Got some more work done this weekend…Brendon was busy wiring away while Don and I worked on setting up the 034 Crank Trigger Setup, had to swap over the coolant hardline to the Golf/Jetta style one instead of the rabbit one.

I started installing Stack Dash sensors on the oil filter flange, but I guess I got too excited and ruined a $50 temperature sesnor along with the filter flange…luckily I had a spare filter flange….down goes another $50 along with an hour or so of my time without making any progress.

Brendan brought over his label maker and I was able to start labeling the plethora of switches, its nice to see everything start to come together…doing a little finish work goes along way towards motivation.

It looks like we’ll be able to drill and tap the factory aluminum coolant pipe on the driver’s side of the head for the Stack Dash water temp sensor, hopefully we can get that done next weekend when the tap comes in.

Don put the car back up on stands and I started with the exhaust. The Techtonics race header is awesome, just a little tight under the shifter for our application. Cascade Autosport changed the original exhaust configuration to a passenger side exit with a Magnaflow muffler out back and the cat up front. Well I stole that cat for my daily driver and I wanted to change out mufflers and the cat for something a bit more race specific anyways.

I snagged a Dynomax Bullet Race muffler. It’s compact design allows for an install just past the header, with a bit of shielding it will be tight and protected from the debris kicked up. I snagged a metal core catalytic converter and we will end up running that at the back of the exhaust system, using the cat as a tail pipe. After mocking almost everything up (I need to snag just a couple more feet of 2.25″ pipe), it’ll be a great fit, tucked up right against the body shell. We’ll add protection to the bottom of the exhaust system. I used some small scraps of 1/2″ particle board to keep good clearances. The exhaust is so tight in the back of the car that I had to bore a hole in the rear valance on the passenger side for the exhaust to come straight out. The straight through design with very few bends should give us a nice performance gain when its all said and done…hopefully the car will be quiet enough to pass Tech.

The center carbon switch panel mounts got fabbed up, I used nutserts as it should be a low stress environment and trying to reach a nut in that location would be a huge PITA. I also was able to mount the Relay Panel inside the center console, I need to add a rear support bracket, but it looks great, a couple more center console mounts, some trimming and addition of carbon panels and it will look great.

As usual one step forward usually means a few more things to add to the TO DO list, and a couple hundred more dollars to spend, but we are making progress despite being 3 months past our original completion date. Our new date of completion will be July 9-11th at the Idaho Rally

Check out the rest of the build gallery

I’m pleased to report that we set the car on it’s own feet on Sunday for the first time in many months!

Wiring is coming along nicely. The rear of the car (lights, fuel pump, interior light) is completely wired. The interior lighting and instrumentation is mostly wired. All that remains is the engine management and some final testing and tweaking. Brendon from RalleyTuned is doing a fantastic job!

We also installed our shiny new JVAB custom coilovers and, quite simply, they are amazing. We probably spent a good hour just staring at them and imagining the forces necessary to damage them at all. These things are well-engineered tanks. They also extend the travel of our suspension by inches, requiring some “customization” of the top of mounting point for the A-arm. A couple install/remove/re-install cycles, a little heat and a lot of hammering got the offending piece of metal to behave and allowed the axle to roam free from full compression to full droop.

On top of doing a ton of wiring and installing the suspension, we also installed the intake, fuel pressure regulator, sealed up a leak in the rear lexan, put on the mirrors, and started the install for the crank trigger ignition.

Here are a couple pictures. More in the build gallery!