K swap FRS : Freddy McShreddy part deux

A while back I hacked up the stock FRS shifter assembly but needed someone to weld it together. I don't do aluminum. Since I'm back in the FRS for daily driver I'd like to see if I can reduce the shifter knob buzz. So I dropped it by a local welder and an hour or two later I picked up the part.

I was hoping to put some time into swapping the shifter setup over the weekend, but the WRX needed a/c attention. I bolted all the lines together and hoped it would hold a vacuum. Much to my surprise it did. So I ran in town to grab some r134a and see if I can finally do a/c work correctly. We got a/c now and it's ICE COLD. So now the CEL is fixed. A/c is fixed. Front bumper is painted. It was another little win which I needed. Still need to paint the wheels and order up a single DIN radio kit. Gotta decide if I wanna use as a daily or just sell it and use the money elsewhere.

In reply to captainawesome :

Save the Subaru for your kid. Not sure how far away from needing it they are, but its another headache off of your plate to have that sorted and ready.

Made some big moves over the weekend. The Expedition was sold on Friday and Saturday the WRX was sold. The Expedition had a monthly payment and was just sitting for the most part due to high fuel consumption so that's nice. The WRX has basically been sitting with no payment, but the chunk of cash will be useful for other stuff. I've got another SUV for a spare vehicle lined out, but don't want to jinx it so I'll hold off until the deal is officially in motion. I mean it already is in motion but you never know. It's a neat one.

Bye bye Subaru.

Been a month since the last update. New Pilot Sport 4s were installed right before I attended another autocross on the 18th. Overall I managed 11th in RAW time which I felt was reasonable considering my tires are still only 300tw. I was surprised at how much the car wanted to understeer however. Really struggled with that, but could have just been this course or my lack of skill. Either way fun was had and that's all that matters.

Anyway, I've been contemplating whether I still want to build the hopped up k24 or just keep things simple with a stock block. I mean if this one fails I can just swap a couple parts to another cheap used engine and off I go. Super easy and mostly stress free. However I still have the parts ready to assemble minus machining the block. And yet I have been enjoying the lack of tinkering. I know that as soon as I stick all this stuff together there will be tuning, head scratching, a bit of worry, break in procedure, etc. On the other hand I don't want to deal with shipping these parts all over the place and hassling with selling them. It's a pain. A real quagmire if you will.

I also realized that the k24a8 block I have doesn't have oil squirters like the k24a2. Some say don't worry about it if using forged pistons but I'm using hypereutectic pistons which I believe is a fancy cast variety. I may just chase down another k24a2 that needs a refresh for cheap and send the k24a8 down the road to someone else.

Almost forgot! Me and a buddy signed up to go to Lake Garnett Grand Prix Revival in Garnett Kansas this weekend. It's an old road turned race track from 50-70s that circles the lake. Many of the greats of the era have turned laps there which is pretty neat. They have a car show, autocross, charity rides, and a mild track excursion/vintage race. We are limited to 100mph on track as it's more of a spirited parade session, but it sounded like fun to try some different stuff for a change. Really excited to see how it all shakes out.

I want to thank you for this thread.  After the valve spring recall killed my engine 18 months ago and Toyota telling me to pound sand, my FRS is finally moving under it's own power again with a K-Power swap.  I got stuck in "analysis paralysis" when considering what to replace the FA20 with (LS, LFX, K24, another FA20) but seeing the quality of this kit made me finally decide to pull the trigger.  I've only driven it about 15 miles since the swap (my exhaust just got delivered today and it was too loud to drive over 4000 RPM with just the header) but so far it's awesome!  This is how the car should have come from the factory.  I've still got some things to do (rerouting and securing some hoses/wires/ac lines, new battery hold down, putting the interior back together) but I'm looking forward to driving this a lot more.  Thanks for all of the tips and suggestions, especially adding the extra coolant line from the coolant neck to the thermostat housing.  One thing I'm not sure you kept from the FA20 was the coolant bleed valve on the heater inlet line. I added it back in and getting all of the air out of the system was really easy, at least I think I got all of the air out.

I had some issues with K-Power promising "just two more weeks before it ships" a few times, and there were parts missing when I finally got my kit, but they shipped the missing parts out immediately so I ended up getting them before I needed them.  My impression is that they're a small company that was a little overwhelmed by the success of their kits and I hope they can stay on top of things.  

