Thread: QP duoselect project has begun

Hi guys,

I just purchased this 2007 QP duoselect last month and have begun ordering from Jeff at Formula Dynamics a whole bunch of stuff to upgrade the car.

Since I am all the way in Indonesia, I've to wait quite a bit before the wonderful pre-christmas boxes arrive. But when they do.....



First day, I decided to attempt the easiest part of the job which is to install the air filter, the executive front grill and the Larini xpipe/mufflers combo.

Air filter took all of 5 minutes, most of them from removing the million torq screws from the engine cover...



The front grill only took 5 screws and completely transformed the look of the car. I have no picture but y'all know what it looks like....

Then, I called a buddy of mine, and we decided to tackle the Larini x pipe and the mufflers right in the basement of my house. It's a bit tricky negotiating the pipes under that little space, but we got them on finally. The first time we started the car, I almost jumped in surprise. It was very loud.



Here's my buddy under the car. Yeah, you practically have to be 120lbs or a contortionist to slip underneath.....or Asian hehe.



We made a small blunder and installed the xpipe upside down and it was hitting the floorpan. We were sitting there for a long time trying to figure out how such an expensive pipe can be made so poorly when my 5 year old daughter came by and said very innocently, "Pa, why is the shiny pipe pointing up?" My buddy and I looked at each other, gave an obliging smack to each other (j/k) and went back to work putting the xpipe on the correct order.

All done!





Seeing we still have plenty of time, we decided to rip out the interior of the car. All the gummy buttons, panels and knobs are all removed to be refinished by a guy who used to work for Ferrari and Audi.



All parts out!



We also removed all the pillars and the headliner and I will be refinishing them in black suede with black stitching.



Tonight, I will tackle the DBW and ECM myself. And this weekend I will bring the car to the mechanic to get the springs installed. Some things you just can't do yourself. :running:

I am amazed at how much of this job you are taking on personally, can't wait to see how this turns out. Doing a little project of my own on my Mas GT but I am not doing any of it myself. Can't wait to see how yours turns out. Please keep us informed.

MOAAR

Great project, like Raw said, I am also very impressed your tackling the job on your own. I get anxious to work on my trans am. Keep us posted and get a photo of the grill, bet it looks great.

Well, I've always been working on my own cars all my life. Even though I started with a humble VW GTI VR6 way back in my school days all the way to my drag-spec 500whp Subaru Sti a couple of years ago. Yes, the cars got a lot more complicated (and a lot more expensive) since, but the basics are the same.

All it takes is patience, an eye for detail and a big cooler with beer.

Looking forward to this thread!

Ok, so I cheated. I got a guy who works for me in the office to come and help me do the wiring on the dbw/ecm install. He's a wiz with cabling, soldering and computer stuff and is in charge of all the IT and computer installs at work, so I am "assuming" that he will be able to help me do the dbw/ecm install.

Anyway, the whole job took right under 2 hours and most of the time spent was figuring out how to release the connectors from the ECU.... *sigh*

Here's a pic of the guy laying out all the parts needed for the install. His ashen face was not coincidental. He told me straight up that soldering a $2000 computer at work is MUCH less pressure than soldering the ECU of a $200,000 car.



Once we did the first solder, everything else went muuuch quicker. Done in 45 minutes.



The last pickle was trying to find a place to mount the 2 modules and I actually spent the better part of the hour trying to find a right place for them. I decided on velcroing them on the bottom of the passenger airbag module behind the glove compartment. I figure if the airbags blow, I'd probably not have much use for the dbw/ecm anymore....



After we were all done, we said our hail marys and turned on the ignition. Good, no errors. I can't drive the car around yet to test it because....well, because there isn't really any interior for me to sit on, everything was out of the car!

So, I will post my review in a couple of weeks.

Oh I forgot about the pic of the executive grill....

sub'd for sure. cool that youre doing all of this stuff on your own, cant wait to see some videos

what is a QP duoselect....?