the white car project | update 6.3.2012

[BLK96Z]

OMG! You did an amazing job on this car!!! You clearly know what your doing. Mad kudos to you for all your hard labor.

[weba]

Status update.

I've done close to 1000km of the 2000km break in I'm aiming for. Set the shift light to 5k rpm for that time, so I wont get too excited with it.

Gathering some experience, got most of the bugs sorted out and found some more to take care of.. thats expected with testing all of the modifications i have done, at once.

Tomorrow the car is heading for front wheel alignment, after that it will most likely see more road before i touch it up again.
I do have a list of thing that do need attention, but none of those is critical so they can wait just fine, i have something to do on the black car first.

Some of the experiences from past month:
- Brakes are absolutely awesome!!
- Trying to avoid clutch slipping gives funny situations
- Car is LOUD what ever configuration i set my cutout for, thats going to be fixed.. I have found people standing beside the road for just to see whats coming!
- Even with all the exhaust planning done, it's still acts like most 4cyls, it tends to have some resonances around 2k rpm, also it seems to cancel lope but still be loud, weird. But when beaten, sounds like something outrageous.
- Some things are rattling a lot... mostly annoying
- I love the new seatbelts, almost no need for racing seats anymore, they keep me very solid on the seat.. lets see on the track....
- Plenty of noise inside the car, some of that is going to fixed with the interior work on future.
- Handling seems to be pretty solid on road conditions, rear axle has some wobble and feels lot softer than front, going to need stiffer bushings for starters, next winter...
- After driving the white one, black car feels so easy, smooth, comfortable and brakeless that it's hard to think as same platform anymore
- Also the completely different powerband on Quad vs 3.1 needs time to get used to again..
- Gas mileage is definitely a good thing with expensive Shell V-power I'm using...

And i get all the funny comments that i have used to get with past years on my white car.. for exsample most people think it's V8+auto RWD.... Camaro or Corvette

[weba]

About 1600km driven now, 400 to go before oil change and considering the break-in done. Haven't driven too much, gas prices and way too much to do anyway.

Found couple new issues to be fixed.
- Code 43 popping on and off sometimes.. Tho ALDL reader tells that knock sensor is working and it's not retarding spark any.. I guess i have to figure out what is causing that.. most likely sensor, memcal or the wiring...
- Odo meter works, trip meter gets stuck... i need to get replacement mechanics from another euro cluster.

- I have Once taken it up to 7000rpm when on gear, damn it took long to wipe out that smile of my face!

- Tunnel + white car = absolutely f*cking spectacular noise, it's not pretty but it's awesome on the shape of overkill, wakes up the inner little boy on me
That will be heard miles away, I'm working on getting this @ video with my friends, but i can only try that on weekends and after 2am~ so you have to wait some.

Oh and did i mention the car is too loud....

[weba]

Finally got brake-in done last night, actually over it, done 2200km now.


Well this picture is actually bit old but i think i didn't post it here?


Action shots are so much nicer than stand-still pictures, but so hard to take...


Fueling up with my friend for a long drive thou forgotten country roads. We did over 400km last night.
Midsummer here is great time for nightly expeditions since it does not get dark at any time.


Both from the 80's, but so different..


Another action shot from the freeway

We also tried to shoot a vid, but again didn't quite work.. real camera needed.

I swapped in Valvoline V1 Racing oil (10W-60) and new long-type filter, gave it couple shift_7000 runs.. damn that felt great after all these years.
And i haven't yet figured out the code 43 issue.. I guess i need new knock sensor, but the engine seems to work pretty happy even with the code on.


Oh, and i have actually done few changes after last update:


I got bored seeing the ugly metal surfaces and empty seat belt holes here so I put new carpet to back there, It's not done yet but almost there.
All that carpet would also be good for echo cancellation... I wanted to make the 'rear seat' flat surface, but also make it Light, so i thought about using urethane instead of plywood or something like that.
Never actually done anything like this before, but hey, there's a first time for everything.. ended up acceptable, not show quality by any means...

Work in progress pictures 1 2 3 4 5 6

I need to lay some carpet over the black parts too.. and cut and fit the pieces better.. but what do you think?

