2000 Sport, not SE--the 2000 SE was the merlot mica car with the 6 SPD.

Still a nice setup. Bummer it needs bodywork. It's funny how sometimes people will think they're giving a screaming deal when it's really just a reasonable deal born out of convenience and necessity.

Good luck with everything, lots of work ahead!

 

I meant LS

2000 LS

And I don't know if it's an FMII or not.

I think it's what FM sold as their old FMII with the Link piggy back.

I took the bra off and more body work needs were hidden underneath. I sort of expected that though.

Today is the day of buyer's remorse. I feel it a little bit, but like I said it's still a pretty good deal. Not as great of a deal as I initially thought I was getting but still OK.

 

Shitty phone pictures incoming.

So the story is I spent 16 hours yesterday traveling to get this car. Flew from Charlotte to Atlanta, and then Atlanta to Pensacola. Tim picked me up at the Pensacola airport and then we went to look at the car.

Briefly checked out the car, briefly test drove it and went on my merry way. 600 mile drive from Daphne, AL to Waxhaw, NC and I think I left Daphne around 2:30pm EST.

Got home just after midnight. Almost 10 hours in the car and it ran really without any hiccups, and with working AC. Exhaust leak was worse than I was hoping for so it sounds a bit like a tractor and it's not especially fast but I knew that going in.


Pulled the car into the garage this afternoon to pull the bra off.





Here's the "not pretty" side of the car. Sorry, blurry cell phone pic




This pic shows 2 of the 3 bad dents on the passenger side. Apparently all from the same incident, apparently all from before Tom bought the car. We'll see what a PDR guy says about fixing them.





Here's where the bra went as soon as I had 5 minutes to take it off. If I would have known how easy it was to take off I probably would have done it yesterday while traveling and left it somewhere in Alabama...




Front end sans bra, before clean up. There's some very small rust bubbles on the front end of the hood as well as some general paint deterioration everywhere where the stupid bra was. Again, mostly expected.




The front lip is cracked in one area, both fog lights are busted and the paint on the lip is in pretty rough shape.

I'll start tearing into the FM turbo to get to the stretched/broken studs to get them swapped out later this week. I'm still recovering from the long day yesterday so not much work on the car tonight.

Cheers

 

Rust bubbles on the hood? **** thats bad, very bad. This car must of been crunched in the front and then repaired on the cheap if its got a steel hood and not a stock aluminum one.

 

oh man and I have a green passenger door laying right in my back yard I would give you for 20 bux if you came and picked it up lol

 

It's got the old intercooler plumbing route (later ones have the turbo clocked pointing down), and that predates the Voodoo 2, so yeah, it's a Link Piggyback FM2.

I used a Link Piggyback for a number of years -- it works OK if you only want about 200 rwhp. The stock ECU won't behave consistently, so you either need to feed it a steady diet of 100 octane or leave a lot of timing on the table to keep it safe. On the plus side, it idles like factory, charges the alternator like factory, etc.

I think the FM Ninja tool is intended to work on timing belt changes where the cam timing is already correct and you're just replacing the belt. Slide the tool in, slide the old belt off, etc.

People really made steel hoods for the Miata? Ick.

--Ian

 

Whoa...step of the ledge bro...everything will be alright.

Magnet test suggests the good is Aluminium (or austenitic stainless steel...?).

Attached is a picture if the worst of the "rust bubbles" on the leading edge of the hood. I suppose I should call it a "corrosion bubble" since "rust" really isn't the correct term.

I know that this form of paint damage probably isn't normal, but, who knows how long that bra was on and who knows what all sorts of interesting damage was caused underneath its leathery facade of protection?

 

Those bras suck.

I like the pictures of your place. My horses would love your grass.

 

They'd really like the couple of lots next door that are empty. Luscious green grass that is 3 ft tall all over the place. I kinda wish I had goats or cows at times because I could feed them all full of awesome grass for $free.fiddy.

We've had a somewhat cool and wet summer here in NC so the grass has been doing quite well.

Also, my wife would love your horses to love our grass...if that makes any sense

 

Double post...sorry

BUT

I'm having a terrible time getting this damn turbo and manifold apart. It's like I've never worked on cars before or something...

Stupid FM manifold makes it quite difficult to get the nuts of the exhaust mani studs. And the turbo makes it impossible to get the nuts off the manifold-turbo studs. And the downpipe...etc. etc. etc. down the line.

I'm beginning to think it would be easier and more time efficient just to pull the damn engine.

