Added some more carbon fiber trim in the cockpit.
I wired in some convenience LEDs in the trays, in the pockets, in the glovebox, and in the center console. In the pic, I drilled 3 holes above the cubby, then taped the leds to the inside of the plastic console piece. Then I added small holes in the pockets, and did the same with LEDs there and the glovebox.
This is how the wire is routed and attached to the pockets:
Dartlene and I won our first car show in St. Charles, IL!! “Best Looking / Best Lights”
Latest mod attempt is white LED DRLs. I bought a set from Derek, and I’ve got them working on the turn signal circuit with resistor, but mine doesn’t like the resistor on the DRL, for some reason. I’ve been experimenting all weekend, and there is no reason it’s doing such weirdness. When I put the 50w 6 ohm resistor inline with the turn signals, it stops the fast blink, and no errors. When I put the resistor on the other (DRL) line, it shuts off the DRL and side turn signal lights – too much load, I’m guessing. Strange, as the only other thing I have running is switchbacks connected to the turn signal power, which is fine.
Last ditch effort, I put an led strip under the hood, attached to the DRL to increase the load. I drove 10+ miles through the city, with only one error, and that was 30 seconds after starting the drive, at a light.
Prior, it only happened when my lights were on, and randomly at that. On the way to the car show, and back home, I had a ton of errors. I’m going to keep testing, and I may add another led strip to the other side, for added load. I still get the error on startup, only.
Best/last mod of the year! woot woot!! (for real, this time)
My new sink trap!
RRM High Flow Catted Downpipe Review:
I got a good deal on the DP on Cyber Monday, and it went under the tree “from my wife” for Christmas. The recording studio is pretty slow at the end of the year after Christmas, so I had some time to borrow some jack stands & jack and installed the Catted Downpipe. The part is stainless steel, so it looks amazing, the welds were solid, and it fit perfectly. At first, I loosely bolted it to the exhaust and tried to put the clamp back on to the turbo, but it was too difficult to get a tight seal. I recommend loosely bolting the top clamp first, and then tighten up the bottom bolts to the exhaust and mounting plate. I was not able to re-use the factory heat shield, as there were no mounting tabs on the new downpipe. It could still be bolted at the top, but my guess is that you may hear the heat shield flapping around in the engine bay. It looks pretty sweet without the cover, but I may get some (orange) heat wrap for it, instead of the cover. I’m not sure if that would accomplish the same thing, but they are only $23 on ebay.
First thing I did was start it up, and damn, does it sound nice! It’s very similar to the straight piped exhaust, but has a deeper tone, but gets more aggressive as the RPM goes up. At idle, it’s only a few decibels louder, but when you step on the throttle, it opens up and sounds MEAN!! I took my foster daughter to the suburbs on the highway, and she noticed it right away – she told me the car sounds “sexy as Hell.” When it starts, especially in the brick garage, it sounds BIG! Everyone is usually surprised when I tell them it’s only a 1.4L.
I did three engine cycles right away, and no CEL. Checked the pending codes as well, and the car was happy. I simply used the factory O2 sensor, which attached perfectly to a connection on the new dp.
As far as local, city driving, the turbo now spools earlier, under 2000 RPM, instead of 22-2300 RPM. The turbo used to hit like a brick wall at that rate, but now it comes on much smoother. I wasn’t digging in, at first, and I was monitoring levels and listening to the change in exhaust sound. It got much raspier as the RPM went up a bit, and turned a few heads, as well. My turbo used to hit hard, but then seemed to die down a bit over 3500 rpm, and the most turbo boost felt (butt dyno) was at 2200-2400 RPM. Now, however, it comes on smooth at 2000 RPM and feels strong all the way up to redline! I did a few 0-60 runs getting on the highway, but I have some practicing to do. I thought the traction control should be off, but I was spinning all over the place, and couldn’t get a decent time.
A few weeks after the installation, I do get a pending P0420 alert, and doesn’t go full CEL until 20+ miles highway driving, quicker if driving aggressively. I did buy an O2 spacer, but haven’t put it on, yet. I will report back, once I do that.
*update 01/19/2016
Little update, this morning the CEL went away on its own. Ironic, as I was on my way to the muffler shop to add the spacer. I deleted the factory 18″ resonator, as it wasn’t really doing much anyway, and I had a larger diameter (2.5″) resonator installed. It’s still 18″ but a bit more efficient, and sounds more growly, instead of raspy and harsh. In addition, I’m a music producer/engineer, so my listening is also critical in my ride – this was a great mod, IMO.
Anyway, the CEL for P0420 went away, but then I had a pending P0139 code – no CEL. As Jimmy was putting on the resonator, i asked if he would pop the O2 spacer on for me, which he did. I was feeling far too lazy to jack up the car, lose the belly pan and fight with it on the cold garage floor in -10º F weather. It was well worth the $10.00 to me.
So far, I have no CEL – I will update later, after 100 miles, or so.
Here are some pics of the RRM High Flow Catted DP – I forgot to add them with the review:
50 miles or so – the cheap $15 O2 spacer worked fine – no CEL, no pending codes.
O2 Spacer: (from BigDaddiesGarage.com)
Everyone needs spinners on their subwoofer, right? This sub hits a lot harder than most imagine, due to it’ efficient design. It bounces the audio off the back of the car, allowing a longer wavelength in the cabin, producing more low end without the added weight. #audionerd
I later added a three-way switch (on-off-on constant) for the grill for car shows, etc. 
