It's Here! Pickup Day & Inventory

Saturday, we finally took possession of our kit!

We took the drive up to FFR, stopping by the Budget rental truck place on the way. We got in around 9:00, a little later than intended, but still quite good.

We left..early.. to do so.

Once we got there, we looked over our kit, checked body panels where we could, and moved on to check out the factory cars a third time.
The body panels were good for the most part, with some areas of thin or chipped gelcoat. We are following up on if we actually got the new production panels that we were promised, despite requesting the old color, or if we got the old-stock leftovers.
We tried out the Kirkey seat in the red S car again, and do like it. We may go that direction with our build.

With that settled, the FFR guys fired up the forklift, and hooked on their boom. We had brought insulation foam to set the chassis on, and it worked flawlessly.

We strapped it down at all 4 corners, and then another pair at the rollbar.
Then, it was box time. A whole load of them went into the Mazda, and the rest went up at the front of the truck (should have put those in first..)

We signed the paperwork, and were on our way! A three hour drive becomes a whole lot longer in that truck, I have to say.

We had friends arranged to come over a bit after we got home, so we busied ourselves with starting to unload boxes until they arrived.

Working with a pair of 200 sq ft garages, we had to get creative. In anticipation of all the panels, we bought a roll of garden netting. With the help of a couple tall friends, we strung up the majority of the body panels to the ceiling of the other garage.

Then we tackled getting the now-bare chassis out of the truck.
We moved slowly, but with four people, it wasn't too much of a problem. The fifth person shuffled the styrofoam into the garage, so we didn't have to aim carefully for a set of jack stands. We'll put it up in the air later.

It's amazing how big it makes that little garage look..

We took our turns "test driving" the 818, then headed into the house to reward our helpers with beer & pizza. Universal currency.

Sunday & Monday, we focused on inventory.
There were around 9 boxes, probably about 15 pages worth of items. The hardware box was the worst. Other than that, just some assorted brackets that took a bit of process of elimination & research to ID. We finished it in around 3.5 hours. Only two parts on the BOM that weren't present, excluding the known backordered items.

Here's what inventory looks like.. sped up quite a bit.

Head assembly & 3 days till pickup!

We've been busy getting ready for the kit pickup, trying to get through as much of the motor buildup as we can without rushing it.

Also after sandblasting and re-assembling the transmission, we hit it with a coat of VHT engine enamel. Shiny!

This week we've gotten both heads built up (valves, springs, retainers) after the machine shop took them out to match the 2.5 chamber diameter. I cleaned up the valve seats and lapped them with our new valves for a tight fit and good seal, then another round of cleaning to make sure there was no abrasive left.

Final Product!

Ti Retainers

Lapped @ Left

Lapped @ Right

EuroExport compressor worked well!

We also got the block back with shiny new 99.75 bores! That'll be the next project.

The machine shop said that the flywheel & pressure plate actually required a bit of balancing, but the crank was pretty good as-is. They still touched it up.

I'll be balancing the rods a little better than Manley does, though they're still down around 1.5g from lightest to heaviest. Pistons are all within 1g, so I'll probably leave those alone.

Our pickup day is fast approaching, Saturday! The 16' truck is reserved, and our friends are lined up to help us unload.

We've also been cleaning up the basement, selling parts at cut rates, throwing some things out.. the space matters more than a few $ worth of plastic bits now.

..However, we might need to open a tire shop to clear out this section of space. Winter tires for 3 cars, race tires for the Miata & Mazdaspeed, an extra set of summer tires for the Miata, and the set of XXRs from the WRX.

More tools!

In preparation for the motor buildup once we get it back from the machine shop, we've been stocking up on all the necessary tools, primarily .0001" micrometer & bore gauge.
Went with a digital Fowler bore gauge, which I trust for repeatability but not for accuracy. For the accuracy, I got a Mitutoyo 2-3" micrometer. Shiny!
You set up the bore gauge with the micrometer, so from there, it's just relative sizes, and we should easily be able to determine our bearing clearances.

It's fun when you can measure the .0002" oil film on the surfaces of the tool & reference gauge.

I brought the transmission halves to work to clean them up in the blast cabinet also. Didn't have glass bead available, so the aluminum oxide leaves a little bit of dark coloration behind. We might paint with VHT Engine enamel to get everything shiny and prevent repeat oxidation.

Pistons & rods should be showing up in the next couple days.. Perfect timing for getting started on everything this weekend!

We also have a EuroExport brand spring compressor en route, with a cup designed for the GSC Beehive spring retainers, so we'll update with how it works.

In other news, it's been gorgeous here, aside from the scattered downpours. 

Busy busy.. Two week countdown!

We've been quite busy getting things ready, since now we're down to (just under) two weeks till pickup!

The engine is out to the machine shop for boring to 99.75mm with a torque plate for accurate shape, the heads are being chamber matched & adding some headspace to get our CR around 8.3-8.5:1, and we have parts piling up in the living room for the rebuild! (Koni shocks were for my mazdaspeed3, which I auto-x'd this past weekend. Fun!)

We decided on a destroked long rod setup. WRX crank, +2mm rods, and pistons to hit the target CR. We also picked up two sets each of King bearings. Most of the parts came from Fidelis Motorsports, who we're working with on the design of the build, and who will be doing the tuning & datalogging with us.

The bearings are on our rebuilt "front" LSD, and backlash has been set, checked by grease transfer and wear patterns. Looked good to us!

I media blasted the engine case halves before sending them off to the machine shop, so they're.. well, a whole lot cleaner than they were. I didn't have a ton of time, so they're not perfect. Good enough, though!

Before

After

Today I'll be giving the transmission the same treatment, then we can button it up & set it aside with new axle & shaft seals.

We've also started in on the wiring harness.
First out was all of the airbag/SRS system, followed by most of the ABS, radio, AC, etc. Lots of wires left, but we've gotten a good chunk of them out of the way. It started out at 48 pounds. Fourty-eight. We'll see how much we can trim off.

Yikes.

We're also working on turbo selection, though our bank accounts might have to recover a little bit first! We decided to sell the VF22, and are looking at twin-scroll Borg Warner now. Lots of power capability, with spool by 3k rpm or possibly even lower.