Street Build 98 GST Revival Street Build

[kyler021]

Hey all, it's been a while since I updated the thread. The turbo flutter thing fixed itself after a couple days. I'm not sure how, but it did

I got my 16g bolted in today. Theres a couple pics of the old turbo to mani gasket, old turbo, clean threads in the 16g, and the 16g bolted in. Tomorrow I'll get the coolant lines installed. For some reason, the 2g water lines for the turbo won't fit the 16g even though the forums say otherwise. I have to figure out what to do about that. I'm waiting on my package from STM for the ARP turbo to manifold bolts, crush washers for the coolant line, and downpipe stud. Also, does anyone know what the engraving on the 16g turbo gasket surface? It looks like an old FP logo. Does that have any significance? Could it have been rebuilt by FP?

Next week I'll try and finish the install on the AFPR.

Thanks for reading!
Kyle

 

[kyler021]

I'm feeling a bit demotivated to work on the car right now. Got back from FL on the 30th and was met with a puddle of gas under the gas tank. It seems like it's coming from the fuel filler rubber hose that I replaced last year. I used a straight hose because the stock one was rotted and I had to bend the straight hose quite a bit. I'm ordering a reproduction GSX filler hose to see if that'll work. I'm guessing the cold made the hose move or contract or something.

I did make some progress on the turbo recently. The coolant lines for the turbo are almost all done, the turbo oil feed is almost done, but I need to order a crush washer for it. The plug for the filter housing is in. I'm going to order a J pipe off of CXRacing this week, and then I'll start fabbing up the IC piping.

I got a lot of parts for the car for Christmas, and honestly it's a bit overwhelming seeing all the parts. Subframe bushings, speed density stuff, IC piping all need to go in before I can drive the car again. I know it sounds like I'm suffering from success over here .

For now these are all the pictures I have, I'll post more sometime this week!

 

[kyler021]

Coolant lines for the turbo are all finished. I need to drill out the bolt holes on the turbo oil drain line to fit the 16g once I get my return line gaskets from STM. After that the fluid systems for the turbo will be all done! When that's done, it's time for the intercooler piping to be put together.

Even though I have some exciting packages coming in, it's hard to stay motivated to work on this car. Seeing the rust on the underside, snapping bolts under the hood, the cold weather and the fuel filler line leaking is making it extremely hard to want to go outside and work on it. I may be looking for a better condition chassis soon. Even though its not the worst car in terms of rust that I've ever seen, these cars are becoming more scarce as time goes on, and I want to find my forever DSM soon. Even if it has to sit for a couple years before I get to wrenching on it.

Thanks for reading my rant...

Kyle

 

[jesse12345]

I definitely get how you feel. I also hate to see these cars go down from rust. If you haven't seen my 95 rs it may not be worth fixing to many people. I feel like I have to and I need to. There's not many around especially where I live because of most of them rusting out. I will not let mother nature win.

 

[kyler021]

If you haven't seen my 95 rs it may not be worth fixing to many people. I feel like I have to and I need to. There's not many around especially where I live because of most of them rusting out. I will not let mother nature win.

Jesus man... that car really was determined to rot away. Maybe I can get myself some motivation through your build thread. Battling with my parents for a garage space isn't something I'd like to do so my rust repair will have to wait till I move away. Definitely looking for a house with a garage though .

 

[chrysler kid]

Just keep tinkering with this one, even if you decide it’s going to be a donor car. Your work will pay off and the parts are always transferable to a new chassis



The cx racing j-pipe has bad fitment. You’ll need to use a stock rubber intake tube for the turbo because it’s bent too hard, and the pipe is also too long from the j-pipe. I eventually replaced my cx racing one with a black one from eBay, I think it was a mamba brand or something and it had a little less harsh of a curve and could fit a metal turbo intake pipe. So the cx racing one will require you to cut one of the pipes to make it shorter, and you will also have to use a stock rubber intake from the turbo to the mass air flow sensor. That injen intake isn’t going to fit

I bent the crap out of the stock coolant piping to make it fit on my second gen, another time I bought the mamba brand coolant hose lines, they were fine. Another time I just left the turbo without any coolant through it. I felt like the 16g spooled better being oil cooled but I digress, I never had any dyno numbers, it just always seemed to spool hard when the turbo was hot and the front mount intercooler was cold

If you’re still itchy to spend money there is a rev9 front mount intercooler kit on eBay for a second gen going for $350 shipped brand new and it comes with the j-pipe and all the intercooler piping. Might give you extra motivation to finish this build

 

[kyler021]

Your work will pay off and the parts are always transferable to a new chassis

That's kinda my philosophy now, I'd like to replace all the engine/suspension/misc parts on this car that I can then take off again and transfer over to a clean shell. I'm thinking maybe a 2GB talon .

