Shadow's 92

[Shadow]

Hello 3sgto, I've been wanting to do a build thread for the last few months but haven't gotten around to it. We' haven't had a good camera but I bought the wifey one for Christmas so now I can document my work a little better!

It all began many years ago. As a kid I grew up in a all mopar family. Nothing else was ever acceptable. The Stealth was my dream car as a kid. I still remember my grandfather talking about these supercars.

Roughly 2 years ago my cousin MC#4 bought a N/A RT with a bad automatic transmission in it. He owns a nice garage and buys and fixes cars for a profit. Up till this point I had never seen a black Stealth. Everything I seen had the black lights and roof or was just a es or base model. He ended up swapping out the ATX for a MTX. I knew at that point I wanted that car! I put my Dakota up for sale and snatched up the Stealth RT within a few weeks.

Paid $2800 for it with just over 110k.



After owning it for a year or so I decide to run it up at the 1/4 mile track. My cousin @ this time had a little dodge shadow with NOS. The stealth ran a 15.6 and well..it was faster then the shadow

A few days later My cousin buys a white 92 RT/TT with another bad tranny in it for $3100. (guess he had to be faster)



The very next day I stumbled across a craigslist ad for a 92 RT/TT for $2000. It was black, almost identical to the one I owned already.

Bone stock, 6 hours away, sent the guy a message and asked him if it'd make it the 6 hour drive home. He said "I have no idea, the car has been sitting for over a year" I told him I'd make the trip and buy it site unseen if he'd do it for $1700. He took the offer. I drove 6 hours there. Once we got there had no way of transferring the title over.

We wrote up a bill of sale and had it notarized and I drove that car all the way home with no license plate, inspection, or anything! 1/2 way home we had a tire blowout. There we sit along a 4 lane highway trying to change out a tire. on a highly illegal car.

We made it home!

.

Now the fun stuff begins!

[Shadow]

I started with the basic shit that needed fixed first.

All the fluids were changed to start with. Syncromesh was used in the tranny to help with the 3rd gear grind.

Lower ball joints, tie rod ends, tires, brakes, rotors, and pads were all needed for inspection. I also replaced the old worn out shift boot, climate controls, floor mats, windshield washer motor, and nozzles.


Also gave a full tune up including NGK's, 8mm Accels, and new coil packs.

Once I was able to drive it we started adding some real mods.

First mod was the Downpipe. I picked this up from ebay for $130. I was very surprised with the quality!

Punched out the rear precat and eliminated the front. What a differance this made in sound. My car defiantly has some bark to it now!
We turned the test pipe into a "cat". Here in PA all the emission testing is only visual



Next was the BOV. Yeah, this probably hinders performance more then it helps. I really like the Psssh sound though! Grabbed this from ebay to for around $50 bucks Works beautifully and I have no issues with stalling or idle.


I had to grab a Y pipe from somewhere since my original throttle body gasket was leaking. Again I opted for the Cheap ebay version. There are several types you can get off ebay. I went with Chrome Intakes. The y pipe is made of aluminum and is pretty rugged. It also came with a nice filter. I've had no issue at all with this and fitment was perfect.


My last purchase was a Blitz iD-III. And I LOVE it! It has everything I need and the controller fits perfectly in the stock vent location.

For Christmas my beautiful wife grabbed me a double din touchscreen DVD unit. I just finished installing it and WOW. I think she got it for around $150 and it had everything you could need but GPS.



Until next time!

[BigTyla]

Be careful with some of these ebay parts. In particular, the flex sections of many downpipes from ebay are known to rot within a year.

[keo92stealth]

cool find. take good care of them both. hope i can find another tt 2 put some dr750s on for the girl friend lol!

[AdamVR4]

Be careful with some of these ebay parts. In particular, the flex sections of many downpipes from ebay are known to rot within a year.

Agreed! The ebay parts I've seen (on other people's cars; I don't buy that shit!) have been awful.

