Normally, you bore the stock sleeves until there’s almost nothing left, like this:

Then you insert “sleeves” that fit inside of the stock aluminum ones:

The problem with this is that you end up with a cylinder that is made out of two different materials. The stock aluminum (outside) and the cast iron (inside) expand at different rates and temperatures.

With my block, an engine machinist with 30 years of experience made 1 piece cast iron sleeves that get inserted directly in to the block. The existing stock sleeves (cylinders) get completely removed. This allows for extremely tight piston clearances without having to worry about the different expansion rates as the entire cylinder is made of only one material.

I wish I had my camera when the “sleeves” were installed, it was quite an interesting process. Regardless, here’s the finished result with a comparison.

Stock:

My sleeves:

The pic pretty much says it all.

As usual, they are very pretty and very LIGHT.

Then we have a sneak peak of the Yokohama slicks. They’re ummm…just a little sticky:

And finally, here’s a pic of my piece of **** shortblock from 2 weeks ago before it went to the machine shop:

We’ve been working on some stuff behind the scenes (wiring, pedals, steering rack, brake lines, etc.) but I need to get pics of all of that stuff. However, the major hold back has obviously been this motor (that was supposed to just “drop right in”). As you guys already know, the entire motor had to be rebuilt before we even got to start it because the guy that sold it to me was a complete scammer.

ANYWAY, the current hold up has to do with the pistons as CP needed 2 weeks to make them custom for us. We’re going to be running 9:1 compression 99.75mm (10 over) coated pistons. I could have gotten 100mm pistons the same day, but I really didn’t want to go 20 over and figured it was worth the wait. If their time frame is correct, my pistons should ship on Monday and be here Tuesday. We’ll see…

And here it is thrown in to the car:

You can tell quite a bit has been taken out of it…there’s like nothing left:

I am in love with the Zolatone paint…normally you have to be careful with the wiring as the DCCD box, ECU, and even sometimes just plastic connectors can hit the floor and scratch it. With the Zolatone I was just throwing **** all over the place scraping it everywhere and there isn’t a single scratch. So awesome…

I took this pic of some of the wires going out the fender, but I also noticed that you can see the ABS pump in the top left of the pic. You can also see the 05 STI engine bay brake lines installed.

Last but not least, here’s another pic of the car itself:

Wrapping a present? Making curtains? How about the wiring harness. Yeah, the never ending wiring harness.

So, the stuff in the picture above is a braided nylon that is extremely lightweight (the entire roll was 5 oz) and is abrasion resistant. So, not only does it protect the wires better than electrical tape, it’s lighter, and it’s not a STICKY MESS.  I suppose the only down side is that it costs about 15 times more than electrical tape…

Here’s a pic about half-way through:

I basically spent the day cutting the nylon, wrapping an inch or two at a time, and zip-tying it all together.

It came out great though:

As you can see in the last pictures, I have a few wires to finish but it’s basically done. I’ll be putting all of the wiring in the car tomorrow.

In other news, the gas tank and rear end are in and the car is rolling on all 4 wheels now.

I’ll post another update when the wiring is done.

As you probably noticed, the car is rolling on STI wheels in the front. The STI front cross member with steering rack, axles, hubs, etc, all went on along with the front wiring harness.

Some coilover goodness:

The aero-catch latches were also riveted in to the hood. I love these things…

Then it was time to make fuel and brake lines fit around the cage. Using my trusty pipe bender (two hands and my right foot ) I got the fuel lines precision bent around the cage and they look almost factory.

And finally, I had to paint a light coat of Rustoleum on part of the bottom of the car before we could put the gas tank and rear end in. Painting upside down really sucks…

That’s about it for now. I have to send the hood scoop and vents back to be repainted because *someone* (who shall remain nameless) opened the hood when they weren’t bolted on yet, resulting in them crashing to the ground and getting scraped up.

I just wish I had remembered to take some pics of the front when the fenders and bumper were on…it looked really mean. Oh well, it will be back on soon enough.

Until next time…

As I’ve said earlier, the inside of the car including the engine bay were painted with graphite zolatone. This paint isn’t like anything else, it’s water based (requires a sealer), extremely lightweight (no clear coat), and is 100% scratch resistant. It’s basically a black paint with millions of little white and silver flakes in it. The paint itself was originally created during some freak accident where chemicals were mixed incorrectly.

Here’s the engine bay:

Inside:

And I couldn’t really get pics of the outside since it was inside of the paint booth. I had about 3 feet on either side to work with.

The white flakes in the interior should look really good once the white tear pattern goes on the side of the car. They should compliment each other very nicely. It will also look a bit less strange once some of the space is taken up with what we’re calling an interior…seats, dash, steering wheel…and I don’t think I missed anything.

