tortuga

No heat shields for your plug wires? That worries me a little..... Think you can get a video of the exhaust for us?

matt270avian wrote:

No heat shields for your plug wires? That worries me a little..... Think you can get a video of the exhaust for us?

I'll do a video eventually, preferably on a day my belt isn't perpetually chirping away for no reason. Now that the exhaust is not bothering me it's ever more annoying. I'd fix it but I don't know what to fix - the belt is pretty fresh and nothing else seems to be a problem. I replaced the belt last year in desperation to get rid of the noise and it absolutely did for about 6 months or so I guess. I really don't know what to do with it.

I had the OEM boot shields on before and James saw them and told me they're pretty much worthless; the wires will be fine so I stopped using them. I've had those PRJ wires on with headers for about 5 1/2 years 40k mi so far without any issues.

turtleman wrote:

I had the OEM boot shields on before and James saw them and told me they're pretty much worthless; the wires will be fine so I stopped using them. I've had those PRJ wires on with headers for about 5 1/2 years 40k mi so far without any issues.

No shields on mine either. With the wrap and more space, why??

Not the greatest video but I wanted to see how the cam would pick up the sound
sounds like a 3800
on my logitech thx computer speakers, there is insane bass saturation and i'd say that's a pretty fair representation of reality. At idle, there's just so much penetrating bass you really don't hear much else for sound coming out of the exhaust. The lopiness and pulsations of the engine running are less descript than before although not like night and day different. Then when you get on it it a decent bit it kinda changes tune - the bass goes away and it's relatively quiet. I haven't been on the highway since I did the exhaust so I haven't spent really any time WOT or high rpm so next time I have somewhere to go on the highway, I'll do another video like this and open it up.

I actually went ahead and ordered an ebay electric cutout to use for now. It was just over $100 shipped so i said why not. It even comes with a wireless remote so I don't have to add any switches for it (which was the plan anyway). I could probably modify it in the future to be opened by a boost actuator like what SoundPerformance sells. I would just need to find an appropriate actuator and make a bracket at work. I'm not paying $400 for SP's though and I can't find any others except from ATPturbo.com which is pretty reasonable in cost but they're out of stock until who knows when.

For the next exhaust trick.. the boost actuated dump valve


The SP boost actuated cutout (with a QTP turndown)
I decided since soundperformance was close by I'd have a look at this gizmo. I was impressed with what I saw. This thing actually has an o-ring seal which is way above and beyond any cutout valve I've seen. I was thinking about getting a wastegate actuator and making this myself but why - they nailed this thing from the look/feel of it.

I have some ideas on what I'll integrate with it to make it function to my liking but to start off just to mount it onto my exhaust, I'm making an adapter just to clock it around 40 degrees to fit the exhaust perfectly for ideal clearance.


I can't wait to manually type in the toolpath for this lol
I put a ridiculously unnecessary amount of work into the outside profile of the adapter. The way they designed the contours on my Y-pipe flange vs the cutout valve flange is sorta different (same bolt pattern though) so I actually made it to respect both sides superimposed
drawing it gave me a little bit of a headache learning how to manipulate geometric constraints in autocad today but definitely good practice

One thing I'm going to be doing right away when installing this is running a control solenoid (which will probably be a boost solenoid right off an m90 blower) so I can absolutely disable the cutout even if I floor it.

the thingy is on! it'll wake you up. I don't think I can capture the hilariousness on camera but i'll try some time soon

in other news i got the package from Jay in canada after $48 for brokerage charges - what horseshit!

compcams 1.73 roller rocker set and beefy stuff to support it - 150lb manley springs and zzp 3/8 pushrods. This will put peak valve lift at .585/.595 on the IS3 cam. The rockers confused me at first. I'm used to Yella Terra but these just mount right to the head with nothing underneath. The sleeves for the bolts determine their height so it's stupid easy to alter that for perfect geometry. They are in pairs that share a common shaft that's offset to put them in the proper orientation on the head. One of the sleeves on these is damaged although still usable. The damage appears to be from improper torquing which I'm sure had something to do with the massive amounts of locktight they put in them. I'm in no rush about installing these anyway so I'm thinking i'll make a replacement sleeve at work. I'm planning on putting these in when I put the replacement short block together in spring or thereabouts.

