Active Spoiler Modification Take 2

I couldn't wait to get this project finished. Spent a few hours down in the garage today to get it finished up.

Here is a shot with both struts and mounts in place. Almost ready for the spoiler.

Once I had them both lined up it was time for a test fitting. When I had the spoiler mocked up. I was able to see that the spoiler mounts needed a slight modification.

To the grinding wheel I went. Once I had it roughly were I wanted it with the grinder I leveled them with a file.

Once I had the mounts leveled It was a lot easier to attach them to the spoiler.
Here they are securely mounted to the underside of the spoiler.

Now it was time to make the final adjustments on the transmission cables and sleeves, one of the steel sleeves had to be curved a wee bit to get it to work freely.

Time for a manual test.

Flush mounted, this will be the ride height under 45-50mph

And fully raised.

The fully raised position is where it will be when the spoiler ECU sees that my Accord is going over 45-50mph. With the flip of a switch I will be able to manually raise and lower it to any height in between.

A few more shots of it in the down position.

I will finish welding in the side panels for the drops another day.

Hope to have a video up as soon as I get the welding complete and all of the wiring hooked up.

Active Spoiler Modification Take 1!

Today I got a chance to start on my active spoiler modification. This spoiler is speed activated. It will change it's pitch depending on the speed of the vehicle. this should create a larger down force on the back of the car. Exactly how much down force it will create on my Accord is unknown. It may end up creating drag and be completely useless. I'm not really concerned with the aerodynamic properties right now.  I saw it and figured that I had to give it a try myself.

Pictured below is the Volkswagen Corrado active spoiler motor and transmission assembly. Along with the fiberglass spoiler that I will be using.

Fist thing was to mark and cut the trunk. I quickly realized that if I want the spoiler to lay flush with the trunk surface while it is in the down position. I have to create a drop/step in the OEM trunk.

After everything was marked out and lined up. It was time to cut and bend the steps into the trunk lid.

Here is a look from the underside of the trunk lid.

I had already removed a lot of the cross bracing from the underside when I shaved the license plate recess. The picture shows how the OEM down brace on the trunk is in the way of fitting the spoiler motor mount.  That was easily remedied by cutting a section out or the brace and welding the spoiler motor mount directly to the remaining bracing.

After having the spoiler motor mount securely welded into position. It was time to mount the spoiler transmissions and struts.

Had to make a template of the transmissions in order to drill the mounting holes and strut opening. Once the templates were on and lined up it was just a matter of drilling everything out.

Then it was time to check everything out and make sure it all fit and operated properly without any obstructions. Everything bolted up rather nicely.

and the struts and spoiler mounts moved up and down without any dragging or obstructions.

With the one side pretty much completed the other side shouldn't take quite as long to finish. I should be able to get started on mounting the struts to the spoiler very soon. The only thing left to do on the trunk lid is to weld in a couple of side panels on the step-down. I'm going to leave that until the very end. That way I will have an access hole to see the mount under the spoiler when it is flush to the trunks surface.

Cheers!

Under Construction

Well I'm finally getting around to cleaning this blog up a bit. As you may or may not have noticed. I have added the "Build at a Glance" heading in the right column. This is where I will be creating all of my archived project pages. These pages will contain project specific details. Rather than having to search through the archives by date.

I'd like to thank those of you who took the time to critique my blog and force me to get off my but and actually make this a somewhat easier blog to navigate.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my bud Neil, for showing me how to create, link and move pages. As well as sorting out my blogs colour theme. I can't believe that I didn't match everything to the logo before now. Guess that's what happens after a year of not doing any real design work. ;)

Have a good one! Cheers

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Stanley Foglight Install

Well I got all of the screws and seals for the fogs now it's time to install them.

Pulled my bumper out of the shed and set it up for fitting.

Then went right at it and started hacking it up........

Actually it was a very slow process trimming the grill so that it followed the shape of the fog light perfectly.

Once I had the grill cut out it was time to start on fabricating the sheet metal brackets.

You just have to love the simplicity of beer box templates.......


Top bracket ready for test fitting.


Slid in just like it was factory made.


Then was the time consuming process of measuring, cutting and bending the bracket to fit the the light housing.


With the top bracket fit in place it was time to do the same for the bottom. The curve and uneven size of the bottom half of the grill opening proved to be some what of a pain. I was eventually able to get the lower bracket in place. After a few hours of trimming, grinding and filing.


