Damn, it’s been awhile but now we are finally back with another major update on the ongoing Rywire ITR build. There hasn’t been much news until now because the entire chassis has been down at ASC Speed Metal in east county San Diego. They are pretty busy working on a number of different projects for customers so they haven’t been able to devote 100% of their time to Ryan’s ITR. It’s completely understandable and we aren’t really in a rush to finish the car since we want the guys down at ASC to be able to have creative freedom to do their best work. When it comes to metal fabrication, these guys are at the top of their game so Ryan has been pretty open to any ideas they have for him regarding his ITR and the results have been amazing thus far…

We have an update for you guys today because the guys at ASC gave Ryan a call to go down there to iron out some details on his car. Since the moment the car was brought down to San Diego, we knew that we would have to make a couple trips down there and update from there so Monday was the perfect time to start. We all met up at the Rywire facility around 10am and hopped in his daily Civic coupe and started our trip down to Santee, CA..

Ryan and I were talking on the way down and trying to figure out what had been done to the chassis so far. We really had no idea what condition the car was in so Ryan was pretty excited to see the progress on it. When we arrived, they walked us straight to the car and we started to look through it to see the additions…

Here’s a look at ASC Speed Metal and the portion of the shop where the Rywire ITR sat. It’s a pretty small spot, there’s another side but it’s just another section that’s about the same size… Pretty crazy to think how many crazy projects and products have come out of there with the limited amount of room they have to work with…. I’m sure you’re wondering about the EF to the left just because of the fab work you can spot immediately but that’s a story to be told later. It belongs to our buddy Jimmy and when that thing comes out, man, it’s going to be something you have to see in person…

When Ryan originally had the cage work and paint done, he had no idea the car would ever end up down at ASC. Otherwise, he would have just waited until all the fab work was done before having the chassis painted inside and out. Now that it’s down there, there will be a couple spots that will need to be touched-up but they have taken the proper steps to ensure that the paint remains intact…

Most of the new work is being performed inside the car and they have a giant blanket covering the bay…

Just so you guys are wondering, we aren’t hiding anything from anyone…the bay remains in the same condition it was when it was originally at Rywire. There hasn’t been anything new added yet but when there is progress, we will be sure to let you know…

Ryan getting acquainted with the new additions…

They had sent Ryan a photo of one of the door panels a week ago but we were pleasantly surprised when we saw that they had also made bead-rolled sheet metal panels for the rest of the interior…When looking at these photos, take into consideration that they are in-progress pics and there will be finishing touches to clean them up….

The overall fitment of the panels was great… As  you can see, they have masked off portions of the chassis to prevent any possibility of scratching the new paint… The panels are also bolted in place and are easily removable should Ryan ever need to remove them…

I should also mention that the panels are raw aluminum and the orange tone you see is a reflection from the paint. When it’s all said and done, Ryan will most likely keep them this finish. Gabe, one of the main fabricators over at ASC, told us that the panels are shaped in a way to be symmetrical with the cage as well. Pretty cool idea that they came up with and one of the great things about the guys at ASC. These guys just have ideas for days. I was surprised by the amount of ideas being exchanged by everyone there…

The two-piece rear trunk panel…

One major piece that they created that we have to show you guys is the custom steering column that they fabricated completely from scratch. It is also still a work in progress  and isn’t connected to the steering rack yet but we just have to show it off. As wild looking as it is, this steering column is one of the components that you won’t even see later on when the dash is completed….

