Karma's Riv

AA wrote:

Straight up James Bond. I love it I like the way you edited it, too. The music, speeding it up, the effects. People don't realize how boring it would be to watch if you didn't do that stuff.

IMO its better off without any sound besides the car

Quote :

IMO its better off without any sound besides the car

Trust me, it would bore you to death!

try me, i love driving in the first place

not to mention some of your guys race cars.....yeah bet you ill watch an 8 minute supercharged video

I also prefer to hear more of the car sound. In the case of that movie the sound was so bad, and the video quality so iffy I figured it needed a little something "extra"

And speaking of something "extra", here are some pics of my custom strut tower brace. I thought I'd better post them instead of having them just sitting around on my computer. I'm begining to find that either the series I engine sits a bit higher than the 2, or maybe sits farther back in the engine bay. All the pics I saw of others(all series 2) and how they used the STS STB seemed to have way more room at their disposal, as well as Eric's custom one. So i figured I was better off making one from scratch:

The ends I had actually made almost 5 months ago, but then had no time to finish. I made rough blanks out of cardboard to figure the shape I wanted, made sure that the bolts were indeed square with the car(they are!), and then cut the shape from some steel plate I had around.

And below we can see the clearance of the break res.:

The thing is VERY stiff, the one ton press wouldent make the slight bends I needed so I used the ten ton. The angle needed was measured(something like 4 deg if i recall correctly), and then both ends were made to match. Dunno if it really makes a big difference, seems to roll less in the front... but its hard to tell with my rear shocks falling apart.(but not to worry, Ranchos are on order!)

Nice. Might be good to post this in the STB thread as well.

You taking orders for the STB, Drew?

ah, I could, If someone wanted to pay shipping from polar bear country. The thing is I have no clue if this would fit the same on a 96+ as it does on a 95.

ooh..yeah...I forgot you had a 95

...anybody know if it will fit?

Probally better ask that in the STB thread, I moved a copy of my pics to there.

And, since I'm going to be headed into "k-beck" for a week, heres another bunch of pics of my Riv that I haden't gotten around to posting yet to keep you all happy:

"Our tour starts with the armrest"
Below is a pic of where my CB is tucked away. The Mic and all just sits coiled in the armrest. This thing is all hardwired in, and power for it will also turn off with the car. The wires exit the armrest through the nice little compartment that some of you may have found looking in the bottom of the armrest. I think its for fuses or something.


"I'd like to introduce you to my buddy: 'Boosty' "
Here we can see where I placed my boost gauge. For some reason the door mounted ones never really apealed to me, so I relocated the trip reset and rear defog so that "boosty" belongs.

"But where did the trip reset and rear defog go?", you ask, well, its in the kick panel:

I find it nicely tucked away. This did involve taking a hole saw to the kick panel and making modifications to the air ducting behind. I also machined a flange out of alum to hide the abortion that occurs when you take a holesaw to the vinyl dash.

All in all, I'm pleased with how it came out. Easy to reset the trip clock and hit rear defog, and me being rather tall, I have no trouble at all seeing my boost in the right "crook" of the steering wheel.

"But whats that blank spot where your radio used to be?"
As you can see the radio is down where the factory CD player goes. I never liked the look of a slim radio being adapted to go in the big gaping hole. So I stuck some plexiglass up there, with the back side painted black. Eventually Ill throw in a touch computer screen when I build my on-board computer system, but thats later.


"Well this is all well and good, you've moved/changed almost everything except the ashtray!"
Well, now that you mention it, I did change the ashtray. What do we have here?:

Heres my little accelerometer. Got it on a whim a few years ago. Don't really use it much, but its cool to have in the car. I tore out all the ashtray "things" and machined a bracket that would hold the "device" square and level with the car. Its hardwired to the ignition so that it starts with the car. Oh, and when the car starts, if you look at the accelerometer, it says "Powering up..." heh...You can also see below that I cut a chunk of rubber mat to shroud it and make the install look cleaner. (although I notice in the pic I need to replace that left screw, its rusting on me. How rude.)


Anyway, thats the end of the tour for now. There are a few things planned for later, but I'm running out of holiday. With any luck I'll be diving into the engine later in september, and the ranchos will be going in as soon as they arrive.

I never asked any of those questions!!

Just thought I'd do a little update here.
Since im having such a hard finding some Ranchos that will work on the RIv, and since Rancho support doesn't seem to want to answer any of my emails I've decided to go with the Monroe MA822 with the AK29 kit. They are ordered and hopefully will be installed this weekend. I'm just sick of the car swaying like a moose with a gland problem at all the corners. Also my rear right shock is the worst(IE bouncy), so when it bounces it does it from rear-right corner to front-left corner. I really don't like getting sea-sick driving a car.. and so its time!