[Money pit Beretta]

Love the freeway shots!

[weba]

2009 summary

Time to catch the topic, haven't been updating here for a long time.

Since this summer was the first time street-driving this car for a years, it was pretty much test driving and figuring out how my modifications work, lets take a list of issues i found out:

Chronological order:

- Burned turn signal fuse
= Wire was disconnect, fixed

- Speedometer did not work
= Bad connection, fixed

- Some misfire
= Bought all new ignition parts, fixed

- Brake noice on corners
= Filed bit of the calipers to give room for wheel bearing play with the rotor, fixed

- Didn't want to crank over when engine was warm
= Bought new batter, thought it fixed

- Code 43
= Sensor had a bad contact, fixed

- Odometer got stuck often
= Something wrong in the mechanical parts, need to replace it, NOT fixed yet

- Hood scoop vibrated a lot @ high speeds
= Needed more mounting points, i developed a better mounting method, too bad i already drilled those holes for the old mounts.. so now it got some of both on it. = Fixed for now

- Impossible to start the car when engine is warm, had to wait 15 minutes for it to cool after managed to stall it while reversing on to tight spot.
= Bought new mini/high torque starter, fixed it i think.

- Camshaft gasket blew away after some shift_7400 action, spraying oil all over the engine bay and that cause some smoke to raise from the hood scoop, waking up my attention.
= I traced it down to possible overpressure in crankcase, did major re-work to the external breather tank piping to triple the volume of it, my own design flaw right there...
Off course i did not own one of those pulley removal tools that fit the power steering pulley @ Quad, so i had to take my top end apart to have the pulley rammed off @ shop, and then new gasket installed, as you can figure out, this is not a very fast way to handle it...

- Human error when putting engine back together
= Ooops. Timed the engine totally wrong so it didn't want to run.. so taking the top-end apart again to adjust the camshafts (yes with belt drive conversion you can actually time this thing wrong when not paying attention)

- Another human engine when putting it back together second time
= "&)"/)" You should not Never rush things like this up, i had too much to do then with the road trip around the corner and both cars needing attention. Anyhow managed to hit one or 2 exhaust valves what lead into smaller compression on cylinder 2 after putting it together, got like 275-240-270-275 on compression test now. The car has not been driven since, except into the garage where it waits to be fixed up.

So that totals to around 3-4 thousand kilometers driven for this summer. Would had been more without the black car + road trip taking all the time and money..


Picture of the oily engine after the camshaft gasket exploded off.


So what I've been up to lately.


Well since the black car needed attention before and definitely after the Europe road trip, no time was to use for fixing up the white car, i decided that will be done this winter instead.

Since the Sprint rear springs failed on my black car, i decided I'm just going to use the (way) too soft Eibach rear springs from the white car to replace the even crappier Sprints.
Off course the white car needed replacements, so i had custom ones made to order.

I took the Eibach spring into the spring shop, and asked them to copy it, but without the progressive setup and with 50% higher spring ratio, and making all that couple centimeters lower than the Eibach setup.


Custom springs #1. Well i guess my needs were too much for the spring shop, since what i ended up getting was a copy of Eibach, but without the progressive setup.. So this still was way too soft setup for my use, so these had to be returned to the shop with clarification that i am NOT looking for any wobbly bobbly comfort ride setup.


So here is the custom springs #2, made of notice able stiffer steel and shorter design to make it work. Now Much stiffer than the soft Eibach ones. But again these were still not as stiff i wanted them to be (i can still move the rear end of the car some ). But since the customer service on that spring shop sucks, i decided that I'm going to run with these instead returning them, maybe they are not too far away from what i want. Also i have other plans to stiffen up that loose rear axle for the task.


Installed, height was pretty the same as with Eibach, but it should settle down, let's see how it ends up.



After the black car was @ one piece again for a while, we decided to do a floor coating on my garage, the unpainted concrete from 1962 was on horrible condition and it got some first-aid in form off filling up the cracks, and couple barrels off expensive garage floor coating. Now i can actually find a bolt or nut that drops on the floor...


Here is the car sitting on the garage with it's new floor coating.


I spared one weekend with my friend to claybar + hand wax the car completely with Autoglym premium HD wax.. It got some shine on it but the white is so damn faded, original plan was to get it buffed but could not do that this year.

