99 Spyder GS.. working on the 'T'

[jinscho]

Look at all that room for activities!

Gameplan for tomorrow is to reconnect the suspension and drop it down on all 4. Have some minor surface rust to deal with on the passenger side strut tower (I got lucky, everything is still solid underneath) and on the radiator support... and there is a TON of grease and grime to deal with.

I also need to clean up my tools... I'm a messy worker and tools just get thrown everywhere

 

[spyderdrifter]

I also need to clean up my tools... I'm a messy worker and tools just get thrown everywhere

I go through that all the time. I got my talon scrap-car in pieces, and my GSX slowly going back together, and tools everywhere. For the first time, I haven't been loosing all my 10mm tools, but instead been loosing all the 12mm ones

 

[jinscho]

I go through that all the time. I got my talon scrap-car in pieces, and my GSX slowly going back together, and tools everywhere. For the first time, I haven't been loosing all my 10mm tools, but instead been loosing all the 12mm ones

One thing I can say for sure is that I haven't lost anything, and have zero intentions of doing so. If a tool drops into an odd spot, I stop everything I'm doing and get it. Most of my stuff is Snap-On or Bluepoint from the couple of years I spent working in automotive service. In retrospect, I spent WAY too much on these tools, but at the same time it has changed the way I treat them. They're everywhere... But I know they're all there

 

[spyderdrifter]

I hated giving up my spyder (felt I had no other option at the time). There's a '96 spyder gst sitting down the street from me that hasn't been moved since it appeared last Oct or Nov. Walked the puppy by it one day just to see which model it was and what trans was in it. It is a GST, sadly with auto, and the top is in horrible condition (and it's red ), but I've been tempted to ask the owner if they're wanting to sell it. Only problem is I still have 2 DSMs that are in pieces. One is being scrapped, and the other is being thrown back together since my Kia DD blew its engine. Still might ask to at least see.

 

[jinscho]

Progress, slow slow progress.

I've officially harvested all of the parts I need from the old motor and trans and have started on the cleanup process.

Over the last few days I've pressure washed the engine bay, spent a TON of time with rusty hardware on the bench grinder, have gone through a few cans of spray paint, and have addressed all of the surface rust on the driver's side strut tower.

I also found out that the axles from the F5M31 trans in a Spyder GS are a direct swap to the F5M33 trans for the GS-T. I'm sure they're not built as strong, so I'll likely end up snapping them if I beat on it too hard, but spline count matches up perfectly!

I still need to deal with the passenger side strut tower, the radiator support bar, and clean up all of the unneeded emissions hoses.

Right now I'm balancing pushing some work, while also counting the days till that stimulus money hits my bank account. I'm very fortunate in that, unlike many others, I haven't been laid off yet so I still have a steady income. My employer has already discussed potential layoffs for 4/1, but even after that I'll still be bringing in more than enough money to pay the bills through unemployment benefits. So, the $3,900 we're slated to get is merely a bonus, half of which my wife has already green lit for car parts. I definitely plan on picking up a bulfab north/south bar as that crossmember was the main collection point of all of my road grime in the engine bay and I've never liked the prothane inserts for that front motor mount. I'm also eyeing up a better clutch kit (buyers remorse on the eBay kit I picked up.. I know many others on here swear by the XTD stage 4 kit, but it just doesn't sit right with me), and may even opt for some remote tuning through Rix racing instead of figuring it out myself like I had originally planned... (Black box speed density tuning for the un-initiated.. what could go wrong..) either way I'll likely be dumping most of that money on parts through our supporting vendors.

Here's a few pics of some of the parts I've cleaned up so far.. hopefully the progress will start to pick up faster over the next few days...

 

[jinscho]

Rust is all cleaned up, the numerous broken fasteners have been drilled out, and the entire engine bay has been sprayed with primer. I'm gonna pick up a few cans of dupli-color perfect match and respray the bay back to like new condition in the next couple days.

Unfortunately, I ran into yet another snag with this project though as it turns out the wiring harness that I got is in HORRIBLE condition, with the body side of the harness being the worst of the two parts. I'm trying to decide between buying a used, un-hacked, harness for a couple hundred bucks OR just spend some time de-pinning the fuse box from my original harness and swapping everything into the GS-T fuse box. If I go that route, I also have to swap the plug that connects the two harnesses, as of course THAT is different as well. I'm trying not to spend too much money on unnecessary things as there are much bigger fish to fry in this project...

Looks like I'll be tackling some wiring tomorrow

 

[jinscho]

Found out I'll likely be off of work for the next 4 weeks... things escalated quickly...

Decided I'm going to flock the dash while I have it out, re-wire all of my gauges to a relay driven power block instead of using the radio harness like I have been, and just overall clean up a bunch of stuff. I have the time.. why not do it right so I never have to revisit these issues again..

Also.. did I mention how much easier it is to pull a dash on a Spyder? Step 1, drop top.. Step 2, do everything your normally would with significantly more headroom

 

[jinscho]

Yesterday was like a miniature Christmas as a bunch of packages showed up on my doorstep throughout the day.

new lateral control arms since the inner bushings were shot, a new lower control arm for the passenger side to replace the worn ball joint, clutch slave cylinder...

and then the things I’m most excited for...