When you’re looking at this ITR in the future in its completed state, remember to let the people around you know that this piece is under the dash. It is almost sort of a shame that you won’t be able to see this later because people won’t even be able to grasp the concept of how this thing looks and functions…

Here is a better look at it up-close…You can see to the right here and in the photo above how it is mounted to the factory bracket location…By the end of the day, the bracket pieces were already cut-off because they had to re-align the column to suit Ryan’s driving position…

Another close-up shot…

Here is a shot of the door panel and how the lines flow with the cage… It’s basically a raw metal panel right now and later on you’ll probably see a door handle find its way on there as well as a power switch for the window…

The door panel is rolled at the ends to go over the top of the door but it will be cut when the window glass is re-installed…

Here is another shot of the panels and how they are shaped in relation to the lines of the gutted interior…

Ryan’s Bride Zeta III bucket seat mounted to PCI seat brackets. He wasn’t sure at first what seat he was going to run when the car was finished but since they made measurements in accordance to his overall seating/driving position that day, he may just stick with the Zeta III…Also in this photo you can see how the steering column is mounted to the cage…

The position and angle of the column was going to have to be adjusted either way since it was a one-off piece. Since it will be set to Ryan’s specific position, the seat height and the size of the steering wheel he is running is also an important factor to consider. You would think that it would be pretty general but since Ryan is utilizing a lot of custom components, it’s basically like re-designing the cockpit from scratch…

Though it’s mounted and connected to the cage, Dana and Gabe made the ends of the column in such a way that it can easily be disconnected and re-aligned. I’ll have more detailed photos of how that whole end link works below after the column was removed…

One portion of the interior, made by the previous fabricator, that was removed was the battery box behind the passenger side of the car. We all agreed that it was sort of an eyesore so Ryan had them cut it off and ASC will be making another battery box…

This Tilton brake set-up is proving to be more of a headache than anything and another major reason why they had to figure out Ryan’s seating position in relation to the steering column and the distance he would be sitting at… Without hanging pedals and with these Tilton units mounted to the floor, everything changes. You would think that they could be mounted to the same general area as hanging pedals but since the Tilton units have resevoirs behind them, you just can’t mount them against the firewall. There are also fittings and brake lines that have to run out the back side of the pedals and that further pushes the pedals forward….

You can see here how the Tilton pedals are mounted to the floorboard…

One other issue that nobody expected was how the seat was positioned. Apparently a passenger seat rail (the one in use) is different than a right hand drive seat rail. The position of the seat is off to the right (closer to the door) compared to where the original steering wheel would be. To alleviate that problem, Ryan will probably have to flip one side of the seat mounts to shift the seat back to the correct position…

Another issue that popped up was the angle of the steering column. While it was initially aimed higher, making the steering wheel an obstruction to Ryan’s view,  moving it down lead to the steering wheel hitting Ryan’s legs…

He could move the seat back but then he would have a problem reaching the shifter…The majority of the day we spent at ASC was trying to figure out how to make the pedal set-up work and how to modify the Tilton set-up so that it could be moved further back…

Here’s a better perspective of how close the Tilton pedals are to the length of the steering column…

Gabe from ASC Speed Metal flipping the seat rail inside the ITR while Ryan and Jay from PG+K look on…

While Gabe was working on the seat position, Dana was busy working on the throttle pedal potentiometer…

The potentiometer is from a drive-by-wire vehicle that will need to be mated to the Tilton assembly. This will make his ITR cable-less and the throttle will be controlled electronically. This gives Ryan the ability to tune traction and use his engine management system to its full potential. It’s far more then it being aesthetically-pleasing to the eye, drive-by-wire is new technology that will be seen in many more race-quality builds in the future…

The process involved in getting this to work is attaching the Heim bolt on the gas pedal of the Tilton assembly and attaching it to the potentiometer aka TPS aka silver thing with a spring on it…

Here is another angle…The bracket on the potentiometer is also bent because of the way it will be mounted later on in the car….

