After a 3-day event of trying to mount some tires on those rpf1’s we finally figured out the correct method.
I ended up buying a couple 245/40’s as the two shops i was working with couldn’t seat the 235’s.  Just my luck, they couldn’t mount those either……  so i took matters into my own hands.  Tried MULTIPLE starting fluid fire blast explosion attempts.  To my disappointment it didn’t work, but it was fun.

Procedure:

Play with fire+ether starting fluid.
^Heats up the tire and makes it more malleable
Then use bike tire and keep it in there while you air up tire.
Then once it seats take it out.
Presto.

Here’s some pics.

The Boys and I

Today is the day! Kind-of..  Get the tires mounted to see that sweet sweet stretch.  235/40 on a 10.5 will look pretty sweet.    Anyways, i’ve got a buddy coming over thats going to help me align my car real quick before we actually pull the fenders tomorrow.  Would be nice to know how much we actually have to pull them right?

Anyways, BBQ tomorrow!

And since i’m in a picture mood here’s another one.  Put a piece of wood underneath the rim and let the car down on it to see what i’m dealing with.  Happy Friday!

I thought i would indulge everyone with some more pictures.  My memory card’s been acting up and some pictures i took didn’t show up in windows explorer at first.  The next time i checked they were there… These were two of them.

So just got these in the mail today!

18×10.5 +15   for the rear.  Finally, RPF1’s all around.
And these big guys only weigh 19 pounds – awesome.

I’m a little worried if i’m going to be able to pull the fenders enough though… I think i can squeeze a bit more camber out of the ruca’s, but still.  It’s going to be close.  I’ve seen someone do the same size/offset on a stock bodied fastback before so i’m hoping it’ll be fine.

Another thing is that i have the GR+Pro’s so there’s the helper spring in the rear which makes the coilover droop alot more when jacked up.  I didnt have time to put some wood under it and let it down to see how close it’d be, had other stuff to get done.

Disregard the stupid ziptie..

So got some 5/16 hard line after class and bent up some new lines.  This is the result.  Instead of going directly over the header, it goesup along the trans tunnel (sort of).  Basically the only other way i could route them.  I’m satisfied as they are MUCH farther from the header than before.  They were quite literally less than a centimeter away in some spots..

For some reason i knew i was not through with problems….  Come home and find the garage reeking of fuel.  Look under the car and one of my fuel hard lines is leaking.  God this is annoying.  Guess i’ll have to replace either all of it or a portion of it.  Think i’m going to replace a large section of it and re-route it anyways since my exhaust is really close to it.  We’ll see what i end up doing.

Wooo! First fill-up. Was scraping the entire way there. It’s dumb, I can’t go anywhere because the exhaust hangs too low (quite literally .5 to 1 inch off the ground..), and not only that it took me at least 10 minutes to get out of the driveway using two 2x8x8’s… Going to have to raise it.

Also, wheels ship out tomorrow i hear… so i can chuck these nasty 4lug stockers i’m using for the time being. They will also hopefully raise the rear a bit so i can still tuck some tire.

pic.

Pulled the engine TWICE today.. thing made me super frustrated, nothing would line up. Also, now that i’ve raised the engine an inch the drivers header literally is 1mm from the steering column… pretty sure it’s going to make some noise. Anyways i think the engine is in there for good now. (Thank God) headers are on and wrapped the passenger side header to protect the fuel lines from the heat.

Header wrapped, white was dumb as it looks awesome but gets so dirty! Oh well, i wanted to see what it’d be like so no big deal to me.

Also got the powersteering lines hooked up along with relocating the PS reservoir out of the way.  I think i might paint this white eventually.  But for now i don’t care.  I just want to drive it.

Also, pretty sure this flange is going to get ground down more…. not exactly sure why i welded this one like this.  The other one is angled for most clearance…  I wonder how long i’ll be able to get away with being this loww. Dangit

3/8″ drive

Got the exhaust sandblasted today!  After typing this i realized i forgot to weld another o2 bung on the exhaust for my wideband before painting it.  Dangit!    Anyways, so Joe’s Sandblasting and Powder Coating cleaned up my exhaust.  Results were great!  But it makes me realize just how much my exhaust rusted over just ONE winter…… pitting = yuck.  Also decided to take the tension rod brackets off and have them blasted as well.

Then painted stuff.  I love painting, but i’m so impatient!

Here’s right as i got back to the house from the blaster.  Forgot to take a pic before i took the other header out..

Here’s before the paint for one of the headers.  Too bad i wasn’t “baller” enough to do stainless huh.

Didn’t paint the center section because that happens to be stainless.

Headers are painted white this time.  I like it.

One more.

Tension rods are silver, i guess light colors are the theme.

Also managed to mount my circuit breaker FINALLY.  I kept breaking the tab off the circuit breaker when i tightened it down so i riveted a piece of 1/4″ aluminum to the side to hold it.  No more irregular surface.  Disregard the messy trunk.

Alright, so i lied about the plethora of images.  I didn’t think i’d get a chance to work on the car till the weekend but it was so nice out i decided i had to take a couple hours and dink around.

I ended up almost putting the intake manifold on until i realized i don’t have the headers on yet. DOH!    You must be wondering why does it matter if the intake manifold is on or not.  Well the fact is – i need to lift the engine and half way pull it out to get them suckers on…. its really dumb.  So i ended up calling a couple places to see about getting them blasted.  Joe’s Sandblasting & Painting is where i’m going to be taking the headers and rest of the exhaust tomorrow around 10.  Then i will paint them real quick with some high temp paint.  Colors?  Black? Silver?  Any suggestions?? I’m thinking silver headers with the rest black.

So after i realized i couldn’t do that it was back to that pesky wiring…. this stuff is getting super old.  Ended up making a Fuse/Relay box panel so i can see how the glove box is going to fit over it.  It’s not going to cooperate very well so i’m going to have to make some modifications to the metal shroud and then it should be gravy.

Pictures.

I remember i promised some better pictures than the horrible cell phone pic’s i put up last time so here are their replacements. Enjoy my un-edited photos. I’m lazy lol.

Front end.

Better picture of the nice fender damage I’ve got going on on my passenger side.  The big thank you goes out to the idiot that backed into it in my schools parking lot last year.

And here’s another one just for fun.