Carbon Signaled out that is.

I was planning on making a post after I got my car back this weekend, but as with most car modding related activities things got delayed. So here I am at home on a Friday night with not much else to do while the kiddos sleep..

As many of may know, there aren't too many options when it comes to body kit parts for the V36 sedan. My goal when selecting my kit was to find something that would be different than the usual OEM lip and yet not too drastic like the black bison kit. Also, since my car is an '07 I wanted to keep it looking like an '07 and not try to do the '10+ conversion which limited the choices even more.

After following and drooling over docaam's sedan thread over the past 2 years, I decided that the Carbon Signal kit would be what I was after. I first contacted them to inquire about their products back in October of last year, communications went back and forth through email until about February of this year. I'm not sure how many vendors would put up with the amount of incessant questions and changes of mind/heart as I have had. I think that is a testament to the type of product and service they strive to provide to the community.

We eventually worked out the details, my parts were made in about 3 weeks, and then shipped. Since Carbon Signal is from Dubai the shipping rates are not something to scoff at. I believe they have worked out an arrangement with CZP to help lower shipping costs as needed, but with that option the shipping time takes longer.

Seeing how I am just a big kid with the "DO WANT NAO!" mentality, I opted for the more expensive expedited route. Overnight parts from Dubai would pull a premium one week before race wars..



Everything came tightly packed in some funny looking cardboard, I thought perhaps some things were missing. It seems that the shipping cost is volumetric hence the decision to wrap them this way.



Luckily everything was there: CF Spec IN Lip, CF V1 Side Skirts, CF Rear Diffuser, and V3 Duckbill Spoiler.





I brought my car to the body shop the day after receiving the kit to get it installed and fix my bacon fender pull that I did the week before (a long story ).

I was told it would take a week, but that has turned into two weeks as my body guy misunderstood that I wanted to mold the spoiler to the trunk.

I asked him his opinion on the kit after working with it for a week. He said the fitment of the parts is good and that so far he hasn't had to do too many adjustments. He did need to do some work on the side skirts, but that is more because of my bacon fender pull and the fact that my car has been in a few accidents previously (another long story ).


Luckily my fenders won't be bacon anymore!




That's all I've got for now, to be continued when I actually have the car back..

04/15/2014:
I stopped by the body shop today, everything appears to be coming together. The car is was supposed to go into paint today, hopefully not too much longer!

Molded Carbon Signal V3 Duckbill spoiler:



04/17/1014:
Picked it up last night, have to get my muffler hangers extended. Hopefully I can get someone to take pics soon..



04/18/1014:
I went to a local Team SGZ meet yesterday and WARAT took some impromptu pics.

Thanks WARAT!











4/27/2014:
The sun decided to come out a bit today while I was out and about.



5/17/2014:
Had a little photoshoot today. This is from my Lumia 1020 - can't wait for the real pics!



5/19/2014:
Mayday! Mayday! Save Our Sedan!




8/20/2014:
I thought it was time to keep this thread going.

I think this is really a build thread now. May I kindly ask a mod to move it to the Build Threads section for me?

Anyway, back in June I went to help a friend with a flat tire.


I thought it was a good day since we eventually got him on the road.
But when I got on the highway and was about halfway back to work my lip decided to fall off at 70mph.
It was now apparent that the shop had improperly installed the lip..



I contacted Carbon Signal for a replacement lip a couple of weeks later, but things happened on both of our ends and my replacement ended up getting delayed.
So I decided to take the opportunity to waste (as my wife puts it) more $$ and do the 10+ Sport conversion.

I started ordering parts a 2-3 weeks ago and it has been like Christmas everyday!


Still waiting on things, then this came. $17 to ship? No way!


Although I didn't use them for my project, I still want to give a shout out to ONEighty for pushing the headlight mod envelope and continually supporting our community!
When I first saw ONEighty do a grille with the color matched perimiter (and subsequently Rochester's), I knew that was the route I would go if I ever decided on changing the front.

