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I went with the 3.0l because of price. I go the whole car for $500. The indices thing is I can upgrade to the 3.5 and all I need is the engine and I swap the timing stuff from the 3.0 to make it run. If you start with the 3.5 you need the whole car for all of the ecu stuff including the throttle pedal for drive by wire, igintion for the nats and a whole host of extra wiring. Unless you go full stand alone. I like having the factory ecu for driveAblity and realiablity. I used a standalone a full years back and that was a massive pita.

Evo

Back to the subject of rear brakes and parking brake calipers. When I pt the prop valve on the fronts it fixed the front brake locking issue and made the car drive able. I had a Belief that larger rear brakes would also help so I went back to the oem i30 front calipers in the rear.

I watched on of wjp004's YouTube videos on his 3.5 Aussie magna buggy and he did what I orginaly did with the 240sx rear calipers. Seeing as I haven't tested the brakes with the front prop and s14 calipers I'm swapping them back in. I believe they should offer more than enough rear brake and not cause a dangerous panick brake situation.

Evo

evo626 wrote:Back to the subject of rear brakes and parking brake calipers. When I pt the prop valve on the fronts it fixed the front brake locking issue and made the car drive able. I had a Belief that larger rear brakes would also help so I went back to the oem i30 front calipers in the rear.

I watched on of wjp004's YouTube videos on his 3.5 Aussie magna buggy and he did what I orginaly did with the 240sx rear calipers. Seeing as I haven't tested the brakes with the front prop and s14 calipers I'm swapping them back in. I believe they should offer more than enough rear brake and not cause a dangerous panick brake situation.

Evo

Well I was totally wrong about this and I was right the first time. I need the larger brakes in the rear because the front end is so light. With the smaller brakes on the rear I kept locking the fronts like no other even after full locking out the prop valve. So I am swaping the i30 front brakes back on the rear and will use Wilwood MC4 Calipers for parking brakes.

I was doing some math and found that I'm about $3000 away from having a road worthy car. The last of the major mechanical stuff is the parking brake and fitting some walbro snowmobile pickups in the tank to prevent fuel starvation. Other wise the car runs and drives like... well a car. It starts every time, although it does through a few emissions related cel codes. The steering and brakes work (with the right calipers on) and the transmission shifts like it should.
The rest of the money is for body work, lighting and interior items.

I got around to fitting larger side mirrors. The scooter mirrors were way too small, so for $20 I picked up a pair of EMGO long steam mirrors and welded some brackets onto the cage. They look pretty slick.




I'm still up in the air about finishing the nose cone I made. I love the look but know I will spend way more on finishing it than on the Kinetic nose. However I like mine that much more than the Kinetic one. With shipping I might break even.

evo

I'm happy with the mirrors but wanted to use a second nut to secure it and found the left side is a left hand thread m10x1.25 which is near impossible to find. I found it on ebay $5 for 2 nuts! Lol

On another note I bit the bullet and ordered a pair of wilwood mc4 parking brake calipers. They are for a .81 disc and my disc is .85, but I figure I can shave off .04 off the pads and be fine.

Evo

I made an mdf bracket to fit the wilwood mc4 caliper on. Everything fits, just need to make it out of metal now as I don't think the mdf will hold up. Then I have to figure out the e-cable.
Evo

To make the caliper fit the .86 rotor I had to add a .05 shim for the caliper as it was intended for a .81 rotor. The mc4 caliper is nice because it has 3 different adjustments for the cable mount. I think it will work well. I'll have two .77 stand offs welded to the bracket. This will serve soley as a parking brake so I will have two calipers on the rear.

Evo

This bracket was a pain to make. I made serval mdf versions before scanning it in and making a cad file. It will have a second part added to tie it into the tie rod to prevent flex. Both brackets fit good.

I can adapt the parking brake cables I already have and only need to extend the cable in one area to make it all work.


Evo

Caliper mounted in its final position. A tab mounted to the ball joint keeps it from moving.

Evo

To keep the bracket from shifting it is mounted to the tie rod mount. On the under side of the bracket there is a lip that also stops shifting. I had to remake the right side bracket as I didn't copy it quite right. When making brackets with a crude tool like an angle grinder, drill your holes first then cut other wise you'll be way off. My brackets are 1/4 steel. I just need to finish cable and brake line mounting and the left side of the car will be done. The right side will be a breeze after this. Got to admit this has been my least favorite part of the build but after a scare where I put the car in gear while it was running and I wasn't in it a parking brake will be well worth it.

Evo

I've never had a car in which the parking brake gave any confidence that it would stop anything...

I don't expect it to stop it while the car is already moving, just to hold it while its already stopped. In my case I had the car idling and for whatever reason reached over and put it in gear and I wasn't in the car and it hit a bench in the workshop. Had it had a parking brake and it had been engaged it would have held it in place. Heck on the old parking brake I could hold they car in place, in gear up to 2k rpm. I image this will do the same. Its not the same go kart caliper that wilwood sells, this is a hydra caliper that had a manual lever on the back. Way better design. Plus to pass regs it should have a park brake even if they might not check for it.

evo

I finally got to test the parking brake and it worked as well as I expected it to. I will hold the car in drive at idle and will stop the car if its costing in drive at idle speed. It's not an emergency brake but works for what it is. I may need to adjust it a bit more but over all I'm happy. Plus with the larger rear calipers mounted the car stops pretty well. I took it out for a little test drive and took some photos.







I'm starting to pack up the garage now, as well are looking to move in a few months to a bigger house (hopefully bigger garage as well). So I doubt I'll be doing any serious work on the car anytime soon.


evo

Minor update. I moved the parking brake lever inside the tunnel so the passenger compartment would be a little more open for well... Passengers. Anyway it was a bit of a pita, I feel for you that have a transmission to contend with.


I emailed wilwood to see if they have any instructions for the mc4 calipers. I believe I have them adjusted somewhat right but I want to see if I missed anything. On another note, when I moved the evap box I found a open vacum line, I fixed it and now no more cel codes. Slowly I'm working my way to being closer to done.

Evo

So I found a saftey/theft thing I want to fix. The problem was that you could shift the trans into gear with the car off and without using the brake while the car is gone. A while back I put the car in reverse while it was on and I wasn't in the car. That's a huge safety issue if you ask me so I decided to fix it. I installed the factory key interlock and got the brake release to work just like factory. I also reworked the shifter to work better with my aftermarket shift knob. Now it works very well and I'm happy with it. No pics to post as it was a kinda of boring project.

The car sat for a few months without being started and it started right up with no problems. No cel code and I let it warm up before I took it for a spin. The car feels very civil and easy to drive. I'm happy with the progress.

Evo

Evo, nice! good to hear from ya, and progress on the Proj. I am of the opinion that there really arent' any boring projects on these builds, so, like, fire away