omgpham…
29May/110

Oil Cooler x Thermo Fan – Day 6

I was made aware this morning that the orientation of my oil cooler core was incorrect. Having both inlet/outlet located on the bottom causes air pockets to occur, and also very ineffecient cooling. The ideal way to mount the cooler core is to have it vertical with inlet at the bottom and outlet at the top. As oil enters the bottom and fills up the core, air is pushed out of the system.

So spent most of the morning making new brackets to re-mount the cooler core. Fortunately I didn't have to make any new braided hose, the existing ones were the correct lengths =)

New brackets made up.

All mounted up for a test fitting.

Also spent the morning prepping the relay/box. Two factory relays were removed and the rest were re-arranged to make some room for the new relays. All wires that won't be used were heat-shrinked and tucked away. Wires that are to be used were tagged for tomorrow.

Also finished up the Defi sensor wires and tidied it all up. You can also see the extra wire I ran for the fan controller temp sensor.

26May/110

Oil Cooler x Thermo Fan – Day 3

bleeehhhhh more uni and business stuff today so couldn't get much done today either =(

I picked up my intake manifold from Clifton Engineering, had them drill and tap a thread for the temp sender for me. I wanted the fan controller temp sender to be as close as possible to the stock senders.

Then I got back home and finished laying down the wires for the Defi sensors and fan controller temp sender. Was also able to make up ONE braided hose, going from the oil filter block to the relocator. Was my first time making a braided hose, and I did not enjoy it at all.

11May/110

Defi Gauges & Exhaust Stuff

My S15's exhaust system consists of a CES dump/front pipe and MagnaFlow muffler, which is awesome by the way. Great performance and great sound. The only real issue I had was that the front pipe sat too low which meant it scraped a lot. It was also a defect because being the lowest part of the car, it only had 85mm ground clearance.

I did some research and found a few front pipes that have a lower profile so they sit above the chassis rail. Companies either use an oval cross section pipe or dual 2" pipes side by side. Below is a front pipe made by MoonFace.

Read more after the break...

I eventually decided to keep it local and took the car back to CES Racing for a custom oval cross section front pipe, also had a secondary O2 sensor bung welded in for the AEM wide band.

Ordered some Defi gauges for boost, oil temperature and pressure. I also wanted something to display and log air fuel ratios, so ordered the AEM wideband kit for that.

Got to work right away and start removing the interior pieces to test fit the gauges. Was a pain in the ass to solder and route all the wires neatly, so many fuses and crap.


mmmmm wiring =)

Gauges all in and powered up.

Next part involved installing the wide band O2 sensor into the front pipe, was a pretty straight forward process. The harness then had to be routed back into the cabin to connect up to the AEM gauge.

Routing wide band O2 sensor wiring harness.