andrew_j

Car started life as this:



Then slowly became this:



Then I lowered it:




Shot of my work to make the sleeves fit right:



And at the last autocross event:



So there is a pictorial evolution of her. Car is a 90 (build date was June 89) that I got from my best friends grandparents for $800. It had 54k miles on it and is almost at 74k now with a bunch of events under its belt as well as various mods.

So far:
New Robbins top
New passenger door and fender
Short nose crank repair
Kosei's, sold
C1m's with neogens now
Koni Yellows
Ebay Sleeves
Hypercoil Springs (550#F 400#R)
Cue ball Shift ****
ddmworks radio gauge holder surround thingy
AEM Wideband
Hard Dog Hard Core Double Diagonal Hard Top
Hawk HPS
Turned rotors

I believe that puts us at today, 74k miles. She can be seen terrorizing roads with plumes of oil smoke in trail. 1.6 is roasted and burns close to a quart of oil a tank of gas. So what does a reasonable person do? Get drunk and buy 2 complete 1.8's and only manage enough good parts from them to make 1. I have a spare head and crank though. The one I used is from a 94. Took it to Terry Walters Precision Engines in Roanoke to have it worked over before assembly. Did I mention that the 2 motors came with a complete rebuild kit, including brand new pistons and rings for $450?









Post picking up the machined engine from the shop, it was:
Linebored
Bored .050 over
Paralelled the block
Pressure checked the head
Install all new guides and seals
5 angle valve job
Everything was vatted and made to look new again

So I got it home and began preparing for assembly, started by painting the block. 3 stages (all high temp) primer, paint, and clear.













Then my gf was in a very serious car wreck in her brand new impreza, which has me really depressed but everyone was mostly unhurt, she broke her thumb and has bad bruises other kid nothing broken, just bruises. Head on collision at speed on a wet road, I am thankful she is still here....



I have spent every minute with her since the accident and have not had any time to mess around further. I am pushing to begin assembly of the motor on Friday so I cam hopefully get it in asap.

What's the point? I want to turbo this car, I got the motors for next to nothing, so why not? I am gonna shoot for a low goal using low cost parts by scavenging around until I locate good deals on things. I am no expert at turbo vehicles but have always wanted to own one. I am going to continue reading and researching before I attempt to make that parts list. The goal at the beginning is 200whp, and I will go from there.

I have enjoyed many threads on here and I am going to read and read until I can make my car into what I want. I am persistent and good with my hands so I am just going to take the time and do this as correct as possible.

Fireindc

iTrader: (13)

I like your car, it looks cool how it is. Kind of reminds me of mine, clean but far from perfect. Good job on the motors, looks great. Don't you dare go back together with stock rods on that motor! Stock pistons are fine, but you should just pick up some decent rods to go back together. Even the BPT(323 gtx) rods are stronger and you can find them on a budget.

What EMS are you going with?

Welcome to the forum, sorry to hear about your sis.

RyanRaduechel

iTrader: (10)

The man said his girlfriend. Looks like a gnarly wreck. Who was at fault?

andrew_j

Well the officer came in and read her the riot act but only gave her a failure to maintain control, aka, he couldn't prove it was anymore her fault than the other kids. Oh well again just glad they are both okay. I got super excited and began assembling the motor and realized that I did not clean it thoroughly enough. I went and read all over the interwebs and am gonna take it all the way back apart, degrease it all with brakleen, wash it thoroughly with soap and water, make certain all the passages are clean, pick up a new tube of assembly lube and take my time. You live you learn.....

I was really planning to run this motor na for a good while so I can source quality turbo pieces and make certain that my build is done properly. I wanted to do a lot of supporting things to the car first so that when the trubo is installed and tuned it should be a pretty much finished car..... Haha right that's a lie, but I am hoping that when the turbo goes in I can hopefully have things such as a 1.8 lsd, and things on there so I don't end up broken down somewhere requiring a tow home to repair it. I am a college kid without a lot of extra bones right now, so a set of forged rods is going to really delay the build process, but if it is absolutely necessary I suppose it would be better to do it now rather than throw one of the stockers out of the side of the motor in 8 months and hate myself. I had heard that the stock rods were actually fairly stout to begin with which is what I was banking on. I was just in a bit of a hurry because my car is using so much oil now that I am fairly certain its days are numbered, and the mpg's in my grand cherokee are killing me.

I also managed an exhaust ticket...... With my stock exhaust. Its been on there for 20 years so I guess I should have seen it coming, but now I have to build a new one and have receipts for court to get this thrown out. I figure I might as well go ahead and make a turbo friendly exhaust so I don't do this twice as well.

I am using:
3 inch pipe (I have a 7ft section)
2 90* mandrels from summit
Thrush Hush Power Turbo muffler
Vibrant 3in resonator
Going to use a shell of a 3 inch cat off of a truck to pass the VA visual inspection too

I keep hearing a lot of debate from my friends here at Tech on the 2.5" or 3" and I figure the 3 inch can't sound worse than my stock one with rusted out baffles, and once I get more towards the end goal of 300+ whp, it will still breath plenty well. Thoughts?

So hopefully my grand cherokee will sell and I can purchase some forged rods and move forwards!