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)