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Project Ruby Sue - 99 GS-T

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Damn a lot has happened in the time that I last updated this. First things first ... I moved. Load her up! All my earthly possessions in one truck.

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I finally have a garage! Its a tiny two car, but its so much better than laying on dirt or plywood!

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So I started putting all my stuff away. Put the TV up. The reason for this is simple. When I arrived we somehow had an extra TV than when we left. Not really sure where it came from, maybe the previous owners left it and we didn't notice. Anyway. My plan is for more of the steel cabinets from Lowes but damn they are pricey. I will eventually get one small one to put all my car cleaning supplies and one large one for where the wire shelving unit is. But moving is expensive and that will have to wait. I also keep a huge pile of parts squirrelled away in the attic above. My next goal is to reinstall the overhead lighting this garage used to have in it and they took down and stored up above. I also want to paint the floors up but I haven't had time.

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So anyway, started working on the car. Even though she ran there was still stuff I wanted to do. First thing was, if I wanted this to be reliable I needed to have proper ducting for my cooling system. So I took a stock ducting that I found and modified it up to fit between the condenser and the intercooler. Yeah I'm still running A/C. I live in Houston Texas ... have no choice.

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Also with my engine bay so clean, I finally figured out that the powersteering pump is leaking. And by leaking what I really mean is pooring out all over the place. Probably what has really been eating up my alternators. You can also kinda see the tucked lines here in this picture and I have more later on. So I rebuilt the powersteering pump. Really easy actually, easier than I thought. Good guide online that isn't strictly for the 7bolt but between it and the FSM I got er done. Painted the pump up with high tem engine paint while I was there.

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Decided to finally get around to replacing my fuel pump with a 255. And found a 255 already in there. So I just replaced that dirty sock.

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Shot of the bay at the time. Installed my AEM water temp gauge there on the upper radiator hose. Wanted to keep the stock gauges working as much as possible. Also added a turbo manifold blanket. Not sold on keeping this or not yet.

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Wired up the AEM Oil Press Gauge. I kept the stock gauge as well, although I am probably getting rid of it when I install my Evo 3 Oil Filter Housing. This really isn't that hard if anybody wants to do it. You can also see my tucked power steering lines. Not really liking holding them down using zip ties, but its holding alright right now. I used a wire clip bolted to the oil pan bolt on the corner to ensure that the pressure sensor wire doesn't hit my axle or hit the belts.

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Gave her a bath for the first time in probably six months at least. Looks good clean, but the paint is roached. That's next on the list of what I am saving for actually, a decent paint job. Maybe during the summer. We will see.

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Started working on the A/C that I am determined to keep. Try number one. Failed. Didn't hold pressure. Vacuumed fine but would bleed 20PSI in thirty minutes. Not good at all. Have since gotten A/C working though.

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Turbo Blanket works really well. I really recommend these. Got it from here: https://turbo-performance-products.myshopify.com/products/dsm-fp-manifold-blanket

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She does run ... doing a lot of tuning at night.

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Also rewired and reloomed the wiring harness up on the firewall. Looks a lot cleaner. Also added in the Gamble water res. Bought an oil res but haven't installed it yet. Really need to paint my air intake. Looks terrible. Added the stock fans back on. Slim line mishmoto's weren't cutting it while driving. Got up to 210 degrees driving on the interstate. Weirdly, the temps were hotter while cruising down the road than while sitting in traffic by almost 12 degrees.

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What a great post....this is the exact same G2 that I just bought and you are doing exactly what I have been talking to my wife about. I have reserved about a year of restore time and benchmarked about 10k for the restore job. I will certainly use this thread as a guide.
 
So been really fighting a minor problem with oil wanting to stay in the engine. First it was this:

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So I took this opportunity to switch to the EVO3 housing with external oil cooler. Here is how I set up my external oil cooler. Its not pretty but it is mounted pretty solid.

