Drag Race Build: 2G AWD Auto Dragcar Build

[turboking15]

The car: 97 Eagle Talon Tsi awd 5 spd

The plan: 6 bolt swap, auto swap, gutted, caged/all saftey equipment, ford 8.8 rear live axle, aem ems, forward facing turbo, tube front chassis, etc.

The goal: I would like to have this car into the 9's by the end of next season, the number im putting on it is 9.50. hopefully i can make this happen. This winter will be the build of the car from the ground up and come spring time hopefully it will be ready for tuning, and going after our goal.

Parts already purchased for the car:
Wiseco 1400HD 9.0:1 pistons
Manley turbotuff I beam rods
FIC bluemax 1450cc inj.
fuel lab reg
fuel lab -8in -8 out filter
-6 prefilters (x2)
walbro 255 inline pump (x4)
aem ems
10 gal plastic fuel cell
buschur stage 3 head
kiggly behives
3g lifters
kelford 272
BW S366ETT turbo, ts.91a/r turbine housing
Auto trans ans tcase from 100k mile 95 gsx


I will Add to the parts list as i get more parts.

The block will be sent out this winter for machining and we will be assembling it. Block will be the manley / wiseco combo, arp rod and main bolts, kiggly girdle, fel pro composite hg with stainless oring in head, buschur head, kelford 272, kiggly beehives, 3g lifters, kiggly hla, arp l19 studs, fidanza cam gears, gates kevlar belt, bsek, fluidampner balancer, electric water pump, ps & a/c delete.

Transmission will get a full rebuild using alto red clutches with kolene steels, and kevlar bands, 5 disk front clutch, shift kit, manumatic shifting, custom aluminum pan with 1 quart extra capacity and built in cooling, external trans cooler, precision billet convertor, hurst quarter stick

Rear end will come from 95-01 explorer, itll get a set of 3.31:1 gears to match the dsm auto and a spool. It will be mounted on a ladder bar setup with coilover suspension. Custom 2 piece aluminum driveshaft will tie it all together.

That is just a brief rundown of the setup with more to come, now the pics.
Coming home

Tear down









Parts:






Thats it for now, stay tuned for more updates.
Hope you enjoy it.

[96awd]

Seems like the Borg Warner S366 is becoming more popular. I have the same goals as you on the 366 but in a manual 1g. Good luck. I'll be following this.

[99gst_racer]

Cool build. Are you fitting the rearend yourself, or are you having a chassis shop do it?

Also, I still have the tranny and t-case if you need one.

[turboking15]

Thanks,
We will be doing all the fabrication in house. I picked up a trans from a local guy down here but if you'd be willing to split em ill take the tcase. Pm me.

[turboking15]

Update:

So i found myself in the shop the other day with the cutoff wheel and the sawzall and this is what happened.






Then it was time to start fitting the new tube front end and this is where im at with it right now.





still not sure if i want to weld that section to the frame caps or if i want to make it removable for engine/trans service so its just tacked in for the time being until i decide on what to do.

Also dis 2 came in the mail and i have a 50mm tial bov on the way. Thats about it for now, should be sourcing my explorer 8.8 rear soon and starting fabrication of the ladder bar setup for that.

As it sits now.

[WickedBlk95GSX]

Nice, I wish I was able to do this. Good luck

[MarsaGSX]

Looks promising! Love this kind of builds!
Iam on the same boat w s366 in T4divided and with ET target B) but w manual 2G awd.
Which ex. manifold you wanna use??custom build??Its only race car?.. What kind of Intercooler you would use..Air to Air or Air to Water..??What fuel?

Good luck
Venca

[turboking15]

The manifold will be a custom built piece in house same as the rest of the fabrication. The car is mainly a drag car but it will see some street miles. I will be going with a 4.5" thick core with custom endtanks. The car will be run on 93 and meth and probably c16.

[turboking15]

A little update on the build, between the holidays and having to move the car and all my tools progress has been a bit slow but ive finally managed to get back to it.

Started prepping the 8.8 housing for the ladder bars and paint.



The jegs ladder link bars and the comp engineering ladder bar cross member.


Still not sure on if i will be using the ladder bar cross member or just welding brackets to the car. Still need to get the diagonal link bar aswell.

Here are some mockup pictures of the rear going in the car.





Also started stripping the front of the car getting ready to drop the front subframe.



And some turbo fun



Enjoy

[Kait]

Good luck with this build, subscribed!

[_801_]

Awesome build so far

Good choice on the turbo, The borg warner turbos have really impressed me so far.

[kp116]

Nice build! You won't be disappointed with this turbo!

[bad2g6bolt]

Great build! Keep it up.

[Fejery4491]

Glad to see you're still at it! I've been patiently waiting for an update. Looks amazing, I wish I had the skills to do what you're doing!

[OG PeNGuiNz0Rz]

Very nice, I can't wait for more updates.

[turboking15]

Started fitting the ladder bars, after taking with a few people im going ti move them closer to the wheels to help with axle articulation. I also have to bring the whole axle about an inch closer ti the front of the car. But she's getting there, slowly but surely.






Everything is just tacked in at this point so I could visualize everything and make changes as needed.

[4G63_n/t_GS]

I love this stuff! Hope to see it out running. Good luck with it.

