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 Here's a little teaser of the new vehicle. I need to get my poo poo together and get back on the cars this month
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Oct 2, 2020 02:30
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Party Alarm posted:
Niiice. Covid has been a pain and we haven't made it up North yet. I did a single autocross this year, nothing more with the car. Let's see how fall is!
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Oct 2, 2020 02:51
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Buying all the cars I wish I could buy
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Oct 2, 2020 02:53
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https://i.imgur.com/yGTPsQI.jpg Well the holidays are over and some stuff got done! The black e30 runs (poorly) with an M50 I grabbed from one of my parts e34s that, like a dumbass, I left out in the driveway for a few months uncovered. My buddy says the valves will hammer the rust off them on their own, lol I also chucked the good bumper on the wagon, finally. https://i.imgur.com/3SFJPbs.jpg Me and a few friends are building an e30 for lemons. I have a rusty parts car and my buddy has three more. Between all those we should be able to assemble a running race car. The M50 in the black e30 is going to be it's eventual powerplant. I'll toss the 2.8 in the brown e30 in the black one when that happens, or the S52 if I get it assembled first. Immediate goals are fix a few new issues on the 135i, actually sell it, and fix up my truck. Got some suspension and other goodies on the way, gonna give it a cheap overhaul so I can rely on it for a while to come. New shocks, repairing some rust, fixing some minor electrical issues, and some upgrades in the planned of nice heated seats from the junkyard and an electric fan conversion are planned!
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Jan 19, 2021 05:21
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I can't believe I overlooked this thread until now, I just marathoned through it all. You're a beast, and I'm envious of your garage! You're really living the life. Not satisfied with V8s, he turns to V12s to put in stuff. I love your friend's Galaxie, too. What motor/trans does it have?
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Jan 19, 2021 09:55
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Thanks man! I don't remember what he has in the gal. He likes to DD it in the good weather, and he painted it himself! He's working on trying to get a gasser built for Drag Week. He was aiming for this year but obv. stuff went sideways. I'd like to help him and even attend if I can. I realized I have a lot more updates to give. I went to the Tail of the Dragon with the brown e30 in the fall, and did lots of small work along the way. Also, as of today I have filed paperwork to start my own business, with the intent of reproducing and selling things I make for my projects! Wish me luck y'all I'll get more photos in here soon btw: The 540i parts car is an HE53 6 speed car. No title - its a donor for the wagon so it can have a 4L/6spd until I figure the V12 out!
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Jan 22, 2021 00:57
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So here's the new (now not-so-new) parts car! '95 540i/6. Was bought by a guy a few hours away to donate it's drivetrain to his e30, but he decided to do something else. It was priced cheap - the value of these parts keep going up and they keep getting harder to find.  This will allow me to convert my 530i Touring into full 540i /6 spec, and also allow me to use the 3.15 large case LSD I have. Additionally, 540i brakes are a bolt-on upgrade! I plan on getting this chassis into the garage soon to strip it of everything useful. Also I snagged some wheels for a good price as well. I may end up selling them - I have not decided yet.  I don't think I ever did a garden update. It went great!  Also I have a demolition derby Sentra now.  Paid a visit to my brother-in-law's new house. He's got a pretty rad garage (Not pictured, another FB / SA - he has one of each and I can't remember which is which - as well as an FC!)  I also got to see a pretty rad private collection with my brother  As mentioned, I DID end up going to the dragon, and did some prep to the brown car beforehand. I replaced some blown speakers, cleaned up some interior bits, and installed the speed cloth e92 seats I've had sitting around. It's actually pretty easy - the fronts bolt right on and the rears only needed a simple bracket fabricated. I also threw new rotors and pads at it.    While I was at it, I finally addressed a problem I've had with the car since I first went 5 lug. Since I decided to use e36 M3 brakes, I had no functional ebrake. M3 rotors have a larger ID for the parking brake shoes. The fix was simple - I took some old as gently caress rusty shoes from a parts car e30 that already had the pad material delaminated, then cut them up and welded them to e36 M3 sized shoes, and clearanced the backing plates for the caliper + adapter brakets. Easy day! Of course, that meant new rear wheel bearings too.  With that done, as well as some other small upgrades (like RE71-Rs!) I got on the road to drive the EIGHT HOURS to the Dragon  And I got to drive my buddy's rad AW11 again, this time with a Caldina 5th gen 3SGTE!   Next update: 24 hours of lemons car! Parts in a field! A random Nissan! And, a dropped valve!
