1g plymouth laser

[Harrison Scholten]

Harrison Scholten submitted a new DSM Profile :

1g plymouth laser


Read more about this vehicle here...

 

[Harrison Scholten]

I'm a little annoyed at myself for not posting here as I've been building this car. A lot of work has gone into this car.

I bought this car roughly six years ago after a working on a 90 talon tsi with a friend.

When I bought it it was in "barely driveable" condition. It could run and drive on it's own power but was far from being street legal.


At first glance you could see the previous owners had no idea what they were doing. The car was riced right out. The paint was rolled on and had an eggshell grey finish, there were green led strips in the headlights, fog lights that didnt work, and some ebay tubular exhaust headers that were cracked because apparently not everyone believes in flex pipes.

(The attached image will give a relative idea what it looked like when I bought it)


I spent the first two years of the build going through and fixing these bandaid fixes as I found them, it took awhile as I didn't have a lot of money and spent a lot of time away. I already had a plan for the the build which was that I wanted to turbocharge it and run around 300 hp. My intention is to take it to a circuit track so first things first I started with the suspension.

 

[Harrison Scholten]

The suspension was by far the worst shape mechanical system on that car. The shocks were completely worn out, the springs had been sagged and warped with heat to lower the car, the alignment was out and one of the lower ball joints had been replaced with a pressed in joint which left the hole too big to be replaced by a new factory one. But the worst part was that in 25 odd years not one of the bushings had been replaced. Youd thing this would mean that they'd be pretty loose but what it actually means is that they had all rust welded themselves to the control arm bolts. After weeks trying everything I could to get them out I ended up cutting the frame taking it out and then welding the frame back together. In the meantime I replaced all the bushings and for the strut assemblies I used kyb lowering springs and struts to drop the body 1.5". While I was at it with the welder i also put in a flex pipe. After that i didnt do a whole lot more than basic maintenance for about two years.


At some point I bought a non running 93 laser rs turbo auto, for about 400$, to use for parts but it ended up just needing a belt and someone who knew how to time a 4g63 to get it running. So I drove that around for awhile, had some fun power sliding in the snow. Until eventually it developed an unidentified tick and I decided I would use it for parts in the 91.

(This was after I had done engine work to the 91. What's left on the car went to my friend so he can rebuild the motor for use in the previously mentioned eagle talon after he put a rod through the side of the block.)


After two years I got fed up with my boss and decided to quit and get a new job. A few weeks after quitting a recieved my accumulated vacation pay I hadn't touched in forever which amounted to roughly 2I. So naturally I put it into the car, specifically the engine. My block was a 4g63 n/a but I wanted to turbo it and had done a lot of research on how to do it properly. I did as much of the work myself as possible which was all but the machining.

I got:

2g turbo piston heads, with wrist pins bored to 21mm to make them full floating.
Oil squirters
Balance shaft delete
Oil gallery mods (I saw it on jaffromobile on youtube)
New bearings
Arp2000 rod bolts
Updated valve lash adjusters.

In hindsight, I wish I hadn't deleted the balance shaft and if anyone else tries to do the turbo conversion I'd recommend forged pistons, you dont need squirters with forged pistons and you'll save some headache, plus all in all it costs about the same.

The biggest challenge I ran into was keeping the engine clean during assembly. The machine shop cut everything to the spec I gave them, which I dont remember what the specs were but they did a good job so all I had to do was put it back together. At the time I lived in a 4 plex and didnt have access to a shop or garage so I ended up assembling the motor on the parking lot to the complex. While the lot itself was, poorly, paved adjacent to it was gravel alleyway. This meant a lot of cleaning, and an entire case of brake cleaner to to assemble the engine. God forbid a car drove by or It started raining, which it did often. I had a tarp close by to cover it incase something like that happened. However after about a day I was victorious and had assembled the motor mostly if not completely dirt free.
Initially I had turboed it as is. it seemed to be over boosting and I didnt have the tools to see what was happening, so I removed it. Trans went on, accidentally flipped rear engine mount which was frustrating. 4 hours later everything was in and ready to get back on the road.
It stayed at that stage until 2019 when after receiving some extra cash I had enough money to paint it and to finally purchase a logger, aftermarket for and a maft translator/ FM maf combo.

 

[Harrison Scholten]

Finally after 6 years I got to put the turbo on permanently. Tweaking the maft was tricky but after 8 hrs reading the manual and another 2 driving the same road back and forth I was able to get it in some semblance a a reasonable tune with minimal to no knock. There is 1-3 counts of knock at 600 hz airflow but I cant seem to determine the cause or tune it out.
Nowadays its running 12 psi blasting through corners and straights. Next up is a tranny swap to the f5m33 and equal length driveshaft mod.