[FLASH1970]

This looks pretty cool so far.

[okcpopeman]

Sure does look like those brackets hang down pretty low. Id be worried about ground clearance (unless its just the angle of the pictures) Love what you are doing though! Keep it up.

[bostonhatcher]

Originally Posted by okcpopeman

Sure does look like those brackets hang down pretty low. Id be worried about ground clearance (unless its just the angle of the pictures) Love what you are doing though! Keep it up.

It looks like they're upside down.

[turboking15]

Small update, continued with mocking up the rear end. Everything is tacked into place right now, only thing left is to fab up some chock mount tabs on the axle.










Not sure how the brackets can be upside down as the holes are parallel with the cut out? Not trying to say im right so if you can elaborate that would be great as im still new to this with this being my first ladder bar setup.

Thanks for all the comments.

[krh195]

From my understanding of ladder bar set ups (im no pro) for drag racing you want the bracket the way you have it set up to eliminate more axle wrap. Also you want the bottom bar as parallel to the ground as possible for maximum traction.

Sometimes the brackets are used the oppisite way if you are building a big 4x4 truck that way you have to have more clearence. But I dont think they perform as well in that set up.

BTW Cool build, Its awesome that your doing all the fab yourself.

[FLASH1970]

How do you plan on comtrolling the auto trans? Are you jsut going to have a shift box and 100% pressure shifts all the time?

[turboking15]

Yeah, I set the bars up in the top hole at ride height parallel to the ground so I can move my point down for more bite.

As far as the trans I will be doing the kiggly manumatic wiring with a ratchet shifter and full line pressure all the time.
The car is mainly a track car so im not worried about being able to vary line pressure.

[turboking15]

Small update:
During the whole process of the 8.8 swap i have wanted to retain the factory upper shock mounts, and the plan was to use a bolt in dsm coilover. After searching around and looking at coilover options i didnt really like what i had to choose from in my price range so i decided to switch it up a little.

The rear setup consists of a set of qa1 single adjustable drag shocks, qa1 12" springs (still working on the spring rates) and custom brackets to mount to the factory strut tower. Here are some pics.






I will be adding a few more gussets to all the mounting locations on the shock mounts, ladder bar mounts, and frame mounts once final welding starts. I am just waiting for my new mig welder to show up hopefully next week then i can finish weld everything.

Getting close

[dsmornothing]

From some personal experience with chassis strength you should really look into doing a full cross member for the foward ladder bar pickups. Them 2 areas you have rectangle tube welded in are very weak. Also what do you plan on competing in as far as classes? The solid axle just bumped you into a whole new class, so just curious on that!

[turboking15]

The two rectangle parts for the front pickups sit right under where the rollcage will mount to the floor so that is going to be one main tie in point. I will also be adding plates to the end of the rectangles that tie them into the driveshaft tunnel.

As far as what class, i havent really decided yet. At this point im just building the car to hold the power reliably and have fun. Once i get a feel for the car and what its capable of ill see where it will be most competitive.

Ill be updating soon with some more pictures as i havent in a while.

[dsmornothing]

Originally Posted by turboking15

As far as what class, i havent really decided yet. At this point im just building the car to hold the power reliably and have fun. Once i get a feel for the car and what its capable of ill see where it will be most competitive.

Alright, Only reason I ask is because the rear end put you in an outlaw class in most sanctioning bodies. At that point you better be running 7s!

[turboking15]

Update time, finally got my new welder, argon tank, and some time to play with it. So I have been busy finish welding all the tabs, brackets, etc for the 8.8 conversion and I am almost done with that part. Also decided to go with a different mounting style for the rear coilovers, and have been working on designing a new front suspension setup. Here are some pics.









New shock mounts





After I got done with the lower shock mounts i was pondering ways of mounting the shocks at the top and I would like to get some opinions on a possible solution I came up with. I have the bar that goes across the rear of the frame rails that i added for support when i removed the rear support from the floor between the shock towers for the diff, and then i will have a bar that ties the strut towers together with the cage. My thought was to run a bar from the rear support bar up to the strut tower bar and hang my tabs on the connecting bar for the upper shock mounts. Does anybody see any downsides to doing it this way or have any other ideas? Nothing is set in stone yet on those just tossing around some ideas.

As I mentioned earlier I am also working on a new front end design that will do away with the 6 control arms in the front and go to a single lower control arm and a macpherson style strut. For this I am using a 3g eclipse spindle and coilover, 99 diamante caliper brackets, and gsx calipers. Upon seeing the thread someone posted about the magnus billet knuckles and seeing what Mike did to make that setup work on his 2g it got me thinking abit more about how I could acomplish that. I am still gathering parts for that phase of the build and figuring out how to jig it all up, but I will be sure to post pics of the progress on that as well.

Enjoy.

[turboking15]

Rear bars are all tacked into place, shock tabs are tacked on top. Waiting on final welding. Once welded the axle will come out, be rebuilt with new gears, bearings, seals, etc and will go back in with springs, brakes, and wheels.

Pics.





Once the rear is done I will be starting on the 12 point cage and the tube front chassis. Hoping to get alot done in the next couple months. I would like to have the car running at the shootout, but we will see.