Blakt Out

FYI, that dude is the lead badass on the team of badasses building this car. I asked him to watch this forum in case there were any questions he could help anyone with. I'm really impressed with them. Check out their website. Not a silly solicitation, but really. They turbo anything and it works, and they have the nicest shop I've ever been in, and the guys know their stuff better than I can actually believe. So many times, even now, I ask Jordan or Taylor or Chris... three guys on my car, how in the world they learned all this stuff!

It's definitely HPC 1,700 degree. Don't know too much about the process, but I'll find out.

Wow. That's a really cool thing to say. I hereby give Jesus this car. Actually, I did when I bought it. I love Jesus. Very cool post. Thanks!

The electrical goodies are all wrapped in snake skin and it’s all pretty darn clean so far. And finally, the overall glory shots. Final welding hasn’t been done. They’re all tacked in there for fitment. The guy who took this picture sent it to me with one word attached: “WIN”. I about cried.

The stock plastic coil cover would really bring down the looks of the engine bay too, so they made one of aluminum. I love it. It really works well with everything going on. With a loud color such as the lime, I wanted to keep a polished/brushed and black theme with the engine stuff. Here are some detail shots. Please remember that everything’s not done yet. Not everything is as tight as it will be, or as polished as it will be.

There’s a ton of money in Black Horse AN fittings and such on this table… all of it totally & perfectly planned out. Nothing extra. Nothing short. They made this catch can as part of a complete system that will keep evaporated oil from getting back into my intake. I’ll explain it more once I understand, which is not at this moment. ☺ 750cc top feed injectors The Greddy fuel rail was blue. You can see inside the holes. However, that would really clash with the rest of the engine bay, so it was media blasted. It will be polished more before final install.

OK fellas. It’s been a while since an update. The car’s going to be running next week, and will be off to the restoration shop, Miller Brothers Hot Rod Barn for final assembly. I WILL be enjoying this car next month! So, here’s the status. The men at National Speed have done some amazing things here. Finalizing the totally 100% custom exhaust…

Well, my stuff got back from being thermal coated silver. I love it all! Also, we had the throtte body bored out a bit and polished up...

Wow man. Your car looks amazing! LOVE the solution to the dash that you came up with. Alcantara with deviated stitching... never thought of that. I love Norwegians. I was in Italy for a while, and a buddy from Oslo rode his BMW motorcycle all the way down to where we were (an hour north of Milan). Thanks for the compliments, but yours seems to be a real shocker! What JDN alum V8 can you get ahold of? Jared

I really hope he responds and enlightens us, plus answers the question I asked.

I'm honestly not seeing anything wrong either.

luckygerman: How much do you think this thing, totally custom, hidding up into the tunnel and snaking around the drivetrain with high-end mufflers... should cost?

This literally made me LOL, like, for real. OL.

World's longest downpipe... Slip joint welding

Can't check yet. There's no hood or fenders on the car and the interior is still out. Once it's all in, I'll be corner balancing it and we'll find out how close we can get it to 50/50.

National Speed is adding in the wastegate recirculation to the exhaust... Boring out the hole really carefully... Turned out pretty well...

Thanks! I'm pretty shocked at how nice it is too.

Thanks!

It's all back up. No worries. Sorry about that, fellas.

Photobucket is screwing with me. I'll see what I can do. Thanks guys.

Yeah. I killed that as soon as I saw it. Thanks!

OK y'all: The exhaust for this car, if I might say so myself, is pretty wonderful. I told them that I wanted it tucked up under the car as much as possible so that it wouldn't be prone to scraping, and that I wanted to use stock hanger locations - not drilling into the bottom of the car at all. Here's what they've come up with so far. The welds aren't finalized in these pics. They have a tip on here that bends down. I killed that. Don't like it at all. We're doing with a straight pipe with a diagonal cut on it instead. Also, note the hanger system they made. Oh, and check out my clearance, yo.

Thanks much. I have only been paying hourly. I supply them with everything. The hourly rate seems very fair, but sometimes I don't understand how it takes so long to do some things. Oh well. I just want the car back. I'm darn near broke from this whole thing!

I chose the AZC arms because they looked nicer, honestly. The bottom of the car has been just as important to me on the fit and finish as the top. I don't know if camber plates on the rear are necessary. I just did them while we had the car apart. Since I haven't gotten it down on the ground to really play with the suspension, I can't answer that. The Quattroporte is an amazing car, but I'd take a Panamera all day long over it. Let me know what you think about the Excellence article on it! I have scans too, if you want me to email it to you.

Gotcha. I'll have to look at that. Not doing the work myself, other than small bits. I bought this car to do myself, and it got out of hand and I got busy. Didn't want to slow down the time that it'd take me to get it, and I wanted the quality to be better than I could deliver myself.