Anyways, if anyone else is thinking about the kit, it's definitely worth it.

In reply to Schmidlap :

Cool to have another one!

Did you experience the transmission rubbing on the tunnel problems as well? 

In reply to Schmidlap :

Glad you were able to pull the trigger and also that you agree it's well worth it. I think I'm out of the honeymoon phase with the swap, but honestly that's not a bad thing. It's become so normalized now I keep forgetting what I really have in my possession. As mentioned earlier I hazard the thought of messing with a built motor now just because it works so well as is.

I had seen so many people on the ft86club.com thread warning about transmission clearance issues that I overdid the clearance there so I don't have any rubbing.  My valve cover does touch the hood reinforcement, so I will be cutting clearance in that.

I don't have a bunch of pics, in fact very few from the Lake Garnett Grand Prix Revival, but it was an awesome event and weekend. I think I will be going back again next year if the life schedule allows.

We optioned to go to the Friday dinner to get registration out of the way early and see what we were getting ourselves into. Good sized crowd, good BBQ, and quite a bit of cool swag was handed out.

The autocross on Saturday was located on a fairly small chunk of asphalt but they set up a really fun course with two loops to make up for it. I had to stay in first gear hitting the rev limiter for just a smidge of time before braking and only into 2nd to go through the finish. Very tight and if not for my ability to rev to 8500 I would have had some difficulty with it. Anyway I managed FTD and won the under 3 liter class. My buddy brought his 19 ZL1 and would have taken FTD if not for one cone. As always it's a fun back and forth between us. The rest of the competition wasn't near as close in time, with a few seconds between us and the next place.

Right after we wrapped up autocross we headed to the downtown square area for the car show and charity rides. Both of us signed up to provide the charity rides which then gave us a chance to turn some low speed laps around the "race track". It was fun chatting with kids and adults alike on the rides. This may have been my favorite part of the event which is odd because I'm not really the best with interactions with strangers. Socially I'm kind of a dunce.

Sunday we had the "track day" portion of the event. We were scheduled for two 20 minute sessions that were speed limited to 100 mph. After doing the charity rides limited to 45 mph I was expecting the day to be pretty low key and just a chance to have fun. We set up near the fence line to watch the groups while waiting for our session. I was surprised after our first session at how much fun it was. By the second session we were cooking pretty good everywhere but of course the straights. Going off course here in most areas would really suck so you have to kinda run at 80 percent. It was still a hoot though. Passing was a bit sketch. A c6 pointed me by going about 80 mph but dropped his rear right off and almost put us both into a bad spot. Luckily he caught it and I backed off throttle quick enough. Whew! I'll see if I can manage to flip the image from the GoPro since it didn't automatically do it like usual. Kinda weird but whatever.

The car never missed a beat. The drive there and back was like any normal commute. Power wise it felt great on track but I'd be lying if I didn't want just a little more juice to chase down the more powerful cars coming out of the corners. It was WAY better on track even with the 300tw Pilot Sports than the FA20 ever was. That is what I was most stoked about.

I can't wait to get it out at some local tracks again next year as well as try some new events or locations that we haven't been to before. The new Ozark International Raceway is on the short list as well as Eagle's Canyon. Muskogee OK has a really nice sized pad for autocross to check out and it's fairly close. Maybe even a Pro Solo if we can squeeze it in. Lots to do to mix it up a bit.

I'll close this up with a Kansas sunrise.

There were a few photos uploaded to the Lake Garnett page so I figured why not post them here. I still haven't messed with the Gopro footage, probably never will since I keep forgetting about it.

Almost forgot, I have had to unbolt my OEM audio sub enclosure each time I want to adjust the damper settings. I found some adjustment extenders that Tein sells and sure enough they are perfect. This should save me some hassle before autocross or track now. All clicks can be done right before and after the event for max performance and then back to plush daily status.

Peek a boo.

Very nice! I didn't go with the extenders for my FA 500s as I was told by the company I bought them from that they break often. I may have asked you earlier in the thread, how do you like the OEM Audio+ setup? 

I have the front six speakers for the '23 BRZ now (they replace both dash speakers vs just the tweeters), but the sub/amps got pushed to December. The stock 22+ stereo is a noticeable improvement over the first gen, so I'm excited to see what the full OEM Audio+ setup will sound like. Waiting until the sub/amps get here to do everything at once.