Of course I had to get an emblemless grille made though! Painted and waiting on the headlight mods.


Next, I wanted to do the panamera retrofit. I haven't seen anyone do it on the sedan so I wasn't quite sure if it would work out.
I spent some time wrapping some parts of the shrouds because a) I have never wrapped anything before and b) I hoped it would look pretty nice.


Not too bad, but I wasn't sold on the look so I decided to see how it looked painted. I tried yellow at first.


But, by themselves I thought they looked too obnoxious. I originally did my G35 shrouds a gunmetal/black scheme so I ended up doing the same again.


Halo test.


My old housings I did gloss black, but I tried VHT Black Pearl for the new ones.


After test fitting the shroud, I found that it is too long and doesn't sit flush with the STI-R lens.


I had to cut 1/2" off the shroud to get it to sit flush.


Both lights sealed up. Since the shrouds were cut down, you can't even see any of the wrap so all that time/energy was wasted.
Oh well, at least I can say I have wrapped something before.


Wiring everything up was a little of a painful process. I truly hate automotive wiring.
All the damn mosquitoes that swarmed into my garage didn't help either.


Lights on. When I was cleaning up I dropped a wrench on the bumper that left a nice chip.. I need to get it fixed.






In the wild.


Waiting for what's next..


Until next time!

8/29/2014:
Ah finally, after 3 months..





Deja Vu. Carbon Signal Spec IN Lip Part Deux!






10/31/2014:
Halloween Peak-A-Boo


10/16/2014:
Well, it is a few months later.. I ordered my new custom plates (and some other things ) last week.

I shared this in the 'What did you do to your G today?' thread but thought I should bump my 'build' as well.



What is this..? I don't even..

 

12/2/2014:
Just posting a minor update for now.

I put my seats in finally.


I am also starting to horde some second hand parts in preparation of 'the build':
Southbend Stage 3.5 DXD Clutch
Southbend Billet Aluminum Flywheel
Z1 34 Row Oil Cooler
Aeromotive 340lph Fuel Pump
Z1 Urethane Motor Mounts


CSF Triple Pass Radiator ordered on Black Friday and got it yesterday (the following Monday)!


Also got these SPL Adjustable Front Endlinks which aren't part of 'the build' but still part of the build..


I should have some more boxes to look at next week..

12/6/2014:
Got my Zspeed HD CSC, OEM master, SS insulated line, white line diff bushings, and some fluids.


Also got notification of some other brown boxes coming..


12/9/2014:
I got some boxes just now..


12/19/2014:
Some weight reduction going on.



12/20/2014:
Here is everything I loaded into the car before I went to the shop, almost didn't fit.



And some snails on a table.



12/23/2014:
Quarantined for heart surgery.

Edit: Thanks to GoFightNguyen for the pic!



2/2/2015:
Stopped by the shop this past weekend. Block going out for final bore and hone then things will start rolling like "a snowball".

Two more weeks at worst I am told, but I'm going to take it as meaning at best.




2/8/2015:
Assembly to start next week. ETA 2 weeks and I should be driving her again.




2/18/2015:
Even JTran Motorsports is stoked and releasing teasers now!




2/21/2015:
Soon..



2/24/2015:
Just FYI if anyone gets the AAM EFR TT kit and wonders about fitting the Turbosmart Kompact Shortie Dual Port blow off valves.

The passenger side will not fit without modifications to the mount. However, the driver side doesn't seem to have any clearance issue.



2/27/2015:
Black and brown or silver and orange?



2/28/2015:
Soon Pt 2.



3/5/2015
Soon Pt. 3


3/6/2015:
Yessir have a Z1 34 row. This is what it looked like yesterday afternoon, should be firing it up tomorrow morning!



3/7/2015:
First start this morning.