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Feb 8, 2021 00:55
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Living vicariously through this thread
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Feb 8, 2021 01:03
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Hey, PA, I just need e36 m3 offset lollis and control arms for a 5 lug right?
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Feb 9, 2021 00:03
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Crunchy Black posted:Hey, PA, I just need e36 m3 offset lollis and control arms for a 5 lug right? There's a variety of ways to do it, but you need way more than that. https://www.e30zone.net/e30wiki/index.php/5-Lug_Conversion This will guide you! I went with hub adapters from a guy on r3vlimited to run e36 hubs for the front, and Z4 hubs for the rear (bolt-on)
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Feb 9, 2021 00:20
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Oh I should have specified, I think I did in the BMW thread, I bought a 96+ z3 suspension. A friend of mine got those hubs and really likes them, but I got the full kit from Bobby at Strictly German for like 600 so it was hard to say no. The control arms are basically my only question mark at this point, I have Garagistic RTABs and my rear beam already had powerflex in it and the diff so I'm good there.
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Feb 9, 2021 00:48
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All the deets you need are in that link! A friend of mine in need requested some lift space, and this Nissin skid racer showed up for a few weeks.  He dropped the drivetrain and refreshed a bunch of things on the engine, put on headers, and put a new engine harness on it. It had been sitting for years and he finally got it back on the road! He also proposed starting a lemons team with myself and two of his associates. Between myself and a good friend of mine, we had 4 different parts car e30s collecting rust. We figured that we had enough parts sitting around to build a rolling M50 swapped car. I paid a visit to his property to survey his goods:     Looks like we can make something work! I also spotted the 85 300SD I bought from him. I still need to make room so he can deliver it.   I have a new front end for it I grabbed from a pull-a-part last year. This is the car I intend on doing the dumb safari poo poo with, so I can use it for the gambler 500 and winter duty. I had some new motivation to get wrenching, and I set my sights on my '87 325e. The car hasn't ran in the better part of a decade. It was a very clean rust free stock car when I first saw it, WAY back when I was in college. A very good friend of mine ended up buying it, and I helped him 24v swap it when the M20 gave out. It had an M50b25. Some unfortunate mishap cost the engine its life - wasn't sure exactly what. I found piston / valve contact when I finally got the thing back from him - there should be some posts about it earlier in this thread. Anyways, I had picked up an Oxford Green e34 525i parts car some time ago to supply parts for the e34 touring. I was mainly after the intact rear bumper and '95 only leather interior panels. It had an M50, and we decided that the engine would make a good donor for the lemons car. Since the lemons chassis was still months away from being sound enough to drive, I decided to drop it in the '87 325e just to get it running. It would give us an opportunity to find out if the motor was healthy and beat on the drivetrain a little as well as get another motor out of my garage. With some help from a few good friends, I got the car on the lift and we got to work.  300ZX guy brought his doggo along  Eventually, the motor came out, and after swapping out a few good parts from the blown engine, she was back together again    Before I primed the fuel system, I checked on the state of the gas. It looked pretty rough, and apparently it had been running with no fuel filter for some time. Early model e30s can sometimes have the fuel filter in the engine bay, and it looks like this car had it replaced with fuel line. Yikes. I drained the fuel tank and this is what I found.  I'm just gonna say that's the dye from the fuel stabilizer I added  New fuel filter, new gas, and she fired right up (she was a little grumpy though, and there are some massive exhaust leaks) CLICK FOR VIDEO (HOW DO I GET SOUND TO WORK?)  Also I finally found out what happened to the old motor.  Whoops! Never broke off tho, so maybe she can be rebuilt!
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Feb 9, 2021 03:31
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Good to see you made it to the Brodeo, hoping to be there for one of them this year. If you guys want any input on lemons/chump/wrl car prep or are ever looking for a driver let me know. Our car wasn't the fastest, heavy rear end convertible, but we rarely had a DNF and it was super easy to drive...it's currently being run around the country in vintage racing. I miss the endurance racing and weekends at the track.
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Feb 9, 2021 12:38
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more z32 content plz I love them so much but I also never want to turn a bolt on one ever again, especially a TT.
