* Fresh GH Apparel *

I received some nice new GH apparel for Xmas, We will have to get some new GH decals made up again in the new year to go with these, anyway happy Christmas bloggers and have a good one on new year's Eve!!!!

** the risks of the daily driver..

Driving my old Trueno everyday has its ups and downs, and after the high of the weekends mods, we have a little low today. During some slightly over enthusiastic parking manoeuvres on my small snow covered driveway I clipped a small (cast iron!) fence post with my rear left corner! It was a slow speed impact but the damage was done.

 A nice big crack in my lightweight RunFree bumper and a bit of a dent and scrape into the panel. Very inconvenient when I was only on my lunchbreak. Luckily my left Redline was spared, and the damage did not extend below to the pocket.  I took the bumper off for a quick cabletie fix.

...and examined the rear of the car. I hadn't had the rear bumper off since I got the car, it was the last unexplored place, so I was pleased to find the pockets were in very good health.

  Unfortunately there was some rust growing on the rear panel seam.. I had seen a little of this a few times before when the car was up on the ramp but I got to examine it closer today, although I wish it was under different circumstances.

 I was going to keep the RunFree Aero with the early splitter combo on the front bumper but it looks like I will be going to standard rear end & skirts afterall now, a new RunFree will be silly money and I dont think it  could be cleanly repaired as its so thin. So the car will be taking a trip to the bodyshop for the rust aswell as my new damage. The not so fun part of daily AE86 life! 

 

 Anyway looks like she will be wearing her small battle scar for the rest of the winter,  at least it looks a little more presentable now with colour coded cable-ties. :)

Winter car or at least winter tyres next year I think..

*** Fujitsubo installed!

This weekend Kev and I installed the FGK goodies that arrived a few weeks ago. Once again my Trueno was on the ramps of GH heavy lift division and we started dismantling my old Apexi N1 Evolution catback, old mild steel 4-1 manifold, and the horrible decat/ECV pipe monstrosity!
 

 

With the exception of two rusted bolts on the catback, everything came out easily. The strut brace and distributor cap were moved to swap manifolds. Here is the shiny new Super Ex in its virgin stainless steel colour. It has since turned a lovely shade of gold in its new home!

 

FGK thought of and supplied everything we needed, and I mean everything, down to the last gasket and washer. Here is the nice bracket that supports the lower end of the collector where it joins the next section. The bracket bolts to the bellhousing and then a U clamp and support secure the collector to it . You can also see the spring loaded bolts that hold the next section against that tough donut type joint. It gives a perfect seal but still a little flexibility (not tightened up yet in this shot).

Things started to shape up very nicely as we added all of the sections. It was such a pleasure working with brand new parts and clean nuts and bolts. Everything just fits together so easily! The FGK system follows a neater line under the car and is higher up off the ground than the old system. I haven't scraped it off anything, yet.. I will probably cry when I do but still will not raise up the car haha. At least the down pipe has a part number etched into it so can be ordered separately if I ever kill it during full compression on a some nasty bit of Irish road...

 

 

You can see the new location of the O2 sensor just after the collector, the factory sensor is retained, using a cable extension kit, new gasket, and more new bolts supplied with the kit. 

Final tightening of all the bolts was left until everything was lined up and in place. The only unexpected thing was having to disconnect the rear coilovers to the fit the muffler over the axle, as the "S" section is a bit longer than on the N1 and joins the midsection in front of the diff rather above it....

...which brought us nicely to the muffler! My measurements worked out just right and the twin tips fill the exhaust space perfectly! I'm very pleased with the slash cut tips too, very nice quality..

The coilovers were then reconnected, strut brace and distributor cap reset, and the car quickly put back on the ground so we could finally start it up to hear it....and get that lovely new exhaust smell. It certainly has a much quieter idle than the old system, but has a suprisingly sharp clean sound when revved hard, the Super Ex and stainless decat making themselves well known through the back box. Some flames were even coaxed from it with enthusiastic revving, and I discovered that when you get back on the throttle after a high rev lift off there are some lovely pops out of it. Its the best of both worlds, quiet and calm for normal driving but it still comes to life when you drop a gear or two.

