🔧 BUILD Blubbercorn (riviera v2)

turtleman

Addict
Sep 6, 2009
822
796
Villa Park, IL
Real Name
covid
RIP el tortuga

I pulled the trigger on a replacement-in-progress for the turtle. It's a 1999 with 122k on it and for the most part it looks like it has less than half that mileage. The underside is ridiculously clean. The instruments and controls barely look touched for the most part.
Basically the plan is to migrate all of my mods from the green car to this one including the motor, trans, sway bars, rear adjustment links, the heap of accessories/gauges/controls, audio system, etc. For the most part all of it is pretty reversible and butchery-free so I don't feel any guilt about it. I've learned a lot with my first riv and this will be as tasteful as I can make it. By buying this, I've 100% come to terms that this is a riviera first and a project/racecar second. It's a fairly major project in itself. I haven't decided exactly how & when I'm going to go about it but in the meantime, I'm gonna continue driving the green car and keep the white car stabled. I bought it now because I'm afraid I won't be able to readily find a replacement that I can live with in the future when my current car does literally crumble in half or something.

I have to say it is mind-bending driving this cherry bone stock riv since I'm used to my 12 years worth of modded riv. It's unreal how quiet the car is supposed to be. *:lmao:
The steering and suspension seem like a different car and I didn't think I changed that much in that area. I really don't think my green car has near that much floatiness and lack of sense of speed as this stock '99.

Anyway, this will be the thread I dump all the matters involving the new riv into.

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turtleman

Addict
Sep 6, 2009
822
796
Villa Park, IL
Real Name
covid
I decided to just go right in it and start an experimental exhaust project to get equal length secondaries so it can sound like the nasty rwd L67 cars instead of shit on shit.

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first setup that gave me a result I was after (really just literally throwing pipes together out of the box)
The muffler sorta merges the two not quite like an x-pipe (there's an open space in the middle of the muffler) but I wanted to see if I could make it work for neatness.

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All exhaust leaks and stuff aside, this is dangerously close to sounding awesome. Maybe a bit out of place on a riv but I don't care. I love da rivs
Now that I hear it myself I'm excited! If I can get this tuned and packaged properly, it's gonna be ridiculous with and IS3/4 cam and 25psi in front of it
 

turtleman

Addict
Sep 6, 2009
822
796
Villa Park, IL
Real Name
covid
Pictures are piling up again as i do things
I guess I never even posted any of the nice exhaust shots either and that was quite a while ago o_O oops
here's that

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backpurging and all that sh*t

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equalized dual 2.5 into a 3.5 single baby

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So pretty much the section that I can't mess with from the battery kick-out and through the rear crossmember really is permanently done welded up. The rest of it remains pretty modular as of now.
I'm actually pretty happy with the sound so I don't think I'm going to be trying to tweak the loop pipe length and stuff anymore so the next step is to get that area cleaned up and eventually welded with some small flex pieces added in. I already made up some braces and stuff to keep the pipes in shape when there's 600hp worth of fire going through there one day

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Oh and the tail section is a totally badass burnt tip ebay muffler with a w-body pipe section sourced from james' backyard scrap pile which is angled for the nice jdm legend af angle
 

turtleman

Addict
Sep 6, 2009
822
796
Villa Park, IL
Real Name
covid
:coffee: happy friday
moar picz

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It gives me a headache thinking about how long this car's gonna remain slow. There's so much to the car and the motor before it goes in.
Need to replace head gaskets, deck heads, swap IS3 cam for IS4, upgrade to t&d rocker setup, new valve covers & coil mounts, 5%od balancer, other odds & ends
The big issue before was fuel. James and I have been talking about what to do but once that's addressed 550whp on boost only should be doable i think.

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There's the new (to me) fabricated PRJ valve covers that'll clear the T&D rockers and you know your boy is gonna get em powdercoated plastic black for the stock looks

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time to drill holes in this m*****fu**er!

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Since you know this is the second one I know how to do things nicer than i did when i was 19yo doing this stuff.
First time I needed to run wires through the firewall, i drilled through the layers of the steering shaft boot like an idiot. I later figured out to go through this passenger side bulkhead so I, then started shoving wires through that bottom grommet for the main battery cable one by one, as I added gear. Now knowing I have numerous wires to put through, I'm doin it legit with a dedicated hole.

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The engine bay is starting to get altered for all the gizmos and eventually the FGT blower.
I put in my custom relocated coolant overflow bottle and the fact you can barely see it at all was intentional. This provides room on the driver side for all the intake goodness and I'll have all my added fuses/relays enclosed there in the box pictured. The strut brace is from a bonneville GXP. I'm 90% sure that'll have to get removed once the FGT goes in.

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swapping the old riv's tail light in (guess which is which) because it's already all set up with sequential lighting. bitches love sequentials

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So even though I really loved the grant steering wheel I was running on the old riv with the control buttons, I'm leaning more towards keeping the stocker in blubbercorn so I'm gonna wire the factory radio control buttons to an arduino which will basically give me 8 momentary buttons I can do anything with. Here I was mapping out what values each button produces (after first scratching my head for a while and later discovering how pulldown resistors work).
 

turtleman

Addict
Sep 6, 2009
822
796
Villa Park, IL
Real Name
covid
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just somethin i wanted to try out and i like it a lot! lincoln LS shift knob swap. I like the forward pull and gripping a hard wood knob. While I was modifying the stem out of the car I also removed the brake-to-shift lock out solenoid and my poor memory is telling me i might have did something with the low range detents so i dont have to do a trigger pull to go 3 - down. I actually play with it a lot now while driving

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racecar with class if there was ever something to say it - triple aeroforce scan gage on a upholstered pillar *insert tcg monocle emogi here*

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transferred the speakers from the old car which i desperately needed since both of the original front speaker cone surrounds were gone and just made flappy noises

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candid of blubbercorn in her natural habitat

The most recent thing done is front cts-v brakes. I figured since they were set up on somebodies w-body already i'd be able to toss em on - NO NEVER

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kinda sucks i'll have to change my brakes to run my 16" slicks again but that's so far down the road anyway and it's worth it

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billet hose brackets - check

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upon taking a closer look at the hoses, i noticed this. as-is, half the hole in the banjo bolt was just being blocked off by the hose end bolt ID - both with my new hoses and the ones that came with the brakes.

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:geek: i fixx its

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dead on center

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turtleman

Addict
Sep 6, 2009
822
796
Villa Park, IL
Real Name
covid
I wonder if the Cressida's exhaust was more than 28 in long if it would be that quiet....
i badly need to get a drone pipe set up. 2000rpm is pretty severe on highway cruising. mathematically i think a good reflector pipe that's tuned for 60-70 hz for that 2000ish rpm area might increase noise at a higher rpm which would be totally fine - it sounds like a trombone at higher rpm. *insert tcg monocle emogie*
 

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