okay so i had an interesting weekend, i picked up my intercooler on friday. did the piping and mounted it on saturday and ended up back at the shop on sunday because the parent metal on my wastegate tube decided to crack out and leave the wastegate dangling by one piece and the vacuum lines.
I ended up having to pad the metal a bit with the mig to add strength to ensure that the problem didn't arise again.
I took the opportunity while the manifold was off to port and polish the inside of the runners and sandblast the whole thing. I'm thinking that I would love to have it ceramic coated but i drive the car daily so it's not practical to have it done right now.

anyways. on with the pictures.


engine bay shot. it's dirty as hell because it's been really messed up weather here and i haven't had a chance to wash it. i did take a bit of time to shine up the pipes a bit.


closer shot of the 2 1/4" to 2 1/2" transition (all the 2.25" is mandrel bends that the guy i bought the intercooler off of gave me.)


a closeup of one of the welds, the wonky looking spot is from the mig tack, i suppose i should have cleaned it off a bit more before i completed the weld, it looked good at the time though and as usual i was pressed for time and running out of argon


when it's not raining, it's rediculously hot and buggy out (heh) this is from the 2x 180km trips out to the shop and back that i've made this weekend.


the 2 cast aluminum 90's that go under the bulkhead will be covered by the front lip. i didn't want to remove or relocate my washer fluid reservoir.


here's what happened to my front lip after driving the car with it on through the winter. stupid ikea parking lot! anyways, that shows how it will hide the charge pipe and hopefully protect it a bit.


hood down, you can see why i can't work in my garage. heh it's tiny! those are my wifes 17" wheels for her accord. they've been hibernating since her accident last year.


I don't mind how the pins look since i painted the plates flat black. but i really really hate the clips. they just look aweful!

gross eh?
no idea what the lense flares are, dust maybe? it was dark in the garage when i took the pics so *shrug*

the hatred of carbon fiber and the hatred of the hood pins. 2 things on my car that I hate, and 2 things that are most easily noticed by others. I had some kid at Dairy Queen drive thru comment on my car today, he said 'hey that's phat' which confused the hell out of me, i thought he might've been calling my wife fat or something so i was all 'pardon me?' so he says to me 'that's phat yo' or something e-thuggish like that. ****** small redneck town white kids thinking they are black or something! wtf?!


that's all the pictures i have for now.
I want to do something about the bumper grille, i don't want to do chicken wire, i actually liked the look of the stock bumper grill. oops, oh well.
any suggestions?

 

very nice, good works.

 

The wastegate fell off, huh? Mind me asking what brand that manifold is? Just to show that this sort of thing is not exclusively a SSAC problem.

I like the setup, and great idea about using the elbows to route the intercooler pipes without relocating the washer reservoir. I also see you use a DSM BOV.. Great BOV, but is it going to hold to your boost goals?

 

You mentioned not getting rid of your resevoir...

There are two sizes of resevoirs according to the Helm manual:
US coupe/sedan, DX hatchback: 2.5 liter tank
Canadian models & all non-DX hatchback: 4.5 liter tank

You may be able to switch yours with a USDM 2.5 liter tank and route your piping that way. It just looks really low and potentially a problem with the way you have it there.

 

I built the manifold, it's embarassing but it wasn't a weld fault that caused the crack, it cracked in the parent metal.

does the 2.5L tank sit higher in the car than the 4.5L tank?
it is really low, but i checked clearances going over some bumps and such and it's not that bad. it sits higher than my oil pan.

i already had the car on the dyno and put down 211.6whp using a dsm sidemount in the engine bay. i am going to have to re-tune a bit for the lack of heatsoak but its still running pretty rich.
my power goals on the stock D were 200 ish, so i've already exceeded that goal. once i build up the internals i will go with more boost and most likely a different blow off valve.