The cut out looks sweet! I love how its controlled by a boost actuator.

when closed, does it create any interference in flow through the default side of the exhaust? It seems that the normal flow would be interrupted by sending the exhaust down to the dead end?

Is this not a factor?

Interesting ....I love bass.

charlieRobinson wrote:

The cut out looks sweet! I love how its controlled by a boost actuator.

when closed, does it create any interference in flow through the default side of the exhaust? It seems that the normal flow would be interrupted by sending the exhaust down to the dead end?

Is this not a factor?

It's not really much of a factor. That sort of dead-end thing doesn't affect fluid flow like you would imagine a solid object and it occurs in mufflers all the same.

That cutout is a beautiful thing. Video please!!!

I remember a little while back you were looking into the alternator pulley since you have a cam and it the lopiness was messing with your voltages. Apparently the later L26 alternators had a pulley like the one you came up with. Food for thought?

Edit: It looks like you used a stock alternator pulley off one of these, so a direct pulley swap is pretty much done. Would a straight up alternator swap work so you don't have to mess with any spacing issues?

matt270avian wrote:

I remember a little while back you were looking into the alternator pulley since you have a cam and it the lopiness was messing with your voltages. Apparently the later L26 alternators had a pulley like the one you came up with. Food for thought?

Edit: It looks like you used a stock alternator pulley off one of these, so a direct pulley swap is pretty much done. Would a straight up alternator swap work so you don't have to mess with any spacing issues?

Any alternator other than a riviera alternator will not work because the riviera has a unique voltage regulator. Don't ask me why. but I have confirmed it. So you can swap in another alternator if you can fit your original voltage regulator into it. So you can go to a junk yard and get a low mileage 140amp one out of some other car (pretty easy to find) and use it if you take it apart and put in your regulator. Unfortunately the guaranteed wear item besides bearings are the brushes which are factory soldered to the regulator. Actually my brushes are really worn out so I'll probably be taking it apart again and soldering the low mileage brushes up to my regulator which i'll kinda update on whenever that happens. I'm pretty much waiting for them to just go 'cause I want to see how many miles they last.

turtle colonoscopy complete



cylinder 1
good...
and bad...




I saw a mark on the cylinder wall too but I couldn't really tell how bad it was
cylinder 5 was fine
Oh I have a couple little tiny pieces of the piston chips I got out of the muffler but the bigger piece(s) is stuck in there because I knocked it out of the intermediate chamber into an end chamber which makes it ridiculously hard to get out. I'd cut it open as I am not using the muffler anymore but it's still a good muffler so I'd feel bad.

I have a replacement L67 short block sitting on the engine stand I picked up saturday. It won't be getting swapped in until spring sometime but I have some things to do in the meantime.

Ouch!!! NOT GOOD! Although I do recall guessing chipped piston a while back
That sucks. Good thing you have a spare!

Were u runnin lean and why with all ur mods or was it that coil stuff u made?

matt270avian wrote:

I remember a little while back you were looking into the alternator pulley since you have a cam and it the lopiness was messing with your voltages. Apparently the later L26 alternators had a pulley like the one you came up with. Food for thought?

Edit: It looks like you used a stock alternator pulley off one of these, so a direct pulley swap is pretty much done. Would a straight up alternator swap work so you don't have to mess with any spacing issues?

I tried to capture the alternator sound when it's winding down after you rev up the motor and then suddenly slow the rpm back down

Codith, why do you suppose ZZP put their O2 sensor bung hole on the cross over pipe instead of the back of the rear manifold?

