SF's Swap and Other Assortments *Officially Lowered! PICS!*

[Special Forces]

Some of you know I'm planning a manual swap. But I figured that wasn't a good enough reason to start a build thread. With that said I have other plans for the SL2 that I thought some might enjoy reading about. Plus I know everyone loves pictures even if they've seen a manual swap 10 times before.

We'll start with the other things and I'll get to the plans for the swap. But first what I have at the moment.

Car: 2000 SL2 Manual Swapped w/ stock DOHC 95k on the odometer

Current Mods:
Custom built CAI
Pioneer 5900iB Headunit
Pioneer 6 3/4" 4 way speakers (front and back)
VUE Cluster swap with custom blue LEDs (June 2008 )
Rockford Fosgate Punch 450.4 (July 2008 )
MP3 with welded diff swap
Fidanza Lightweight flywheel
Redline leather shift boot and armrest (October 2008 )
Leather Interior Swap (March 2009)
ION Rims and Dunlop Z1 Star Spec Summer Tires (April 2009)
Black Interior Swap including above waistline
AMR Front Strut Tower Bar (July 2009)
Rear Disc Conversion
Goodridge Stainless Steel Lines (October 2009)
Progress Sport Springs and KYB GR2 Struts (April 2010)
Progress Rear Sway Bar (June 2010)

Pictures:

Old:







Present:






Now for the plans...

Braking and Suspension:
Rear disc conversion and upgrading the front brakes (slotted rotors, Hawk HPS pads). DONE
ION Rims with summer tires and new struts and lowering springs DONE

Interior:
Planning a Vue cluster swap along with changing the lights to blue LEDs upon night time lighting (inspired by actionplant) DONE
All black interior with leather seats, including painted black from the "waist" up In Progress

Audio:
Would like to put a 4 channel amp in the trunk to power my Pioneers to their true abilities. DONE

Engine:
Manual Swap: Going to be using '99 clutch and hydraulics after hearing about the soft feel of the '00-'02 clutch system. I'm unsure if I need a '98+ MP3 in order for cruise control to continue to work, I've heard conflicting answers. But here's the part list:DONE

• 92-02 Manual Transmission BOUGHT
• Flywheel BOUGHT
• Clutch BOUGHT
• Pressure plate BOUGHT
• Throw-out bearing BOUGHT
• Clutch hydraulic assembly (slave cylinder) BOUGHT
• Clutch pedal assembly BOUGHT
• Clutch pedal pivot rod BOUGHT
• Shift lever cable assembly BOUGHT
• Shifter assembly BOUGHT
• Shift lever/selector lever cable guide BOUGHT
• Shift knob BOUGHT
• Shifter boot BOUGHT
• Shift lever cable retainer (2) BOUGHT
• Control lever boot retainer (2) BOUGHT
• Powertrain Control Module BOUGHT
• Clutch pedal rod retainer BOUGHT
• Powertrain mount assembly BOUGHT
• Clutch actuator cylinder bracket nut (2) BOUGHT
• Flywheel bolts BOUGHT
• Pressure plate-to-flywheel bolts BOUGHT
• Clutch Neutral Safety Switch BOUGHT
• Shifter Bushings (eBay) BOUGHT
• Brake Pedal BOUGHT
• New lower trans mount BOUGHT

I have the shifter so far. I'm going to the junk yard in July up by college to get a lot of things such as the pedals, switches, bolts (flywheel, pressure plate, etc), nuts, retainers. I'm wondering if I should go new on the flywheel or get a junkyard one and have it turned. Wondering what the difference in cost is. Also hoping to get a welded diff along with the MP3 as soon as I find out what years I'm good for (in reference to cruise control). This swap is planned for October at my buddies garage up in NY. We plan on doing it within two days start to finish. We'll get most of the easy stuff, shifter, pedals, etc in the first day and do the trans swap the following day and start early. I'll have all the parts by then and have asked all the questions so it should be a matter of man power to get it done.

