Purchases for rebuild of #139

Im starting to receive all the parts I ordered to start actually putting #139 back together:

Summit Racing: $136

• $25 russel -6 fuel filter
• $30 prothane Tbelt side motor mount insert (had the other 3 laying around)
• $52 15ft of -6 Aeroquip sockettless fuel line
• $29 worth of -6 hose ends and fittings for fuel lines

My oem feed line was all mangled directly under the original fuel filter (that needed to be replaced for sure). Im planning to cut the oem line down by the steering rack and use a -6 tube nut & flare the stock line. Then run -6 sockettless hose to the aftermarket filter, to the rail, and to an Aeromotive fpr I kept from a previous parts car.

EnergySuspensionParts.com: $135 set of ES poly suspension bushings

JayRacing.com: $125 alternator relocation kit (oem alt, will fix alt death and ic pipe fitment)

Ebay: $4 skateboard bearings for the shifter cable/trans connection.

Rock Auto: $60

• $17 steering rack boots
• $16 front ball joints
• $13 outer tie rod ends
• $14 inner tie rod ends

Hopefully all these things show up by the end of this week so the assembly can really kick into high gear.

More POR

Shortblock after degreasing:

Misc chassis/brake parts after cleaning

Shortblock with a coat of POR15

Misc chassis/brake parts after POR

Fuel tank after removing the shields, cleaning, and a coat of POR15

#139 Modification List

Engine:

• HKS 264 Intake & 272 Exhaust cams
• JM Fabrications intake manifold
• Ported cyl head
• ARP head studs
• Stock 6bolt shortblock
• Balance shafts deleted
• 1G DSM NT throttle body
• 90 DSM oil filter housing & aftermarket cooler

Exhaust:

• T3 tube header
• .63 AR T3 turbine housing
• 2.5" SS o2 housing
• Tial MSV 38mm external wastegate
• 3" turboback exhaust

Intake:

• 3" intake pipe with K&N filter
• T3T4 turbocharger (likely an old school 50trim/stg3)
• 2.5" custom polished aluminum IC pipes
• XS power 28"x12"x4" fmic core with flipped inlet endtank
• Tial bov (knockoff)

Fuel:

• 750cc FIC Injectors
• Denso Fuel pump
• Aeromotive FPR.
• Aftermarket fuel filter TBD
• -6 lines from filter to rail/afpr

Electronics:

• DSMap speed density software
• GM 3 bar map sensor and GM Air Temp sensor.
• Innovate LC-1 wideband o2 sensor w/ DB gauge.
• Eprom ECU w/ Ostrich eprom emulator
  
• AEM Tru Boost gauge/controller
• Datalogger cable / Palm M130 / MMSD "speed density logger"

Drivetrain:

• TRE Stage 2 tranny rebuild
  
• ACT2600 PP
  
• OEM DSM disk
  
• SS clutch line
• Welded center diff
  
• 4bolt DSM rear
• 5 lug DSM hubs

Suspension & Brakes:

• D2 coilovers
• ES poly bushings
• Prothane engine mounts
• Fresh stock brake pads
• Slotted brake rotors
• AWS removed
• ABS removed

Interior:

• Aftermarket steering wheel
• 91-94 DSM Shifter Assembly w/ leather boot
• 2G DSM shift knob
• 89 Galant glove box and dash pad

Exterior:

• 89 Taillights
• 89 Grill
• Prime 16x7" wheels
• Bridgestone Potenza 205/55/16 tires

JMF intake manifold

Picked up a JMFabrications intake manifold, I guess it is most similar to the current Race model. It has the internal pipe velocity stacks compared to the new model that has the radius machined into the plenum wall. Brent @ JMF says this was made circa June 2006.

I need to decide on refinishing it:

• Scuff and repaint (maybe POR)
• Strip and Polish (labor intensive and I suck at polishing)
• Have it powdercoated along with a matching valve cover. ($)

#139 Weight loss

Parts removed entirely:

• 39.5 rear bumper support
  
• 6 rear tow loops: pair
  
• 8 rear bumper foam
  
• 3.5 exhaust heat shield
  
• 29.5 front bumper support (prev cut for fmic install)
• 40lb-EST Complete A/C system
• 22lb ABS pump
• 10lb-EST 4 wheel steering
• 10lb -EST charcoal canister, intake brace, emmissions stuff
• 9lb power antenna
• 39lb spare tire/jack/tools/carpets

Total: 216.5lb removed

Parts modified/replaced that alter total weight:

• -2.25lb Cut cast drivers side engine mount bracket above PS pump
  
• -1.25lb cut bent end off drivers side engine mount
  
• -2.00lb complete T3T4 setup swapped from 16G setup
  
• +15lb larger FMIC core (xs power 28"x12"x4" core is 23lb)
• -5lb Aluminum intercooler pipes
• -4lb 89 Dash pad
• +15lb 16" wheels & tires
• -4lb JMF intake (10lb oem/6lb JMF)
• -8lb non cruise control throttle cable
• -15lb lawnmower battery
• -5lb plastic radiator fans

Total: ~ 16 loss from modifications

Total current weight loss: ~232lb

"To-Do" list of weight loss:

• manual seatbelts 20lb
• evo8 seats ~40lb
• coilover shocks save ~35lb
• carbon fiber hood ~30lb
• interior sound deadening ~10lb
• aluminum flywheel -15lb
• remove balance shafts 6.5lb
• manual rack & ps delete ~15lb

Total "to do" ~172lb loss

Misc weights for GVR4 parts:

• 32.5 Fuel tank w/ sending unit & pump
  
• 5 Full set of exhaust hangers
  
• 17.5lb Stock GVR4 15" wheel
• 18.75 Front shock & spring
• 10.5 rear shock & spring
• 10lb rear swaybar w/ links
• 8.5lb front swaybar w/ links

All weights listed in LB as measured on a mechanical shipping scale

Making more mess.

Got some time to break things down today and clean up a bit. I had the whole rear subframe & rear assemblies from both GVR4s in the garage as well as the front suspension assembly from 139 to take apart. So they all got torn down, the good parts in one pile and the rusty junk went into my monster pile of scrap steel.

Then I had 4 big coffee cans of bolts and all the control arms, axles, diffs, one subframe and misc stuff to degrease and wash. That rear subframe from 931 was not really rusty, but holy crap it was disgusting from a leaky rear diff pinion seal.

So still getting parts cleaned and ready for another major POR painting. Now that the unibody is spotless clean underneith, everything that gets bolted to it must be the same: brand new or fresh cleaned.

I think when I'm done, this is going to end up to nice to daily drive or take out in the snow/salt.

POR-15 undercoating

I got the main portion of the underbody coated in Por 15 today, again, a suck nuts job brushing it on. It didn't help that the stuff gets sticky just about instantly as it was raining out and is a major workout to brush.

Still have to wash the wheel wells after removing the front ABS wires, plastic fender liners, front fender moldings, and fenders. I want to clean and POR15 the area of the unibody behind the fender that is typically the first to rot on Galants.

That's me in the corner.

Undercarriage cleaning - prep for coating

Today was NOT fun. I degreased and washed the entire underbody in prep for Por15 rust inhibitor paint. The degreaser I used seems to eat skin and turn the underbody coating into drippy slime. This was a suck ass job if there ever was one to do on a car. It's clean enough to lick now, all the black undercoating dries off clean and not sticky. On a good note, the floor of the garage is spotless now after being squeegied. The car has to dry tonight and I'm planning to go put a coat on tomorrow afternoon.

I found that my local Napa stocks just about all the Por15 products

$44 for a quart was cheaper than online anyway vs shipping.

Removal of the rest of #139's underside

No pics from today. 

Removed: fuel tank, fuel lines and rear brake hard lines, all the exhaust hangers, rear tow loops, and the rear bumper assembly.

DAMN the rear bumper was heavy:

• 39.5lb on my shipping scale for the rear support (went to the scrap steel pile behind the garage)
  
• 6lb for the pair of tow loops, also in the scrap
  
• 8lb of rear bumper foam! wtf that's heavier than it looks.
  
• 3.5lb exhaust heat shield
  

All that stuff isn't going back on for a nice 57lb of weight loss. Brackets to hold up the rear bumper cover shouldn't weight more than 3 or 4lb.

Transition from 931 to 139

Tuesday I was able to finish up removing all the parts needed from #931 and get it outside off the lift. Here's pretty much everything needed to reassemble #139 into a running car, other than a good T3T4 turbo:

Then I rolled 139 onto the lift and started removing everything on the underside: driveshaft, rear subframe and diff/axles, heat shield, parking cables, steering rack subframe, rack, control arms, shocks, brakes, hubs. That put me to here:  

I still need to pull the fuel tank, rear brake lines, -8 fuel line, and the rear bumper support. Then I want to go at all the little rust spots with a wire wheel, wash the bottom, and go at it with a new layer of undercoating or paint.  

Then need to start getting the rear subframe cleaned and painted, then reinstalled with the 4bolt diff. Debating getting a rebuilt dsm steering rack now while it's apart since that is such a pita to change a year down the road. Also have to get going on the motor work and a new turbo before I can do much on the front end. But anyway, progress is happening. Im hoping to have the car together and on the road by the end of June.