3/10/2015:
To what lies ahead. Picture by Michael Orlando of Proper Garage



3/11/2015:
Good news: Fit the oil cooler behind the bumper!
Bad news: Cut the foglights out for more airflow

I'm going to have to find some mesh to cover all the open spaces now as it looks quite bare. I also realize that the highway construction I drove through everyday pitted up my bumper up and I will need to get it repainted.

Overexposed so you can see the oil cooler:


3/12/2015:
I got to scoot it around the parking lot yesterday.






childstar absolutely killing it these days though. Mad props to him!

Updates continue on post #7

 

Subscribed. Please keep the pics and info coming

 

Looking forward to seeing this completed.

 

That's going to be awesome, love the look of the molded spoilers, what a nice difference that makes. Now that you're off the Bacon, what's for breakfast??

 

Nice, keep updating

Can't wait to see it all done.

 

4/5/2015:
So for the last 3.5 weeks or so my car has been in lingo because it was creating huge plumes of smoke and spewing oil out of the turbos into the downpipes at idle. If you look back at the childstar pictures and video you should notice it.



This was quite puzzling and frustrating for Ron (the mad scientist behind the build) as he, in his opinion, did one of the best jobs he has ever done on the VQ platform. He triple and quadruple checked everything and came to the conclusion that I had a bad set of turbos. We spent a good 2 weeks or so trying to get AAM's assistance in solving the issue. Unfortunately those efforts didn't culminate.

Eventually Johnny (owner of the shop and the tuner) said he thought it was the oil return lines. The way the system is designed the oil return lines are gravity fed into the oil pan spacer. His theory was that at idle the oil was sloshing around the top and just sitting at the bottom of the pan which meant that gravity was not enough to push the oil in the return lines through the stagnant oil at the bottom of the pan. He recommended we try a Turbowerks Exa-Pump to scavenge the oil out of the return lines and push it through. This is the pump that they use on their low mount turbo kits and even though they usually haven't needed to run any scavenge pumps on TT kits before he thought this would surely solve my issue.

As much as I respect the knowledge and wisdom of Ron's 20+ years of experience in building racecars, a part of me was praying that the turbos were not bad and that we could get the car up and running so I told them to go ahead and try the Exa-Pump. Also, at this point AAM was not being very helpful beyond telling us that they have installed over 20 kits with no smoking issues.

I felt like this was the 'last chance' to get the car running and not having to pull everything out. That was a headache none of us wanted to experience.

While the Exa-Pump was on order, Johnny started piecing together my new exhaust. As much as I loved the Ark exhaust I felt 2.5" piping would become a hindrance to the build in the future and wanted to do a 3" exhaust.

Magnaflow 3" in/3" out X muffler




One thing I did keep from the Ark exhaust were the tips, I love them too much. I may have the resonators cut off and put on as well in the future.


Earlier this week the Exa-Pump came in and was installed. Fingers were crossed and the car was started with absolutely no smoking at all!


Finally after weeks the car was up and running! All is good right? Let's give it a few revs to make sure.. But after a few revs the car had no throttle response... Murphy's law all over my build!

Out comes the parts to start the diagnosis.


Turns out the timing chain skipped a tooth.. The tensioner was 90k miles old so it may have just given up.


The next few days and yesterday morning were spent putting everything back together..

I want to back up for a moment now and say that my friends over at Mayday Garage had an exhibition/car show called Rice Bowl planned for 4/4/2015 (yesterday). When they were planning the event back in January they had asked me to have my car present to which I gladly agreed. I had let Jtran know that I really wanted to make this event to help support my friends in their first endeavor. However, Ron and his meticulous nature is not one to be rushed and will tell you to eff off if you try to rush him.

Thanks to the past 5 months I fully understand that builds of this caliber take time and gladly accepted that my car was not going to make it to the event. So what if I miss my friend's first show right? I know they will be successful and there will always be a next one.

Anyway, yesterday at about 9am we were pouring liquids in and about to start the car again. It felt like deja vu as we were doing these exact same things a month before.


The second 'first start' with no smoking!

