5thgen

Ok, here is some of the tunnel work. I decided to cut and weld the trans brace area instead of hammering it for clearance. There are a couple spots on the transmission that stick out quite a bit, but for the most part it wasn't too crazy. I thought about drilling out the support and cutting it for clearance off the car, but later decided it wasn't going to be worth the effort and cut it on the car.

The only other place where I had clearance issues was the driver side near the bellhousing. Basically the metal of the tunnel forward and to the right of the accelerator pedal. That was just knocked in with a mallet....maybe too much. Either way I got plenty of clearance, more than half an inch at the closest spots. Id rather cut it out and put in a new piece of metal...maybe if I ever take the car apart to paint or something.














This is the only thing besides the starter area that was trimmed. I took about a half inch of of this cast standoff.











Cleaning the tunnel and drawing up some cut lines. I probably could have cut less, but I didn't want to have to do this twice.

















First rough cut











I'm going to make the weld-in plates out of .125" steel after I clean up the cuts a bit. I think I will have plenty of clearance above the transmission, so I did not extend the cut up there. Also going to add a 4th bolt to hold the transmission mount to the chassis.

5thgen

Here are some fitment pics after the cutting/clearancing. There is a nuetral safety switch on the passenger side that gets in the way quite a bit. I unbolted it and plugged it with a bolt and sealant. On the driver side there is a reverse signal switch, but there shouldn't be any issue with plugging it in.

There is a ring of bolts holding a transmission section together. Luckily it clears the trans mount brace by about half an inch. So really I probably didn't need to cut near as much as I did on the driver side.













A good friend gave me some scrap .125" plate to weld into place. We had to bend it in multiple directions. It was kind of a pain to fit with small gaps. Both sides were this way, but the passenger side was much smaller.












Tacked in place, then welded.

Neither me or my friend don't do any abnormal position welding, so trying to hold just body weight up and keep a decent looking weld was a pain. I think it'll hold together ok. The bottom weld was grinded smooth so the mount would sit flush.












Here is the mount bolted on. The spacers are there for driveshaft angle purposes. I realize they don't have as much importance as in a live-axle setup, but I am still going to try and get acceptable angles. For the life of the u-joints if nothing else. With the 8.8 rear end kit I initially needed to space the transmission down .75", and space the front mounts of the 8.8 mount down .5". I'll get into the 8.8 stuff later....I had to modify some things quite a bit. I wasn't happy with it and should have built my own (again).

You can also see the driver side tunnel post "massaged" in a pic.











Some of the clearance pics with just the block attached. I'm pretty sure the closest the motor/trans gets to the chassis is maybe .5"-.75" in a couple spots.













Then it was painted on the inside and the outside. I later checked with a usb endoscope to make sure the paint covered all the bare spots inside the brace.

I should have used a primer-colored base coat. I think it would have looked better....oh well.









And lastly I started on a turbine heat shield.







I quickly figured out I don't have the necessary patience to build it like this.

5thgen

Here is the revised heat shield. It is going to be a little more sturdy, making it from stainless .063 sheet. First I made template pieces out of cardboard, and adjusted from there.

I also bought some silica cloth that I may attach to the inside of the shield in the future. But for now it will just be metal.

There will be a top shield and a bottom shield. They should cover most of the turbine housing. My main concern at this point is vibration/noise.














Before I welded it, I lightly let a carbide bit bounce around on it, giving it a little bit of texture. It looked better and was easier than just brushing it flat.





I made a tab on my hanger bracket to bolt the shield on. There is probably .25-.50 gap at the closest area of the turbine housing to the underside of the shield.








The bottom section mounts in 2 spots to the turbine housing bolts, and then to the main shield. It is actually welded to the Borg Warner turbine hold-down plate.

Because I am making this now, I had to clearance it for other things already taking up space (wastegate and oil return line). This wasn't a huge deal since it was mainly space in the corner of the shield.

The oil return cutout is ugly. I only had drill bits or hole saws to make this type of opening.























Welded, scotchbrited, and all bolted on

Kyle

This is....glorious....

DavidNJ

Impressive.

Questions:

1) Is it correct that you built a bracket to support the turbo that mounts to the block an valve cover? If so, what made you decide it was needed?

2) How did you get your borescope into the space created by your reinforcement?

3) Why did you choose that transmission support rather than weld one up?

5thgen

1)Yes. It mounts to the lower head tab (one of the 2 8x1.25 allen bolts) and the corners of the valve cover.
A tubing manifold will not last without supporting the weight of the turbo.

2)Through the bolt holes and the openings in the upper corners of the brace.

3)They are generally included in kits. I bought the Full-Blown kit, it was included.

flanders

Very impressive!
How could you get so uniform finish with a bouncing carbide tip on that stainless steel?
Are you just using a regular size one in a hand drill?

5thgen

I used a 1/4" right angle die grinder with light hand pressure, spinning at a slow speed.

I just drag the burr on the metal and let it bounce. To keep it looking more uniform it's best to keep cutting in the same direction.

And to dull it out I use red scotch-brite on a mini-DA sander. It will be shiny and inconsistent looking without going over it with something.

flanders

Thanks, I will try that in the future

5thgen

Did some rear axle work. Changed over to the Driveshaft Shop 5.9 setup with larger hubs. Nothing really came up when changing things over....except I did forget to put a dust shield back on after I put the knuckle back together. Luckily I bought one extra wheel bearing and just redid that corner.

Not a huge fan of extended studs. If they are safer/stronger I'll use them....but I'm not crazy about them (they came with the kit, I figured I'd use them).

















Also made a rear wheel speed sensor bracket. I am going to try and use the oem s2000 VSS. The only thing that concerns me is the highs and lows on the abs ring aren't that different height wise. Typically it reads on third gear (countershaft) in the transmission. I have a speedohealer and will need roughly 300% increase when using the abs ring.



















And if you've ever owned a 92-95 civic and wondered about the door handle bezels being the same (like me).....


Civic on top



Civic bezel on s2000 door panel (not secured with screw)