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You can kinda see a gold knob hanging off the oil filter housing. Yeah that should have a crush washer on it ... but it didn't. So that was an oil leak.

Here is another one:

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So thats all replaced now ... so are the gaskets .. new seals on the oil pump .. Hondabond on the oil pan with new bolts .. I am determined to not leak a drop.
 
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A/C has been a real b*tch. So with this Magnus IM it sits much lower in the bay and much closer to the A/C compressor. The hotside hose comes off the compressor and jams straight up into the back side of the compressor. I blew through two of these that blew in the exact same spot. So I said forget that noise and had my own custom made. I had it made a bit to long, but it works for now. Here it is getting made. I had them make it at an Oil and Gas hose supply company and it turned out pretty nice for $60

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Holding that good good pressure. 40 on the low pressure side. 160 on the high side while running.

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I guess that when I fixed my power steering pump suddenly it was working way better and at the correct psi so it blew out my power steering rack. And I don't mean like a little leak. I went from nothing to all the fluid in one day of spirited driving. So that' getting rebuilt.

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And its still leaking at these nuts. Probably going to have to end up getting them just welded in place. Not really wanting to do that but I'm out of idea's. Replaced the orings and just can't get them tight anymore.

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Put in new lights and really cleaned up the fog lights. One thing that really pissed me off was I forgot to get that one IC pipe powder coated. You can't really see it anywhere but it gets on my nerves.

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Cleaned the crap up around here. Put on new crush washers all over the place. Liquid high pressure teflon tape on everything to do with the oil lines and fittings on the oil filter housing.

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Moved gauges to the pillar. I hate having them here just because they are so obvious, but it was just impractical to have them where the radio was since I plan on putting a double din in soon anyway. Plus the are way better in my line of sight.

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Painted the brake calipers front and rear. Rust wasn't really my color so I was happy to get them red. Used the G2 Brake Caliper paint system that some other guys on here recommend. If you use this stuff you better wear gloves, because it doesn't come off at all. Then your bosses think you murdered somebody or beat somebody up. Really weird looks.

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Bay shot. Anybody willing to trade their red / black top FPR for a purple I would be ecstatic.

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Went to the Dragon and drove around. Car handles well and has gobs of power. Still working out some tuning, occasionally would knock on and off which was frustrating. If you look close you can see that this was the run where my oil decided to not want to be in the car. Right at the end of the run going around a corner the dummy light came on. Pressure was down to the 20s . Had to trailer back to Houston.

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Just took the time to read your last couple update. Really good stuff in here man.

Keep up the good work.


Appreciate it man. Wish I wasn't having so many issues with oil leaks and power steering rack leaks. Just really getting frustrating plus the underside of my car is just covered. But at least its good for rust prevention so I got that going for me.
 
Another year gone by.

I enjoyed driving the car again. But I bought another turbo hatch (2015 Golf GTi) and have been focusing on that. Then Hurricane Harvey came in and while it didn't flood my house it ruined a wall and I had to replace that. I have debated heavily parting the car out but I'll get on here and read through forums and decide to give it another go. So right now we are BACK ON. I have kept trying to do some work though.

So about six months ago after one summer in the Houston heat the tar on the doors started leaking down. Pretty badly. I needed to get that off. So I collected my "tools"

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This was the most effective stuff I could find. This black tar gets absolutely everywhere. It has to be the worst stuff I've ever tried to removed off of anything.

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Then down to this. It appears there is still some left up by the handle but I can't for the life of me get any of that off unless I use a wire wheel. Also I added some "sound deadening". After looking around I just decided to try a product called "Frost King" Its actually made to put on ducting but its been proven to lower outside noise by at least 10 dB. Seems to work well enough for me. Easy to put on. Any way lighter than that stock rubber crap on the floors.

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I wonder why my sound has been god awful and really not working in the front speakers. Previous owner said he put in a "banging memphis audio system" months before I bought it. Yeah ... my ass you did.