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Feb 9, 2021 23:32
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NitroSpazzz posted:Good to see you made it to the Brodeo, hoping to be there for one of them this year. Thanks man! You were missed. Give me a ton of poo poo if I haven't finished my V8 swap by spring Crunchy Black posted:more z32 content plz I love them so much but I also never want to turn a bolt on one ever again, especially a TT. It might show up again. His plan is to wrap it (it's his business, so rolling advertisement) a rad shade of purple and eventually turbo it. Yeah, not the most fun to wrench on
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Feb 10, 2021 20:30
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Party Alarm posted:Thanks man! You were missed. Give me a ton of poo poo if I haven't finished my V8 swap by spring Monthly check on how that V8 swap is going. \/\/ I know the feeling \/\/ NitroSpazzz fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Mar 5, 2021 |
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Mar 4, 2021 18:12
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Hahahahaha Hahahahahahahaha
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Mar 4, 2021 23:32
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Just a small update: The 135i is SOLD as of yesterday. The white 540i is next on the block - the previous owner is getting it back. After that, the pressure is on to get the rest of the fleet streetable. I'm kinda sad and miss it 
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Mar 19, 2021 13:02
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That was a good 135i, I certainly thought about reaching out to you a few times to see if it was still for sale but covid and not driving really put a damper on that. I've lost count how many cars my brother has had go back and forth.
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Mar 19, 2021 13:36
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So, I am still alive, and progress has been happening. Of note: Fixed things in the white 540i (the nice one, not the parts car) to sell back to my buddy. We reached a deal. I plumbed air lines in the shop, got my 60 gallon air compressor all hooked up, and got air to the sandblasting cabinet! The green wagon is nearly road ready. I did some suspension refresh with my friend and took it for a drive. The rear tires are from 2004 so they need to go, but the goal is to have it plated next week! The black e30 is on the lift - I've nearly got the entire rear end removed, and the front is partially disassembled. Current list of new parts to be installed: Rotors Pads SS Brake lines Poly FCABs, RTABs, subframe bushings New balljoints on the front arms e46 M3 rack New tie rod assemblies New axles a 3.73 LSD Shifter bushings Exhaust gaskets 80/88C fan switch for the electric fan (was always on) Also, I removed the exhaust to plug holes in some lovely welds. Once it's off the lift I'm going to change out the interior for red. I also picked up a set of Centra Turbo wheels in 15x7, but they need a refinish and are missing center caps. THINGS ARE HAPPENING
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Aug 7, 2021 14:55
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So I can't believe this hasn't been archived. I've been meaning to make some posts but Imgur is horrible at actually uploading pictures. Maybe its my poor upload speed, but it always fails unless I do one image at a time. In May 2021 I did a HARD push to get the black e30 running. Unfortunately, the motor I tossed in was junk. Sitting out in the rain with the intake uncovered likely did not help. I still have yet to diagnose why - it smoked like a banshee and had poor compression so likely a combo of valve seats, piston rings, ect hosed by rust. I had it sitting with the rest of the spare M50 parts. As fall approached I really wanted to get the car running properly. I picked up a lathe!  Also, I finished the coilovers. I still need to go back and machine the spring top hats to accept some thrust bearings to preserve the spherical bearing in the camber plates  My dumb rear end put one of the FCAB arms on backwards, and it fit so tight I needed to do some rigging to get it off  Since the motor was bad, I had to pull another off the shelf. Thankfully I've been holding on to this 30k mile M52b28 for a while. It was originally supposed to go in this car anyway. I cleaned it up, swapped out the good sensors and parts from the M50, and even painted the valve cover for good luck!    The car was finally sorted enough to make the drive. I took it on approx 75 miles of proofing runs and the previous owner - my best friend - drove it to the Tail of the Dragon with my ~8 hours away for the Brodeo!    I'll try to space out the next few updates. Over the course of the winter, the heater core blew in the black e30, and I finally picked up some goodies for the SW20.
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Apr 17, 2022 18:28
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Welcome back! Threads don't get archived anymore, IIRC. Nice to see progress, shame about the bad M50, and I'm jealous of your views.
