I let the 8115 cure overnight and removed the braces and clamps upon waking. Good to go. Re-riveted the nose aluminum back in to complete the task.

With the gluing of the exhaust mesh pieces into place I have officially completed the GTM Assembly Manual.  I removed the diffuser to get to the underside of the mesh easier.  Hopefully the weatherstripping trim pieces will hold up to the exhaust temperatures, but if not I will either roll the mesh back (like the manual has you do), or come up with something else to use.

After gluing the mesh in place I secured the intake tubing to the frame. Josh found some cool swivel zip tie mounts that take 2 zip ties and have a swivel in the middle for flexible mounting. The bottom zip tie goes around the frame the tubing passes over, and the top zip tie goes around the tubing, effectively cinching it down to the frame without the need of any hangers or mounts.

Finally, I cleaned up the hosing that connects each fuel tank vent to the air filter. I lengthened the fuel hose and secured it to the top frame member of the chassis running  behind the rear window, and then secured the filter to the frame. Lastly, another fuel hose was attached to the fuel filter ‘out flow’ port and ran to the back of the car for disposing of fumes away from the cabin.

Finally got around to mounting the exhaust last night. Josh fabbed up an exhaust mount to replace the Kooks ugly (to me) mounts that wrap around the nice polished mufflers. The Kooks mounts mount to the trans (you make the brackets) to avoid flexing the exhaust against the stationary frame. Josh’s mount does mount to the frame, but it uses a rubber ‘bumper’ so that it can flex under revs, etc.  Works very nicely as I can see the exhaust moving with the motor as it idles, etc. The mount is out of the way and not very conspicuous.

With the exhaust mounted the rear mesh was set in place (with the cutouts made for the tips, previously). The mesh was slipped over the exhaust before it was mounted. After some fine tuning of the cutouts weatherstripping was applied around the cut edges. This creates a nice finished look. I will have to remove the diffuser to glue/silicone the mesh in place.

With the exhaust on I set to tuning again. The motor still dies after revs out of idle with the exhaust – I was hoping it would magically fix itself with the exhaust in place. Today I was blessed with an easy tuning session, however. I added 5g/sec of air across the entire base airflow table and it started up and idled great and took some flogging of the throttle without any problems. Revs, drops to idle flawlessly. It would seem that the garage tuning is done for now. Once I get the car inspected (the 20th!) I will be able to get it on the road and see what needs to be done (if anything) in regards to driveability.

The Kooks exhaust is finally centered. An inch of piping had to be cut off the driver’s side cat pipe to get it to center properly. We are still working on mounts for the exhaust. The Kooks system comes with a set of mounts that are meant to connect to the trans (you create a bracket for them), but they fasten around the nice polished mufflers, and I’m not a fan of that.

The transmission overflow tank was completed with the fitment of the barb connector into the transmission case, and then connecting it to the tank.

Today was pretty exciting. Before doing anything I checked the coolant from the other night’s fill; it had settled a quite a bit (ie: air pockets released). I decided to idle it for a bit and see how it cooled (or not). Before idling I threw on some wheels and finally got the GTM off its stands.

Since it was idling, and on the ground now, I decided to see if reverse worked. It didn’t. I realized it was because I didn’t set the gate cable properly to allow the cable to pull reverse, so I fixed that. With reverse fixed I backed out of the garage into the driveway, let it idle outside for a bit, then pulled it back into the garage.  It felt pretty good to be able to drive it a few feet! However, there is still air in the cooling system, as the temps got too high again after idling for about 15-20minutes.

With that out of the way I let the coolant settle for the afternoon and came back tonight to add more coolant. I added more the same way I did previously: disconnect the upper water pump hose, open the steam vents, open purge tank cap, and dump coolant into the water pump/radiator hose. Tonight I was able to add in quite a bit and am now at over 4.5 gallons (shouldn’t take more than 5 gallons). There are probably a few air pockets left to get out, so I will let it sit overnight again.

Also did some troubleshooting on the throttle body. With some adjustment I was able to get the car started with it (before it would throw codes and would only start with the scanner disabling them), however it would not idle. This seems to be a manufacturer defect, and not something I can fix, so a new throttle body hunt begins.

I also installed the exhaust.

Taking a bit of a down time tonight so I just mocked up the exhaust (loose fit on headers, no O2 sensor plugs) to see how it would look, and to hear it a bit. The exhaust sounds very mean, and is still very loud.  I will take a video later!

Tonight I installed the O2 sensors into the headers (the short O2 sensors are used pre-cat). When the cats are installed the rear O2 sensor ports will be plugged.

I then moved onto the battery. The tie-down is pretty straight forward to install – 2 J-hooks holding the tie-down clamp piece in place. I then drilled out a hole in the passenger side steering rack mount to connect the battery ground strap to. The powdercoat was Dremel’d off for an optimal connection.

Finally, I put the bulb seal on the rear window. This was harder than the other stuff done tonight.

Today I got the headers in (I hate anti-seize lubricant, this stuff gets over everything) with some excessive swearing. The passenger side is incredibly tight due to the header pipes being ‘further out’. It looks like Kooks tried to clear the AC Compressor hosing, but they were still too close to the FFR provided hardlines (rubbing). Anyways, to get the headers in on the passenger side I had to remove the valve cover to get some room to work with, which wasn’t a big deal in itself. Since I had to remove the passenger valve cover I pulled the driver’s side off as well since I had to swap them side-to-side for easier access to the oil fill. With the valve covers back on I buttoned up the headers. Good to go there.

More wiring. Not much left, so tonight I connected the ESS and VSS wiring which will eventually run to the gauges up front. Minus some grounds, oil pump, and starter, that completes the wiring in the back of the car, so I cleaned up the wiring some more, and loomed the rest that needed it. 

Today I pulled the compressor hardlines off the compressor and Josh came over with a nice hose crimper tool so we could attach the new hardlines (necessary for header clearance). This went smoothly and the new block was attached in no time.

Afterwards I mocked up the headers (could not install them due to lack of anti-seize lubricant) and cleaned up the PCM wiring quite a bit, including relocating the engine harness so it is routed underneath the engine covers. This called for stripping the harness down a bit to relocate the intake temp sensor back up to the engine.

A few weeks ago I sent off the Kooks custom headers to Jet-Hot for coating. They did an extreme basecoat with flat black top coat, and they look beautiful.

Also received word from Erik that the pistons are en-route (hopefully right this time), and he has an ETA of 10 days or so from now for engine delivery.