Sorry, been slacking on the Journal. Car production is somewat stalled due to us moving back to Vancouver and getting settled. Bought loads of used AN fittings on eBay and did a lot of plumbing work. At this point, basically waiting on the fabrication of the GpA rear beam and the downpipe, plus finishing the fuel lines and custom wiring, to get the car running.

Custom turbo hoses and re-engineered cooling system.

Intercooler hoses, remote oil filter, custom coolant

Last day working at the JVAB "Boreham North" was very productive... will be nice to not have to commute over and hour each way to work on the car. But seeing Anna's first steps and the boo-boo cats and the great convo's will be missed. At this rate, street legal by Doo-Wops is def possible. John picked up Alt and PS brackets from flame cut guy today too so those can be fabbed soon. Had a fresh off the lathe brake hat in my hand this very evening, nearly done. Thanks Scott for dropping off the new starter!

Cut & rotated upper intake

Mocking up dash install, running battery cables

Oil cooler brackets welded & cooler installed

AN-6 fittings welded on fuel rail, slotted FPR bypass

Extended Wastegate actuator bracket fabricated and welded
(Of course it was then painted Grabber Green...)

Plus we started bolting together Larry's silver XR. Life = cars these days heh....

Working on the car almost every day for the last two weeks now, tons of progress but so busy there hasn't been time to take pictures or update this journal. Here's what I did today:

Crimped lugs on the 1/0 welder cable, ran lines from starter to relay, relay to master cutoff switch, switch to behind the seats somewhere for the battery. Cut up some PVC pipe so the IC hoses are 100% ready to be glued and wrapped tomorrow. Slotted my radiator mount so it can be moved forward a bit. Fabricated the mounts for the oil cooler, that's ready to be welded on tomorrow morning. Figured out oil cooler to remote filter plumbing (tight fit but OK). Got 4 matched blueprinted injectors from John. Inching ever closer to a running car.

Bolted on the rotated intake and throttle body, I had between 1-3/4" and 2" taken off when it was rotated but the throttle cam still hit the hood, had to notch the rib on the hood. I think taking much more than 2" off the intake would make the holes in the intake line up kind of funny though.

Tomorrow morning John should be going to flame-cut guy to get materials for PS and alt brackets. I'll be working on oil, PS pump, and coolant plumbing all day. Weld some -6 fittings on a fuel rail. Chop and tap a P/S pump maybe.

The commute from Puyallup to John's is killing me, it's a hour to 1.5 each way. Towing it out on Monday (assuming the dolly can be found).

A couple weeks ago we had a sunny day (amazing), so I went up and we put the flywheel on the engine, ran up to Autozone and got a release bearing, chucked on the clutch, and dropped the engine and transmission in the car! The green monster looks great in the all-white engine bay. Pretty exciting. Nice to know I can get the back bolts on the bellhousing without dropping the anti-sway bar, it's pretty close to the firewall but not too bad.

Today I went up and continued work, in the god awful pouring rain, put in the radiator and intercooler, air intake/VAM, dashboard, wipers, sawed up the trans tunnel to get at the shifter on my strange kit car T5. Thought the Thunderbird shifter I had would work, but the mounting plate isn't the right size. Need to figure out what to do for the hydraulic clutch (originally cable operated).

Went through my huge crate of "stuff" when I tore down the car back in umm 2002, found a really grotty starter, good enough for a core somewhere. Found the old melted engine wiring loom, expansion tanks and lots of other random stuff and chucked everything in the back of the car to dry out.

Trying to figure out what the hell the story is with the new Rally America rule regarding putting the fuel cell box inside another box.

Now we can start on the custom plumbing for the air, oil and cooling. I think I can get this sucker running in a couple of weeks. Stopping might take a little bit longer. Street legal a little longer. Log book, a little longer.

Hi, we're back from our 14 month vacation backpacking around New Zealand, then Sydney for a couple of weeks, then Taiwan for a month. It was super awesomely awesome. WRC NZ was incredible, you can see my Rally of NZ pictures here. It felt like we were doing our own rally for 5 days, seeing almost every stage, every service, meeting drivers and locals...