The Derploader

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After watching a couple helpful videos on youtube about how to pull your fenders (there is nothing to "roll" on the rear Sonic fenders), I took matters into my own hands.

It's beautifully simple. You lift the car by the frame. Slowly heat the fender lip with a heat gun. Shove a phonebook into the gap. and progressively lower the jack while applying heat.

I was nervous and took it slow.

The front portion of the rear fender is what causes the worse rubbing, so I focused on that area and basically created an additional flare that mimics the stock flare in the quarter panel. But I stopped at TDC because I'm happy with the amount of tuck and flush and I don't want to open the gap.

I am beyond pleased with my results. I am hoping that this will end the wall rubbing for good. I will find out during tomorrows commute. If there isn't powdered rubber all over my wheels and fenders at the end of the day, it will be a success.

 

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I road the phale boat today on my trans swap.:blankface:

I got the MZ0 with the bad 3rd gear out. Swapped the Wavetrac into my MZ4 and while bench bleeding the clutch slave, it literally took a crap in my hands. Well maybe "literally" is in poor taste. But the seal went out on the second stroke.... So I made a mad dash to the GM dealer (Saturday mind you) and the closest replacement slave can't get here til Tuesday.

I went ahead and ordered two. If I had just done that last time, I'd be up and running right now. Seems odd to me that the slave only lasted about 6k and I wonder if it was hanging by a thread lately or failed because of the R&R abuse.

At any rate, I'll be without the 'Loader til Tuesday. I miss her already. I am, however excited to give the MZ0 a lobotomy to find out what went wrong.
I'll hopefully have a M32 Teardown thread with lots of pics up soon.

 

[Thaifight-R]

Ouch...

Can't wait to see more progress.

Dang, good job with the fender pulling. I'm still a bit too scared to do it just yet since I see too many people with wrinkly, beat up fenders. lol

 

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Thanks. I guess I got lucky. I've never done anything like this before, but I took it slow. I think getting the metal hot helped a lot. I just kept heating it slowly with the heat gun on low, until the fender was piping hot to the touch. Lowering it onto to the phone book got the metal pulling and then I used the end of a 2x4 with a 45deg cut on the end to forcefully pry it out a bit more.

Nailed it!

 

[firstorbit84]

What happened to the turbo install?

 

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Funny you should ask. You must be clairvoyant, because I was uploading the pic as you were typing that.

Dave almost has it all mocked up. Next is the Downpipe and the oil/waterlines. Then everything comes off, gets welded out, turbine/mani gets ceramic coated and everything else gets cleaned up.

We are still on target for a late September completion. :banana:

 

[firstorbit84]

Lol wow. Nice.

So it's going on the ddm works car first? Or they're just test fitting it and sending it to you?

Who's car will the tuning be done on? I wanna see a dyno with this thing!

 

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The plan is to have Dave test & tune the whole kit and then ship it to me for bolt on. However, I doubt tuning will need a whole lot of adjustment, other than requesting more power from the torque management system.

We won't know if the 42# injectors will be enough for running e85. But Vince has stated that he can tune for 60# if needed.

 

[firstorbit84]

Do you have the 60# injectors already?

would an injector swap to 42# likely be necessary with 93 octane?

 

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42 would be needed for 93.

I don't have the 60 yet and I may only need them to squeeze out that last desired ponies after I get everything else dialed in.

 

[sonic24740]

Wow Dude so awesome..

I wish..

 

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MZ4 is back in.... Yay for having a usable 3rd gear again. But after spending so much time with the MZ0 the difference between the two has become more apparent going back to the MZ4.

It's harder to stack boost through the gears. In other words, you have to wind up a lot farther so when you get to the next gear you'll be in the boost threshold again. Otherwise you get a long soggy dead spot.... Often confused with turbo lag. This is the exact definition of boost threshold.

It's only going to get worse with the GT2560, and while I still want to build an MZ0/MZ4 hybrid, I'm gonna have to shop for another MZ0 soon to go with my turbo swap. The GT2560's peak power with the MZ4 will be binary. Either on or off with little in between. At least with the MZ0 it will spend more time in the "on" position.

Also I picked up an additional clutch slave cyl, so I won't get two blocked again during my next trans swap.

 

[firstorbit84]

We need updates, please!

 

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Just spoke to Dave. Right now he is focusing on fitting a 3" V-band DP to the GT25. Getting it turned down in the limited space is becoming a challenge. But I really hope he can get it to work.......

because 3"

2.5" wouldn't necessarily hurt peak power, but spool time is the name of the game.

In other news, god I miss the MZ0. I thought I'd be happy to go back to the MZ4 for easier DD shifting and better mpg, but I guess you don't know what you got til it's gone.

I forgot how anemic our little 1.4 is below 3k and the MZ4 is a 2k magnet. LOL

However, being that this will be a beta kit for the first proven turbo swap kit for the Sonic, I feel obligated to review it with the MZ4, as the MZ0 swap won't be a popular option. Plus that'll give me time to recover from the financial roller coaster of the turbo project.

Hopefully my next update will include some DP pics. It sounds like Dave is moving full steam ahead on my build.

 

[sx sonic]

Whooo, progress.

Sounds like you need to relearn your shift points with the different trans .

 

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Basically.... I do know how to shift later to promote boost stacking, but my body's motor mechanics are stubborn to adjust during casual driving.

Also I mentioned to Dave about my concerns with the MZ4 being matched with the GT2560 and he reminded me that even though full power may not come on til later in the tach, there will be a whole bunch MOAR full power. I guess I'll just have to suffer.

 

[sx sonic]

Muscle memory is a slow process. More than a few times I've had to speed up quick and I'll drop it down a few gears and It's still casual acceleration! 4th gears kinda doggy at 40 mph, something about that overdrive ratio and all. Get'r into 2nd and its business as usual. Too used to hypermiling.

 

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MZ0 passing gear at 70mph= 4th
MZ4 passing gear at 70mph= 3rd


That will be the hardest muscle memory relearn.

 

[firstorbit84]

You can put it in 3rd at 70 in the mzo and you'll still have a couple grand to Rev, its at 4500

 

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You can put it in 3rd at 70 in the mzo and you'll still have a couple grand to Rev, its at 4500

I'm not so sure. Considering at 70 in 6th gear I was at 3200.

Are you sure you mathed in the final drive?