Parting out #931: drivetrain removal

Well, this is what 931 looks like as of today: 

Pulled the complete engine/trans/suspension/steering in one shot out the bottom. Im intending to install it this way into 139 maybe next week after doing some work on the engine (BSE, Tbelt, Cams,head rebuild, non crunched oil pan, maybe aluminum flywheel)

This is all the bolts required to remove it in this manor. Took from 2pm till 5pm. pretty fast from running car to engine on the floor.

Pic of the turbo setup that went on last weekend.

Still need to snag the fuel tank, lines, and a bunch of engine compartment items from #931 before getting it off the lift.

#931 dragstrip result: blown turbo

So last saturday I went down to JMFabrications to do some major work on #931. Brent is a very good buddy of mine, he's the guy that makes the JMF intake manifolds, obviously an expert fabricator. So we spend about 16 hours saturday to sunday installing a 60-1 turbo, T3 tube header, fabricating an o2 housing, external mount, dumptube, as well as all new intercooler pipes and modifying the existing fmic core endtanks.

Last night I took the car over to Island dragway to make some passes hoping to hit 11's and maybe 120mph if the planets aligned. This was to be the last day with #931 for me, as Im going to take almost all of the mechanical parts out in order to rebuild a better GVR4 #139. Was really hoping to have the car go out with a bang.

Ended up making one semi decent pass: 12.30 @ 112.5 with a 1.73 60'. The other 4 passes were utter junk (13's @ 108 to 112). The car wouldn't spool up well, horrendously laggy between shifts. Even on a 6000rpm two step launch it would barely make a couple psi of boost. Barely any better than the car ran with a 16g at 23psi even though I was running upwards of 26-28 psi on this 60-1. :banghead:

Here's what I ended up with:


Notice the two cracked off blades. Grabbing the nut you can feel about 1/8" of in/out shaft play, the comp housing is full of oil, and the wheel has ground a big groove into the comp housing. Yeah, that explains the very poor performance. Guess Im going to hunt around for a 50trim t3t4 or something a bit smaller than the 60-1 to replace it.

The turbo and header came of GVR4 #828 that I parted out earlier this year. Sucks as this is about the 5th major thing that came off that car either broken or not what it was supposed to be. Oh well, buyer beware. Glad this turbo ended up failing on me instead of being sold in the partout and having a pissed of customer. :?

Anyway, not what I was hoping for on #931's last day with me. sux.

New turbo setup installed on #931

Pulled an all-day/all-nighter with my buddy Brent from JMFabrications from saturday 8am till sunday at 5:30AM! We installed the following list of parts:

• T3 tube header
  
• Tial MVS 38mm external wastegate
  
• Turbonetics 60-1 stage 5 T3T4 turbo
  
• Brent fabbed up a stainless o2 housing and dumptube
  
• Modified existing fmic core: flipped the inlet end tank and welded on a 2.5" cast elbow
  
• Custom 2.5" polished aluminum upper and lower ic pipes
  
• Knockoff Tial bov

Engine bay paint

The seam of the paint on the fender attachment area. The line goes right down the 90* corner. That spot seemed like the least noticable place and it was easy to tape. really, the best option would have been to take the fenders off, but this isn't too bad.

The subframes are still groddy and rusty, Im going to swap those with #931 next weekend with the entire drivetrain, engine wiring harness, fuel system, brakes, suspension, and all 931's modifications.

Dragstrip results: improved ET w/ 16G

Fun night at Island dragway. wednesdays are $15 to run a street car and they serve free bbq food all night. Track was empty, every run I went right up to the line, I think one single run I had to stop and wait for a car or two. Made 6 runs, ate 2 cheeseburgers and a hotdog, salads, and free soda. $15 plus a gallon of racegas. What more can a man ask for?

Started sprinkling rain about 8:35, I just decided to pack it in as the traction would surely be worse. I just about got my headlight back in and pumpgas filled and they called it for the night. awesome.

Only changes from last time are that I set the base timing to 5* (it was about 3* before) and I removed the air filter and pass headlight.

• 12.763 @ 107.41 1.830. 4600rpm = bog. last weeks tune, 21psi no knock. 7:10pm
  
• 12.733 @ 108.98 1.891 4700 Spun w/ wheel hop. no datalog. boost shoulda been ~23
  
• 12.647 @ 109.86 1.877 4700 bog but clean. 23psi.
  
• 12.447 @ 110.29 1.761 5000rpm launch & 23.5 to 24.0 psi.
  
