Just a couple updates.
I attended my last static event for the year at an indoor Euro only evening show being hosted at a friend's detailing shop. They did an exceptional job on getting the venue ready, was a great time.
And since it was there I left it for a few days so they could remove the stone guards that have always bothered me. While I am professionally involved with engines, performance, fab, etc. I know when to delegate.
The repaint (Carmine Red?) the car received sometime in the 90's looks great but looking up close has some spots that you can tell have questionable adhesion now-a-days so I was always hesitant to do anything about it.
When they removed the driver side guard some clear managed to free its self as I thought it would, so a little PPF over that spot and Carrera script will have to do for now. The passenger side came out perfect thankfully. I am primarily a non decal person on all my vehicles, but I have to say I am fond of this setup for now.
Long term I would like to "finish" the car as while I treat it like a running project/mock up, and when I am happy with its performance have it resprayed properly.
This photo was taken earlier this week on a 19 deg F day in NJ which is a great time to confirm some intake air temp, engine temp and cold start compensations
I also mounted some Hoosier DOT tires on my 15" set of Minilites to try out for more spirited drives and it may go well with the new Carrera script.
I have also played with some air filter choices, and had some time to dyno it again to see what the best option was for power. This choice was worth a 12 hp increase over the rain hats with KN filters and within acceptable tolerance to say the it made the same power as bare stacks.
This winter for R&D I will be recycling my Fabspeed RSR headers but converting them to a true V band and fabricating a new collector back exhaust system to try and optimize this current engine configuration. I am hopeful that I will see an improvement and smoothing out of the mid range power delivery with my first version but have three total designs I would like to try (time permitting). I will share photos and dyno results once some theories are confirmed or debunked.
Also I am converting the mechanical linkage to DBW. DBW was always my end goal but I wanted to have dyno data, completed calibration and one season of driving on the mechanical linkage before doing so. One of the many benefits of DBW is you can optimize both HP and torque by controlling intake port velocity with blade angle vs commanded pedal position when using larger intake systems.