T Montague's 2zr swap - '08 m/t sedan some extra info

[tmontague]

I've been spending some time each weekday evening an hour here or there with my son slowly stripping the car down to only the necessities.



Part of that was the removal of the heater core which leaves me with 2 open coolant hoses at the firewall. Easiest way to solve this is to just buy a 5/8" hose connection and fit them together. Well I did that, and it leaked, non stop drip as soon as the coolant built up pressure. I bought a Dorman 90 degree plastic 5/8-5/8" barbed elbow and even with the oem clamps put on the fittings it still leaked.

That is silicone (dielectric) grease on the fitting to make install and future removal easier, turns out they slide on easy...too easy


After looking at the original 11 year old heater hoses it was clear why they leaked. They had stretched much larger then their original diameter



I never liked the idea of an extra joint in the heater hose as this car sees high temps on the track and the less joints I can have the less likely leaks will happen. I ended up purchasing some 5/8" heater hose from my local CT as well as 3 EZ coils. The hose need to essentially turn 270* to go from one fitting to the other on the block. This cost about $45 total and wasn't the cheapest solution, but one that I felt I could trust when going 10/10ths in the middle of summer.





As you can see it did an extremely good job of creating 90 degree bends in a straight hose and it is a much cleaner and reliable set up than what I originally had



Here is the final product, no hoses are touching and have room to move with the engine. They actually are surprisingly sturdy and do not bounce around. The metal springs give it some strength and the hose is very strong.





As always I sprayed the inside of the hose ends with silicone lube before install, this has proven itself very effective much later down the road when you need to remove them.

If you ever need to do a heater core bypass for any reason, *DO NOT JUST CAP THE FITTINGS AT THE BLOCK*
the coolant flow as shown in the diagram below shows a true flow through design. The coolant needs to flow from one fitting to the other it is not a simple outflow design from both fittings.



I am slowly working my way through the electrical. I am currently trying isolate all of the rear wires as I am pretty sure the only ones I need are the abs, rear lights and fuel pump wires. The rest will be stripped out as lean as possible, meaning all relays will be going as well.

Not only does this make the car lighter, but more importantly it makes it much easier to diagnose future problems as there is minimal wiring to sort through.

I have isolated the airbag wires up to the front of the car and once i get done with the rear, I will be starting to separate them from the main dash board harness. There is a huge amount of wiring in this not so modern car and most of it is now obsolete as most of it is from the airbag sensors and climate control functions.

I also have to look at the factory repair manual to see what modules can be thrown out. I have already removed the small airbag ones but there is a large bulky one directly in front of the steering wheel that I suspect is the immobilizer ECU which is currently useless and bypassed anyways. I have always loved a simple car, so much easier to work on so this is making me feel very satisfied.

As a side, my wife and I have just conditionally sold out home and our next one will have a single car garage at the very least so I will eventually have my track car back at home with me again before the winter comes!