At this point Johnny turns to me and says "Once we button this up, I'm putting it on the dyno for your base tune and you are going to the show."

Wait, what!?



On the dyno getting it's base tune.

This is a low boost base tune only, once I have broken the motor in and gotten a few more things for my fuel system I will be switching to E85 and seeing what she can really do.


By this time it was 12:25pm and everyone had already rolled into the show which was to open to the public at 2:00pm. I had to call my friends and beg them to hold the gate open for me to bring the car in. They said if I could be there in 40 minutes they would hold the gate.

The car went out front for a quick wash by chreeno with even Amber helping out!


We didn't even dry the car, I just hopped in it with my friend and high tailed it to the show. We arrived at exactly 1:45pm, only 15 minutes before the doors opened.




I'm so ecstatic right now that I can't stop smiling.

I want to thank everyone at the Jtran Motorsports family from the bottom of my heart for putting in so much work and effort into this project.

4/11/2015:
Weekly checkup and playing with pop pops.


Getting wet this past Saturday


4/22/2015:
Bad news: My SCG-1 boost controller/wideband is malfunctioning so I had to remove it to RMA.
Good news: Got retuned off wastegate pressure. Made less WHP but gained about 40 WTQ until the wastegate cut in. This means motor is almost done breaking in!

Blue line is the last highest run, red line is today's last run.


My tuner took it for a road test:

4/30/2015:
My GoPro came in and I took a few videos on the way to work today.


5/4/2015:
Saturday morning I drove through a shoot my friend was doing and he was nice enough to take a few snaps.





Then in the afternoon I went to a friend's baby shower, of course he wanted to see how the car runs. We took it around the neighborhood but couldn't even get onto the highway because I broke the driver side axle turning onto the frontage road..





Luckily it happened early enough in the day that I was able to get the car towed to Jtran and they were able to get me back on the road the same day!



5/22/2015:
I got my Innovate SCG-1 back from warranty work and am scheduled to get the car retuned tomorrow. Here's goes the hope for decent high boost numbers!



5/13/2015:
Just got back from tuning. We ended up at 13psi and a tune that Johnny feels is safe. The car didn't make much more whp, but made almost 100 more wtq with the 3psi bump.

It looks like I will have to switch to E85 if I want to go any further. For now I will enjoy the car and wait for CJM's HR rails so I can upgrade the fuel system even more.


93 octane - Wastegate Pressure (7-8 psi) vs 13psi


93 octane - Baseline/Break-In (10-11 psi) vs 13psi


5/27/2015:
Houston had a problem.. Thankfully it didn't get too much higher, I only have some damp carpets near a few of my entry ways.



6/2/2015:
Thanks all, my house is still livable so I still count my blessings.

Speaking of which, I just received and installed my one off custom pillars from 3Gs Customs!



Updates continue on post #10

 

sub'd

cant wait for updates

 

Really cool. Keep us updated!

 

6/5/2015:
^ Well the gauges were necessary, the pillars maybe aren't necessary but it makes the gauges not as 'in your face' as they used to be.

How they were mounted temporarily:


Another picture so you can see the whole custom pillar:


I guess as the build has come together the things inside the cabin and under the hood have taken an 'OEM quality' theme. For instance, if you look under the hood I don't think it looks like anything extravagent is going on:



I still have much more left on my to do list, but I am trying to just enjoy the car when I can.

6/24/2015:
Not much has changed in the past few weeks, I've just been driving and enjoying the car. This is really the only mod that has happened. Sorry it's the blurriest picture ever though!



Another picture just in from my brother practicing with his new Sony A7




7/13/2015:
Random things that have been installed in the past few weeks:






Also things that are piling up for 'Phase 2' which I'm hoping will start in a few months:




7/22/2015:
^ I've been waiting for your group buy on them! Can't you see the canvas is blank waiting for the GTR badge?

Speaking of which, here is a video from a friend's car last month of my brother and I playing around.