I'll be posting more pictures of parts as I get them.

Shifter:




As for the VUE cluster swap, I got the cluster Friday:




I'll keep updating as I go further into all of the proposed plans...

[stevejr47]

Re: SF's Swap and Other Assortments

dude ur engine bay is so clean, can u clean mine lol

[Tatusmi]

Re: SF's Swap and Other Assortments

why the polished intake tubing into the stock resonator?

[JRSTANGE]

Re: SF's Swap and Other Assortments

why the polished intake tubing into the stock air box?

fixed:

[Special Forces]

Re: SF's Swap and Other Assortments

why the polished intake tubing into the stock air box?

fixed:

Right.

Check my sig for the link to my CAI.

[Special Forces]

Re: SF's Swap and Other Assortments

OK so, to say the least I'm frustrated. I went to work on the VUE cluster last night since I had gotten all my LEDs. Needless to say I got to the step where you clip the extra plastic and wound up with getting 1 out of 4 LEDs without clipping THE ENTIRE LEAD. I basically had one LED with all the plastic cut off and the leads in tact. The rest....let's just say I had leads falling off.

To make matters worse I couldn't find my soldering iron so I ran to HomeDepot and spent more than I wanted to on one (whatever I got paid yesterday). So I am now attempting to solder these broken leads back onto the LED. Yeah right...soldering iron and plastic don't mix (but you do get a cool noise when you hit it). So basically I had a clump of plastic and solder holding the lead back in....and I'm electronically inclined enough to say that isn't going to work.

I went on anyway trying to put it back together and boy were these plastic holders a pain in the ass. I got notches in them no problem but trying to thread a lead (even on the good LED) was so far from possible that I was about to throw up trying.

Well I half assed everything trying to solder it because again plastic and solder don't mix so it was burning the holder and not allowing the solder to run down the lead.

UGH!!!

Yes that was necessary...Anyway I got the b8 LED in there anyhow (that's simply plug and play) and was hoping I got the polarity correct. So I went out to the car and had these shitty soldered contacts so I popped the dash off (simple enough...really) and took out my cluster within 7 minutes. I put the VUE one in and simply plugged it in. Turned the car to ACC and well the odometer had the correct polarity...YAY BLUE!...but when I turned on the lights I couldn't tell if they were on (some sun and clouds today) but I noticed the service wrench came on only when I turned on the lights so obviously it didn't work.

*sigh*....OK well I'm down but I'm not out...there's always another way so here's my thinking. The plastic holders are only an extension of the lead of the bulbs that come with the cluster stock. The holder contacts the circuit board and the lead of the bulb contacts the holder...THAT'S IT! So by understanding that the holder's only purpose is to make an extension of the leads and to keep the bulb in place that leads me to this thinking. I can get rid of those (brown) holders and simply solder the WLEDs directly to the contacting surface on the circuit board by peeling back the faces (which you need to do to get them in anyway). I don't have to worry about holding the LEDs in because these WLED are big and hold themselves and besides I can put electrical tape behind the hole to keep them in place...I don't know how the hell the guy who wrote the write up on SaturnFannnsssss did it but wow that was one of the hardest ways of doing it. Cutting that plastic is like grabbing a knife and going "OK I'm going to cut my wrist but if I do it this far away I won't bleed to death.....Woopss......AHHH SHIT"

Anyway, I wasted $17 on 4 LEDs...ok woopty doo. I'm going to order 4 more and try this again, using my idea instead. If you actually read all this you deserve to see some pictures....so here's my fail for now...

b8 Odometer bulb and stock one (blue is b8 LED)


WLED-5B






One of the easier parts:


Yay WLEDs!