The cx racing j-pipe has bad fitment.

I actually ended up going with the ExtremePSI J pipe. I have yet to fit it up so I don't have any idea on fitment just yet. I need to buy the MAC EBC and weld a bung to the J pipe for it so I'll end up doing that first before install.

I bought the mamba brand coolant hose lines

Those coolant hoses actually look sick! I wish I knew about those before I went through the hassle of dealing with the stock hoses.

If you’re still itchy to spend money there is a rev9 front mount intercooler kit on eBay for a second gen going for $350 shipped brand new and it comes with the j-pipe and all the intercooler piping. Might give you extra motivation to finish this build

Unfortunately, I didn't know about this one either! I thought it was the CXRacing one, or make custom piping and no way could I afford a 6-700+ dollar credit card bill currently, so I got 2 universal IC pipe kits and a bead roller for Christmas so that's the route I'll be going.

 

[kyler021]

I have been slowly getting some stuff done on the car. It's winter and I had a winter class I needed to get done so progress has been slow, but here's some pictures I've taken recently!

I started the manual steering rack conversion. I dropped the steering rack, took the tie rods out, took everything apart and the process is almost finished. All I need to do now is put everything back together, get new inner tie rods, and put it back in the car. I had to JBWeld the bolts that held the hydraulic fluid lines to make a plug, so I'm waiting for that to harden before putting it back together.

My CCDesignFab throttle body elbow came in, I just need to rtv that to the throttle body and replace the inner seal and that should be good to go! I also spent my life savings on Evo 9 Brembos from a guy locally. I wanted only the rears but ended up getting the fronts too after I learned the bracket adapter for the front was only 40 bucks on Ebay.

Hopefully I can get to working on her more now that my winter class is finished!

Thanks for reading!
Kyle

 

[kyler021]

I reassembled and greased up the steering rack today. I also cleaned up a TON of carbon that I found on the throttle body. There's soooo much carbon caked up in the intake manifold. I'm not even sure what causes this. I was thinking maybe oil burning, or my neighbor said that since I don't have my emissions equipment, it could be from that. Here's some pics!

 

[99dsmer4g63]

I think the turbo seals were leaking at a point in time for a while. Not necessarily burning oil but coming from the intake tract.

-Daniel

 

[kyler021]

I think the turbo seals were leaking at a point in time for a while. Not necessarily burning oil but coming from the intake tract.

-Daniel

I also think so. On decel after a pull, I'd smell oil burning. Most people say that's valve seals, but I just replaced them in July of last year. I did notice oil in the intake tract a couple times, and the turbo had quite a bit of forward and back shaft play. This is how much oil was in there around November of 2025.

 

[kyler021]

Small updates today. I took my fuel pump assembly out to replace the stock pump for a Walbro 255. Naturally, I cannot do a single job on the car without breaking something . My fuel pump in tank connector had wires showing after taking out the pump. I pulled too hard on the pump and messed it up. Oh well, if someone has an extra lying around, let me know!! Or if someone knows what type of spade connectors I need to buy to repair it. I know it has the locking tab on the top of it.

Once I stopped kicking myself over that mess up, I went back out and replaced an o-ring on the turbo feed for a crush washer. I now have coolant in/out, and oil feed for the turbo all done, all I need to work on now is the turbo drain. I also got rid of all the power steering components in the engine bay. That side is looking cleaner now.

 

[19Eclipse90]

Not sure how you’re wanting to go about it, but the pump side of that harness is available a number of places. Can always transplant if needed.

The housing side of the connector is out there, too, but I don’t have the source handy.

 

[jesse12345]

Usually those pumps come with those connectors, most of mine did anyways. If you need anything I can look and send you it if it works.

 

[kyler021]

Not sure how you’re wanting to go about it, but the pump side of that harness is available a number of places. Can always transplant if needed.

Shoot I forgot about that! I'll have to look around for mine, I may have thrown it out but I need to double check.

Very beginner question, but how should I go about repairing it? Just cut and solder then heatshrink? Or a crimp connector with heatshrink on it? I'm not trying to make a bomb out of my gas tank haha.

