viperormiata

iTrader: (24)

I'll be doing some new stuff soon and seeing that most people have no idea who I am what my car consists of, I figured I'd better start a thread.

Anyway, car is a red 1989 with a lowly 1.6 that I call the Pelican. I've owned the car since the day I turned 16. I bought it from dad and payed the same price that anyone else would have had to pay(Dad=Army Colonel). He bought his first viper to drive as a daily, so I got the first chance to buy the miata.

Things on the Pelican pretty much stayed the same when I lived in Pensacola. I daily drove the car for about a year there and two years in the Keys. Unfortunately my daily commute to school went from three miles to fifty five miles a day when I moved. The Pelican no longer was garaged and the roads were so bad that I started having interior trim fall off, salt air was pitting everything, suspension was getting fukked, etc.. So I made the decision to get a daily and gut the Pelican into a track/autocross only car.

Well that lasted for two seasons. I won my class twice. Then I got the itch and I discovered MT.net... Now for pics!

Back in they day with my old autocross group. The building behind us is actually my current college.


My stupid charger


My work space


I was dead set on going with a external wastegate setup from the start, so I searched and searched and finally found a 1.6 FM3 that was taking space in some guys shed. Came with some sweet Kicker Impulse door speakers too!






The down pipe was in really rough shape. Only took a few hours to get it decent again.




The turbo that came with the FM3 was completely shot, so I got a SR20 off eBay for 50 bucks and started the install with stainless oil lines from Begi and a Turbonetics Evolution wastegate.




I had running like this with MS-pnp for awhile on 6psi. I made the turbo/learn MS jump all at once

Then I E-Sniped Braineack's old intake manifold and started fresh with a GT2554(got in a trade). I sold the SR20 t25 to my friend for his diesel rabbit caddy project, it went to a good home.


Changed the valve cover gasket while I was there.



Over the past year I've been helping my friend with his turbo E30 project. Every once in a while he hooks me up with left over parts and what not. I got a hold of a lot of 2-1/2" intercooler piping after I did the intercooler install on his car. So I decided to order some couplers, t-bolts and ditch the heavy FM steel pipes I was running on the hot side(cold side is FM silicone that I got in a trade).






Yup, so it sat like that for a while.

viperormiata

iTrader: (24)

I got tired of the valve cover being prison striped, so I decided to change it again.

Painting was done in the bed of my trusty Nismo!



Got the valve cover back on and hooked everything back up.


Most recently I have swapped in a 1.8 rear from a 2001 with one-piece axles. PAIN THE ***




Motorcycle jack is WIN



The rear end swap is done, I just haven't taken any new pics. I figured we all know what a 1.8 rear end looks like, lol.

I've also decided to completely restore the interior as well since I want to daily the car when I move. The finished product came out MUCH better than I had expected. The top gauge pod will house all black VDO gauges(water temp, oil temp and a clock). The bottom is a gauges/head unit holder that I bought from DDM and it has my AEM af/r and my Begi boost gauge. The middle slot in empty for now.



I haven't taken any finished pics, but I will soon.

Future plans are to get my Devils Own water/meth kit installed, rx7 turbo 2 trans or 6spd swap, rx7 clutch diff, fesh paint, bigger radiator w/ kia hose reroute and then a either a disco or 2871. Then tune for daily use at 20psi and have a blast. Also I will be taking on a crank trigger wheel setup using a old TEC2 wheel that I have laying around. That with a set of TSE cops will get the back of my head completely wire free and clean looking.

The motor in the car is worked over very well and has not been opened since it was built back in 1996. It's seen more than 100k miles and all of those have been boosted. Plans for the summer are a fresh set of M-tuned H-beams and a custom set of new .060 overbore pistons with a higher compression.

Fancy low light shot, lol.


EDIT: Whoops! Forgot a pic of the hotside shielding. I know it looks goofy, but it works flawlessly.The top piece is from a old Begi/FM kit that I painted and cleaned up. I mounted it so it swivels, that way I can lift it out of my way in a second. The foil looking stuff is my old header shield that I got from Track Dog Racing, the inside is all fiber glass and I wedged it around the turbine housing and down pipe to protect my heater lines. So good so far. No smells, no leaks.

Nagase

iTrader: (6)

Damn, that's a build thread.

seraph

iTrader: (4)

Very cool

Very nice work space but an open garage like that would make me nervous.
Any more info and pics on the Viper

18psi

iTrader: (76)

Its a bit ghetto fabulous.
You need to clean it up quite a bit.

Otherwise cool project dude.
Just curious: why the baller intake mani and just a 2554?

viperormiata

iTrader: (24)

Thanks man! There are actually doors. We live on a air strip in Summerland Key so all the houses have airplane hangars instead of garages. The viper that is in the hangar now is my dad's 1997 gts. It has Corsa 3", K&N panel filters w/ smooth bore intake tubes. Its a fun car but it is also currently for sale. My dad wants something that to drive around that isn't increasing in value every year. Since we only have one major road A LOT of accidents happen and he just doesn't feel comfortalbe driving it around with all the tourist **** heads.



Lol, there is not much ghetto about it. My engine bay is VERY dirty, I understand that. I always had a plan, but never really settled on what parts I was going to use, so I used what I got for the cheapest and just made it work. But the car runs smooth as butter.
Having the vacuum block is a big change from the regular ****. Every port goes to a specific part of the car and are now labeled, so there is no second guessing or wandering were your leak is. I may do some tiding up, but that is going to be for the back of the head. I'll eventually do a tuck and shave, but not until next summer.