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Apr 18, 2022 13:23
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Thanks! I now have two blown M50s kicking around - the original one in the car and the one I swapped in from the e34 that blew. I guess I can find out how cheaply I can build a 3.0L! I guess they can live in the barn for now. The M52 in it right now is going strong. I just finished repairing the stereo system in the black e30 and doing some interior work. I'll get some pictures soon. Anyways, here's more backlog: The Mr2 finally got some goodies. I haven't been driving it much since I bought it because it road like poo poo and the speakers were blown. I decided to actually fix that and enjoy it!   I also finally got the MR2 on the lift and gave it a thorough inspection. It's got some small areas that need addressed but overall its in pretty decent shape!  I did find some goofy rear end poo poo in the steering rack. When I tried to adjust toe I found one of the inner tie rods didn't match. I have no idea what happened here.   Thankfully new ones are cheap and readily available. I installed some tension rods to adjust caster, but found they have a different angle than the stock arms and don't fit properly. I fitted them to the car temporarily but they deflect the control arm bushing more than I would like. I plan on buying some proper ones from Wilhelm Raceworks along with his geometry adjustment kit. I also refreshed the interior  And did a pretty decent install of some component speakers!     
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May 3, 2022 05:26
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Party Alarm posted:I now have two blown M50s kicking around - the original one in the car and the one I swapped in from the e34 that blew. I guess I can find out how cheaply I can build a 3.0L! I guess they can live in the barn for now. That's such a good color on the MR2. You heading to the spring Brodeo?
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May 4, 2022 11:27
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Party Alarm posted:
Are you tracking this car at all? If not there is 0 point in doing stuff like tension rods and that entire wilhelm geometry kit. Unless you’ve got a good plan to cover up all the exposed rosejoints on the geometry kit. But even then honestly I wouldn’t trust them to hold up on a car used on the road or in the wet on a regularish basis. Really just replacing all the old bushes, whiteline sways along with your coilovers and a decent alignment should be enough. Even then on track I’ve been fine without the adjustable caster. I did have some on my old car more than 10 years ago and they did make a nice difference but unless you want to like use the car in competitions or something having all that adjustability(from the wilhelm kit too) is kinda overkill. I would’ve said don’t even bother with coilovers although I know that fortune are meant to be decently tailored to the SW but they are a US centric brand so idk. I ran H&R coilovers on track and they lasted about 5 years although they were completely shot at the end of that. Running B6’s now and they work fine. Koni yellows or Billstein B6’s would’ve been fine with a decent spring combo and new oe topmounts.
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May 4, 2022 12:14
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NitroSpazzz posted:Disposable M50's are great fun, build it up then when it blows up build another. I knew I had to have this color, but super red is a close second! Yeah, I'll be there. I will probably take this black e30 - doing stuff to the brown car right now track day bro! posted:Are you tracking this car at all? If not there is 0 point in doing stuff like tension rods and that entire wilhelm geometry kit. Great username / post combo I may end up tracking it eventually, but I definitely intend on sending it hard up at the Dragon sometime in the future after I get used to the chassis in some autocross sessions or something. My rear tie rods and some bushings are shot, and the car is lowered quite a bit, so it seems like a no brainer to spend a little extra on the geometry kit. Alex Wilhelm does a lot of good engineering. The car is not a daily driver. I'm not concerned about the rod ends. They are used extensively on many different on-road applications. You just need to be aware they are a wear item and inspect them regularly. With the mileage I put on these things (sub 5000 a year, sometimes much less than that) the inspection period won't be annoying. I had some uneven caster left to right. It was either due to worn bushings or accident damage - it may have been contained to the struts, I can't say because I swapped tension rods with the new coils as well when I noticed the bushings were dry rotted. It helped my tire clearance considerably and stopped them from rubbing the rear fender liners. The car already have Tien coils on it, so I lacked the OE from strut housings and whatnot. I got a screaming deal on the FAs so it was worth it to me!
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May 4, 2022 15:10
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Party Alarm posted:Great username / post combo Yeah lol the name is a bit on the nose haha, a mod renamed me this when I posted too many RCR videos ages ago. I’ve had people buying that geometry kit over here for cars pretty much only used on the road which seems like a bad idea. I’ve got no doubts he makes decent stuff, I run his Wilwood BBK, are the rod ends generic? Part of the reason I didn’t go for his kit was because I didn’t want to have to wait around for shipping to europe if an arm gets bent or I need a replacment rod end. He’s also managed to convert his own car to double wishbone which is crazy same with the custom hubs. Like I said the fortune coilovers are probably fine anyway, they just aren’t available easily over here. When you say the rear tie rods, do you mean the secondary arms that go into the rear subframe that are used to adjust toe? If it’s the inner part then it’s a bit of a ballache as to sort it you might have to cut a small hole in the subframe to get access. If you have play in those the car will drive like rear end as the rear toe will just be all over the place. I might be wrong but it’s been ages since I’ve seen a car with those issues.
