Base to VR4 Swap + Complete Restoration

[99ishVR-4]

I haven't been to active on this forum yet so a little introduction: I bought a 95 green base model 3000gt in 2005, did a complete 99 conversion and had it re-painted black. I later did a twin turbo engine & 5-speed getrag swap. All was good for a couple years and one day, I did a pull and left pieces of my transmission all down the road. The front differential exploded and took out the bellhousing and mid-case. I bought a beater truck and parked the car for awhile. I picked up a 92 vr-4 shell to swap my car into because I hated fwd. Well I never really got motivated and the shell just was just parked with my other car until recently.

Anyways, heres some progress so far.

The car before the clear coat started peeling and looking like crap.











This is what was left of the transmission:






After I acquired the shell, my girlfriend and I decided to move from Florida to North Carolina, I had 2 non-running cars and a beater truck, she had an suv, and we also had a moving truck. So we made multiple 13 hour drives back and forth.




I bought a replacement 5-speed transmission with 300m output shaft and transfer case from a fellow member:




Starting to take detailed pics of everything before I started any work. Here is an interior of the vr4 shell.

[99ishVR-4]

Started stripping everything off of the base model:










I had a welder transfer the 2nd gen headlight buckets and radiator support to the 1st gen vr4 so I could use my 99 front end.
edit: Thanks to J-grooves thread, I now realize this was done wrong and will be done again using a spot welder.

[99ishVR-4]

I then test-fitted the 99 front end to make sure everything would line up:

[99ishVR-4]

I then had the engine bay painted Viper Black w/ clear:
edit: This ended up being a waste of time and money. After the paint fumes cleared and I could go out and take a better look at it, I was not happy at all, runs everywhere, crazy orange peel. And since this job, the paint has shrunk, and I can see sanding scratches and areas that were not smoothed well enough. I will be completely re-doing the paint myself.











I also sanded down the front subframe and components and re-painted them all.
Edit: I painted the subframe with $10/can VHT spray paint and it didn't even last for a year without rust showing through everywhere. This will be re-done in either 2k paint or powder coat.

[99ishVR-4]

The interior panels for the center console were all covered in surface rust so they got sanded down and a new coat of paint:

[99ishVR-4]

Started polishing some of my intercooler pipes

[99ishVR-4]

At this point, I had a time crunch. Our year lease on our house in North Carolina was almost up and we decided to move back to Florida, so I attached the new transmission to the engine and put it in the vr4, although it will have to come out again after the move.

[99ishVR-4]

There wasn't much left of the original base model car at this point. This was a sad decision for me, but I called a scrapper to come take it away, one day before the move.














Odd that Florida3s.com also died around this same exact time..

[99ishVR-4]

At this point, I am back in Florida, and just starting to work on the car again.

I bought cheap powder coating setup last week and after a few test pieces, I did my the first part for the car. The ds steering knuckle. All of it was bare, non rusted metal when I powder coated, but that was a couple days ago and now I have surface rust on all the bare metal mating parts I left. I didn't want to powder coat these areas because of tight tolerances.

Update: I have since removed the rust off the bare areas again and coated rubbed anti seize into the metal and then dried it off, will see how long that works for. I have a spare set of hubs that I will be using instead, this time when powder coating, I will not leave as many bare metal areas now that I know how to use the system more. Also I will be using high gloss black+clear.













This was my first piece and I think I put the powder on a little to thick. Depending how my next couple powder coated pieces comes out, I will be powder coating pretty much everything possible that will fit in my oven.

Another item I will be tackling soon is the fasteners. Mine are are currently pretty beat up and half the zinc plating is chipped off and rusting. I was considering re-zinc coating all of the fasteners with the clear(silver). I like the look of the SS allen bolt kit that one of the members sells but I don't like how the washers are not captive on the bolts like stock and I was wondering how people handled the issues of SS bolts threading into aluminum and the galvanic corrosion issue or if it was even an issue.

[DK77]

Hey great job. It's obvious you've put a LOT of time into your car. The powder may be a little thick. Some people say that you can't get it too thick but IMO all you need is an even light coat. I always try to get the lightest coat I can that is even. As for the SS bolts you can use them but you should at least put anti-seize on them to help keep them from getting stuck.