 

[19Eclipse90]

Either of those, using fuel rated heat shrink.

 

[kyler021]

More progress made this week! Bought some vacuum lines and took a trip to ECMTuning to grab my vacuum block thingy for the new map sensor. That's all connected and mounted using some 3M double sided tape. Still need to configure the settings for speed density in ECMLink but I'm gonna do that next week. This week I took the subframe out, drained the oil and got my oil drain tube filed for the different size bolt holes on the 16g turbo. All I need for that is a new correct gasket, some oil and it'll be good to fire up for the first time since December. Enjoy some pictures!


Also, those subframe bushings were very time consuming to get out, especially the small ones with the metal sleeves. In case anyone's reading through here and needs to replace those bushings, heat up the bushings with a propane torch for about 5 minutes until the rubber starts melting around the bushing. Then get to hammering them out. The 2 ones on the side are super easy. The ones in the middle are hard to efficiently heat up so those are gonna take more time. For the metal sleeved bushings, a 15/16 socket fits perfect on the sleeve. PB Blaster the side of the sleeve, hacksaw one side of the sleeve down to the bushing cup then hammer on the socket. Should come right out after a couple minutes of hammering.

My oil has some glitter in it, probably from the cam, so that's just great isn't it .

Thanks for reading,
Kyle

 

[kyler021]

I HATE this car.

Someone convince me not to trade this car up for a fresh batch of brownies. This dumba** car is so STUBBORN.

 

[kyler021]

The problem I'm fumbling around with now is the steering column collar WILL NOT go onto the pinion all the way. I got it all nice and centered and could not get it all the way on to save my life. I tried unbolting the 4 bolts for the column. It went a little more down the pinion but I could not get the pinch bolt in. Lowered the car to see if that would help. Still nothing. Loosened the rack a little bit. Still nothing. It jumped splines too so now I have to recenter the wheel. I'm gonna call it a day with that probably and see if I can set speed density up without blowing something up.

 

[shad0wsoda]

Keep your head up! It'll all be worth it in the end. These are all just "learning opportunities"

 

[kyler021]

Keep your head up! It'll all be worth it in the end. These are all just "learning opportunities"

I'm certainly trying to be positive... Seems like this car just wants to be dead forever though. I won't let it.

 

[kyler021]

I made a lot of progress over last weekend. AFPR installed, stupid collar thing on, fuel pump works good after fixing the exposed wires on the plug for the in tank connector, fuel pressure is a nice 40PSI while priming. I got it cranking today, trying to prime the turbo and build oil pressure but it just does not want to build pressure. Gonna go home and take the plugs back out and crank it for longer with jumper cables on the battery. I'll add some pics later.

Kyle

 

[kyler021]

Alright, maybe no pictures this time. But I'm having another major issue... I've cranked this thing for... I'm not even sure how long... and it just won't build oil pressure. The dummy light won't go out and the AEM gauge has only gotten to 2 PSI. The AEM gauge may not be accurate because I've been having issues with it.

Any suggestions here that don't involve taking the timing belt off and spinning the pump manually? I've cranked it for probably 2 minutes total with no spark plugs in and there's no indication of oil making it into the head. I don't understand... I did NOTHING to directly impact the oil pressure. Other than an oil change. And yes, the filter is on tight and so is the drain plug, and there's also oil in it. The cam did look to have clean oil on it, but I never saw it pool up in the head after cranking.

 

[kyler021]

I was overthinking that oil pressure thing. I went ahead and started it and it barely stayed running for 2 seconds but it made oil pressure finally. It turns out I was out of gas which is why it wouldn't stay running. So I filled a up with 2 more gallons and I'm gonna start and log it once I get home.

Speaking of log, if anyone is reading this that has tuning knowledge, would you be interested in helping me tune my car once I get the IC pipes done? I know it’s not a small ask, but I kinda wanna learn some things.

 

[Justin DuBois]

I was overthinking that oil pressure thing. I went ahead and started it and it barely stayed running for 2 seconds but it made oil pressure finally. It turns out I was out of gas which is why it wouldn't stay running. So I filled a up with 2 more gallons and I'm gonna start and log it once I get home.

Speaking of log, if anyone is reading this that has tuning knowledge, would you be interested in helping me tune my car once I get the IC pipes done? I know it’s not a small ask, but I kinda wanna learn some things.

I can help you here with ECM Link tuning if you have a WB and a MAP sensor wired and logging.