With the brackets in place it was time to alter/fabricate the 94-95 Accord fog light housing brackets themselves.

This was a fairly easy part of this process.

First was the very long and way off level lower bracket.

I heated it up and bent it straight back. From there I was able to make it into a 90. So it was on the same level as the upper bolt hole. Drilled the hole and we are good to go for that side.


The other side of the housing was a bit harder. It was way off but unlike the other side it was too short. Therefore I had to bend this one straight up and weld on a new bracket.



New 90 bracket tack welded in to place and it was ready to be fit to the grill brackets.

Here is how they sit now.


Waiting for a fresh coat of satin black paint and some new wiring.

Stanley Foglight Referb

Working condition my F#@K'n A$$. The ground wire was severed and there was a blown bulb in the other one. Nether of them worked when I got them. I thought they looked like they were in pretty good condition........on the outside.

Then I tried to get them to work...... and that's when this hornets nest was reviled.



Yes these are the same fogs that are posted above.

They didn't mention any of this in the item description. Complete with severed ground wire, burnt out bulb, all 4 glass lenses broken around the edges and all the weather seals are toast.



and then after I cleaned them up

I am now waiting for seals and new screws and bulbs to complete the restoration. They don't look so bad now after 5 hours of drilling taping, grinding & polishing.

I ended up getting half of my money back from the Ebay member once I showed them the pictures... Nice to see that there are still some good honest people out there.

The worst Customer Service in North America. Update!

Kevin sent me another email last week apologizing for missing my call, accompanied by an excuse for not returning my call.

Here is his latest response;

Quote:

Originally Posted by Email received From: Kevin To: GhostAccord Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 6:06 PM Subject: RE: Parts Inquiry Hi Mark, I missed your call the last time as our vehicle was hit and I was out of the office. I will endeavor to contact you in the next couple days. - Gen5Alive staff 13429 Pumice street Norwalk, CA 90650 562-229-9131

And do you think he called me?

Not a chance. I find it funny that this email was sent the day after I originally posted this complaint on my blog. Wonder if I'll get another apologetic email after he hears about this one.

Cheers

March 26, 2010, Update!

So I talked to the nice folks down at Bisimoto Engineering this morning.

This is the information I was given by Bisimoto Engineering,
Bisimoto Engineering was approached, around this time last year, by Kevin Murase of Gen5Alive to price the production of a Light Weight Crank Pulley for the F22 engine. Kevin was given a price per unit & the minimum number of units required to get that price. Kevin was not satisfied with the cost and went no further in pursuing the production with Bisimoto Engineering.

It took me a year to get that answer, in the end it was 1 phone call a year after the fact. Why couldn't anyone tell me that 8 months ago? Oh well now at least I know Bisimoto Engineering has nothing to do with this Gen5Alive scam. Now I will go back to my pursuit of my measly $160 from Kevin Murase & Gen5Alive.

Again I apologize for bringing Bisimoto Engineering into this. I still have never talked to the guy personally but his staff was very informative and courteous.

Thank you for clearing this up.


April 27, 2010, Update!

I just got off the phone with Kevin and he said that the crank pulley is still a go. He has been in contact with Bisi to get them finished up. It's funny, as stated above, that when I talked to Heidi a few weeks back, she said they had nothing more to do with them. I do not have any more details on what is taking place now. Maybe Kevin has gone back to Bisi after all else had failed. Kevin said he would keep in touch so there will be no further miss-communication.

He seemed sincere but I am still a bit skeptical. As long as he keeps the lines of communication open I will give him another chance.

Possibly The worst Customer Service in North America

So to make a very long and drawn out process short. It was one year ago yesterday that I bought into Kevin Murase's Lightweight Crank Pulley group buy on Gen5Alive.com. None of the paying customers have received the part to this date. Nor will he publicly give any information on it's whereabouts. It has been one story after another on how this shop and that shop aren't working out.

If you care to read all about it you can read it here. TSM Pikachu = Kevin

http://www.gen5alive.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10882


Here is the latest

Quote:

Originally Posted by Email Sent, From: GhostAccord Sent: Friday, March 05, 2010 1:04 AM To: Kevin@gen5alive; Brian@gen5alive; Allen@gen5alive; sales@gen5alive Subject: Parts Inquiry Good morning everyone, Just wondering if there are any updates on the production of the light weight crank pulley yet. Any information you can pass on would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, GhostAccord P.S. Is your shop number still 562-229-9131?