The interior is done, just needs gauges for the top mount and for me to take some pics. I just got done with finals for 6 classes and fighting the flu, so my car has been the last thing on my mind. The most recent pic I put up is about 2 months-ish old, so I tomorrow I will snap a few updated shots. Maybe then my ghetto status will be relieved

I'm a college student and I've been on a budget since before I started. I don't like buying anything new, so I'm not changing the turbo until I can decide between the disco or the 2871, sell my current turbo and then see if I can find a replacement used.

However, the 25R is a little badass. It's fine for my "cruising around town" needs and with the intake manifold and 3" exhaust it still pulls strong to 15psi or however I have boost set that day. We have a long stretch of road on Cudjoe Key that is about 3 miles and has no streets. The local street races happen there and during the day I use it to tune my car and make different maps. I have one for 15psi and one for 5 psi that I use for autocross.

Anyways, thanks for the comments man. I love talking about these things.

Bond

iTrader: (6)

Why was a diff install such a PITA, it's not hard

viperormiata

iTrader: (24)

It's alot hard with the one-piece axles. You can see in the pics, I had to unbolt a lot of the suspension pieces just to be able to swing the axles up into position. If I had know that there was such a difference, I would have made sure to get the two-piece axles.

But it's all in now, so no more bitchin'. Oh, there is more clearance for big exhaust with the one-piece. This was a bonus, I was able to construct a exhaust hanger (ancient Chinese secret) and tuck the piping just a tad higher without any annoying rattle.

Bond <3

seraph

iTrader: (4)

Nice viper! I got a ride in one a while back and loved it.

When I first saw this thread I kinda scanned it first and saw the pic and the words it's my daily. I thought it would be funny if the Miata was the garage queen and Viper was the daily Ultimately I knew that wouldn't be the case.

viperormiata

iTrader: (24)

Got a chance to do some work tonight. We have a insurance inspection next week and it's taken the last month to get the house ready and since I live here for free, my parents are making me do all the work. Which is fine for me, lol I'm broke as **** right now from paying for school

Anyway, I've gotten tired of looking at a dirty engine bay. So I went to the hardware store, got a big bottle of Simple Green and went to work. I also read this thread about five times, Wire Tuck/Delete Write-Ups, and it made me realize that I can make the engine bay look much by just a simply moving a few things.

I also discovered that my camera is taking very, very shitty pictures lately....I need to fix Bear with me, I know this pics are shitty.

So I started on the cold side and removed all the structural mounts for the fuse box, ignition thingy and my vacuum block.


The vacuum block is getting moved for sure. I like it better some what hidden away. I can still reach everything just fine and it helps with my sea of wires/lines. I will eventually make a permanent mount for it, probably some where on the fire wall.


Well the fuse box mount and the ignition mount were absolutely disgusting. I soaked them in simple green and went back to my paint booth a.k.a. the bed of my truck

Then I dried them using my state of the art drying room.





That's it for tonight. I got invited to go play Dominoes at my friend's house so I have to get ready. But I will be up early to work on the car, then I'm going to the gun range with some friends in the afternoon. Then I'll just focus on the car for the rest of the day.

Nagase

iTrader: (6)

You should take a hundred pictures while you do the tuck!

viperormiata

iTrader: (24)

I'm not doing a full on tuck. Just cleaning things up and moving things around to make it look a lot nicer.

I took twenty pictures tonight of the work I did. Only four came out half decent. I'm taking anymore pictures until I fix my camera.

Nagase

iTrader: (6)

A million pictures of moving things around are required. :|

viperormiata

iTrader: (24)

Okay. Well dominoes night was lame...again. Same people, no new faces.

Got my camera sort of working. I'm still thinking of new places to mount my vacuum block. I am also going to ditch my current FPR and buy a nice Fuel Lab unit in black. Mount it all down low and out of the way, but still accessible when I need to get to them.







Overall with just the hour I've put into it so far, I'm happy. I'm going to go all out tomorrow and really start scrubbing with the simple green, as well as remount the fuse box and start tucking more wires/lines.

WonTon

iTrader: (17)

Nice, I like 1 piece axles over 2 piece.

all you have to do to get them out is unbolt the upper A arm bolt in the rear and loosen the lower to let the hub angle out and pop the axles out of the diff and move them under the diff then tap them out of the hub.

work in reverse to get them back in.... so easy!

viperormiata

iTrader: (24)

Ha, I experienced that first hand. I had the diff in the car not even 2 days after I got those snazzy bolts from you I couldn't wait any longer.

But I agree with you. I have better clearance for my 3" exhaust with the one-piece axles.

WonTon

iTrader: (17)

Awesome, so everything was good with the bolts?!?

I actually still need to pick up a set of axles and rear hubs, I cant get the bigger half of the 2 peice axles out of the hubs that came with my car when I got it. So Im saving myself the headache and just getting another set of rear hubs and am not even gonna **** with em. lol

viperormiata

iTrader: (24)

Yes sir, I had the entire thing put together the next day after I got them in the mail. I owe you one, man

I was lucky, my axles literally fell out of the hubs, lol. However, getting the new ones in....ugh. I used a ton of grease and a lot of patience.

Pitlab77

iTrader: (3)

very nice.

Funny my 92 had a turbo when I was a broke college student and now that I can afford it my 99 is n/a lol.

viperormiata

iTrader: (24)

Thanks!

Why is everyone going backwards?!