At last I had some time to work on my baby again. I have spend 12hours of working on it. Here are some pics and details...

Main goal was get rid of this stupid part. Big enemy of all engines and pony-killer Yes... cat.



I got replacement pipe from Blitz (so plug and play and proved solution). What a surprise was for me was I need to strip almost half of engine to unbolt it . So I decided to do more tasks at once. Because:

- to remove down-pipe heat shield is needed to remove charge cooler
- to have more space there you need to remove radiator
- to get to bolt on the back side you need to remove alternator... OMG!

So... since CC was removed...



...I have made few tweaks on it. Covered bottom side with heat shield, cleaned it inside and installed it back bit higher than stock position is (to let more air flow under it)





Than... since radiator was removed...



...I have replaced it with Koyo radiator and cleaned and painted fans a bit .





And... since I have removed alternator (and coolant was already bleeded)...



...I hat a lot of space for thermostat replacement (TRD one... sorry I have no pics ). Plus like a bonus I have painted heat shield, installed A'PEXi intake and added few more HP using few inches of real Samco hose . here are results:









Suspension will be next

This post has been edited by malpaso: May 16, 2010 - 9:10 AM

Looking good Mr Martin

Looks like quite hard work removing all that! And that is probably the shortest Samco hose i ever saw

Good stuff Martin, as always. Are you going for coilovers? I've always wanted to see you do something with your suspension, it's the only part of the car that you haven't touched.

how much space is there between the valve cover and the bottom of the w2a intercooler? i have this really good insulation that was used for insulating my garage door that basically looks like bubble wrap with a heat reflecting inner and outer layer. if i ever get a 3s i was thinking of wrapping the entire i/c and heat shield with it TTE style..

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There already was some space and I have raised it for 10mm (0.4inch).

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Coilovers really are in my list. But not fpr SSS. I really plan remove Super Strut and use McPherson suspension. I have prepared swaybars and bushings, endlinks are on the way as well. So I will start with rear and when have some more money will continue with front as well.

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Thank you Luke. I really do not understand why is downpipe that hard to remove... 1/3 of the time was just about removing downpipe.

This post has been edited by malpaso: May 16, 2010 - 12:53 AM

nice ditching the cat, spooling much faster?

best of luck with your SS to McPhearson suspension conversion, are you going to run Tein again?

great first steps Martin