Probably only by shear luck:

[Special Forces]

Re: SF's Swap and Other Assortments

Alright, so I went back in and unsoldered the one LED with the good leads. So I modified my plan a bit from what I originally wrote. Instead of soldering it directly to the board I instead took the brown holder out of the equation and used the leads the brown holder held. I clipped the leads to the board and then soldered the lead at those leads from the back side (green side). It turned out to work out pretty well, my soldering sucked on this because I was in a bit of a anxious rush to see how it would turn out.

As for the LED not moving around, when I put the cover back onto the cluster, the and it held the LED firm in place. There's absolutely no wiggle from the back side. I'm just going to go back over it with some electrical tape so it doesn't bang up against anything.

This is the best shot of what I did (again ignore soldering, it's shitty I know):

[Special Forces]

Re: SF's Swap and Other Assortments

Still waiting on the 4 new LEDs I bought to arrive, should get here tomorrow, but won't be able to work on it until Saturday late afternoon/night (going to the NHRA drags in Englishtown Saturday!). But so far I've gotten just that one LED in place as I mentioned above.

Also had another confirmation on the manual swap after asking around, got a confirmation that I can use any MP3. Good news! Opens my buying market...ok anyone with a welded MP3 they want to sell me? [img]{SMILIES_PATH}/biggrin.gif[/img]

I can't wait to get this VUE cluster in and working, I love how it looks in the car.

[Special Forces]

Re: SF's Swap and Other Assortments

Alright so...LEDs got here. I got to work and umm let's just say I'll let the pictures do the talking:

Before:


And.....














After!:



Now that you've got the ants out of your pants (steve ) I'll go through the process...

My idea did work and that the brown holder is unnecessary, all you have to do is do what I showed two posts before. I did that for all of the LEDs (no trimming of plastic required or anything, just pop them in and solder).


As you can see I had the problem of the Service Wrench and two of the LEDs shining out and onto the dash...


Not a big deal, I took some electrical tape to fix the LED light problem like so:


It hides nicely and you can't see it when your looking at it in the light (the tape that is).

Here's a nice up close shot:


And finally the finished product at night:





I'm not sure why the Service Wrench comes on, but it only came on with the lights on. I assume because it knows it's the same cluster? All lights work I'm pretty sure and nothing is fried. Unless someone knows why it would do that, I tape it off. I believe that wrench is the VUE version of the wrench and not the SES light, so I can't check why it's coming on.

NOTE: The blue you see in the pictures is darker and more vibrant in person. It's not that tealish color, it's a real blue when you see it for yourself.

[stevejr47]

Re: SF's Swap and Other Assortments

nice it looks really good!, but what happened to the redline part past 6500RPM?

the wrench light is not the SES light, did your ebrake light come on at all?

pop ur trunk open and it shows a little SUV light lol

[Special Forces]

Re: SF's Swap and Other Assortments

nice it looks really good!, but what happened to the redline part past 6500RPM?

the wrench light is not the SES light, did your ebrake light come on at all?

pop ur trunk open and it shows a little SUV light lol

I think the picture just was overpowered by the blue, I'm pretty sure when I was looking at it, the redline was there.

Ebrake light did not come on at all, the just wrench light.

I didn't know about the SUV light, I gotta check that out!

[serenitythen]

Re: SF's Swap and Other Assortments

Cluster swap looks nice!

[actionplant]

Re: SF's Swap and Other Assortments

I taped off my wrench light.

I'm guessing as you were breaking one lead after another you were probably swearing a lot, I'm guessing my name was interspersed with your curses. [img]{SMILIES_PATH}/biggrin.gif[/img] Glad you figured it out man, looks good!

[Special Forces]

Re: SF's Swap and Other Assortments

[quote="actionplant"]I taped off my wrench light.

I'm guessing as you were breaking one lead after another you were probably swearing a lot, I'm guessing my name was interspersed with your curses. :lol:

[actionplant]

Re: SF's Swap and Other Assortments

Actually, I was cursing out the guy who did the write up on saturnfans.

Welcome to the club! We are many.