My journey with F789 NLB.......aka Bricktop.
In December 2011 I started looking out for a good bodied phase 2 gt turbo, in January I found one with no rust, good body and pokey lump......
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Bodywork was mint as it has has a full respray with all new panels, seals and rubbers, the engine didn't miss a beat at 12psi with a t25 felt good so I decided to buy at 2.5k with a set of refurbed speedlines thrown in.
Got the car home with no problems until I opened the header tank and found this:
http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/...IMG_0407-1.jpg
A quick call to Justin from ep who lives down the road and the head gasket was swapped and few other bits were tidied up.........
http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/...ZSlC60_121.jpg
Had a relatively problem free summer until the Wednesday before national day when the car went in to have some custom decals put on:
And because I was working I dropped the car off at a mates garage for new redstuff pads and hoses. When I picked it up on the Friday I was due to drive ND a young yts scrote was underneath and I could hear a cracking sound coming rom the bay, the car was running and had been a while. Tunrs out the lad had forgot to put any coolant in ffs. After falling out with my mate and giving him a big bag off fcuk all I drove ND carefree a little hotter than usual but still normal.
Put the car on the rollers and she made 170@12psi which was a bonus.
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Spent all day on track but the dials kept getting higher and higher each time we went out. Finally on the last set of laps I decided to turn the boost up a lot and then this happened:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3c0B2zhLMA
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmpasxLBQPY long
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwaO3fKXFko short
Got towed back to the campsite and found out underneath the charred remains of a newly powder coated engine bay id split the top rad hose and cooked the head.....
Over the next few hours we raplaced everything and got back running again and managed to get the car home through buxton and Sheffield with no problems and a little boost
Little did I know this was the start of the ultimate decline of the engine.......
Car seemed lumpy now didn't use it as much and a little smoke had developed at full boost. Nest the afrs seemed to be swinging to extremes until the car was so lean I daren't run it any longer. id had oil coming from both manifold areas and multiple fires had broken out like the one at ND.
Sent the car down to GT Motorsport in stoke on trent who managed to help blunty achieve his 230bhp and I knew mark at gt is one of only a handful of tuners who had seen 500bhp out of the Subaru small block so it made sense.
http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/...tober5/010.jpg
Im a big believer in built not bought but when I started the engine rebuild with too many differences and variables I decided to let a ex wrc mechanic have the headache.
Mark took the lump apart:
http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/...tober5/013.jpg
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A quick call to mike at gt turbo spares and id got a full bottom end rebuild kit bearings washers tarabusi pistons liners ect
Purchased a set of piper high lift springs, 285 cam, campus pulley and belt and a mocal 13 row oil cooler and sandwich plate.
Purchased a cossie 2wd fmic and pipework, carb refurb kit and jets, MLS gasket set, new pump, pins, bolts, nuts, washers, jubilee clips, hoses
http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/...4749525_n1.jpg
Now was time for the turbo refurb by Bernie at bernies blowers
T28 with billet comp wheel and wet bearing
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Then it was time to get the head sorted:
Reading the thousands of threads I came across marky bs build thread and decided to get the head maxed.
I put larger valves in out of a metro turbo a series, with retainers and collets. The head was extensively ported and polished, throated all on a flowbench at chase engine services who supply heads for the mazda duratec series.
http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/...3978290_n1.jpg
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vs a ported one
http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/...tober5/003.jpg
Inlet manifold has been matched and polished also. So has the tubular manifold. All held together with MLS gaskets.
http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/...13462_n1-1.jpg
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Then purchased a set of the sid dawn uprated pushrods and a set of his roller rockers
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Next I decided to get the nodiz pro ignition controller and do away with the aei and renix dissy setup.
Purchases all sensors cabling from demon tweeks and scoff at efi parts along with a 36-1 trigger wheel that's welded against the campus pulley
http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/...15633-Copy.jpg
Have already purchased a 8psi fpr, uprated pump, 3 bar map sensor wasted spark 4 pack with competition leads on iradium plugs.
Cooling wise I managed to pick up this big radiator via james on here and fitted a 16" pacet fan.
http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/...tober5/059.jpg
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Car has also had full interior swap with black and red leather trim. pics to come.
Tubular exhaust manifold, turbo housing and downpipe are being ceramic coated next week next week with pics to follow.
The build is currently underway and should have some more pics and info in the coming week