Well it seems that the electrical issues have paid their dues and are finally on their way :) Rego is due, and I hit a bit of a fork regarding what to do with her, and where I want to take her in the future. I toyed with the idea of taking her off the road and setting her up as a track car, but a) I would need to buy towball/trailer, and I have nowhere to store the trailer, and b) I would still like a streeter I can go for a cruise in from time to time.
I decided to go with keeping her registered, giving me a car that I could go for a cruise in, and still be able to drive to the track to have fun with. It wouldn't be the quickest or most competitive car, but to me thats not the point. It's about having fun doing what I love, and past experience has shown me that thats definitely possible :)
Pursueing this path, I decided that it would be prudent to try and legalise her as much as possible - hence Operation Happy Bacon! We all know how many defect squads are getting around these days, and given the unnecessary attention we already get thanks to the stereotype portrayed by the media, it's only a matter of time before a piggy tries to give me a second a-hole.
If I wanted to sit down and list everything that I could possibly be picked up on, I'd run out of fingers and toes. That said, the amount of rape-age also depends on the mood that the cop is in, so the priority is the obvious ones - the ones that could get me pulled over in the first place, and the ones that people are most commonly defected for. The list I have so far:
- Enclose pod filter (now has to be enclosed in QLD, not just secured)
- Plumb back catch can (is currently venting to atmo)
- Remove window tinting (yes officer, I know 5% is illegal)
- Relocate battery/tidy up hole cut for intercooler piping
- Tuck exhaust, and possibly raise ride height
- Replace wheels to something that still looks good and doesn't require spacers
- Remove drift button on handbrake
- Replace steering wheel with something padded (apparently you need padding on the middle of your steering wheel)
On top of this, the list of other things I want to sort out:
- Replace/upgrade brakes
- Air diversion plate
- Respray car
- Resolve rust in the roof
- Get a proper alignment
I've obviously got my work cut out for me, but everyone has to start somewhere... In this case, I'm starting with a box. But not just any old box...
The idea here is that I wanted to construct a box that would both enclose my pod filter, keep the catch can atmo (wanted to keep the turbo/intercooler free from excess oil) and also tidy up the engine bay a little.
The first thing that needs to be done is relocate the power steering reservoir, as it would foul on the enclosure. The only thing I had to keep in mind was that the reservoir has to be higher than the pump itself. Simple enough, just some custom brackets so I could mount it elsewhere, and then an extension of the hoses.
Here's the top section of the perspex that I rough-cut to size. The idea here is that I wanted to enclose the whole section from the rad support to the strut tower, so it looked both tidy and would also give me room to work with.
As I mentioned before, I wanted to keep the catch can (the black box on the left) venting to atmosphere, so that the turbo and intercooler didn't gobble up the excess oil. The previous configuration had the oil dripping onto the exhaust manifold, which would just burn off without leaving oil everywhere. All I did was add some piping and a filter, with enough length to allow me to add it to the enclosure, and out of prying eyes.
I also got a new intake pipe fabricated up. Unfortunately the factory one didn't put the air filter in a workable position. The pipe itself is a bit of a hack job (had to bung a hole, and there's a random flange coming off) but can't complain, it was free!
The intake installed, with the filter for the catch can. You can see on the right a screw hole where the power steering reservoir was sitting, this is why it had to be moved. Cutting this perspex to size was a hell of a lot more tedious - it's hard to mark sizes and locations that you can't directly measure.
The two pieces of perspex cut, drilled and cleaned up.
I wanted to use some cable sheathing to edge the perspex. It's a lot quicker and easier than sitting there sanding and buffing each edge, and also provides protection from anything that could start rubbing against the perspex.
Thanks to Tobs (once again) for the sheets of stickers used to finish off the perspex :) Quite happy with how they've come up, and you can see the idea behind the sheath as well. We ran out of stickers in the end, and quite a few were transparent, so I just painted the back of the perspex black to compensate.
My girlfriend helping out with the sticker-bombing... First time either of us have done it, it's not overly hard but its not exactly easy either!
I went with some right-angle to join the two sheets of perspex together. Combined with some pop-rivets, I think it was quite a sturdy solution, and has definitely ensured that it won't be coming apart anytime soon.
The finished result!! It's secured by pop-rivets into the chassis, and is designed so that I can still remove the fender if need be. All in all I'm very happy with the final result :)
A different angle... you can see how it lines up quite well with everything else in there to give a more flush result.
The sheathing doing its job... You can also see the pop rivets down the spine of it.
It took about a week for me to finish it, but that's because I had other commitments that were a tad more important than finishing this. Had I have sat down in one go, I could've easily knocked it off in a day, but as we all know, life tends to get in the way. That said, for the total cost of $0, I'm incredibly chuffed with the result!!! Plus it's 2 things off of my to-do list :)
Stay tooned - got another trackday coming up at the end of July, so hopefully you'll see more updates as I get ready for that.
Until next time!!
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