Back To Basics: Budget Rebuild

[sergechronos]

Actually expected a lot more. BAZINGA

Well played worthy adversary.

At any rate, whirlwind couple of days with a few changes that are still waiting to be resolved in the coming weeks. I appreciate everyone's advice and will update eventually with changes when things are solidified.

In the meantime, spent a bit of time doing car stuff. Finished the car cart for the car (and it is currently sitting on it.) And did the welding for the 2G headlight buckets. The new ones are rusted and a wee bit rough looking, just hoping that they're straight enough for the headlights and hood and such. We will see soon.

Went to go put the hood on...and apparently didn't take the hinges off of my old hood before I sold it, thought I actually even had an extra set, but not seeing them off hand. I took a few days off for a sabbatical to think and ponder my future, and during that time I will be working on the car and trying to clean and organize the garage. Hopefully I stumble across them during that time.

Also on my to do list for the next few days: sand and coat the engine bay, get off my ass and finish the poly rear bushings, find a shop that can press in my new bushings, clean and reboot the steering rack, install rear camber arms, weld a new plate for the battery mounting bracket lower in the bay in place of the washer reservoir.

I'm sure I'll think of more, but that's a pretty substantial list. Beyond that, actual reassembly of the motor should be taking place this week as well. I need to strip these heads down still however as there are a lot of things I want to double check the machine shop on now and they need to be cleaned. After heads are cleaned, throw them on the block, degree the cams and time the motor. From there, everything left for the engine to run again is aesthetic improvements, or can wait for after its running.

[sergechronos]

Evil eye is mocked up for he hood.

Rear subframe bushings are almost ready, need to make new shells and bust out the drill press. Getting the old ones out was a PITA, basically cut them with a reciprocating saw and hammered the piss out of them. Hands and elbows are super sore from that now.

[sergechronos]

Some shots of today, none of the bushings yet. Or of the grill (which is now done except for a handle and paint for the drum.)

[sergechronos]

Well, last updates for the next few days most likely:

Rear subframe bushings will likely need a better drill press as mine apparently has no idea wtf the point of a drill press is (as it likes to wander off center and give me more oval holes than anything else..) I'll see what I can do though. I also need to order some metal to serve as a shell for one set of the bushings, and likely will order something to serve as a center pin for the bolts to pass though, just not sure what yet. Rear body to subframe bolts are what, maybe 19mm diameter? I'll have to get back out and measure them to determine what size I need.

Ordered some lower grit belts for my bench top belt sander as part of the projects, should help with quicker material removal and not clog up as fast. Also ordered some new discs for my DA sander for the evil eye project, however I have to make a long extension for the compressor wiring since I've crammed it into a closet in the garage for space reasons.

My OEM steering rack is toast, so rebooting it is pointless. Going to try to find another rack locally and likely depower it. It's one less thing in the engine bay to worry about, and I just don't really do much turning while not moving. When the vehicle is moving, the steering is fine without working PS (just ask me how I know :P )

The budget BBK project is likely going to become a one off because I don't really see much selling value in making adapters and selling as a kit now with those adapters out there to use bigger rotors with the stock calipers. As such, should become simpler for me, but remains to be seen.

Starting breaking down the JICs to size the correct pillowball replacement, figure might as well replace them while they're apart.

I did spend a bit of time drooling over the way the front of the car looks with the evil eye, 97 bumper and the Morgan front splitter. Is very nice. That said, I accomplished little on my list of things I wanted to get done, but I did clean the garage up and organize it, which was important. The parts room is getting the next organization and cleaning, which will likely be this coming week. I need to find a way to get my cherry picker out of storage and fit it into the house/garage somehow, as I would like to reinstall the crossmembers up front and drop the motor and turbos in to verify fitment of stuff before I get too deep into various other projects. Too bad nobody makes a fake plastic engine for the 6G like they do for the LS motors

[sergechronos]

Well, compressor still is dead. I'm leaning towards the pressure switch being no good. Rather than spend money trying to get it going, and then buying more tools to finish the body work, I decided to call it good on the repair I had done thus far and then spray painted it for temporary protection. Once the car is running properly, I'll worry about respraying the whole thing..

Heads were torn down and put back together once again after being thoroughly cleaned and checked out.

Shortblock is mostly together and spinning smoothly. The long block is waiting on new head bolts (or the off chance I magically come up with a few hundred bucks and someone posts A1 head studs) before I can put it together.

