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Been a busy couple weeks but been chugging along. Got the fuel system started. mounted the ethanol content sensor, fuel filter and fuel pressure regulator. ordered line/fittings twice and still came up short on fittings and line. hopefully the last of it arrives today so I can finish it. Got the rear brake caliper bracket machined up from a high alloy steel. Due to the design i had to come up with i wanted a high alloy steel to be nice and strong. Got the clutch line made up and bled it. clutch seems to work even tho i just bled it solo. i'll get the wife out to get it perfect but it does work. I got the exhaust mocked up and tacked together. Need to come up with a nice tip to get it out just past the bumper.

Since the frame rails were dented up pretty good from wrong floor jack positioning, I decided to replace them and this would also give me the opportunity to really get the original metal floors flat, and the metal shrunk and tight. They were surprisingly clean inside. This is the floor pan after removing the spot welds and frame rails. After some wire wheel work, and metal prep acid wash with Scotch-Brite, I worked and shrunk the metal with a shrinking rod and them smoothed it with a shrinking disk. Nice and flat getting it to what original would have looked like, leaving all spot welds and original deformations in place. I then lightly blasted the overlap areas and applied Weld-Thru paint. I then fitted the new frame rails, they took a bunch of work to get the correct shape and to match the original contour of the floor pans. I then copied all the original spot weld locations and drilled 3/16 hole to plug weld. I used several Cleco clamps to hold it in place and tight up against the floor pans. Next I used my MIG and plug welded them in place Finally I will grind smooth the plug welds More after the weekend

When I installed my cam, I had the engine on a stand with heads off, and used a dial indicator to find top dead center as accurately as I could. Once I found TDC on the #1 cylinder, I made marks between the rear flange of the crankshaft and the back of the block. Later, when I went to install the harmonic damper, I verified that #1 was at TDC, and that the timing marks were properly aligned with the timing indicator. They aligned perfectly. I'm using a Romac Balancer on a Ford 5.0L Stroker. The factory balancers have a rubber ring between the hub and the outer ring where the timing marks are located. The rubber fails and then the outer ring slips relative to the center hub. After that the timing marks are arbitrarily located and no longer consistent. Long story short: Find and verify TDC, and make sure the balancer marks can't slip.

It's been a while. I moved from NC back to OH for work. My tools and vehicles have been locked up in a storage unit while we are in the process of buying a home. I took the car back to my parents' carport to try to get some work done. However, there were a lot of little things to do. There is a fuel smell on refills, exhaust fumes leak into the cabin, the carbs need tuning, and my shitty rust repair needs some work. Because there was so much to do, it made sense to me to pull the engine. Since I was pulling the engine, it made sense to me to just swap in an RB25. So I pulled the RB from the parts car, pulled the L24, and started fixing all my previous work. My welding has gotten a lot better, but it still has a long way to go. The thicker sway bar and improved suspension was tearing the frame rails apart where the sway bar attaches. So I drilled and tapped some thicker steel and 3/4 boxed the frame rails to try to prevent the same damage in the future. I scuffed up the engine bay, threw some primer at it, and painted it the same white as the rest of the car. I also pulled the dash, stripped the paint, put on some rust preventative paint, and added sound deadening. Next steps: I need to drop out the stock rear end and get an R-200 with an LSD in it. I have a new universal harness to go in it and new gauges in a crack-free dash. I need to figure out what brakes I want to upgrade to. I also need to figure out if I'm going to reuse or replace all the brake lines, fuel lines, and gas tank. I also need to chose what ECu I want to use. Right now, I'm leaning towards a Haltech Elite 1500. Finally, I need to rebuild the RB25 with the oiling upgrades and get it and the RB25 transmission thrown back in the car. I'm spending more hours at work in my new role, but I'll try to post updates. Photos-3-001.zip

Thanks for the replies and comments. Time is always an issue, however Im at the age now where my daughter is 26 years old and working full time. Been married 30 years so the wife is obviously understanding of my hobbies. Hopefully continuing to make progress regularily. Hoping more people come back to the forum and participate in the community. Here is a picture of me and my daughter when she was probably 2ish years old, same car Im working on now. I need to get her back in the shop for a new photo - Time flies

It's been awhile, but thought I'd update with something funny I discovered. I've never really trusted the harmonic balancer and where it said 0 deg was. I tested with a piston stop and knew it was off a few degrees, but it wasn't enough for me to worry about. This thing is megasquirt tuned, so I really can just give it whatever timing it wants and be good with that. So I got lucky with someone selling an aftermarket balancer, used. It's the 90055 Pro Products PowerForce damper. I set my old balancer at 0 deg, right on the mark before I pulled it. Here is where the new balancer is showing it should be: The white mark at the top on the balancer is 0 deg. It's probably close to 15 deg off lol. This is before I torqued down the bolt, so I know I didn't move anything when installing. And now that I think of it, I've always had an issue with sync loss events if I went above 28-29 deg at light cruise. I also tried sneaking up on 30 deg at idle just to see what it would do, and it would sync loss every few seconds. But other than that, the car ran great. If anyone else has megasquirt and is having weird sync loss issues, make sure to check your balancer as it may have spun. I've attached pictures of my old balancer too. You can see the rubber is definitely cracked.

Found another RSX seat. It's not an exact match. The stitching pattern is different b/w the seats, and the plastic trim in the headrest area is a different color. Obviously I'm not going to fix the stitching, and I'll just paint those plastic trim pieces black and be done.