Could smell gas after I tried to start it and one of the cylinders is obviously firing.... so I guessed it was my ignition wiring.... and sure enough two of the grounds from my COP setup are going back to a red wire that grounds to air. I probably messed up my harness a bit when I was moving the engine in and out.

 

Turn key (expecting more failure)

VROOM BRAPBRAPBRAPBRAP VROOM VROOM BRAPBRAPBRAPBRAP

HAHAHAHA IT LIVES

Haven't hooked up the exhaust past the downpipe or sealed up the shifter turret yet so the car started filling with smoke but **** year, I win at cars. Definite strong idle and everything working right. All I had to do with unfuck the ignition wiring (I had two missing wires and I had reversed the 1 and 3 cylinders (I'm running COP in wasted spark config). Since the car was running a few months ago, I have no idea when I screwed up the wiring.

Gonna add the car to insurance and renew the registration tonight, gonna commute with it to break in the engine as soon as the tags arrive.

Man I'm so ******* thrilled.

 

Congrats on getting it running! I know that feeling after it's been down for months. I hate dumb wiring problems, those suck.

 

Thanks. This is the first time the car has really run since it blew up in 2012. A few months ago I realized the 4-5 year old gas in the tank was worthless and it ran for ****.

Hey, am I retarded or does the ATI damper have a larger than stock pulley diameter? I got the ac/water belt on just fine a while ago but the ps/ac belt is coming up at least an inch short even with all the slack I can give it.

 

Yes it is a bit bigger in diameter. I had to swap in a longer belt on min as well.

 

Thanks for a good laugh, glad you got it working.
Congratulations!

BRAPBRAPBRAP

 

Welp, everything is done minus the center console (don't give a **** for now) and the ps/ac belt (got a 990mm one on the way, gets here Tuesday). Gonna renew my registration tomorrow morning and start breaking it in all week.

Was fun reconnecting the reverse lights. Fortunately my wife was taking a nap, so she let me borrow her makeup mirror. I angled it so I could see the rear lights from under the car, put the car in reverse and fumbled around underneath until the lights came on. It felt like I was Matt Damon on mars.

 

Turns out is the perfect size for ps/ac belt with ATI damper. Goes on easy and when tight, the bracket doesn't block the air filter. Thank you amazon prime.

Discovered the clutch doesn't work just as I was about to drive it around the block the first time. **** dammit.

I'm blown away by the lack of oil leaking anywhere. I had one leak where I hand tightened the turbo oil feed line but otherwise it's surprisingly dry everywhere.

 

Why do you want to jinx things? Don't tempt fate dawg, she's a biyattcchhhhh!

 

I really hope I don't have to drop the tranny for this.

The shifter seems to work properly when the engine isn't running.
When the engine is running, I can press the pedal and the little lever that pushes in the bearing on the transmission is pushed (vid related).

Any idea what I could have fucked up?

Hmm can't figure out how to embed a youtube.

 

Either that arm fell off the pivot, or the arm fell off the throw out bearing? Or did you not install a throw out bearing at all?

 

The clutch (got the FM one) came with a new throw out bearing so I installed it when I was putting everything back together. I specifically remember doing that. I thought I was super careful and everything seemed to mate up properly.

I'm going to try to bleed the clutch hydraulics tonight see if that fixes it. If not, guess Ill have to drop the tranny. Oh boy, not looking forward to that. I just finished putting everything back together and it was a huge pain.

 

Alrighty, I woke the wife up and had her press the clutch pedal while I bled the system. **** works! It was just hydraulic dickery.

I could drive the car right now, but she wants to go out to dinner/movie so I guess I'll start breaking it in tomorrow morning. Neighbors are going to love me.

I'm planning on doing a few hundred miles of 2k-4k pulls at low boost followed by lots of engine braking. Then I'll change the oil, dial in the boost, etc. I have a fresh set of front pads/rotors but I'm not going to mess with that until everything else is sorted.

 

Took the car around the block a few times. Everything pretty good except the car won't idle worth **** (wants to bounce around 1500 rpm) and my oil cooler lines rub at full steering lock. Annoying but otherwise pretty good. The clutch feels great, the tranny works fine, the car accelerates and brakes and does normal car ****. Sounds healthy, lots of oil pressure, fans work, etc. Just one or two minor things to tinker with.

Diagnosing the idle, I noticed the neutral switch wasn't registering to the ECU. Hmm, odd. I jacked up the car and felt around the transmission and..... the ******* neutral switch wires were caught under the PPF. Of course they ******* are. I loosened the PPF and freed the wires but they're both severed a few inches from the sensor. ******* classic.

Ordered some decent splices and I'm going to try and splice into them and repair the connection. Not a lot of working space up in there though.

Anyway, looks like the classic "90 percent done, 90 percent left" is as true as ever.

 

Congratulations on the car. It is always nice to see your hard work pay off.

 

Thanks to these awesome things, I was able to splice into the 2-3 inches of wire sticking out of the top of the transmission and the neutral switch works again.
Cost like a buck fifty per connector but it's money well spent for something like this.

 

Daily driving now for what it's worth. Since I have fixed the last minor leak, the rebuild has officially entered the "20 year service" phase where every bit of the car that I postponed servicing in the past ten years breaks. Basically everything except the drivetrain

Last week I did the windows (busted guides). Today the power steering is dying. Gonna need a new rack. Which I can install while my manifold is getting surfaced. Exhaust leaks everywhere around one cylinder and also at the turbine/dp junction. Amazingly, the AC apparently still works and has a full charge. Car smells like an old persons attic.

edit: on the way home, noticed the speedo reads 0. Oh well, was going to be under there anyway to get at the downpipe. Soft top is probably next. I'm going to be nickel and dimed for xida money before I even get to buy xidas.

 

Minor update:

• Got the manifold machined flat and the stuck studs removed (to make way for the inconel), took like an hour
• Sent the turbine housing, manifold and do off for ceramic coating-should get back around the time my stage 8 stuff gets here
• Got a new steering rack to replace the old which puked its guts out (on the bright side it was cool looking for an oil leak and finding no wetness anywhere on the block, just big leaks on the steering rack
• New speedo cable
• Got an oem rear sway bar and some minor stuff from the pick and pull, goodbye 16mm FM sway

 

Sounds like you got it coming together. I've had that happen before too. Get it back on the road, and then stupid stuff starts breaking.

 

Yeah, it's annoying but honestly, my motivation is super high because of how close I am. I eagerly work on the car almost every day now. When the project is finished minus some missing parts, it's super easy to stay on task. When it's a giant hole of uncompleted work, it's easy to get overwhelmed, especially if it's full of tasks you've never done before. Back when the project was at the beginning of the engine assembly part, it was really hard to get motivated because it felt like I had a million years of work ahead of me and all of it seemed really significant and full of traps. I was afraid of ******* up each step. Each bolt I torqued and gasket I applied seemed full of hidden significance. I honestly dreaded it.

Now that everything works with no real problems I feel silly. I think if I had this whole project to do again, it would go a lot quicker.

One cool thing I got out of this was that my knowledge of the car is much more complete and I'm a lot less afraid of just ripping stuff out or changing things without worrying about hidden consequences. I had some weird vacuum line problems in the beginning that were messing with my idle.... and I ended up just ripping apart all the vacuum lines and throwing out half of them. And it worked.