I would think the stock position would get a better mix to sample from?

charlieRobinson wrote:

Codith, why do you suppose ZZP put their O2 sensor bung hole on the cross over pipe instead of the back of the rear manifold?

I would think the stock position would get a better mix to sample from?

Yeah it's a little annoying but there's not really anywhere else to put it that wouldn't require an extension harness which is not a big deal but not requiring one is a selling point after all. If the engine is all working well, it doesn't really affect anything.

I just redid the steering wheel buttons which turned out to be a little bit of a project. I had two buttons on the wheel before and I found the need for more buttons so I went online and found some real nice buttons that have halo-style lights and are available both momentary and latching which I needed.


I machined the four holes in the steering wheel itsself and also the metal horn retaining ring and actual plastic horn button for clearance with the switches since they need to be close together. With the larger buttons I picked, I have pretty much no room for error as far as their positions on the steering wheel because they will hit one thing or another thing if they're not right where they need to be which is why I went through the trouble to do it all on a milling machine.
Once that stuff was done I wired everything. The original airbag clockspring gives you two wire harnesses and a total of six contacts between the two so that was just enough for me to have four discrete switch circuits, a common ground (which I could have made a local ground but I wanted to have a more reliable ground), and the lead from the dimming circuit for the button lighting so that they would dim along with the rest of the interior instrument lighting.
Wiring was fairly straightforward although I ran into a big problem. I soldered all the wires and stuff up to the original airbag and button harnesses and then when I went to test it, it would completely short out. I couldn't individually test the switches at that point because they were all wired up sharing the same ground so I had to undo all the soldering and stuff just to find out afterwards that both ends of the airbag connectors are actually designed to short themselves out while disconnected - they un-short once they are plugged in. That was why it was all shorting so I did all that rework for nothing gahhh!




The end product looks super clean - I'm happy with it. Also I am able to eliminate that 'perf shift' indicator light underneath the boost gauge because I can see whether it's on or off by looking at the button if it's pushed in or not and I can easily feel or see that day or night thanks to the halo lights on the buttons. I wired it so those lights are always on with the interior lights rather than having the light come on when the button is 'on'.

everything I do to this car makes it more like a spaceship

Looks like a cockpit!

On a more somber note the engine seems to be slowly consuming oil now which I'm assuming is related to the chipped piston because it never did before. So I have to take back what I said before about the chipped piston being a symptom-free condition.
Also my intercooler coolant is slowly disappearing. I keep having to add a little to the reservoir. I don't see any external leaks anywhere so the running guess right now is that the core is leaking it into the motor. This is a known issue with intercoolers but this thing was brand new and I have three years and about 23k out of it so far - that kinda sucks for longevity... I really don't want to have to re-core this thing every 3 years. I need to figure some way to verify if this core is bad or not before I do the motor this spring-early summer because I can't be waiting around for a core while I have no car to drive.
So this engines running on e85, oil, and antifreeze for the rest of the winter - yay
Tomorrow will be by-far the most interesting emissions test yet

Cool 😎

Awesome work on the interior, it looks fantastic! On the intercooler, you'll need to pressure test the system to find the leak. If it's not dripping where you can see it, then it's dripping where you can't see it... once you pull the intercooler core off you'll probably find it pretty quickly.

It's spring! finally!

I got a car wash and saw this...


I guess it had to happen some time. My paint was never flawless but I didn't have anything really eyesoreish like this until now. This riv's days are numbered.


I put the summer tires back on.

Some odd wear. The right tire is wearing perfectly uniform. The driver side is like all over the place like I have an alignment problem and the car kinda feels like it too. I got the car aligned about 4 months after I mounted the new drag radials in 2013 and now that I look at my service log, I put a note in there saying the tech used a camber adjustment bolt on the driver side. I'm gonna have to investigate.

Oh I'm pretty sure I found my IC leak. Thankfully it's just one of the hoses going to the core. I tightened it up and it seems to have stopped loosing coolant. One thing I don't have to get a headache about.

How's Turtle doing?