Dana showing Ryan the bracket that he created for the Heim bolt…

Here is how the bracket looks and how the Heim bolt will be mounted…

The pedal assembly being re-mounted after it was modified slightly to sit further back. The plate on the floor was welded in place before the car was painted and the holes you see on the plate are mounting points to where the pedal assembly can be mounted. Here in the photo they are mounting it to its furthest mounting position…

Ryan getting back into the driver’s seat to see if he likes the changes…

The Tilton Master cylinders were sitting close to the firewall, so the mounting surface had to be reversed to allow more room for the pedals to sit further back…

Dana from ASC taking the master cylinders off to reverse the mounting surface…

While that was going on, I snapped another photo of Ryan’s rear sheet metal panels…These are all just mocked-up at this point and Gabe literally put the trunk panel in after we got there to test fit it…

A quick shot of how the cockpit will look with the seat, cage, and door panel. We are all pretty curious to see how the dashboard is going to look when they get to it. Ryan has given them pretty much all the freedom they want in terms of how creative they want to get with it as long as he is still able to incorporate his switch/relay panel and other electronics…

Speaking of that, here are some photos of new parts he’s gathered since the last update. I wasn’t able to document this stuff because it was all down in San Diego already but Dana had it all in one large box so we pulled it out to get photos of it…

AEM 4-channel UEGO to measure air/fuel ratios…

MoTec CDL3 dash display that will be incorporated into the custom dash that ASC is making…

MoTeC PDM16 that will be responsible for controlling the water pump, cooling fans, the two Bosch fuel pumps, and miscellaneous things like lighting, etc… The part to the right is the 16-channel switch panel associated with the PDM16 unit… They will be labeled once Ryan wires the car up and figures out what button will operate what…

Ryan in the Zeta III once again after the Tilton assembly was re-mounted. With that in place, the next order of business was to figure out the steering column angle…

Dana unbolting the steering column from its mounting points and tilting it lower to where Ryan wants it…

It was pretty cool to see how it unbolted and came apart from the mount…You can see an “L-shaped” groove at each end of the bar…

…and this is how it comes apart. Once the tilt angle is decided, everything will be re-mounted and welded together…

How it looks from the back of the Integra after the column was removed…

Dana cutting down the mounting area so that the steering column can tilt lower…

Ryan testing the angle to see if there is any obstruction…After he was able to get the angle he wanted, they tested it once again with a smaller steering wheel, hoping to fix the problem with the wheel hitting his legs if he were to turn the wheel at full lock. The smaller wheel proved to be the best solution and we now know that any wheel 330mm or smaller will provide the optimal room he needs, with consideration taken to leg room as well as visibility. After that it was pretty much it for our day at ASC Speed Metal. It was quite the learning experience over there and I think we all have a better idea of how much work is involved with completing this project. Now that they know how Ryan is going to be seated in his ITR, they can get to work on the dashboard as well as the rest of the interior. When we got there we were excited with seeing all the progress on the car but it was a good reminder of how much more needs to be done before we can see this thing on the road… If you thought this was mind-numbing, just imagine that this is just the beginning of the build…we still have the motor, wiring, suspension, getting the brakes to fit, as well as what wheels to run. Then after that, there is the electrical side of things and how the car is going to run with the new AEM Infinity engine management system and the custom drive-by-wire set-up. It is going to be a wild ride…I hope you guys stick around to see the final product because it is something that you will have never seen before…

Oh, random, but after that, we had to stop by Lolita’s Taco Shop since we were in San Diego. We were at ASC much longer than we expected and we were starving by the time we left….

Here’s a California Burrito that I got from Lolita’s, which is a carne asada burrito filled with french fries, sour cream, and guacamole…

…and the rest of the guys got carne asada fries…

As for Jimmy Harris’ EF build…it’s pretty mind-blowing the type of stuff they are doing to it.  I wish I would have asked Jimmy if I could take photos of it but I don’t want to spill the beans on his build so it’ll be something that we will talk about another time… The sheer amount of custom fabrication on this car is just insane…

That’s all for now. The next time you’re going to see an update on the Rywire ITR it will probably be down at ASC once again. I know it’s a lot of information to process but I appreciate those of you who have taken the time to absorb it all… Thanks for looking…and stay tuned…