• 12.350 @ 110.69 1.734 same everything, better launch at 5000rpm 7:50pm
  
• 12.396 @ 110.59 1.762 same again, just a bit of spin in first. 8:22pm

So, got this brick into the mid-low 12's with a better launch. Still not great 60' times, but they are solid for the tires and setup I guess. I think it just took me a little while to get used to an electronic vehicle speed activation vs a mechanical clutch switch coming off the launch rpm. The way it is now, the ecu comes off the 5000rpm limiter right away and tends to spin the tires easier, where the clutch switch setup that I used on aem and dsmchip ecu's would stay on the 5000rpm lmit until the clutch was all the way out which seems to be softer on the tires.

still must have a big boost leak or a weirdo boost controller as I couldn't get more than 23psi that would just touch 24.0 on the logger one or twice a run. E3-16g's should be able to do 27-29psi atleast for a midrange spike then fall off a bit. mine never makes it over 24.0 no mater what. I was too pussy to pull off the wastegate hose to really see though!

So, I guess I'm happy with that. May 16th the car is getting a 60-1 turbo, tube header, new ic pipes, so this was the last time out with the little turbo. Hopefully the next wednesday Island is open (may 20th), Ill get into the 11's with the big turbo and no boost leaks.

Engine bay cleaning and prep for paint

Today's progress: After I gutted the engine bay. Removed the engine wiring harness, throttle and shifter cables, clutch master, brake master, brake booster, detached most of the chassis wiring harness, wiper motor, and bunch of misc other crap. That got me to here:





Then a generous soaking of simple green, a box of brillo dish pads, and a long ass time of bending over:





So, while it came out pretty clean, I still need to sand some rust in a few spots. Majorly under the oem battery spot, that's going to need some wire wheel work. wonder if I can get close enough to a match of the stock green or just go black engine bay?

Underside inspection of 139 on the lift

I got #139 into the garage today and up on the lift to check out the situation. Emptied the interior of misc parts and started organizing. The interior is pretty much together other than rear seats, radio, and ecu. Undercarriage has a bit more rusty stuff than #931, mostly on the subframes and suspension members. Steering rack is leaking bad and looks beat.

So my plan now is to swap even more out of 931 Thinking of removing the complete engine/trans/xcase and all of the front subframes, steering rack, control arms, hubs, axles in one big monster unit. Most of those parts are in better or non rusty condition on 931.

• disconnect the engine wiring, radiator & heater hoses, shifter cables, clutch slave, side engine mounts, steering shaft, strut tops, wheels, brake lines all from the top. 
  
• lower the car on the lift until the subframes are on a rolling dolly. 
• unbolt the subframes from the unibody
• lift the unibody up. 
  
• roll the whole front end away. 
  
• swap cars on the lift and set the new car down onto the complete front end assembly and bolt it up

Tentativly Im thinking of doing the drivetrain swap around the weekend of May 23. I think I can get everything out of 931 and have 139 atleast rolling in one weekend. The the next week I should be able to button it up and have the car running.

Anyway, here's some pics from tonight:

 Rust is really not too bad, mostly around brackets and bolts.

Q: How much do I trust welded suspension that was done by the person who hacked that hood?

Wow. Clear plastic lens.

Headliner is absolutely mint. I'm floored by this as the one in 931 is all stained and groddy.

Dash is in great shape with no bubbling by the vents.

I haven't found any cracks or imperfections yet.

Trunk and rear seat area has been gone over with some sort of 

undercoating that is hard and sandpaper like. It looks decent and clean.

The guy I bought the car from did a good job with the trunk mounted battery and running the cables, but I think Im going to remove it and use the lawnmower size battery mounted to the steering rack subframe. (lighter and no NHRA issues with the cutoff)

Purchase of #139/1000

I picked up #139/1000 this last weekend. The car was previously Turbotommy's car from NJ, then it went to Maryland for some lawn ornament time. The body is really really nice, two single dings (rear pass door and under the pass tail light) and only a couple scratches. Interior is very very nice, but is currently full of parts.

The car is only a rolling chassis, needing an engine/trans, fuel parts, ecu, and all engine accessories. 86k miles on the chassis. My plan is to swap all the parts I need from the GVR4 Im currently driving (931/2000) once I get it cleaned up. Goal for this car is a solid 11 second pumpgas car and super clean exterior/interior. So anyway, for a first post, here's some pics as it sits. I don't think the car has been washed since it was parted out in like 2007.










It's pretty empty under the hood. Unfortunately, the wiring has been taken apart. so I'm going through it for sure before goes in. Might remove the harness and paint the engine bay while it's empty.





:banghead:Way to mangle a perfect hood to glue in vents. Looks to have been cut with a sawzall. Guess that's something else needed, another hood. I got a nice uncut white front bumper and white roof strips, so those need to be painted.