Another nice job complete and Fujitsubo is GarageHachi approved :)

***Some fresh pic's of my Levin***

New metal plates on and the front and rear wheels are now spaced out a small bit to make use of my arches, thats all for now. nice and clean in the pic's , pity it's not like that now..........

stainless decat

The last piece of my lovely stainless puzzle arrived in the post today. One shiny stainless steel decat! Putting an old mild steel test pipe in a FGK sandwich would be criminal lol.

Im very pleased with the quality of it, if it had a Fujitsubo part number etched into it like the pipes it was connecting to, I would nearly believe they made it too. The welds are very nice and the flanges are nice and thick. Came with good quality gaskets and bolts too. Fits perfectly, just cant wait to see this tucked up underneath the car now :)

GRP4 fab

Group4 Fabrications are deffo worth a bump here! They have some nice parts for 86's and some good universal gear that would suit any kind of track car!

Link to there ae86 specific list :  http://www.grp4fabrications.com/index.php?cPath=42

I'm liking there new alloy front hub for increased track width by 10mm and I imagine a saving in unsprung weight too, which would improve handling as well......

http://www.grp4fabrications.com/product_info.php?cPath=42&products_id=635

Main site link http://www.grp4fabrications.com/index.php

A worth while site if your building any kind of track car!

  

random snap

***Fujitsubo Super Ex and Legalis R...

Having enjoyed my raspy Apexi N1 Evolution singing its 4age song for nearly 18 months now, I really wanted a change. I wanted something a lot more subtle and quiet, stealthy even, but still wanted the extra power, torque, and responsiveness provided by an aftermarket exhaust. Enter Fujitsubo. With big thanks to RHDJapan and Fedex, 69 hours later this awaited me after work!

What we have here is, a Fujitsubo Super Ex 4-1 manifold, and a full Legalis R cat back system. The Super Ex has two versions, the Super Ex pictured above, and the Super Ex basic. As far as I could tell, both are stainless but the Basic is just a non-shiny version, and one of these actually lives in the engine bay of Kevs 20v '86 Levin. I wanted the shiny, and the Basic version is no longer in production I believe, so Super Ex p/n 620-22454 it was. It is an absolute work of art. The laser cut flange has been finished really nicely, and the welding is just impeccable. There are even mounts for a factory heat shield which I might just have to locate and fit for completeness lol.

 The 4-1 header mates to the down pipe with this really tough looking donut joint, which I am really looking forward to seeing how it works, as a low hanging universal flexi joint is just no good on a slammed '86.. I went through one on standard suspension and holed the second one a week into having my coilovers! Irish backroads are fun but tough.. FGK also included a tidy O2 sensor bung, along with an extension cable and fittings for the factory sensor.

 As for the catback, FGK's Legalis R comes in 3 versions for AE86. Two have a long silencer, available in single and twin tip, and the third has a roughly half length silencer with twin tips, and is a fair bit louder than the other two. I wanted stealth, and also the tidy slash cut twin tips to fill up the exhaust space in my Runfree rear bumper, so Legalis p/n 750-22455 was chosen.

The cat back is of the same top quality as the manifold, and comes in two sections. The flanges are all reinforced, and the hangers are hollow for weight saving, as well as being welded in many places for strength. The whole set up weighs in at just 18kgs! All I need now is a nice stainless decat pipe to match this clean system, but these seem readily available in the correct 315x50.8mm dimensions on the auctions so Ill order one soon..

 

..and hopefully it won't be long until I'm hearing more intake than exhaust with a subtle purr from these guys out back!

Its nice to have some proven specs measured by Fujitsubo during development. I'm still amazed that companies are making such good parts for 23+ year old cars. They have my support anyway!

Legalis R W 750-22455	Standard	FGK
Volume idling	60dB	60dB
Adjacent exhaust noise (4950rpm)	85dB	88dB
3000rpm	75dB	82dB
5000rpm	85dB	85dB
4000rpm ~ 6000rpm Response	100dB	100dB

It will be interesting to see the dyno figures for the full exhaust system with the ARC chamber setup on the intake side on my otherwise standard engine. Watch this space!