Hoping to have the suspension and wheels on the car in the next few weeks, catback is currently on a month-long back order from the manufacturer. 

In reply to z31maniac :

Hopefully I don't have too much issue with the extenders, but in case one breaks I have a spare since they only are sold in pairs anyway. It doesn't give as much of the "click" feel so turning it requires a little more effort to ensure you aren't jumping a couple clicks per turn.

As for the OEM Audio setup I'm a huge fan. I only have the sub/amp as of right now but may order the front speakers as an upgrade at some point. The tuning they do is a massive improvement even with the stock front speakers, and the sub helps fill out the sound. I was a bit worried it would be too much for me bass wise, but it's perfect. The more I crank up the volume the more I realize how well it's set up. I think you'll be pleased with the outcome.

Glad you snatched up the second gen. I'm still kinda on the fence about whether I should have just got one instead of K swapping to be honest. Mainly because of the amount of money I've spent, but then I go for a drive and forget all about that.

In reply to captainawesome :

I considered picking up another 1st gen and swapping it. But realized after doing my S52 E30 swap years ago, I knew I'd get in to scope creep, spend twice as much as I budgeted for and take 3x as long.

The new engine is pretty strong. So much more midrange than the FA20. Can't wait to see what they will do with a header and E85, since stock they are putting down ~210whp where as the first gen was putting down ~165whp.

Definitely way underrated from the factory.

Lots of little stuff going on here. Recently it was brought to our attention that there is a revision to the Kpower 86 kit. It adds a fuel pump relay which primes for 5 seconds on startup. Currently it gets power as soon as ignition is turned on. Most of the time this isn't an issue but if you have to spend some time in the Haltech software tinkering for a minute your battery is at risk of dying. It's happened a few times before so I reached out to Kpower to see if they'd ship me the new setup. I ended up paying $40 for a relay and some wires but should be plug and play with my current connector.

Nope.

Turns out one of the wires they used isn't connected through the Kpower adapter board. I and a fellow swapper spent time checking continuity between all sources to find the odd disconnect at the board. From what we have been able to gather so far is there have been roughly 3 different boards released, and I have V1 being an early adopter of the kit. He has v2. Still waiting to hear back from them as to what the fix will be, but the other swapper just soldered a jumper wire at the board for now. Hopefully I won't  have to mess with that. I suck at soldering.

Onward we go.

During the holiday break I was basically stuck at home twiddling thumbs. I did a lot of stuff over that time but failed to take some photos so I'll update a bit more soon.

So I FINALLY spent time making space for the pivot pins to lock into the shortened shifter carrier. It took a chisel and 5 pound sledge to the trans tunnel bracket but they went in. Also had to kinda lift the front of the engine a bit and tilt the trans. It was a bit of trial and error finding the right spot but I think I got the hang of the movements needed to get it all together. I had planned to wait to do this until I pulled the engine and trans for some future work but figured it could be done in a couple hours.

I failed to take pics of what it looks like from underneath but the carrier bolts/clips back in place just like stock. Unfortunately the Kpower shifter linkage was just a bit too short to work with the setup. Because the carrier puts the shifter back up inside the cabin higher there's about a 1/2" or more needed to get a good neutral position. I kinda figured this would be required so I started cutting up the stock linkage. It took WAY longer than I anticipated to get all the length and angles right. A lot of that had to do with fitting the carrier and linkage just to test and then pull back apart 30 times. Also the stock shifter had the locating pin things opposing eachother but now that it's way shorter the best path forward was to keep them facing the same direction. This wasted a lot of my time but I really didn't want to get it all finished and have a crappy shifter feel.

Stock.

Stock no longer.

I had to shave one side a little for clearance but after getting it all back together I'm happy to report it all works. In fact the shifter feels better, less notchy, and so much smoother. It feels like it did stock. Which is what I wanted.

I was a bit disappointed that the vibration reduction wasn't has great as I had hoped as there is still some mainly at the firewall. The main change in vibration has been in the 3-4k range when climbing a grade or when that Vtec kicks in Yo! Not as much buzz of the reverse lockout, just a hair at certain RPM and very faint. Highway buzz at 75-80 mph in the shifter is gone. Now the shifter doesn't move under braking like it did before since it's no longer divorced from the trans. I think the carrier setup helps locate the trans more than I would have thought with the rearward mount keeping the trans from flopping over like it did before?

