Thor06
10-02-2007, 01:42 PM
Hey guys, I just thought I would make a thread about my project, I like these kinda things.
First off, here is the background on the car. It is a 1990 TSi AWD, 5 spd, and that weird burgudy/purplish color. I bought it spring break (March?) of 2006 from Steve, he was just selling it for a friend of his though. The car had a blown head gasket so I thought it would be a great project. Well, after getting it back up and starting to shit, I found that the headgasket was just a small part of this cars problems. Who ever did the work on the car before hand should have they wrenching rights revoked, a lot of the shit including but not only the transfer case, exhaust manifold, and tranny were missing bolts and the ones that were there were loose, finger tight or a little better. Definately not complaining though, as it was advertised as stock when it in fact had a Big 16g, BS elim, 2g exhaust mani, an EPROM, and a Centerforce clutch and I got a pretty good price for it.
Between dealing with two slow and retarded machinists, being busy with school (junior in high school at the time), my simple newbie mess ups, and waiting for parts to get here I FINALLY got it running at the end of July 06. The first two days I had it running it was running choppy particularly at 4k and above. I only drove it a couple miles each day though, just to check shit out and try to figure out why it was missing. On that third day I was at a friends house with a couple guys just looking shit over while it was idling. The problem was I had removed all the emissions shit and put in nice, short vac lines... sure enough one of the little vac hose clips was down grounding out the 4th cylinder! Popped that bitch out and she ran like money! We grabbed my buddy's boost guage and boost controller and threw them in, set it at like 13-14psi and went for a rip, this was all at like 2 or 3.
So I cruised around with one of my friends from then until that fateful rip through town. My buddy in his NT Civic hatch pulled up next to me and looked like he wanted to race. We didnt really race, just did a pull quick so he could see what my car could do... and boy did he get a show. She started making noise, which I first passed off as lifter tick. It got louder really quick and I let off at I think 5k to hear it die. The Civic and I pulled into a Super 8 and started it up again... rod knocking like a fuckin Jehovah's Witness :(.
So I put the car away for the rest of the winter and my dad convinced me to part it. I didnt want to, but I didnt want to keep dumping lots of money into it either. I didnt try real hard to sell the parts, but they were up on a few places nonetheless. I had a lot of hits but no one ever actually followed through so I decided if I could find a cheap used motor before I sold my shit, I would just buy it and drop it in. Sure enough, all I sold by the time I found PimpinDSMstyle's old blue 1ga was the spare stuff I didnt need anyway so my dad and I came down and got it late July this year.
The pulling out the old motor and putting in the new one was a lot of fun, I definately learned a lot and proved to my parents that I am capable of doing work on this car. Also found that the turbo oil return line was the culprit for the first motor, it popped a hole and leaked all my oil out. After a lot more little setbacks I finally got to take it out first week of August this year :). It was such a blast to drive even though I rarely took it over 4000 rpms. Even though it doesnt have AC like my Cavy does, it does have a lot of other nice things like power windows, mirrors, locks, tilt wheel, more comfortable seats, and oh yeah more than 63 horse power!
As for mods, when I bought the car it had the Big 16g, the dual friction clutch, and the 2g mani. All the while its been broken I have been collecting parts as I can mostly through friends that had parts laying around but were in a cash jam and helped me out. Now its mods are as follows:
-2g AWD front brakes
-300zx rimes w/ Yokohama AVS-1's or something like that
-Extrude honed IM
-FP cast exhaust mani
-ported 02 housing
-big 16g (ported hotside)
-3" Megan catback
-Autometer oil pressure/boost/water temp guages
-JoeP MBC
-Weight reduction (sound, AC, heater core, some interior)
-ACT 2100
-Homemade 91 short shifter, modded shifter assembly to accept it
And I also have the following "in the closet"
-FP2's
-Walbro 255 w/ rewire
-battery relocation
As for the future plans, its pretty much going to be a "stockish looking" build with about as much power as I can squeeze from it. There are a few reasons for this, one because I think it would be kind of fun and maybe a bit challenging, but also because I really dont have the money to dump into making it a really fast car. Hopefully this summer I will be able to get
-DSMlink
-850's
-Zoom stage 2? clutch (2100 is slipping a bit, was used with the parts car)
-Supra SMIC w/ hard pipes by me
-Modded 1g BOV
-Possibly an Evo III 16g from my buddy in Canada
and then I can join the FlexFuel Mafia. Other things I plan on doing this summer include smoking the bar lights and turn signals, tail lights, and rear corner markers, a fresh coat of gunmetal paint on my rims if/when I need new tires, as well as further weight reduction and of course tuning. I also gotta figure out my wiring shit, its got a few bugs (again, thank you previous owner(s)) Other things I would like to do in the future are:
-Early 95 AWD slotted rears (have calipers, just need the rotors, pads, and a reason to put them on)
-New paint, stock color silver stripe and all
-Darker tint
-A not-so-special sound system, probably just a Sony head unit with some halfway decent speakers and maybe a 10" sub with the amp mounted to the box with a quick detach so I can take it out easy
-Lowering (I'm thinking Prokit or Sportlines and AGX's)
-Rear sway bar and strut tower bars
-CO2 IC sprayer
I'll post some pictures later when I have a spare moment or two. So now that you've read Thor's novel for today, what do you guys think?
