... Long Awaited Update ...
Hey guys! Cupcakez here! Just wanted to give you guys an update on my car.
I know you have all been /DYING/ to know what has been going on.
I'm still alive folks! Just been a very large struggle in the past month or two to try to prepare everything to make sure the car is up and running in one go.
So earlier this month, I had to buy pulleys from Stillen for the SC bracket. It turns out that during a blower swap last year, I happened to accidentally swap brackets with my friend and the bracket he had did not have the bottom idler pulley that goes on the SC bracket, nor did it have the stock top idler pulley next to the jackshaft 9psi pulley. Oops! ...So I ordered the stock pulley assembly from Oreilleys and got the pulley the next morning since the warehouse wasn't too far away from the actual Oreilly's shop.
The install went smooth. I was extremely excited... only to find out that the bottom idler pulley of the SC bracket was missing! Everything was fine, up until we ran into the issue that is caused none other than myself. I have nobody to blame, not even luck itself, but myself. We are missing an idler pulley that goes to the left of the subaru idler pulley on the Supercharger bracket. Friend A did an amazing job today and, as always, goes above and beyond every time he works on my car. I love the guy, don't know what I'd do without him in terms of my car running or not. So thankful that my tuner ByThaBay introduced me to him last year. One of very few best, most honest and caring people I met last year.
We finished installing the Quaife differential first. Then we ran into the issue of attempting to pit the rear subframe on. One side would be flush while the other remained gapped for a mysterious reason. Only to find out that the gap was caused by the actual subframe being slightly bent (probably from a speed bump I went over causing the back to be scraped? Or maybe I bought the car like that, not sure!)
But he fixed the issue by bending it back through a funny method that worked lol. K so now the rear is done - exhaust, brace, and subframe all snug.
Onto the Supercharger assembly and install.
We had issues fitting it in the vehicle, as it had to be clocked multiple times until we got it to fit exactly where it needed to be. Took a while but he did it! And then during the assembly, we find out that we are missing a bolt and washer for the supercharger pulley, lol. So I freak out, Adel calms me down and says we could get it at Oreilleys or Autozone. We head to Oreilleys and he carries the entire bracket assembly with the supercharger head unit on into the store, LOL. We go in, and the store manager helps us out by finding the exact bolt needed to fit inside the pulley. At first we couldn't find the right size and thread. Dude opens up a $12 package thinking it has the right bolt we need only to find out.. it isn't in that package! LOL. Then we switch to looking at metric sizes and low and behold, we find the correct size and threaded bolt! Haha. Bought a pack of those and a pack of washers, headed home, fixed up the bracket assembly and it goes in the car!
Only issue preventing me from starting the car is an idler pulley in which another friend saves my day and immensely helps me out by helping me find where I can get one. Thankfully he found one from Oreilleys and so I called them and ordered it, and they said it would be in the store tomorrow morning at around 11:15 AM. I am super lucky for this to have happened.
Now I'm onto worrying about the bottom idler pulley, the specs of it, the hardware, where the heck do I get it?!?!
After /Over 9000/ phone call spams to Stillen and countless e-mail spams, I finally hope this is the last straw for what I need in order for my poor little sweet Mustard Zeed to live again! I told them exactly what I needed. Should be at my house in 2 days or less. If any of these parts still do not fit where it is supposed to go, then....it's all bad!
We are almost there. I'm thinking...
"Stillen, please do not make me regret doing business with you!"
The last time my sweet little mustard Zeed was working was early October 2018 then I got screwed over with the local mechanic who scammed my money and broke my blower, and didn't tell me about it. Got a replacement blower only to have it taken away 1 day later because my friend found out he needed to give it back to the shop he took it from lol, I got my money back for that.
Sold my blower in late December for a steal price of $250 to a local person.
Then Mr. Kao sold me his V3 Ti blower and I finally got it last week.
Put that bad boy in the car, swapped over my Quaife LSD at the same time.
Started up the car today and here's a video!
After 4 months of struggling and endless issues, the light of the end of the tunnel has been found. Video speaks for itself. A huge thank you to my mechanically inclined friends Friend A, Friend B & my tuner 'ByThaBay' my who played a huge part in getting this to work. Im super thankful to each of them and also very very thankful to those friends who I raged, complained, QQ'd, and cried to in the last 4 months for always positively supporting me. Couldn't have done it without each and every one of you.
Nice to see you again my sweet sweet baby mustard Zeed!
https://vimeo.com/317386271
^--------PROOF THE CAR WORKS-------^
The only issues that I can see right now after daily driving the car for about an hour around town is...
(1) Minor oil leak from the front of the car: I saw some small oil drops on the garage floor. Need to get that checked out to see where it's coming from.
(2) The oil temperature...Not sure if the oil cooler is working anymore even though it was working the last time I drove it and we didn't even touch it since then! It would not go past 180 degrees back then, but now it would stay at around 195 - 200 when casually driving it around town. Not sure what changed. Maybe something is leaking in the oil cooler or idk!
(3) The coolant temperature used to stay around 90 degrees Celcius the last time it was working. Today, it was sticking around 99 - 102 degrees Celcius. Not sure if that's bad. But it could also be due to a few air bubbles still in the system and the large amounts of water we poured into the car to add "coolant" to it. I may just take it to Nissan to have them do a complete flush and fill up of proper anti-freeze again since where I work it snows sometimes (as it snowed last two weeks, so I definitely cannot have pure water as my coolant in the system if I am to be in that weather parked for 3.5 days straight).
(4) The serpentine belt got skidded a bit due to it being way too close to the overflow tank in the front of the engine bay. I will just trim off that tiny part of the overflow tank to make sure it doesn't touch the belt again -- that would be terrible to have a semi-eaten up serpentine belt in which my overflow tank ate up due to both of them being way too close to each other!
(5) I have a few more things to install later this year:
- Polyurethane engine mount
- AAM Oil Pan Spacer Kit
- New Brake Pads & Rotors (Planning to get genuine Akebono brake rotors and stuff)
Other than that, I will be spending the rest of this year driving her safe, paying everything off and then think about saving up for a house, and /THEN/ I will do phase 2 upgrades of this car (Upgraded 7AT, Return Fuel System unless I need it earlier then I will get it, etc)
Thank you guys for following my thread and staying with me this entire time.
It's been a really rough ride so far but 2018 is over and I am really hoping I don't have 2018 luck anymore.
2019 has been treating me way better than 2018 has so far and I hope it stays that way!