So all in all I feel the juice was worth the squeeze but it sure sucked getting there. Hopefully I can get some time in a parking lot checking to see if this will keep the trans buzz under tight high speed left handers. The part I notched on the Kpower trans mount may still need more clearance or I could try the STI trans mount again. I'd rather keep the stock setup though. Anyway I'm done rambling for now. More to come shortly.

Since I was stuck home all holiday due to my oldest having the flu, I had a lot of time to tinker. Originally I wanted to hold off on the larger 74mm throttle body but ended up finding a tuner willing to do some stuff in stages. Anyway, with a tuner locked it was time to party. A while back I bought the id1050x injectors to leave plenty of headroom for e85 plus the built bottom end, head, and cams. While messing with the TB it seemed like a good time to mess with injectors as well.

While messing with injectors I wanted to see if moving the fuel damper to the center port of the rail would clear the intake. This will allow me to mount either a gauge or fuel pressure sensor at the end of the rail. It fit perfect.

And.... TB is installed.

I guess I should back up a little. Originally I tried the TB with my Kpower map and idle was shooting to 3k or above. It could have been a slight gasket leak since the provided rubber one in the Kpower adapter kit didn't really cover or seal the surface well. In fact when torqued it looked like it was squishing the gasket out of the sealing area. Also the ID of the TB hole with the rubber gasket was too large of an opening. Anyway, I had some gasket paper laying around so I cut up a new gasket that had way better sealing surface. The car started back up again with the higher idle so I was getting a bit frustrated. After a quick call with the new tuner he said the current map could be preventing the TB to learn and to go forward with injectors to start his base map. So that's what I did.

After uploading the new map the car settled into an idle. It felt like super lumpy and rough. Sounded weird like it was missing or something. Since the tuner was remote he checked everything over and wasn't initially seeing anything wrong. I mentioned it has to be an injector or something so he went about testing each one until we found number 3 wasn't working at all. Damn. My bargain purchase wasn't looking to be much of a bargain anymore.

Luckily I had some RDX injectors though so I tossed them in.

Immediately the car settled into a smooth as silk idle. YEEHAW!!!

A little bit of tweaking on fuel mapping and I was off to doing some logs.

I searched far and wide that afternoon looking for one id1050x injector but it seemed like buying a whole new set made more sense. After a while I started searching to see if there was something I could do to revive the one I have. It was reading correct and equal ohms to all the other three so it seemed weird it wouldn't fire. I found a youtube video of a guy saying to lightly tap the injector while spraying some fluid through cycling with 12v. Sure enough the injector came right back to life. So the next morning I reinstalled the id1050x set and we are good to go.

We are still messing with some tuning but the car feels better. Low speed and decel are tons better. Idle is better. Smoother. All around super happy. We are about to add some e85 and see how that goes. Pretty stoked.

To think I was considering getting rid of this car earlier this year seems preposterous. Really glad I managed to work through the struggle cause this car is still so awesome and special to me.

Time to catch this one up a little. I've been just putting miles on the FRS again enjoying the lack of tinkering. There are still things I want to do but not in a rush. Well a couple weeks ago my TDI A3 Audi just stopped running and so the wife started driving the Montero while I kept driving the FRS. Exactly one week later my clutch pedal just went to the floor on my way to work in the FRS. For those keeping count that means I'm down to only one vehicle. WHAT THE FRICK!

So I noticed the clutch master fluid was getting dark a while back but didn't worry too much about it. I figured when I pull the engine to do the head/cams I could flush fresh fluid through. I guess waiting was a bad idea. At some point the seal blew from friction and built up pressure I would guess. Anyway I removed the slave planning to just swap them out at my work. I had installed a 3/4 slave initially for better pedal feel but decided to just go back to stock instead of buying another part. After removal I found that the fork was just flopping around clearly no longer clipped to the pivot nor the throwout bearing. Unfortunately the car was about 40 minutes away from home so I had to bribe a buddy to help me tow both the Audi and the FRS back to the house to get started on repairs. The trans needs pulled and I'd rather be able to diagnose/repair from the comfort of my garage.

After wrangling the trans out I found a broken pivot bolt. I assume this is from the added slave cylinder pressure but I guess could be just a week factory part that fatigued. It was brand new when installed.