Anyway, I have a week off from OCt 20 on, and will be doing a bunch of "things" that I have been planning for awhile. I was going to wait till everything was done and post up a wack load pictures, but I'm bored tonight and figured if no one else was going to post up something to look at then I might as well.

So here we have nice LIM enjoying its bath

As you might be able to see, this is a non-walled LIM from that elusive set between 93-94 when they used them.

Supposedly this is the ideal LIM to add to the 95 series 1 which came with a walled LIM. Aparently the walls were added in 95 to dampn sound, but adds a bit more friction and heat. Or so say the good folks on the bonneville forums..

So, I should be able to see what the difference between going from an old dirty walled LIM to a nice new clean non-walled one.

oh, and also it will be ported to just under the mesurement of the heads. going to do a rough port to 1.8" X .8" and then squeek it in after measuring the heads when its all apart.

also planned for this undertaking is cleaning the TB, light port of supercharger, and polish. Also I *might* plug up the air leakage ports on the supercharger for a little bit more efficiency and of course WHINE!
info on plugging these things can be found here:
http://www.eatoninside.com/showthread.php?t=156

Since I have a spare supercharger from a 93 ill be trying the pluging on it first to be sure it will all work ok. Just for fun I'm going to try 2 methods and see the result of each. The first method will be a custom machined plug pressed in, and strengthened with a bit of alum. solder type stuff. The second method I'll give a try is careful TIG welding, although I don't expect good results with it.

So yup, thats the plan. This weekend the shocks. Oct 20th for LIM, P and P all around, high-flow fuel filter, supercharger coupler, and new super oil(of course). After the changes I'll be back to the 2.8 pulley to run scans and see how it likes its new liver for a bit. Then im hoping a few weeks after that to do the 1.8 ratio rockers for the series one and a 255 fuel pump so I'm not running lean. Then if alls good, it will be back to the 2.55" for some serious fun.

Karma,
loved the pics great angles. The video was awesome and I will look into adding a cam now to my riv... The mods are looking clean... overall I enjoed reading about your ride and gave me more than just a few ideas... by the way can you send me a copy of the sticker in your sig. (avatar) it is gr8.

Diego.

Okie Dokie!

I'm back from my little weekend back at my parents place, and I have some pics and stuff to share!

First things first. All I can say is STUFF!:

(Above) A bunch of stuff I had sent to my parents place as thats where I'm going to be doing the work. (Note the flow direction on that "high flow" fuel filter. possibly balls, i say!)

This past weekend was the install of the Monroe Maxi-Air shocks with the AK29 fitment kit. Also the Air-ride compressor was removed.

First I'd like to point out Felpro's "improved type" theromostat gasket, I thought it was really slick, you can see here how it has a nice groove that fits all around the T-stat:


Anyway, I'll start with the heavy duty sway bar end links. These are the Moog Heavy Duty guys from Rock Auto. I figured since I was doing the rear shocks that I might as well go for broke and replace my well worn sway bar endlinks at the same time. One thing about taking off old, rusty, sway bar links. Its a bitch! However there is a solution:

"Just take the tiger saw, lean in, hum "safety dance", and cut the whores across the middle."


It really speeds things up.

Anyway, heres the Moogs installed:


On to shocks!
Old ones removed:

The above guys were very toast. I could just grab one, push or pull with ZERO resistance.

And the new ones installed:

Install was pretty easy. My wife wanted to learn how the stuff worked, so she did the one side while I did the other. It all went really smoothly and she did her side mostly with no guideance from me.

For the air ride removal, we had to route the AK29 lines to another location. I wanted someplace easy, without drilling in any area that might leak later. We came up with a place right above the licence plate that just required a small hole drilled into the plastic. It is covered when the trunk is closed with over 1/4" clearance above it. Also is nicely out of the way of the weather stripping as its all on the outside.


We filled it to 60PSI, and her back end came back up where it belongs: up in the air!

I wish i had a before pic, but I'm sure you can guess.

And so the air-ride pump was removed( it was seized). There is 3 bolts, an electrical connector, and a vacuum conection to it. Here we see the removed "thing":

I put it onto the bathroom scale. It weighed10lbs!

Lets see who can spot the car's secret vacuum leaks:

Seriously, I didn't even know a vacuum line went down there. And its exposed to the elements, and splits into two separate lines. If you think you are leaking vacuum, have a look down there.