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I also decided to go ahead and "upgrade my sound system". I sold one of my vehicles that had a decent one in it so I just pulled it from that one and put it in this car. Speakers are Kickers, Amp is Alpine, and Head Unit is a Double Din Pioneer that has now been in four different cars that I have owned. To make the back speakers work I had to buy 1.5" spacers and I still had to "massage" (beat with a big f*&king hammer) the upper wheel wells to make them fit. All wiring to the speakers has been re-run and is running solely off that amp. This did finally get rid of my stereo whine which had gotten very bad. Also I need some new carpet. These pictures make it look as bad as it actually is and that is embarrassing.

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I have never seen these specific leather door inserts on any DSM. I'm not sure if they were custom made / came off another car / or what. But I do like them. They are very cushy. I have since replaced the broken trim piece around the door handle. I also took the time while I was fixing all of this wiring to add a bolt to the door handle rod to take slack out so the doors actually opened for once easily. The passenger had gotten so bad it wouldn't open at all with the outside handle.

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It snowed. In Houston. I only have fresh water + two bottles of water wetter in my car. So I had to do this.
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. Also I painted the garage and cleaned it up.

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So thanks to build threads like @bettfootball and @NB4G63T , I have decided to redo the engine bay in my car again. The rear main seal is leaking and I'm still having a small leak around the timing side. The timing side is really starting to frustrate me because I have done everything by the book. Anyway the goal is to have basically a full wire tuck and all the parts repainted and freshened up. I will combine from both of these threads to try and create my own. I am keeping A/C and P/S so I will still have the upper lines for right now until I can figure out a way to get rid of those as well. Probably going to take awhile but I already have pulled the engine fixed a bunnnnch and put it back in.


I have to say this is the best tool I've ever bought. Wobble extension. It has changed all my tool owning car working friends lives.

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So I started all of this off by just thinking "hey i need to replace the rear main seal that won't be so bad" to "well it will take me three hours to pull the trans why not just take it all out" and in about 4hours this happened:

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You see that A/C compressor? Yeah thats 100% garbage. Locked up in 5k miles. Bearing completely fused to the shaft. Its really impressive. I wish I had a bigger TV.

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So I'm leaking oil from this side and I just flat can't figure it out. Valve cover gasket is knew and has mitsubond around the corners of the cam gaskets as per recommended. Seals are brand new. There is no oil residue below the these seals. When I removed the motor mount though it had oil behind it. Same with the tensioner. I did go ahead and replace the oil pump seal and rtv the outer edge in place. I also put rtv on the timing belt tensioner for the first time ever per recommendations. Also here you can see my "new" OEM A/C compressor. This was taking off of a perfectly working 98 car with less than 100k miles. I have hopes for it. If it goes out I'll just have it rebuilt before buying chinese junk again. I had to do some major cleaning to get it that clean it was coated. I also painted the metal plates the timing cover attaches to and the motor mount that we will never see. Trying to be more detail oriented.

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Trans cleaned back up. This was possibly the worst cleanup job I have ever done. This trans has been white, blue, and then silver without any layer before being stripped off. I used a wire wheel on a grinder and then had to go down to smaller and smaller wheels on the drill. Eventually had to use a small flat blade for the small areas. Did the best I could but still a couple spots I just couldn't get off without sand blasting. O well this will do until I can send it off to TRE for a complete rebuild. During the cleanup job the grinder slipped and caught my shin. So that sucked. Many cuss words were said. I used Alumi Blast and you only need one can if anybody else does this. That is plenty for four full coats. Went ahead and painted the linkage (both the one here and the one that bolts on) in High Temp Black Engine Enamel.

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And back in the car we go. I wanted to start the wire tuck before this, but then I realized that I need the engine in the car to actually see how long to make the wires. You see all that noise around the firewall? Yeah that is ALLLLLLL about to get cleaned way up.

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LOL I posted my comment and then the thread updated and you tagged my name in it. So random. I'm glad I gave you some inspiration.