I happened to have another pivot that was lightly used, some clips, and a couple new throwout bearings. The TO bearings are ones that came with the Exedy kit for factory replacement but aren't the updated part I'd like to have. These apparently didn't have enough of the proper grease for long term use, but in my case will hold up until my next service. So after welding on a nut to extract the pivot threads I noticed they were galled up pretty good. I decided it made sense to do a helicoil and loctite the thing in place. I felt pretty good getting it all back together, greased up where needed, and ready to install within an hour or so.

The pressure plate teeth looked to be in great shape so I left it and the clutch disc assembled to the flywheel. I probably should have removed to check but it felt great until the pivot let go so it seemed like more work. I'm lazy.

While the trans was out I kept noticing things that needed attention. One allen head for the adapter plate hidden by the bellhousing had gotten loose. The other allens took very little effort to loosen as well. So I removed one at a time to red loctite and retorque.

This strange indent on the bellhousing is what gave it away.

I also noticed the starter nose cone was touching the bellhousing. I don't know if this was from the loose bolt backing out (doubtful) or if it just was a tight fit. So I filed a little extra material on the bellhousing to give some breathing room. First pic below it's hard to see but on top of the nose cone you can where it was rubbing.

And here you can see the inner lip contact area. Not a big spot but let's just not touch here and call it good, am I right?

While checking bolts for torque I noticed some slight weeping of coolant hoses at the back of the head. I don't know what to do about the larger hose as it's snug as can be. I think the outlet needs to be slightly larger or the hose slightly smaller. I replaced this hose a while back for the same reason when I redid the heater core hose addition. I may have to get a little creative at some point.

I also noticed my added coolant line was weeping. Could be the clip but there's also a small crack in the hose. This hose was from the TSX donor so it has who knows how many miles. I'll be ordering a new hose and clamp to see if that fixes it before going to a worm drive.

Getting the trans out requires removing the header. Or at least I think without that added room it would be a royal pain in the ass. Anyway, when I pulled the header I found 3 small exhaust leaks at the flange of the header. The head seal was perfect. After looking at it a bit, it was obvious the flange was warped something terrible. I spent more time sanding this flat with a long 2x4 with sandpaper taped to it then I care to admit. It's not perfect but WAYYYYYYY flatter than it was before. So hopefully this seals it up. I also added some header/exhaust silicone to all other flange joints to seal up the other little leaks. None on flange.

After my fingertips were smooth as silk.

I've got a couple days back on the road with the clutch pivot fix. In the thrash to get stuff back together I didn't really snap as many pics or document the added little work done along the way so I'll just describe some of the work and let your imaginations run wild.

Oil change was done while up on blocks. Simple but satisfying.

The passenger side engine bracket provided from Kpower had clearance issues with the block in one spot. I found out about this after I had already dropped my engine into the bay but never checked to see if it affected me. With the header out I pulled the bracket and confirmed we have contact so a grinder sorted the protruding block material. Sorted.

When pulling just the trans, it needs to slide rearward obviously but the stock trans tunnel bracket is kinda in the way near the bolt locations. After wrestling it out using some force with a pry bar I decided to make install easier trimming a bit more material on both sides. With a little flapper wheel work it was good to go.

Since I have been using the shortened stock shifter I no longer have to use a trimmed shifter plate that the console would normally be screwed to. The Kpower kit requires you to cut off a bracket for their shifter plate, but this makes the console a bit wobbly and less secure. I think it also made NVH more noticable and transferred to the dash area. Anyway, I replaced the cut piece with a stock one and now the console is solid again. I didn't think it was that big of a deal but after having it back I wish I would have just made a bracket or modded the original one from the beginning to fit. Here's a pic of one that isn't cut. The two small holes on the left are what was cut off.

The front of the timing cover was covered in oil cosmoline again so I started wiping everything down looking for the leak point. Apparently the crank sensor bolt took a vacation and didn't come back. Luckily the oil seal held it in the cover but still allowed some oil out. I don't think it was causing any issues running but another bolt thrown in fixed the issue.

My passenger seat lever has been buzzing at idle and low RPM for quite a while. It's maddening. I would go a day or two without it being a problem but it seems most prevalent when it's cold outside. Anyway, after getting the car back together I decided to pull the seat and figure out a solution. I thought I could just dampen the buzz with felt where there's contact but because of the lever setup this wasn't possible. I ran to the parts store and found a carb spring kit in hopes I could rig somthing up. BINGO. I added one spring to keep tension on part of the lever that's hidden behind a cover at the top of the lever. No more noise and you can't see the fix at all from any position. Done.