There is a nice quick connect thing with an O-ring for the vacuum line. I disconected that, and after removing the air compressor, took the opposite end and plugged the end with a machine screw and a bit o silicone. Then I just crawled under the car and connected my vacuum plug back to the quick connect.:


And finally the fixed CB antenna!:

I had it torn off in a car wash a while ago and never got around to fix it.

And that was my Saturday! It was nice to get back home and into the shop that I grew up having at my disposal. After growing up into my teens with a full prototype shop avaible at home to run rampent in, I've gotten frustrated not being able to "just go out to the shop to make that." My dad is a strange blend of technical consulant/machineist/model maker. Basically engineers come to him with drawings on table napkins and he tells them where they went wrong, how to fix the design, and makes the first one. He built the worlds first incubator made to go into a helicopter, as well as a number of projects that went up in space shuttle Discovery. Hes on NASA's list of technical consultants.
In the background of that one picture showing my vacuum plug, you might have noticed a large enclosure in the background. This is a project thats almost done. Its a human testing chamber for a hospital in Vancouver. He had first made one for the Uiversity of Toronto that was one of the biggest in north amercia, and now has gone on to make one slightly bigger. As a little tidbit, heres a pic of the enclosure(with my wife joyously presenting it):

That enclosure is all half inch Lexan. Bullet proof glass!

Behind the enclosure to the left is our 3000w stand-alone power system. We've been on solar power for over 15 years. theres around 40 panels, a 4kw desiel backup generator, as well as a wind generator just put in this summer. The inverter is microprocessor controlled, as is the two charge controlers and the wind generator controller. Yes, it runs the shop. Heavy stuff requires the desiel generator, but usually we have a surplus of power.

*sob* still no comments...

Hey, everything looks great! I need to re-do my rear shocks again. My right rear is definitely blown, and the wheel hops like crazy if I take a hard right-turning offramp... I try to push a corner at all and it sounds like it's on a washboard.

Looks like you got some nice equipment to do stuff with.

Nice work! Keep posting pics of your progress.

Bert

So how does it handle with the new shocks/endlinks?

Your wife is pretty.

And that garage looks like something from back to the future.

I'm Jealous.
Wish i had a Dad and a shop like that.
Damn, your lucky!!!!
Oh, and a beautiful wife.

By the way, could you fab me up a bezel out of alum. like you did for your trip reset / trac. control button?
If so, how much?

YAY! COMMENTS!
It handles really great! Before it seemed like it would lean out from the curve at almost a 45 deg angle when going on to the speed ramp of a highway..., now it actually leans with the bank of the road, rock steady!

..and my wife will get all embarrassed if she hears about those comments

There will be much photos in a few weeks as I dive deep under the hood for the LIM and "things". I was thinking it would be neat to use some software I have to take a timelapse video of the whole process, a frame every 10 sec or so, start to finish, and edit it up to some music. I think it would look really cool.

By the way, could you fab me up a bezel out of alum. like you did for your trip reset / trac. control button?
If so, how much?

Rickw wrote:

By the way, could you fab me up a bezel out of alum. like you did for your trip reset / trac. control button?
If so, how much?

hrm, it looks like shipping to lancaster from here would run 20 bucks or so for a 2lb package, I could make one in less than an hour... so say 30 bucks shipped. I'll need to know the inside DIA and outside DIA you want, since mine is so installed that it won't come out to measure.

Keep in mind that it will also require some slight modding of the air duct in the kick panel if you want to move your trip/trac button to where I put mine. Also you will need the guts to take a holesaw to your kickpanel. Its kinda the point of no return.

O.K., When I remove mine I'll get you the dimensions. Sometime during the winter when
you get the opportunity in the shop to fab one up, that will be great.
I'll get back to you later with the numbers.
Thanks,
Rick

You go Dude!
I'm Jealous.
Wish i had a shop like that.
Damn, you lucky S.O.B!!!!
Oh, and a beautiful woman!!

ITS ALIVE!
180 drilled t stat
P and P non walled LIM swap
PCV valve
TB clean
SC P and P
SC new coupler
Injector hand Clean
Coolant flush X3
Oil Change
Dropped back to 2.5" pulley
All necessary gaskets and such

Started with 1 deg for a second at WOT, when the PCM was going "WHATS ALL THIS NEW STUFF?" Once the PCM zeroed in on the new changes, I now get 0 engine knock at WOT, in all launch methods.

I decided not to try my luck plugging the scliencer holes in the SC.

Oh, and I took a time-lapse video of the whole thing. Look for it being posted tormorrow when I finish editing it to music!

So who wants to see a timelapse of a 95 riv engine takedown and build?

Stay tuned, it should be up in a couple of hours...