First off, here is the background on the car. It is a 1990 TSi AWD, 5 spd, and that weird burgudy/purplish color. I bought it spring break (March?) of 2006 from Steve, he was just selling it for a friend of his though. The car had a blown head gasket so I thought it would be a great project. Well, after getting it back up and starting to shit, I found that the headgasket was just a small part of this cars problems. Who ever did the work on the car before hand should have they wrenching rights revoked, a lot of the shit including but not only the transfer case, exhaust manifold, and tranny were missing bolts and the ones that were there were loose, finger tight or a little better. Definately not complaining though, as it was advertised as stock when it in fact had a Big 16g, BS elim, 2g exhaust mani, an EPROM, and a Centerforce clutch and I got a pretty good price for it.
Between dealing with two slow and retarded machinists, being busy with school (junior in high school at the time), my simple newbie mess ups, and waiting for parts to get here I FINALLY got it running at the end of July 06. The first two days I had it running it was running choppy particularly at 4k and above. I only drove it a couple miles each day though, just to check shit out and try to figure out why it was missing. On that third day I was at a friends house with a couple guys just looking shit over while it was idling. The problem was I had removed all the emissions shit and put in nice, short vac lines... sure enough one of the little vac hose clips was down grounding out the 4th cylinder! Popped that bitch out and she ran like money! We grabbed my buddy's boost guage and boost controller and threw them in, set it at like 13-14psi and went for a rip, this was all at like 2 or 3.
So I cruised around with one of my friends from then until that fateful rip through town. My buddy in his NT Civic hatch pulled up next to me and looked like he wanted to race. We didnt really race, just did a pull quick so he could see what my car could do... and boy did he get a show. She started making noise, which I first passed off as lifter tick. It got louder really quick and I let off at I think 5k to hear it die. The Civic and I pulled into a Super 8 and started it up again... rod knocking like a fuckin Jehovah's Witness :(.
So I put the car away for the rest of the winter and my dad convinced me to part it. I didnt want to, but I didnt want to keep dumping lots of money into it either. I didnt try real hard to sell the parts, but they were up on a few places nonetheless. I had a lot of hits but no one ever actually followed through so I decided if I could find a cheap used motor before I sold my shit, I would just buy it and drop it in. Sure enough, all I sold by the time I found PimpinDSMstyle's old blue 1ga was the spare stuff I didnt need anyway so my dad and I came down and got it late July this year.
The pulling out the old motor and putting in the new one was a lot of fun, I definately learned a lot and proved to my parents that I am capable of doing work on this car. Also found that the turbo oil return line was the culprit for the first motor, it popped a hole and leaked all my oil out. After a lot more little setbacks I finally got to take it out first week of August this year :). It was such a blast to drive even though I rarely took it over 4000 rpms. Even though it doesnt have AC like my Cavy does, it does have a lot of other nice things like power windows, mirrors, locks, tilt wheel, more comfortable seats, and oh yeah more than 63 horse power!
As for mods, when I bought the car it had the Big 16g, the dual friction clutch, and the 2g mani. All the while its been broken I have been collecting parts as I can mostly through friends that had parts laying around but were in a cash jam and helped me out. Now its mods are as follows:
-2g AWD front brakes
-300zx rimes w/ Yokohama AVS-1's or something like that
-Extrude honed IM
-FP cast exhaust mani
-ported 02 housing
-big 16g (ported hotside)
-3" Megan catback
-Autometer oil pressure/boost/water temp guages
-JoeP MBC
-Weight reduction (sound, AC, heater core, some interior)
-ACT 2100
-Homemade 91 short shifter, modded shifter assembly to accept it
And I also have the following "in the closet"
-FP2's
-Walbro 255 w/ rewire
-battery relocation
As for the future plans, its pretty much going to be a "stockish looking" build with about as much power as I can squeeze from it. There are a few reasons for this, one because I think it would be kind of fun and maybe a bit challenging, but also because I really dont have the money to dump into making it a really fast car. Hopefully this summer I will be able to get
-DSMlink
-850's
-Zoom stage 2? clutch (2100 is slipping a bit, was used with the parts car)
-Supra SMIC w/ hard pipes by me
-Modded 1g BOV
-Possibly an Evo III 16g from my buddy in Canada
and then I can join the FlexFuel Mafia. Other things I plan on doing this summer include smoking the bar lights and turn signals, tail lights, and rear corner markers, a fresh coat of gunmetal paint on my rims if/when I need new tires, as well as further weight reduction and of course tuning. I also gotta figure out my wiring shit, its got a few bugs (again, thank you previous owner(s)) Other things I would like to do in the future are:
-Early 95 AWD slotted rears (have calipers, just need the rotors, pads, and a reason to put them on)
-New paint, stock color silver stripe and all
-Darker tint
-A not-so-special sound system, probably just a Sony head unit with some halfway decent speakers and maybe a 10" sub with the amp mounted to the box with a quick detach so I can take it out easy
-Lowering (I'm thinking Prokit or Sportlines and AGX's)
-Rear sway bar and strut tower bars
-CO2 IC sprayer
I'll post some pictures later when I have a spare moment or two. So now that you've read Thor's novel for today, what do you guys think?