Next was a dash buzz around the glove box. I replaced the glove box with a newer/used one in better shape but the sound persisted. While the seat was out I found that the lower section that the glovebox clips into has a metal backing bracket thing. It has just enough gap between the bracket and the lower portion of the dash to create the infamous buzz in low RPM mainly sitting idle at a stop light. So I wedged some felt between the two and I'm happy to say it's gone. Next!

The very front lip of the dash where it meets the windshield base has some foam that kinda takes up the difference when in place. Unfortunately maybe a combo of me removing the dash a few times, the vibes from the k24, or just age has allowed the dash in that spot to buzz. If I lightly place my hand on that spot the buzz goes away. So I took some foam used for HVAC gaps and slid it in where the stock stuff is adding just a little more in stack height. This gave it just enough pressure to hold the dash steady.

Driver side dash speaker plastic will buzz sometimes where it meets the A pillar trim. Not all the time but enough to be annoying when it does. I added some felt in some places before but it never seemed to fix the issue. Realizing that foam I used on the dash might be able to apply the needed pressure I cut a few small pieces to help take up the gaps and keep it solid. Heck yeah, we have an almost silent interior when at idle now!

All in all with the trans back in, and almost every annoying noise I could track down eradicated, I'm pretty happy with the car again. It's the little things that make it a better daily and these made a huge impact. I received the new jumper board to install the fuel pump relay, so that will get installed soon at some point. I'm not in a hurry to get under the dash again but it would be nice to just have it done. That's enough words for now. Ciao.

A little while back a fellow K swapper mentioned that ASM had some experience taming the vibrations on these for track. Andy found that the steel flywheels managed to hold the bolts in place much better than aluminum. Luckily I opted for steel but have seen some with aluminum suffer damage from bolts backing out. A Fluidampr or ATI crank pulley was also highly recommended. Then we noticed that for their track package an intake brace was added. Since I've already kinda checked off everything off the list but the intake brace, there was only one thing left to do. Make one.

Yesterday was actually just supposed to be a fact finding mission. Where will the brace bolt to, and what would it look like? Here's an ASM one which appears to be a modified stock brace with a tab welded on the motor mount. The bolt hole in the intake he's using, is a pipe thread originally when sent from Kpower. That port is for the IACV but they delete these for track work, so he must be tapping it for a metric thread. I happen to be using that port for a crankcase vent and since I'm not using the throttle cable bracket I have two bolt holes tapped and ready for use.

I looked around under the intake looking for a simple solution for the bracket. Welding a tab onto the Kpower engine mount bracket could be done but there happened to be a threaded boss on the block unused. So I tied a bit of string to both to see what kinda length and angles we were looking at.

I had some 3/4 steel tubing laying around in the scrap pile long enough to connect the dots. Originally I planned to weld the tube to some flat stock but figured maybe some vice squishing and drilling holes could do the trick. I managed to make something work on the first try.

After a coat of paint it got chucked back in place to stare at. Looks pretty good if I say so myself, and best yet it's easily removed for any service. I don't if it's going to do a lot of vibration reduction but I think supporting the heavy intake from the bottom side can't be a bad idea.

I'm scratching my head in wonder over that.  Ummm....  the intake manifold vibrates?  You have to support a solid piece of hard mounted aluminum with a brace?  And that solid, hard piece of metal bracing that solid, hard piece of other metal is going to keep it from vibrating?  Ummm......

In reply to docwyte :

Probably alters the resonance, not keep it from vibrating but moving to a different point outside of the working envelope of the engine. 

Take what I said with a grain of salt, I took vibrations 20 years ago. 

docwyte said:

I'm scratching my head in wonder over that.  Ummm....  the intake manifold vibrates?  You have to support a solid piece of hard mounted aluminum with a brace?  And that solid, hard piece of metal bracing that solid, hard piece of other metal is going to keep it from vibrating?  Ummm......

ASM has a ton of experience with the k24 swap in the s2K chassis and found this useful. Plucked directly from an article GRM posted a week or two ago on their SuperK build: CLICK ME

“We had issues with throttle bodies falling apart, sensors failing and intake manifolds cracking,” says Smedegard. “With the K24 having a longer stroke, it made a lot of harmonics, especially the higher you rev it. Most places that make intake manifolds don’t set their manifolds to be braced back to the engine–you just mount it to the mounting flange, and that’s it. We braced the intake manifold, which greatly reduced a lot of the harmonics that the throttle body sees and the sensors mounted on the intake manifold.”

