Well, here it is, a 2002 ACR I bought brand new. Car has come along way and I defiantly have a love hate relationship with it. The car started with basic bolt on's, like intake, exhaust, udp, eibach springs and 17 inch wheels. These are the closest pictures I can find from stock form....
Back in ~03, just as the srt-4 was coming out, I decided my car wasn't low enough and the only real coilovers were KW's. NEX was the first company to step up with coilovers so I jumped on it and bought one of the first sets, and they are still going strong on my car to this day. Pictures...
right after I first lowered it, needed an alignment bad
Now, this is when things started to get out of control lol.
Srt-4 turbo, one of the prototype mattdog adapters (I always seem to get things first before they are refined lol), stage 0 injectors, vortech SFMU, walbro pump, all the lines to make a -6 return/feed with spoolboy mods, Spec stage 4 clutch (still hasn't been installed to this day), Srt-4 hotside pipe (fits like crap), custom coldside pipe, turboXS RFL bov, 3inch catless downpipe, aem wideband (again, before the 6-in-1 gauge came out so I am stuck with a black face), autometer phantom 30/20 boost, electric oil psi, pyrometer. Thats about it for the first stage of upgrades. I installed it all myself in Miami on my parents driveway and had 2 weeks to work all the kinks out and then had a 500 mile drive back to Tallahassee to put it to the test. I had a bunch of mishaps with the oil feed line, but when I got back to Tallahassee I found a guy to braze a piece of stainless line between the stock hose end and that fixed that problem once and for all.
Advantages of this setup: I was one of the first and few to use an srt-4 turbo in the days when everyone was buying srt-4's. The setup is cheap, and was pretty damn fast. 9.8:1 compression with a magnum ecu and 8 psi the car ran like a raped ape when everything was working the way it should.
Disadvantages of this setup: nothing fits the way it should lol, you have to make everything work yourself. The car was inconsistant due to the Vortech SFMU and mag computer. My A/F ratios would always be in check (the only thing I could tune with this setup), but the computer would pull timing whenever it felt like it. My car ran BETTER with the CEL on, go figure. My biggest problem with this setup was the transition between open and closed loop. I had tricks and ways to help that transition by jacking up the fuel psi at that point, but I would always hear detonation and my throttle became an on/off switch. So, MegaSquirt is the only way to go right???
Pic's of the old setup....
Random shots from Tallahassee, at this stage in the cars life
Before I get to MS, a side project...
Thats right, an OEM HID projector retrofit. This was at the time when only HakNslash was doing them at the srt-4 board. I figured why not? I wont go into the gritty details about how they were made, but they consist of single Xenon E46 projectors (from say an Audi TT), oem ballast and ignitors, custom wiring harness. Here are some progress shots...
This is version one, I learned alot from this process but I rolled with them like this for about a year, more pictures...
Another side project, a bigger intercooler. Up to this point I had a srt-4 stocker and I was getting detonation from that boost transition, so I figure cooler air might help right? I quickly found out that working on my car in Tallahassee was not fun. I basically worked in a parking lot and had to be done before the sun set. No power outlets, no hose, no nothing, just a parking lot. Intercooler is a quickwhips direct fit, it has a 4 inch core and barely fits behind my ACR bumper, I had to cut alot out. Regardless, here is the small upgrade in picture form...
And lastly, a video of my exhaust
Another small upgrade was a bigger intake manifold. Another one of those things where I got lucky and picked up a big log manifold by LoneWolf with perfectly ported ports and an opening for up to a 85mm throttle body.
had to move the vortech SFMU because I didnt have space for it anymore, and decided to relocate the battery while I was at it. Once again, I HATE working on my car up here.
Version 2 of my HID retrofit, I fixed an alignment problem I had, painted them flat black, and added a trim ring....
eyelids are temporary, I ended up testing a set of thick vinyl (thicker than regular vinyl like fiberglass, but more flexable). Regardless, they sucked and didn't stay down so I took them off.
and on the car....
Alas! The downfall of my car!! This bad boy...
I originally mounted it in the glove box but later moved it to under the cd player (I dont have pictures yet). Its MS1 v3.0 board, neon mods by RS Autosports, 3 bar map sensor, once again I get screwed for not waiting to buy my parts and this particular MS came out just before RS offered there "super 420a" unit, which is alot better. I never seem to win when I try out parts before anyone else does, lesson learned.
AHH!
Well, goodbye SFMU, i replaced it with a 1:1
modified coldside pipe for intake temp sensor
Some of the negatives as to why I have a love hate relationship with this automobile. Getting MS was a pain in the ass to get right, but most of it was my fault. Getting the right firmware version and doing things in the right steps gets annoying if you have no patients like me. LOTS of reading later, my car runs good and I turned down the boost to 4 psi. I used authirish's map (thanks Liam in general because I would have smashed my car if it wasn't for your help) and I dumbed down the trimming some and the car in general was running good. Some problems were warmstarts (they seem to take forever for some reason, cold starts are fine), and my Idle control (which I later fixed with the TIP220 mod and it works pretty good). The car was running good but I seemed to have bad luck. This is just a small example...
cool, I get my car running again and some douche decides to slam there door on my car. Pictures didnt come out good but its pretty noticeable.
And last but not least, what I am dealing with now....
The stumbling at idle is hard to hear in the video but you can sort of hear it on revs. Regardless, cylinder 1 is not responsive, I can pull all the injector clips and the car almost dies except for cylinder 1. I changed all the injectors to brand new stage 1's, same exact problem.
Edit, I need to host the datalog screencap
Here is the datalog, I am pulling the injector clips 4-3-2-1, and you can see the stumbles in 4-3-2 and at 1 nothing happens. I am guessing I no longer have compression in that cylinder, as my car now smokes on start ups.
MOVING ON, I have roaches old block and its getting installed along with a bunch of other goods here soon, so hopefully my car will make a comeback or I will drive it off a cliff, please stay tuned.
Also, for a full mod list check out my garage so I don't have to post all that in this huge thread.
You have come a LONG ways with your car. Amazing work done on it!
You, Turbodudey, Esteinmaier - you guys rock with your turbo'd and MS'd 2.0's. 
