They are turbosmart clamps. The inner piece has protrusions to help the coupler seal. And the clamp is supposed to be like a spring to keep constant tension.

I think that's the idea of the clamp anyway lol

 

You do amazing work. I just go back to se what you did once in a while. Just question about the boost tho. Im using 6466 on pfab tubular not divided and cant see myself doin more than 22 lb and my block is sleeved!

 

Thanks, I appreciate it! As far as boost goes you just have to keep pressing the "+" button lol. I like where the car is at 25psi (probably low 600s) though. And I think I'll be ok for a bit there.



New stuff....so I think my diff clutches are failing on me. I was getting what felt like slight wheel hop in 3rd gear. I got under the car to check the diff mounts and the cradle and everything seems fine. I need to lock one wheel and see if the other spins freely etc.

While it is down I will try and put on a new bumper. My stock one probably has a thousand rock chips.....and it was resprayed a darker shade anyway. I bought a shine voltex style bumper to replace it (the more flexible one).

Fitment is pretty decent. I had to heat a few areas up to persuade them to fit better....mainly around the inboard side of the headlights.




The hood also sits higher on the passenger side so I had to lower the bumper mounting bar as much as I could and fill the low/driver side. I am not a body guy....so I'm probably not doing everything right lol.

Since the headlights and front fender bolts are tied together location wise, lowering the bar would mean multiple shims so I decided to add material instead.








I grinded a 10mm size bolt into a spike to locate a couple of holes to the bottom of the radiator support. Tightening these 2 bolts really made the bumper feel solid on the car.











The main opening of the bumper is pretty flimsy and does not rest straight. I will have to fit something in there and then glass it in. Then I will to make ducting to the intercooler and radiator cores. Also I may reinforce the bottom floor with some aluminum straps/angles in some spots. It is also flimsy until attached to the lower radiator support.









Where the bumper meets the inner fenders need some work too. Drivers side sits around .040" high....was able to mark it and grind it down.

The outer corners of the same area looked a little short....maybe 1/16". I grinded the back side of it at an angle and used some short strand reinforced filler to extend the edge (around .040" on the passenger side, .100" on the driver side). I think it will be ok as this area does not really flex much on the car, or when taking the bumper on/off.












I used a cereal box to build the edges. The glossy side will pull off easy from the filler/fiberglass. I cut slits into one side so I could help shape the contour of the bumper. I basically forced the filler in and just held it by hand until it hardened enough.













Still not there. I have to fix the height to match the fender. And straighten the line with the fender as well.





The large flat area of the front of the bumper was pretty flimsy. I want it to flex, but I felt that it flexed a little too much. I took some chopped mat and added a layer to help strengthen it. After the resin was applied I installed the bumper to let it cure in position.









Last thing, I had some issues with the mufflers I have cracking where the exhaust tubing goes into the muffler. I bought some titanium pieces to replace everything up to the downpipe. I'm going to try and get some ap2 tips to work on it.








If any bodywork guys see something I should do differently/better let me know lol.

 

Lots of nice detail work going on with this project as always. Nice work man.

 

Some bumper fitting gapping. Just using adhesive backed sandpaper on some type of spacer.












Inner fender to bumper fitup. Its at the point where I need to get some type of color on it to see the body line in it. I'm sure it would look pretty bad (reflections) if it got painted now without more bodywork.













Driver side headlight area needed filled a little bit. It doesn't look so bad right now....would probably see it a bit more being painted silver though. So it was filled with short strand filler. This area itself doesn't really flex when installing/removing the bumper so I think it won't be really prone to cracking under normal use.

The blue tape is on top of foam tape that is about .10" thick....this will become the gap.
















The lower bumper support that was fiberglassed in. I had to move this forward when I cut the opening forward a little bit....but it looks the same otherwise.

This kept this part of the bumper straight side-to-side.










Making "washer brackets" to tie the 2 pieces together. I didn't like the idea of just using nuts/bolts through 2 layers of composite. Especially since they don't really sit flat against each other.
















Trying to mock up ducting ideas. At this time I don't really want to move cores/piping around (vmount maybe?) so I will have to settle with having most of the same air going through the intercooler and the radiator. I'll be using the 2 upper slots to feed air to probably the upper 25% of the radiator.











The main front duct is going to be fiberglass. I think I can get away with aluminum everywhere else though.

Trying to make it out of foam and make the duct on the outside of the plug/inner duct. This will lip fit outside the bumper side of the duct, but will sit flush against the core of the intercooler. Hopefully this traps the air and builds pressure in front of the core. How much pressure that builds up in between the intercooler and radiator...ehhh I don't know.








This is how much the intercooler duct will lip outside of the bumper duct.















After shaping












I put some epoxy resin on the foam to help harden it and to allow filler. I was reading polyester fillers and resins don't react too well with this foam.

I didn't have any issue with the epoxy damaging the foam...and the filler seemed to work with the epoxy resin.







I realize I will have to destroy the foam to extract the duct from this...but I don't plan on having to make another one. Still sucks a little with how much time I spend on this lol. Or I may split the duct and keep the foam core intact.

 

That is super trick IC ducting man, love it.

A lot of work definitely going into the bumper as well to get the perfect fit, but it's really coming out nicely.

Wishing Carey would hurry and get mine finished up. LOL

 

Man...I've taken a vow of celibacy but these updates always make me want to touch myself.

 

I really enjoy watching the awesomeness of the updates on this car

 

Love the updates!

 

Your work is always amazing and motivates me to get in the garage! Thanks for sharing it with us.