So, speaking of dashes, we flocked every dash piece last night including the vent rings, gauge cluster surround, etc. So, what is “flocking?” It’s basically a process that covers the dash in a micro-suede. Aside from looking awesome, it completely eliminates glare from the dash which is essential on the track.

A quick warning: the pictures are going to look a little weird just because they were taken at night with a crappy flash. The dash looks much “softer” in real life (like suede).

The process started out with sanding the piece to be flocked. Then we sprayed it in a black latex spray paint to seal it. Once that dried, we sanded that. At that point, the piece was ready for flocking.

The entire process only takes 15 minutes, but this certainly isn’t by choice. The nasty adhesive will only accept the flocking fibers for 15 minutes after it’s applied, so you have to work FAST.

On your mark, get set…GO:

I found the key was to glob it on pretty thick and then smooth it out across the entire piece. Once it was completely covered in adhesive it was moved to our flocking station, comprised of a giant cardboard box and 200 square feet of plastic.

Once the flocking itself is completed the pieces have to sit for 72 hours to cure. Once they cure, you can blow them off with an air compressor to get rid of the excess fibers.

I practiced on smaller pieces first, but once it was time to do the dash it became apparent that there was no way I’d be able to cover an entire dash in adhesive AND spray it with the fibers by myself in 15 minutes. I worked with a friend and we were able to cover the dash in adhesive in about 8 minutes. Once that was done it was a mad rush to get all of the fibers on before it dried.

Finally, all of the pieces were ready to sit for 72 hours:

I’ll take better pictures of the dash and other pieces using natural light this weekend once they’ve cured. These pictures really don’t do them justice at all…they look amazing.

First off, let’s do some mirror / reflection shots, shall we?

The back with the light just hitting it a bit…it was cloudy so no direct sunlight:

And then just some shots of the car being moved. Again, there was no direct sunlight so it looks almost black at most angles. The car actually looked more “grey” in person outside, but inside it definitely looked black-ish.

In this pic you can see exactly what I’m talking about. The door almost looks black, but then look at the front right fender by the headlight.

I’m hoping tomorrow I can actually get the car outside to take some real pictures of the light hitting it properly. Either way, the inside will be very exciting to see.

Here’s the actual paint:

It changes colors so much it’s kind of crazy. Depending on the lighting and what’s around it, it can look black, grey, dark blue…I have a feeling it will reflect the pink stickers and have a pink tint to it once it’s all finished.

Here’s one angle, where it looks almost black:

Turn 30 degrees and catch the light a different way and now it’s dark grey (yes, it’s dirty, and no, that dirt isn’t actually IN the paint):

You can kind of see the grittiness in these pieces, they’ll be nice and smooth once the color sanding is done:

Painted door handles, woot!

Some part of the bumper, so you can see the flakes in the paint:

And finally, the car itself. The lighting is horrible, the paint looks nothing like it actually does, and I was on the ground holding the camera over my head…other than that, it’s perfect (lol).

Hopefully I’ll have some *real* pictures of the car soon. I can’t wait to put the white and pink vinyl on it!

I was a bit confused earlier when I saw the white primer being used for DGM paint. After seeing the black undercoat it all makes sense now. These guys are really going the extra mile to make sure it turns out great. They already sanded the primer before spraying the under coat. Then they’re sanding the undercoat tomorrow and spraying the DGM. Once that’s done they’ll spray the clear and wet sand that. That’s a ****load of sanding!

Anyway, here’s some of the little bits that got their undercoat today as well:

It still looks a little funky without the bumpers on it and the awesome stock monster truck suspension.

Here’s some pics of the inside. It’s too bad I’ll never see the beautifully wire-brushed floor ever again.

On to the body work. As you remember, the 95 L’s came with that ugly rubber side molding. When you rip it off there are holes all down the side of the car. Not anymore…

Then there’s the fenders. Usually the car has corner marker lights that are orange. If you’re a JDM baller you usually replace those with clear markers. Or you could just remove them all together, but then you’ll have huge holes in your fenders. Yeah, those holes are gone and you could never tell these fenders had corner markers to begin with.

Then there’s that pesky antenna for the radio. Obviously you don’t need that, but as soon as you remove it there’s another big hole in your car. Poof, that’s gone too.

Oh, and those basketball sized dents I put in the quarter panels? Yep, gone too:

The first round of paint starts tomorrow, but it will be quite a while until the entire outside is finished. I’m having every last little piece painted from the aero-catch hood latches to the door handles. No 1995 black plastic for this car! 

Once the outside is done the inside will get sprayed with the Zolatone. I forgot to snap a pic of the trunk floor when I was there to show you guys what it looks like. You’ll just have to wait until next time I guess.