This is how you make your car wear sunglasses! Dragon Eyes, by dragon laminates. www.dragonlaminates.com You can find this specific product here.
FYI – these are the “neo-silver” color on the website, and they say it affects the headlight output the least, and barely noticeable on light output.
“Will your films change the headlight output color?
In short yes, it varies and also depends on the customer’s selection. On some of our films, such as our NEO Silver Dragon Eyes, the amount of color change at a minimal and will shine mostly white.”
At first, I bought a cheap knock-off set from ebay, and installed them, myself. I was never able to fully get the wrinkles out, and burnt my fingers trying – several times. I don’t recommend this, unless you are very experienced, as the Dart headlights curve in two directions.
Final mods of the year – Dragon Eyes 2.1, both on the headlights and the reverse lights (you were right, SC – good idea!) as well as carbon fiber eyelids on the headlights.
The real-deal Dragon Eyes don’t color the headlights, or change the output at all. The knock-offs made the light too yellow for me.
Dragon Eyes Reverse Lights:
*for reference only – Checked new turbo wastegate settings – it was set to 8 mm. Per @starscream5000 ‘s suggestion, I backed the wastegate down to 6.5 mm. The new turbo, even without the tune, was pushing close to 27 psi on WOT( I had my alarm set at 26 lbs, and I would hit it frequently) Pulled all four Brisk racing plugs out – notes on my receipt, as well as speaking to the rep @ Eurocompulsion, the plugs should have been gapped to 0.20″ – but instead I found they they wouldn’t even fit onto my gap tester – putting them at about 0.18″
I should have never listened to what was recorded and checked them myself – but I didn’t. I’ve now gapped the (same) plugs to 0.22″, as I still haven’t heard anything from @Greg@EC . Took it on a drive for 30 miles last night. I didn’t see a huge difference in instantaneous mileage, but that is hard to compare. My mostly highway drive, and some usual city driving was 30.5 MPG average. This was higher than I got on the 350 mile commute home on the interstate from Ohio to Chicago – which was only about 27-28 MPG.
This morning, on the 9.65 city commute in rush hour traffic, I was able to feather the throttle and get 27 MPG. Before the new turbo, my best record on this commute was 33 MPG, but only hit that once. I also did not note any “chugging” this morning between 1400-1800 RPM, as ( @Exitus04 &) I had previously encountered, but it has only been one trip. Only pushed up to 26 psi once since, but that was unloading in 3rd gear up a hill, and overall, the boost looks about 3 psi lower.
This is not enough data to formulate any conclusions, I’m just data logging to see how things progress. As noted in the HPSI video, my wastegate started moving slightly @ 6 psi, but moved significantly closer to 7 or 8 psi. This also corresponds to why my boost was so high.
I don’t have lit mirrors like the Fancy-pants Dart Limited, so I decided to do some more carbon fiber trim, to tie things together. I haven’t had time to do the headlights, yet, so we’ll see how i fare on them. For now, I did a silly sticker on the front windshield, and did carbon fiber wrap on both mirrors. Let me tell you – total PITA! I actually did them 3X’s before getting them close to perfect, and they still aren’t quite right. Now I wish I had lit mirrors, too.
This is my pit crew (wife, sister-in-law & foster daughter) helping me with them over the Thanksgiving Holiday. If you are doing carbon fiber wrap, be sure to pre-stretch the material before you apply it. This will “train” the material to elongate, then when you apply heat as you install them, they will shrink back to shape, instead of stretching out. This is so they do not lift up on the edges after a few weeks, or after drastic temperature changes. You should start in the middle of the mirrors, then work your way out to the edges. Then I trimmed them slightly large to heat and fold the ends down and eliminate the color shining through.
Some battle scars from Wolverine! (vinyl wrap)
*edit: I later removed the battle scars, move over graphic, and has stripes, as they did not work so well with the new hood, and some commented it looked like a tiger theme…
Later, I got carried away with the extra carbon fibre wrap:
I’ve had multiple questions about my fender flares – not a big deal. ABS plastic strips molded and bent with heat. They have a carbon fiber look, and they are held on with 3M adhesive, so they can be removed when the fascia comes off. I tried to find them again online, and they are no longer available.
Maybe not the first, but I installed carbon fiber (wrapped) side skirts, chin spoiler & door pillars.
This weekend, I got Dartlene ready to drive out to Ohio. Both mine and my wife’s families are from Ohio, so we’ve made this journey about 10,000 times. None of my Ohio buddies have seen the ride, yet, so I’d thought I’d do a few more mods:
Carbon fiber door pillars – I bought a large roll of carbon fiber, the thicker stuff (0.5mm instead of 0.2mm) and went wrap-crazy. I used paper to trace and cut templates of the door pillars. Once I had them right, I cut reverse them for the opposite side. I attempted to do the mirrors, but failed MISERABLY. I couldn’t figure out my problem, until I did more research and found out about the different thickness models. The thinner stuff will stretch further, and is good for interior trim & mirrors. The thicker stuff was perfect for these jobs.
Door pillars:
side skirts chin spoiler:
Here’s some close-ups of the carbon fiber side skirts and chin spoiler before I heated them and removed the wrinkles: (they look fine, now)
