum and making a steady 14.7 AFR. It was a god awful pain in the ass to unfuck everything, but it was so worth it.

Also, I know that LED dashboard lights makes me a ricer or something but it's a huge improvement in terms of gauge readability, especially the autometer stuff, which is completely unreadable at night with incandescent bulbs. This is halfway on the dimmer setting. Trans is really oil temp.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2a452353e3.jpg

Found 3mm black Dibond 4x8 sheet for 165 locally. Seems like an ok price. Yay for full size pickup. Gonna fix the air flow around the front of the car and the radiatior. Actually I should have a ton of material left over so maybe I'll do the whole underside.