8/5/2015:
In the past few weeks my Southbend Stage 3 Endurance clutch had started slipping in the higher gears. I called Southbend and I was told that the clutch should hold around 480 torque... At the flywheel! I'm at 525 wheel torque so it slipping is kind of to be expected, it did hold pretty well the last 4+ months though. On top of that my transmission, which has 94k miles, has started grinding in 5th gear and 6th gear. This isn't a total surprise considering how much power the car puts out now, but it wasn't an issue that I was anticipating to happen. I called a local salvage yard to get a used transmission and they delivered it within a few hours!



But, that means my car will be going back to the shop very soon. Luckily, I have obtained most of the parts for my next phase (including those already posted):



Special thanks to phunk for the first ever CJM Stage 3 Fuel Return System for HR motors, as well as the picture!


Since this is happening sooner than I was planning there are two things that I wanted to get but I just can't afford them when the transmission is thrown into the mix. I guess those will have to wait until next year or so, hopefully this is enough to tide me over until then!

8/9/2015:
To Infiniti..


8/19/2015:
Buttoned up and ready to go to OK / FD in Fort Worth this weekend.






Side note: The heat has turned my lawn orange!

8/21/2015:
^ I usually try not to say this, but I think this is one of the "looks better in person" situations. Seeing the CF from the vents and the lip from 5 feet away really does make a difference!

I was testing my new differential at the shop earlier.


9/5/2015:
My first time ever to the drag strip tonight. My best time for the night was:






I think that run was 12.7, I need to learn how to launch better without spinning first and second. I'm sure better tires and/or drag radials would help.

Edit: Inside my very first run. I didn't even know where to line up hah
Here is another video from the inside where I got toasted by a bad **** truck on drag radials. He ran a 12.5 and I ran a 12.6. To add insult to injury my passenger got kicked out! Hopefully I can learn how to launch the car properly at the strip.


9/24/2015:
Switched earlier than anticipated, will still shoot for those numbers in the winter though!

Stopped here for today, hopefully I will have time to write up more details this weekend:


9/25/2014:
Here's the video that I've been spamming.


9/28/2015:
Ok back to my adventures which lead up to the dyno..

One thing I forgot to mention in the most recent posts is that the used transmission I got from the salvage yard, which was put in with my new clutch, actually grind 5th gear as well!

I was told it had 'only 40k miles' - another testament to the 'do it right the first time' lesson that all us modders constantly struggle with.. Luckily the salvage yard would take the transmission back, however the time and money spent on installation and removal is lost..

I used a bit of my time delivering transmissions here and there to ensure things kept moving along smoothly.

My original 99k mile transmission was delivered as a core:


Then the used transmission was returned to the salvage yard:


And finally the expensive 'do it right the first time' lesson that I consistently struggle with (major props to David for hooking it up!) :


Pretty much a brand new car now:


Since I didnt 'need' my car back right away I decided to finally go ahead with the install of my CJ Motorsports Stage 3 RFS.


Turned out this was one of the best decisions I have made, because when we pulled the plugs one of them looked like this:


I was waiting to install the upgraded fuel system before I switched to E85 and this sign was also added to the list of reasons.

I always wanted a peep hole in my cover:


The beautiful CJM in tank twin fuel pump module:


Only to be not seen:


Ron ended up modifying some of the design and not using most of the hard pipe, but overall it came out quite clean:


The old AAM Stage 0 RFS:


That leads up to the last video where the car was filled with E85 and put on the dyno:


I picked it up the next day and did what anyone would do:



I got owned by a fast evo:

I am 289 on the left:


And that's all for now, hopefully I will get to go back with some better tires soon! Now with 9.5 mpg:

 

10/21/2015:
Haven't been doing too much lately besides driving and maintenance.