But...if I pull the engine...then I might as well put the built block in. But that sort of goes against plan which was to just fix the exhaust leak and drive the car for a bit while I get the car titled, inspected, registered etc. etc. etc.

Anyone have experience taking apart FMII bits? Any tips on how to either get the turbo off the manifold or the manifold off the engine whilst the engine is in the car???

Again, it's like I've never worked on cars before or something...

 

If I was to do it again, I'd have removed my engine. I had these stupid metal clips that bent around the nuts so they wouldn't come loose. Took me about 4 hours to remove the turbo.

It took me about 30 min to an hour to pull the engine, and it is stupid easy to get the proper access to the bolts after.

Sometimes it is just a matter of finding the perfect angle to get your wrench in. Gotta mess with it for a while till you do.

 

I absolutely despise the turbo>manifold bolts on the BEGI/FM log manifolds. My old Greddy turbo was easier to remove.

 

This is the old FM/BEGI setup?

Those are intended to come apart in the car. Downpipe off first, then turbo off manifold, then manifold off engine. You want an assortment of wrenches/etc. Stubby 13mm wrenches are essential for some of the nuts, and a 13mm socket with integral u-joint helps a lot too. To get the manifold off the engine you may well need to grind down a 14mm wrench so that it fits inside the cavity where the center nut goes.

BEGI products are somewhat notorious for being difficult to install. The later-gen FM manifolds are much easier to put on (they're also designed so that the manifold+turbo+downpipe casting go on/off the car as a unit, rather than one at a time).

--Ian

 

Rev MS3 Basic w/ Wideband CAN module and 29psi MAP sensor just ordered. Also ordered a set of the Fab9 stainless turbo studs to replaces the stretched ones on this FMII setup.

I sold my E-MS2 that I bought for the '97 and never used. This weekend i finished taking apart the damn turbo and manifold and then swapped suspensions from the red car to the NB. So now the 2000 is rolling (literally) on plain VMaxxs and the red car is 4x4'ing on stock NB suspension. Also installed my 15x8 6uls and 225 rivals on the NB.

I think from now on I'll just pull the motor if I need to take the hot side parts off. It must have taking me almost 8 hours to get everything apart...

Here's one picture half way through the suspension swap. I was quite tempted to take it to "the strip" like this...

I'll post some proper pictures of the new car eventually

 

Looking pretty awesome. Kinda jelly.

 

New car is back together and running.

FM manifold had two broken studs and I could not get one out for the life of me. Luckily my neighbor took it into the shop at his work and they were able to get it out.

I used Fab9s new stainless turbo stud kit to put it back together. Since I'm not planning on keeping this setup for too long I figured it would be silly to go all out with inconel. Stainless grade 12.9 bolts will hopefully hold up to basic street use.

One note on the Fab9 kit - 12 point nuts don't seem the best choice, at least for the old style FM manifold. I could only use three of the four nuts that came with the kit because one of the bottom nuts can only be reached with an open ended wrench. I have to imagine other set-ups would have similar issues with clearance.

Anyway two crappy pics


Fab9 kit





Dirty Engine Bay




Car runs pretty well now that it's all back together and sans serious exhaust leak. Car currently makes 7 lbs of boost and well...it's decent. I don't have any idea what the capability of the link is or what FM designed the whole system to run at. No matter though, MS3 should be here soonish.

Also, gearbox is NOT great. Have to shift slow into third, and sometimes second, otherwise some crunching and grinding. Synchros are probably shot, but I'm (foolishly) hoping a shifter rebuild and some magical synchromeshfixjizz fluid will make it livable.

Time to get the car registered in NC, hopefully it passes the emissions inspection?

Also time to pull the rollbar and frame-rails out of the red car so I can sell it off.

 

Flip your diverter valve

 

Yeah, 12-point nuts is just nuts. You can buy 6-point "squished" locknuts at mcmaster for cheap. McMaster-Carr

I made a max of about 230 rwhp on the Link piggyback, using ~93 octane fuel (66/33 mix of CA 91 and 100 octane race gas), running 12 psi. That's on the hairy edge of where the stock ECU throws a code for "MAF over voltage" because you ran out of the expected intake air range.

Are you going to keep the "over the top" intercooler routing, or clock the turbo so the compressor outlet points down?

--Ian

 

I'll almost certainly sell the entire FM kit and use my other custom stuff when it's time to install the built engine and EFR

Thanks for the other info

 

Just get the EFR in there already...