I love your enthusiasm, your cars look GREAT, and I the ebay stuff you have is superficial enough. I LOVED having my SBC-iD in the AC vent waaaayyy back in the day. The best advice I can give you is to take the modding slowly. Take it from someone that's made a habit of putting on a shit load of parts at once and never had any issues getting the car to start. It's a LOT more fun if you take it one mod at a time. Good luck!

[Shadow]

What a nice weekend we had here. The weather was great! Was hoping to do some body work to the TT, but the wife had a little mishap.

I get home to my wife with her hood up on the RT/NA. While passing someone she went from 3rd to 2nd, instead of 4th. She told me it was only for a split second. We pulled the timing belt covers off and the belt was loose. I asked her to hit the key and I'm pretty sure I seen the front cam skip a tooth. She stopped right away but told me she drove it home like this with a loss of power.

We ordered the 60k tune-up.. er I mean the 145k

Well we got it done! The front 2 cams were pretty fast to spring but the washer/bolt method worked well. The back two almost stayed by themselves.

We had a few problems along the way. Harmonic balancer was shot. Damn near impossible to find one around here. After a long deliberation between MC#4 and I (roughly 30 seconds) we decided to weld some thin braces on. It'll hold till I can get a aluminum one from 3sx. The serp and v belts were looking pretty bad, they will be replaced very soon too.

We tested compression on the front 3. 185, 160, and 185. Not sure what is normal but I'm happy with that

Here are some pics MC#4 snapped.

Our special tool


Here's the harmonic balancer 2.0. Don't mind MC#4's 3rd grader quality welds! The elastomeric ring was broken an the outer most portion of the pulley could be pulled off by hand!


These spare parts were determined optional by me


Many thanks to MC#4 for his help!!!

[MC#4]

Glad I could Help. I still feel like a dumbass for misaligning that crank pin. All in all in went pretty well though. Only took about 2 days to go from broke to fixed.

[Shadow]

Planning the Paint Job! w00t!
Main goal: Have the TT painted by the 3sPA spring meet!

I did take a year of collision repair at a local tech school but I'm far from a expert. My car had some serious rust issues that I've already addressed. Next is taking care of 20 years worth of dents!

I've considered a rattlecan job but I can't do that to my car! I've tested the rustoleum enamel paint. While I don't think this is a bad idea. I don't think it's for me either. Up till this point I've been weighing my options and decided not to cheap out on this one. Acrylic enamel is a safe choice for a automotive paint job. Especially if you've never used clear coat or painted. All the paint supplies come in under $100 dollars from tcpglobal.com I've decided to go with Urethane basecoat/clearcoat. With my total coming in at just over $325

Paint: Anthracite Gray Pearl kit w/Clear(Gal): $230 Item Detail
Paint: Jet Black base coat(Qt) for racing stripes: $46 Item Detail
Primer/Sealer kit: (Qt) Urethane sandable or wet on wet application. $37 Item Detail
Pearl: 2oz of Blue Pearl to play with for midcoat clear. (effect will be tested first!) $12 Item Detail

I've went through and taken pictures of my car and all the problem areas. I regret not getting any of the large rust area

Bumpers are shit.


So many dings!




Fender is tweaked, this one will be more difficult.


Here's what I'm using as a paint booth. This shed was filled last weekend! We burned and junked a lot... But now I got my own concrete pad!


Home sweet home


I'll snap some more pictures as I do the body work.

[GTOJOE]

your backyard "balancer" fix sort of defies the term "balancer" no way is it balanced now. But at least your thinking and your motivation

[Shadow]

Doing more body work today.

Wetsanding with 400 grit.

Paint has been ordered: Final choice was candy apple red.


Wing is now off for easier spraying.

Fog lights are out too. Also ordered some VHT nightshades to tint all the lights.

Gloss black for all the trim. Had some fish eye issues but not too... concerned. May try to color sand.

And the 2K sealer. Hoping this will allow me to paint over the rustoleum without issues.