Still haven't replaced the pillowballs for the JICs, or done much work for the BBK project (I will be returning to that in the next week or two.)
I'm hopefully going early next week to pick up my trans, and a few other parts, necessary to complete the rebuild. Narrowing down what I need. List as I can think of it off hand to get the car mobile again:

Install poly bushings, make the poly rear subframe bushings (or buy another rear subframe for now to do this at my leisure.)
AWS delete
New prop valve to rear caliper hard lines under the car. New braided lines for each caliper. Complete ABS delete (with new prop valve.)
Repair the JICs.
Replacement steering rack
New head bolts
Make my custom fuel set up
New CVs

Even that list could be shorter if it absolutely needs to be.

[sergechronos]

Well, all the threads on the block have been chased, however I will not be reassembling the long block for a while most likely. The lease at my current house runs up at the end of June and I will not be renewing (part of the terms of the lease limit what times I can do work on the car to a small range where I am normally unable to do so due to work and school.) As such, everything is now getting prepped and packed for a move.

Most of the front suspension stuff is ready to go back on, the rear is in pieces. Finishing my poly rear subframe mounts is of the utmost import over the next month. Since it'll be trailered I'm not too concerned about having *everything* back on and torqued to spec, going to clean and do just enough to get it onto a trailer. Ideally, I will get the engine bay coated with the Master Series and the rear end where the rear subframe goes such that I don't have to pull them back off again except for a couple necessary replacements (AWS delete in the back, and to depower the steering rack for the front.) Some of the other mods I had in mind are likely going to have to wait until the next go around to get done, like the oversized radiator that's going in or the BBK. As it stands, unless someone buys the 2 bolt block, the mostly finalized mod list is as follows:

Things in red are items that need to be completed, or purchased still

Engine lower:
2 bolt block, o-ringed and upgraded with ARP Main studs
Ninja Rods
Wiseco pistons
Ninja Wrist Pins
Forged Crank

Engine Upper:
Polished heads, mild port.
New valve guides
264/272 cams
3SX adjustable cam gears, pinned. Cams degreed to centerline,then set to +1 -3
3G lifters

Power adders:
3SX TD05 kit, modified for external dump (Thanks FamilyMAN!) with 14Bs
CX racing FMIC kit modified for TD05, running thicker Treadstone core with more FPI
Tial Q VTA BOV
PTE 880CC injectors
Walbro 416


Misc Performance:
Custom fuel sender wiring bulkhead
AN8 feed to Oohnoo custom fuel rail set up
Stock feed line converted to return to tank.
Speed Density via AEM Series2 ECU
Power steering depower via Flying Miata mod guide
Polyurethane front suspension bushings
AWS delete
Custom Rear Subframe Poly Bushings
Full manual master cylinder to replace brake booster and OEM master and prop valve
JFast twin disk flywheel with Quartermaster Gear Drive clutch
Muellerized JIC FLT/TAR coil overs
2G brake upgrade

Drivetrain:
JDM 6 Speed transmission (thanks Nomiez!) with bellhousing brace, new seals, etc.
Supercar Center diff
Quaife front LSD

Cosmetic:
97 front end, 2G 3k side skirts, 2g 3k rear end, hoop spoiler
Morgan Motorsports front splitter
Lots of powder coating for engine bay parts
Underbody and engine bay cleaned to bare metal, then coated with Masterseries Silver and AG111 top coat.
Tan interior with more sound deadening
Tanabe Revel VLS gauges, potentially Blackstealth LCDBC mounted in speedo (if he still offers an AEM version like that.)

Convert coolant crossover to 6AN fittings and lines for turbos
New sound system
Wire tuck/delete/clean up


Down the road changes: Currently swapped to 2G front brakes, working on a custom BBK using 4 pot CTS-V calipers. Oversized dual pass radiator. Tubular bar to replace front motor mount and front most crossmember. Morgan Motorsports rear splitter. Custom bellypan to seal the underside of the car.

[sergechronos]

Small update, chasing ever more threads to try to get everything cleaned up proper. Been sanding and smoothing several things that will be getting powder coated, but don't want to see casting marks on. I have also gotten my hands on at least 1 more TT PS rack so I will start the process of depowering. If it all works out well, may start selling it as a service for folks. Given what it costs to get a remanned PS rack is around 250ish+shipping (or 300+core and shipping via some vendors) could be a cost effective alternative.

Likely ordering the AWS delete this weekend. I could build my own, but for $100 in cost of materials to do it right, versus paying $130ish to Ninja to get it already done and powder coated, laziness wins this round. Hoping to spend some time in the garage Monday doing the poly rear subframe bushings, but who knows. Also need to go through some of the engine bay stuff that is getting deleted to make some new sheet metal panels to cover up holes and such. Ideally I'd like to seal the bay off completely except for a hood vent, but at any rate, having all those extra holes I don't need does me no good.