I'll be there again, and will for sure come visit. I'll try not to interrupt a meal this time

 

Fab9 turbo kit is en route to us. Liking the cast manifold. While this is Fab9's "budget" oriented kit, we opted for a GTX30R, which is certainly little less "budgety" but the GTX housing is what was available in the timeframe we needed it. Folks following along should be able to hit same power numbers we see with a GT30R, the spool will just be slightly better on ours.

 

Sexy! That is the simplest looking turbo kit I have ever seen. I can't wait to see it in the car. Are you keeping your RS exhaust on there or replacing with something 3"?

 

This is going to be fun.

 

The downpipe is designed to bolt right up to our RoadsterSport exhaust options, which are all 2.5". We'll be using our catless double-resonated midpipe for dyno and track testing.

 

Starting disassembly

 

One thing we know we need to address is that the factory fuel pump fixture doubles as a surge tank of sorts, with a walled off chamber surrounding the pump to keep sloshing in the tank from affecting the fuel pickup. The trouble is, above about 300whp, in certain track situations you can actually drain that small 'bucket' faster than the small factory returnless style system can refill it, and you end up starving the pump. To fix this, we need to change to a return style setup that can refill the bucket faster.

Fab9 has parts to accomplish this, but then we realized we actually had the parts to do this laying around here, supplied a while back from Dynotronics for our supercharged NC, but never installed because we found it wouldn't clear the supercharger. Kit includes a modified fuel rail, adjustable pressure regulator, return lines to go from the engine back to the tank, and a modified tank fixture with an AN bulkhead fitting and pre-fabbed hard line inside:







We'll get into installing this and see if we need anything else once we're in there.

 

Parts and wrenches are beginning to fly through the air Removing stuff for the impending install; bumper, brakes, header, fuel system, old roll bar, differential...

 

Man, I am loving this! I have a sweet spot for a NC considering I am over 6'3

Is that budget kit available through Fab9?? I am not seeing it on their site

 

New kit, they don't have it listed online yet. Ours is the very first one - test fit on their own car and then immediately removed and shipped to us so we would have it in time, before they've even finished writing instructions or developing a tune to package with the kit yet. They're projecting MSRP right around $4k, depending on which turbo you opt for, etc.

 

RX8 front hubs. Easy bolt-in option for heavier duty hub that can handle extended track abuse.

 

Well this is moving along!

What aero bits will you be running?

 

Needs performance steering wheel.

 

Street class allows a singe element wing, 5" splitter and up to 4 canards. Doing a collab with Blackbird Fabworx to put together what we want for this car. I have a Kognition airfoil that was retired from duty on Hyper a few years ago, that's about the most effective single element out there so will do a set of stands for that, as well as fab up a class legal splitter, probably that rests against the bottom of the current lip spoiler on there. I'm not in a hurry to add canards, but will probably do some other details focused on improving drag/DF.

 

We've ran our 300whp supercharged 2007 on 18x10.5 for years on stock rear components, the only upgrade being an OSG. But as power and grip continue to rise, we hear from a few out there doing over 400hp at the track that around there several other rear bits become weak points in the system.

There's some internet lore suggesting that you can update to the larger RX8 rear hub/bearing by swapping to RX8 spindles and scavenging parts of an automatic RX8's axles. We picked up a set of spindles/hubs/axles from an '05 auto RX8, will be putting fresh bearings in these and then work through the conversion and see if it's possible.

 

This thing is gonna be sick! Part of me wishes I could sell my NA and switch to the NC platform, but I'm too attached to the damn thing. I'd have to just build an NC as well.

 

Nice! IIRC, Street class doesn't allow front splitter diffusers/ramps, correct?

Honest question, what makes the Kognition foil the most effective single element? The data I've been able to find on it puts it at around 12:1 LDR?

 

Edison_GTI over on TJ just did this if there's any info you're still looking for.

 

No restriction on splitter in terms of diffusers or ramps, just can't extend past that 5" dimension beyond the bumper. We may keep it relatively simple depending on how much time we have to work with. First up is all the drivetrain and chassis updates. Aero will be later in January once the car is back up and running and we know all that stuff is operating right.
Re: Kognition, It's a high camber profile, one of the most aggressive single elements out there that still maintains flow attachment, so it will make the most DF possible for a given chord length and AoA.

 

Awesome, that's the most concrete thing I've seen on the swap. Looks like we shouldn't run into any issues.