And to my astonishment he actually replied.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Email reply, From: Autosport sales To: GhostAccord Sent: Friday, March 05, 2010 7:28 PM Subject: RE: Parts Inquiry Mark, Yes our office is that shop number, I recently went through a couple upgrades on our office line. I’d much rather not discuss this over email, could you give me a call perhaps? This is just due to the nature of the transaction and I’d much rather talk to you over the phone rather than just shoot you a blind message. -Kevin Murase Gen5Alive Autosport, President 13429 Pumice street Norwalk, CA 90650 562-229-9131

To me this actually sounded like he wanted to talk about what is going on with this part that is now over a year into production?????? On March 10th at 11:32 PST, I placed a call to Mr. Murase's place of business. There was no answer, Therefore, I left a short and polite message with my Name, phone number, with the area code, and to what the call was in regards too. I than asked him to return my call. As of tonight, 3 days later, I still have not received a phone call from him.

I guess it's time to start hounding the brains behind this parts production as well. But then I've been hearing that getting in touch with **** has been kind of hard lately as he's very busy. I highly doubt that Kevin's store/shop is so busy he can't return a phone call.

Oh well I'll wait the weekend and give them both a call on Monday.

**** I will leave this persons name out for now until I give them a chance to answer my questions. Even though I have sent them & their sales representatives numerous emails. too which I have received no replies.

White Housed Headlights

There was no way that I was going to go and put black housed headlights and signals on my car. It's way to overdone. So I decided that I would go White 1987-88 HN512 Polar White to be exact.

First thing was to remove the headlight from the mounting bracket.


After a few dark-n dirties, a long soak in penetrating oil and a bit of muscle. They finally came apart


Most headlight DIYs don't mention to remove the mounting bracket. I wanted to because some of the hardware looked rather rough.


This is what both of the main adjusting mounts looked like. Part numbers added to the always growing "Parts Required List".

After washing the years of dirt and grime from the Headlight it was time to bake them in the oven at 230F for 5 minutes and separate the lenses from the housings.


Then it was time to carefully mask off the portion of the original reflector that I wanted to remain. Then sand and prep the unmasked portion of the housing for primer and paint.

Hanging from the painting line I have strung across the ceiling of my garage. Sanded and ready to go.


Gave the garage a good dusting and turned the heat up a little bit and threw a couple coats of primer on.


Then gave them an adequate dosage of Polar White. 12hrs of dry/bake time and I unmasked them to reveal my new white housing headlight.


The taping, prep and painting was the easy part of this project. Getting the lenses from a state like this,


To the end product was the tough part. They were in such bad shape it took more than a few hours of wet sanding and polishing. Just to get one too look like this.


Started with a bucket of warm soapy water and 400 grit wet dry, then onto a 1000 grit, 2000 grit, then it was the white buffing paste and loose cotton buffing wheel. To finish it off I used Mother's Gold three stage wax system. It was a hand application of step 1 cleaner, Step 2 sealer conditioner and then step 3 carnauba wax.

I had to get another headlight from the junkyard, because one of mine had a little bit of weld spatter/ a hole in it. That one is still in the wet sand stages. $30 lesson learned, no welding while the plastics are still on the car...lol

Update!

Finally got around to finishing my headlights tonight.

Testors 1257 Transparent Blue day/high lights.

After two coats of paint, 48 hr cure time, good cleaning, few minutes bake time in the oven and this is what you get.

The white housed corner lights are still on hold until I get a new set.......

My Coil Over Plug Setup cont-1

Took a few minutes today to get my 2007 GSX-R pencil coils fitting snug in their new homes.

I had an old set of Accel 300+ ignition wires down in the garage. They were still in good shape, but I'm hoping I won't need them.

First I took the rubber grommet off the GSXR coil and took the Accel ignition wire apart. That allowed me to get the upper valve cover grommet off of it



Then I simply cut the top off the ignition wire grommet and was left with this.


After cutting the tops off the ignition grommet, I also had to bore out the inside diameter so that the coil would fit. Very messy job with a Dremel tool and a 60 grit cartridge roll. After that was done, I put some dielectric lube on them and stuffed them in their new homes. Snug as a bug in a rug. No need for a long aluminum mounting bracket when they are done this way. ;~)



When all was said and done. I spent $35 for a set of 2007 pencil coils. Took approx. 1.5hrs of my day to cut up a set of used ignition wires And they look like new. Tested the resistance on each coil and all is good on that front as well.