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Warning: 8 years of car ownership right here..
I bought the car as a base model on Ebay sight unseen with a slipped timing belt at 150k. I lived in Illinois at the time and drove to Las Vegas to pick it up. Since I've owned it the car has had more engines than sets of tires. I've lost count of the times I've pulled it and put it back in.
The first engine I put in it was a Jasper rebuilt out of a wrecked car with 2k on it. This was short lived and developed a rod knock after about 10 miles or so. I got my money back from the junk yard and thought I'd finish it off. I flogged it up and down my country road for a while until it let go right as I shifted to second at 7k. Total carnage ensued! (Pictures below) The crankshaft snapped and took out the trans bellhousing, middle axle shaft, starter, clutch, flywheel, and dented the subframe. Yeah, that was smooth...
Imported a JDM engine and trans and sourced the rest of the parts I needed to get this thing going. This engine was a complete disaster. It smoked, ticked, and leaked. I tried getting a refund for this one too but I got screwed by the importing company based in TX. I ended up fixing it up and driving it.
It was finally my DD! I did everything in it, took it everywhere, I even delivered pizzas in it for a while.
About 25,000 miles later it gave up on my while driving down the highway.
I found a rebuilt NA engine on Ebay that wasn't too far from me this time for $1100 from a kid who's dad rebuilt it for him. Side note, his Dad had just bought a brand new GT-R.
I drove on this engine for a good 10-15k or so when I decided to turbo charge it. I had been collecting parts and researching for about a year and a half. Finally over my spring break I decided to do it.
Initial mod list for TT conversion
9bs
CX racing FMIC
95 TT ECU (I made a patch harness to adapt mine)
6 puck ceramic clutch
Fidanza lightweight flywheel
Walbro 225
Running wastegate pressure
Megan DP
3sx SS oil lines
It ran great and had awesome power. A few months later I was visiting home 480 miles from where I live now and I blew a composite head gasket while racing a buddy on some back roads. I borrowed a car from my dad to make it back to Detroit in time for work, came back next weekend with MLS gaskets and got it running again.
I guess now would be a good time to note that I've been having smoking issues with this engine from the beginning. The first set of turbos I put on that were claimed to be good from a forum member smoked like crazy and had to be replaced in short order. While fixing the HG I replaced the VSS.
It drove fine but the smoking continued. I decided to do a budget rebuild to hopefully cure the issue. The budget was soon thrown out the window as I found a good deal on 20 over Ross 9:1 pistons and some lightened VR4 rods. I had a machine shop rebuild the short block with these parts.
This engine got me to NG '11 but was too fresh for me to feel comfortable flogging it in any events.
It was still smoking on hard decel or after idling a while indicating VSS. I decided to pull the heads and have the machine shop go through them. When I pulled the heads I noticed some scoring in the cylinder walls. Not up and down, but in a spiral pattern like from when they honed it. I took the block back to them and they said they honed it again and gave me a deal on putting it back together again. This rebuild is why the car missed NG '12 and I took my orange Mazda.
I got it back together just in time to put in storage for the winter. Over winter I decided since I had the engine finally sorted out that I'd source parts for the AWD conversion. In March I pulled it out of storage and brought it back to my garage to start the conversion.
The conversion was great, I had a lot of fun doing it and did quite a bit more work to the rest of the car:
LCDBC
2nd gen front brakes
SS brake lines (Ninja)
SS Tcase
Revised 3sx rear sway bar
3sx AWS delete
18x9 PF01s
two piece Alum DS
Antenna delete.
FP hotwire
New battery cables for rear mount
Jester's ECU
6AN Tank forward fuel line
Aeromotive FPR
3sx fuel loop (Thanks NG!)
I think there's more but I can't remember.
I took the car to NG '13 and had a BLAST! I competed in all events and still drove it back from St Louis to Detroit. It had a little issue keeping the temp down under 215 but it was very hot that week.
I decided to pull the dash and put some aftermarket gauges in the center cluster. This took about a month after getting interrupted or doing other house type projects. While doing this I found that on the way back from NG my DS axle boot got a nasty hole and slung grease all over my pretty engine bay. Put in a new axle and put enough interior back together enough to take it for a drive.
LCDBC was showing max knock counts after I let off the throttle, this was weird. I listened to the engine and it had a very light tick, sounded like lifters after sitting for the month. Drove it home, sound didn't go away. Took off the valve covers to check lifters, they were all fine. I didn't drive it after that, just starting it occasionally to trace the noise. Eventually it got loud enough to be evident that it was a rod knock!
The car is currently hanging out under a carport at a buddy's house. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with it next: Part out, fix and sell, or fix and drive.
Here's the link to my AWD conversion thread: 3000GT / Stealth / GTO Forum - FWD to AWD conversion
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Originally Posted by HilbillyHomeboy
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