For the past weeks i have been working with the black car again, did some lightning improvements and all.. And finally moved my 91 GTZ pars car into the car tent so it does not have to sit completely outside anymore.. i should have done that couple years ago when the garage was done for the white car.

So, now the white car waits me to collect all the parts for it, what i have planned for next year should happen this winter, but as i was informed lately, i might be losing my job really soon, what would cause some serious financing and timetable issues for this car project, so we will just have to see what will actually get done for summer.

[Money pit Beretta]

It's good to see a update Weba. That's bad news on the job. I lost mine around Christmas. I've been working on and off for some time now. Best of luck finding a new job if you do lose yours. Keep updating!

[Barry]

To ease the pain a little, I dropped a screw down my intake and exploaded my engine internally... It sucks, but it happens.

Loving the car

[woody90gtz]

Looking good man, the mods and plans are great. Makes me miss my GTZ.

And to add to Barry's story. I was in a hurry and put the damn throwout bearing in backwards on my 5spd and wasted the bearing, fork & pressure plate... to the tune of about $400 and 5 weeks.

[snowblindburd]

Good luck with everything man. I always enjoy seeing progress on your cars!

[3X00-Modified]

Everybody screws up something somewhere...

I forgot to put a thrust washer and bearing in my trans after shipping out my diff to have the new LSD parts installed... and that resulted in a blown diff, and internal sun gear which needed the whole trans removed to fix it. I also had two cheap parts in the trans I built for the first time for the 95 and that resulted in two more removals of the tranny...

there is always something.

Pinky's engine has been pretty good but I didn't seal the LIMG well so it leaked oil, and I also put a cheap chain on it so my motor started to make quite a bit of noise after a year of running.

We learn from our mistakes.

[99GaGT3X00]

Everybody screws up something somewhere...


Pinky's engine has been pretty good but I didn't seal the LIMG well so it leaked oil

guilty on that one too. well at least the bottom of my car wasnt gonna rust. got that pretty cleaned up now.

car looks good weba. wish i could come see the both of them.

[retta]

nice work there... fun to see someone from europe here...Im from sweden..getting my first beretta GTZ -90 white on saturday..
Im just wondering what size do you have on your rims/tires and do i have to mod something to get on the same size as you?

[weba]

Winter 2009-2010

Okay time for a little update for now.


New steering wheel, I've been dreaming about installing racing steering wheel to my car for a while, but as you all know, 99% of those are wrapped in suede, and require using gloves when driving. Since this is not a track-only car, i didn't want that.

Well after long searches i managed to find one that was wrapped in leather instead, and had the 3" close-reach dish i was looking for. And also had optional horn button available (required in law here), So had to buy it.

I had to get the hub turned in lathe to make it fit with the steering column plastics, since it was rubbing them. And off course it was turned too much so now there is a gap, oh well, at least it does not rub anymore.


Here you can see how much closer this thing comes to me, just like the shifter now with the modified shift arm. Also this wheel is just a bit smaller than our stock ones, but not too small, so i can still see all the gauges. And lucky me i have long fingers so no modifications to the turn signal lever were needed, i can still reach it.

This saved some weight, cause the airbag steering wheel was 4.9kg, this maybe half of it with the hub... The red bow tie GTZ wheel is in my black car now.



Also i got this overkill sized engine oil cooler, core size is 12"x10x2" i think and it's a good flowing design without the end tanks. Since i don't have any cooling airflow under the oil pan anymore, and i wanted as much oil as possible in the system, i went Big with this thing. It's hosed with braided steel hoses with quality fittings.

There is an thermostatic oil filter sandwich adapter on the engine side. With oil temperature gauge sender on it. I need to install that gauge somewhere on the dash still.

The dual fan installation is not perfect anymore since this required quite a much room and space behind the fan, but i have huge plans considering this area of the car, Later in the coming years..., So i will just go with the current setup now.

More next time

[snowblindburd]

Haha I just posted on Bstuff as well, but I will re-iterate. I love your car and really see it as an inspiration to us all. I really want to go drive my car now! I wish I could.

Very, very excellent work, Weba.