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May 4, 2022 16:27
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I'm fairly certain the rod ends are a COTS product. There's actually a Brit in one of the FB groups that posted up a parts list to DIY a set. Yes, those are the suspension arms I mean. The car seems to drive pretty solid, but I noticed the bushings are pretty worn out like every other rubber piece on the car. I don't expect them to last long! The geometry correction kit just seems like a win all around to me. I used to be gun shy about heim joints in street applications, but issues seem to be related to cheap steel on steel designs. Quality teflon lined joints seem to last for years and years. There are LOTS of aftermarket suspension setups that make use of them on street cars. I'm probably going to run some boots like so: https://secure.chassisshop.com/partlist/15344/ to prolong their life, but overall it seems like most of the issues people have are due to the following factors: Undersized joints Lubrication (You should NOT lubricate teflon lined joints) Poor quality joints Most of the posts I see are people without them on their setups speculating that they will fail quickly, and people that are actually using them are reporting years and thousands to tens-of-thousands of miles with no play and no issues with zero maintenance. However, if I was exposing them to winter salt I'd be more concerned. One of the big reasons I wanted to go with the kit is I want the car to have predictable handling - I don't want it to yeet me off the side of the mountain if I make a mistake. I also don't want it to eat tires any faster than it needs to. From what Alex reports, toe curves get real whacky on these cars when they get lowered Party Alarm fucked around with this message at 22:48 on May 4, 2022 |
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May 4, 2022 22:45
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Man you’ve honestly tempted me to go for that kit, I had a bad experience with one of the very early bumpsteer correction kits a loooong time ago. I think it was a techno toy tuning one that didn’t even fit correctly and the joints died in like a month. Well if I do hang onto the car that is. I’d also really be tempted by those replacement uprights he makes too. Being able to swap out the bearings like that would be brilliant. It is just the salt exposure I’d be worried about, mine goes into storage through the winter but I have done the odd track day in december and also sometimes they will still salt the roads here up to April depending on the weather. track day bro! fucked around with this message at 13:29 on May 5, 2022 |
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May 5, 2022 13:26
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One option is rod end seals, somewhat common to see on road going rod ends or in rally applications. Probably still less than ideal for a daily driver but for something that only sees a few thousand miles a year you'll probably be fine. Make it a thing you clean, inspect and re-grease every quarter and I'd think you would be ok. https://www.pegasusautoracing.com/productselection.asp?Product=3077-001
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May 5, 2022 18:11
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eE8AzWYCl4 So, I've been busy
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Nov 14, 2022 07:36
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Sounds amazing
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Nov 14, 2022 21:49
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Nov 15, 2022 04:36
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Some great fab work there, excited to see brown car next time you're down this way.
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Nov 15, 2022 13:28
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Thanks man! I hope I get to see you in the mountains next year. Been getting a lot of minor things done on the car. Just finished the bracket for the brake and clutch fluid reservoirs. Gonna push hard tonight and hopefully get the car on the road tomorrow making noise!
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Nov 21, 2022 00:11
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Car drive on road. run real good, make good noise, go real fast. I've been working on it for the last 32 hours without sleep so I'm gonna go pass out now and post about it later
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Nov 24, 2022 00:26
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5scBO1UfyU&ab_channel=CoreyZ It's everything I wanted! Still have a lot of little things to fix, but I am so happy with this swap
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Mar 3, 2023 22:56
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Oh. Oh that sound.... 
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Mar 4, 2023 01:07
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Party Alarm posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5scBO1UfyU&ab_channel=CoreyZ heiße schokolade! That on throttle noise is otherworldly. That hint of overrun is real nice.
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Mar 5, 2023 00:08
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Thanks all! And thats on a auto ecu tune - I plan on going with cams + valvetrain bits to rev to 7500rpm. I was shifting a little over 6k , OE redline at 6.5
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Mar 5, 2023 07:56
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