Best way for the wire tuck is start with a running engine and tag everything and then disconnect the plugs! Have fun!
 
LOL I posted my comment and then the thread updated and you tagged my name in it. So random. I'm glad I gave you some inspiration.

Best way for the wire tuck is start with a running engine and tag everything and then disconnect the plugs! Have fun!

Well this is pretty much all your fault. Inspiring I suppose.

Yeah most of my plugs already have their labels written on the plugs in sharpie because I was going to do the wiretuck two years ago but just lost steam because I didn't feel like putting the effort in.
 
Well. I have to admit that the Texas heat has slowed me way way down on wanting to do anything outside. 100F with 100% humidity NO THANKS.

I have been trying to finish things up here. My main goal was to tuck my wiring harness. Similar to how others are starting to install it, I decided to install the main fuse box in the inner fender. I also decided to upgrade all the power lines. I now have a 4ga power wire from the alt to the fuse box and heavy gauge wires from the fuse box to the junction box (and then back to the battery).

Unlike most, I want my creature comforts. Mainly A/C. So this harness still has:

Headlights
Foglights
Fans
AC Press Switch
Alt
P/S (will be removed soon)
Oil Dummy Light

Started from the bottom now we're here
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Mounted up where I want it. My brackets are slightly crude but will get trimmed up. Note that you can buy stock aluminum at lowes, but it doesn't bend it shatters in your hand and then you hit yourself in the face. Ask me how I know. Also that grey pipe is the death of me. When I took the pipes in to get PC'd I forget it. You can't see it but I'll be damned if it doesn't annoy me.

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Well lets get started. Laying everything out and ripping loom off.

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This is what I was left over with after I cleaned this harness up. Side note: whoever designed this harness is an idiot. There are wires running everywhere. Grounds on the passenger side go to the drivers side and vice versa. It makes no sense. I now have all grounds run to two primary spots. Since nothing is timing based (like digital circuits) the length of the ground doesn't need to be equal length, nor is much consequence. Needless to say, I was able to eliminate a good chunk of grounding wire just by choosing better ground points. Cutting the grounding splices will also make the entire harness just so much easier to work with (untangling, running straight, etc...).

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Mostly finished. I chose to just use normal plastic wire loam on the bigger parts that you can't see for this harness. Really because its cheaper and I have boxes sitting around. Most ends that you can see are finished in Mil-Spec with wire shrink ends.

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I can't imagine why I was having issues with the charging system. Seriously though these harness are getting old and brittle anywhere they are exposed to higher heat. This is going to become an all to common occurrence soon.

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That is all on this harness. I'll try to update the next harness and finishing the car tomorrow.
 
Well. I think my story with this one is going to end. After 7 years I have found my unicorn DSM and I am in the position to buy it. I will swap some parts from this car, sell some parts and sell the shell or trash it. The shell of this car needs too much work for me to want to keep investing into it, plus my wife won't allow me to have more than two cars (which is fair when you only have room for two cars).
 
Well. I think my story with this one is going to end. After 7 years I have found my unicorn DSM and I am in the position to buy it. I will swap some parts from this car, sell some parts and sell the shell or trash it. The shell of this car needs too much work for me to want to keep investing into it, plus my wife won't allow me to have more than two cars (which is fair when you only have room for two cars).


OMG *****. I rewired mine 3 times, and I mean pulled every panel tracing shorts.

Parts store alternators are garbage, that's why you will have problems. Both of my cars have been through 2-3 of them before I found good ones.

How much are you going to leave on the chassis. I'd be interested in a project if it is still all there to be a complete car
 
Everything works on this car. P/S AC fans and lights. It’s finished. Crank and drive yo Maine. I’d do it tomorrow. I don’t gave the space for two projects nor the energy. I will finally start with a 100% stock car that I just drove 15 hours across NM and Texas.

I’m not sure. I will try to sell the red car as complete. All it needs is paint. If that doesn’t work I’ll part out.
 

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