well i have enough confidence in the car now that I sold my DD (chevy malibu) and I am back to using the msp as my daily. Finished an oil change the other day and the oil looked cleaner than my fsde oil after 3000KMs. Its amazing how the msp running so rich ruins its oil.
anyways, the car is driving good. I am contemplating adding a 5th engine mount as even with the rest of the mounts solid I am still feeling a bit of movement which I am not too happy about.
the 1st gen drivetrain does not use the 3rd gen rear engine mount, instead it has 2 mounts on the crossmember on the front and rear of the transmission. Since I took out the support bracket for the stock intake manifold there is a bit of room (not much with the gtr oil cooler but a bit) to make a bracket that will connect the block via the mounting location for the stock IM bracket and connect to my Medieval solid rear mount from my old fsde msp setup.
with 5 solid mounts I dont think the drivetrain will be bumping around period. which is good because the more time I spend looking at the miniscule gap between the drivers side axle and the frame rail, the more I am thinking the drivetrain jerked extremely hard while cruising in 5th and the moving axle hit the frame rail which caused both axles CVs to implode. this would explain all of the problems I had with the axles breaking. whether that was the cause or not I decided to pull all of the mounts, reweld them, redo the solid filling on 2 of em and raised the engine up another 1/4 inch with some washers just to be safe. As a side effect the shifter linkage seems to line up a bit better now and shifting seems more direct.
The crossmember design is a bit flawed also as the 1st gen uses 2 bolts on the front, 2 bolts on the rear, whereas the 3rd gen just has 1 rear bolt holding it in. I think my makeshift crossmember must have a bit of flex / poor design as I basically cut the 1st gen crossmember after the rear mount and made the 2 sides come into 1 point to be bolted in. I think for everything to be "perfect" I should just remake the crossmember from scratch.
so even though the 4 mounts I have now seem to be sufficient and reliable for DD now that I worked on the mounts a bit more, this 5th mount idea seems better and better especially since boost is getting put into the equation.
I dunno when my friends drive the car they say its already too solid for them to drive comfortably but I am used to a ruff clutch so for me it could be a bit stiffer. I can still feel a bit too much movement starting off hard in 1st and I just want to cut down that movement with the 5th engine mount. this should give me a uber start with the MS launch control with good tires and eliminate wheel hop.
Im back on the stock intake manifold until I get my ITBS back from silex. he has had them for a long time now reworking my design so I am getting impatient..
the cold air intake is now the lowest part of the car with the filter on the drivers side of the radiator about 2.5 inches out of the engine bay below the bumper line. Its about 3/4 inch lower than my oil pan (remember I dropped the engine as much as I could and brought it towards the firewall). IAT temps are very low in this setup and the intake is mounted to the engine with a bracket on the clutch slave so I dont have to worry about drivetrain movement destroying my intake as the intake moves with the drivetrain.
I also welded in a new 2.5 inch flex pipe as the old one was leaking. maybe its just phsycological effect from having less noise but I swear the car feels like it lost a bit of power in the 6K+ range. you would think with such a big exhaust already on the car that it wouldnt need any less backpressure to make power up top but I guess I learn something every day. 7800rpms still sounds like sex.