With that said, the factory k24 had an intake brace. The Kpower intake isn't lighter, so it stands to reason that an intake brace would be a solid idea. Whether or not the one I made will do what the factory one does is the only thing I can't really confirm.

It's been a while for an update.

As mentioned a while back, the Audi turbo went boom in February, and sat for months while I made up my mind how I'd like to move forward. Of course then the clutch pivot on the FRS snapped and a frantic fix ensued.

The Montero I bought a couple months before that became the wife's daily since the Audi was out of commision, but it wasn't the best for that at all. The coolant system was getting air from places I was slowly tracking down but this meant terrible heater capability. Ughhh. Not ideal while we are under heavy winter conditions.

So we spent a month saving up for a down payment on a brand new car for her. The used market is complete crap right now. New was the only thing that made sense. So we got her a nice AWD 2.5 Mazda Cx5 mid March and it took a huge weight off my shoulders. MASSIVE relief. A week after we got the Cx5 the Montero blew a headgasket while I was putting around town. Super glad it wasn't while the wife was driving. Sold that box of Pajero crap a few days later AS IS and felt amazing getting it out of my hair. I haven't documented any of the work I did on it, but there was a lot of maintenance and tinkering done. It turned out to not be the deal I thought it was. It also reminded me why I hate working on older vehicles anymore.

A month later I decided to pull the trigger on a new vehicle for myself as well. The FRS as a daily has gotten a bit stale so time to change things up a bit. I was originally planning to get a Tacoma but ever since the new Bronco info was released I've really just wanted to get one. The idea of spending that kind of coin up front on a vehicle is nauseating but I think I'm finally at a point where I'm okay with a small monthly payment. Something with a warranty. Something I just turn the key or push the button and drive. I also realized every time I've owned a truck I NEVER used it for truck stuff. The Bronco probably isn't the best decision between the two but I don't care. I just wanted one.

After a month of searching I found a 2022 Black Diamond Bronco in Area 51 color. It was $500 under MSRP in Spencer Wisconsin and the best deal I could find nationwide in the spec I wanted. A 2.3 4 door to be exact. I tried like hell to find a base model 4 door with Sasquatch package but everyone wants so much over MSRP it didn't make sense financially. It's been a few weeks of commuting with it to work and I haven't moved the FRS an inch for the most part. I love this thing. Small plans are in motion for a slight OEM suspension and wheel package upgrade but staying pretty stock for the most part. Famous last words.

With the Bronco here I now had to start thinning the herd. We originally planned to keep the Audi for my youngest when she turns 16 in a couple years but having it sit for the next 2 years while paying insurance doesn't make sense. So I ordered up all the goodies to put turbo dumpty back together again. I really didn't want to do the work, so it took a few weekends of me taking my sweet time to get it all wrapped up. It came alive first turn of the key and drove like it was all brand new again. Lots of other maintenance done at the same time since it was at the 120k mark. Timing belt, water pump, trans service, oil change, etc. I listed the car for sale Monday of this week and sold it that evening. Another huge weight off my shoulders.

So what to do with the FRS? Keep it? Sell it?

I still need to install the fuel pump relay setup.

Fix the oil pan dipstick issue which probably means pulling the engine/trans unless I decide to drop the front subframe with support from above. It's due for an oil change so I'd hate to stretch it out another 3k miles.

The clutch started feeling sticky again like it did before the pivot let go a couple months ago which is alarming.

I sold off the 4Piston head, Drag Cartel cams, pistons/rods, etc. so no engine build on the horizon.

Quite frankly I'm afraid this might be the beginning of the end for it. I haven't wanted to go to autocross or track stuff at all lately. Most of my time has been spent at the climbing gym or out riding bikes. I also started climbing outdoors recently which opens up a whole new way to spend my time that doesn't cost a few hundred bucks each time I go out like the FRS does. For now I'm not making any real decision. I'm going to take a break from tinkering over the summer and drive the FRS on a nice day here and there if it works out. Maybe by fall I'll know what to do. No rush.

I really like the Bronco. Hows the soft top with the cold weather?

I can totally understand selling everything and just simplifying life.