As mentioned above I broke an axle at the track 3 weeks or so ago. The day after I noticed that the axle wasn't the only thing that broke. I guess QuikSteel just wasn't enough to hold the shroud in place:


Took things apart and epoxied the shroud back in place after rebaking the headlight again:


Then replaced the axle since the car was on stands:


This past weekend was Wekfest so I went to support Houston's Mayday Garage who hosted the premeet:


Then showed during Wekfest:



Took home this little guy:


Truly am humbled that the vision is appreciated since the car isn't slammed/stanced like many of the other cars that were showing. Probably will be my last car show for awhile as 2016 is when I hope to really beat the **** out of the car on the track.

11/2/2015:
Almost started off badly.. But it came around.



11/21/2015:
Nothing has really changed as I'm still waiting on the DSS axles to be made. They are supposed to ship soon, but with Thanksgiving next week I'm not holding my breath.

In the meantime, I just got back from a 2 week vacation in Japan. What's a better way to say "Welcome Home" than to take the "Show Car" to the track?

Shout out to Z Club of Houston and Houston Zs for hosting an awesome track day at Motorsports Ranch in Angleton, TX!






Here are some more pictures:







11/30/2015:
Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!

I'm still waiting on my DSS axles, this must be the longest I've waited for an order in quite awhile!

While there are still quite a few things on my list to get for my car, I decided to splurge on something else and start a new hobby instead of things for my car:



Naturally it is the hobby of taking car pictures! No more potato pictures from me! This probably could've been my new track wheel setup, but I can also use it for other things like taking pictures of the family..

My friends were having their cars "shot" so I decided to bomb their shindig and take my own pictures




12/3/2015:
Weather was nice today - Sunny with a High of 62 degrees - so I took the car up to Jtran Motorsports and got the final E85 tune. I say final because the Borgwarner EFR6758 turbos will not make anymore than 21 PSI with the medium actuators that come with the AAM TT kit. Because of this we are basically out of boost control and have also ran out of room on the ID1000s.

So that means my power mods are pretty much done. Now the mods to put the power down and handle it will commence in 2016 while I track test and tune!

Big props to the Jtran Motorsports family!








12/14/2015:
Royal Purple Raceway was having it's last open Friday night of the year this past weekend. I'm still waiting on my DSS axles which I paid for back on Oct 7th, but I couldn't resist the itch to go back.

I babied the starts so that I wouldn't break another axle, basically rolled off 1st like I do when I drive the car to work.




To my surprise my 60' was only 3/10ths worse than when I was trying to launch the car and just spun. Considering the best time for the night I got wasn't too far off from my previous best time, the car is definitely quicker!


If/when my DSS axles ever come I have a small remedy for my traction issues in the form of a different set of wheels/tires for the rear:


Also this past Sunday the Z Club of Houston | Houston Z's had a Christmas Party x Dyno Day @ Jtran Motorsports which I just had to stop by!


12/19/2015:
Learning to camera with Meagan Lee Bryan









12/28/2015:
Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

My axles finally came and went in at Jtran last week:



I got a pair of Gramlight 57xtreme 18x10.5 +40 rear wheels a few weeks ago for a steal and mounted 295/35/18 Nitto NT05s on them as these will be for my track/drag days:





I'm going to need to get a matching pair for the front now, but for my immediate quarter mile goals just the rear should be fine.

I've never done a burnout in this car before and didn't want to be a complete noob at the drag strip and stall so I had to practice hooning of course:

Lastly, I have been trying to learn how to use my camera and edit more. My brother and I took our cars to take pictures the day after Christmas:




I think this is probably my best attempt yet:


Edit: Many have asked how the cars stack up, here is some Mexico highway fun. (Note: Watch the RPM go to redline)

Hope everyone has a great holiday!

2/21/2016:
My first ever attempt at light painting.



Updates continue on post #21

 

I like that front lip. A lot. The rest... not so much. Cool car overall, OP.

 

FUH!! Now I feel like I have to buy a duckbill and have it molded on. Looks so clean!

 

I need that front lip and I needed it yesterday. Car looks awesome, man.

 

Nicely put together OP!