I picked up a 6 circuit fuse box from Blue Sea Systems so I can fix some interior wiring for the car. I’ll be running all of my innovate gauges to this box, which will be mounted under the center console where the SRS module used to be. I installed the box today and started cleaning up some wiring in preparation for the 10 gauge wire, fuse, and relay to show up.

I also made the decision that while the dash is out, I’m going to flock it. I’ve been in quite a few high end sports cars with suede or microfiber dashboards, and I absolutely adore it. I’ve researched flocking kits for a while now, but knew it would be disastrous to attempt while the dash was installed, so never pulled the trigger on it. Now that everything is apart, I couldn’t think of a reason why NOT to do it. I’m not going for anything crazy, a simple black “suede-Tex” kit, which I’ll start on tomorrow assuming the weather looks good for the weekend.

that’s all for today, no pictures to add.. yet..

 

[jinscho]

This was easier than anticipated and looks pretty flocking good in my opinion

 

[spyderdrifter]

Did you put the flock on over the normal dash vinyl, or did you strip the dash down first?

 

[jinscho]

Did you put the flock on over the normal dash vinyl, or did you strip the dash down first?

The only prep work I did was a solid cleaning. Once it was cleaned THOROUGHLY, I used a foam roller and put a thin coat of the flocking adhesive across the entire dash and the airbag. After that, I went to town with the suede tex flock and the mini flocking tube. I used approximately 1/3 of the bag of flocking material and that was with a pretty damn liberal coating.

 

[jinscho]

I. Hate. Wiring.

I spent so much time working on the car today and feel like I got very little accomplished, even though I got a TON of stuff done. Both the engine and body harnesses are back in the car and about 95% of the way done being wired up. I hit a minor snag with the A/T harness I picked up from DSM Partout in the different relay used between a 99 M/T and 97 A/T for the Theft-Alarm Starter Relay.. 4 pin on the 97 A/T harness, 5 pin on the 99 M/T harness. I did some digging through the electrical manual and in typical fashion, none of the wiring colors match up to what's ACTUALLY in the car vs in the manual. Fortunately, I have a basic understanding of how relays work, and it's very easy to tell by the gauge of the wires what's power and signal.

I also got all of the 10 gauge wiring in that I was waiting on to start running power to my Blue Sea Systems fuse block. All that's left now is to run the wiring for the gauges themselves (which won't be done until I re-install the dash). I'm pretty happy with how this part of the project turned out:

Right now the only thing wired to it is the power to my driver's seat as the Spyder GS didn't come with factory power seats. I previously had the wiring ran up to a relay in the interior fuse panel, but decided to re-wire things and have it done right.

I also installed my Walbro 255 and started on the fuel pump rewire. I didn't get too far, but at least have the dedicated 12v 10 gauge wire ran from the battery location, through the firewall, along the passenger side cable channel and into place where it needs to be. I should be able to finish up all of the wiring tomorrow and put the interior back together while I wait for a response from Fidanza on the flywheel dowel pins that I need.

 

[jinscho]

Dash is back in, started working on the wiring for my Innovate gauges. Wiring is so damn time consuming... At least today I can look at the car and there's a NOTICEABLE change..

 

[spyderdrifter]

The dash does look good flocked and reinstalled..

 

[jinscho]

Interior is about 85% of the way finished up.

I'm VERY happy with how the Blue Sea Systems fuse panel turned out and can't wait to put the center console back together.

Only thing preventing that from happening, is a stupid 6 pin plug under the driver's seat that I need to sort out. I already made a post over in the electrical forums in hopes that someone can tell me "you don't need it" as it appears to be emissions specific sensors for the Spyder GS... and all of the emissions stuff is going in the trash can..

 

[spyderdrifter]

So are you running all the wiring for aux gauges through that fuse block?

 

[jinscho]

So are you running all the wiring for aux gauges through that fuse block?

Yep. 10 gauge power lead from the battery, to a 50 amp relay, straight to the fuse block. Currently have the power seat ran to the block (15amp fuse), along with my Innovate MTX-L wideband and MTX-D oil temp/pressure gauges. I’ll be picking up an MTX-D boost gauge in the near future which will be ran to the fuse block as well.

 

[jinscho]

Been kinda slow lately while I wait on parts to be delivered. The interior is mostly together, the driver's seat is still out as I'll be wiring in a turbo timer soon. The seat out gives me better access to my fuse block. The radio surround is also still out as I'm ditching the crappy aftermarket pocket and fabbing a custom mount for the aforementioned turbo timer in the empty space.

I've also completed the routing of the engine and body harnesses and have mostly everything re-secured.

Cleaned up the power steering reservoir.

And got my oil distribution block mounted up.

This will be fed off the oil filter housing and has my Innovate oil pressure sensor and oil temp sensor in it.

And finally, I decided to start making space for the front mount.

I was able to keep the crash bar and even use it as a mounting point for the intercooler itself. I'm pretty happy with the end results.

Over the next few days I'll be finishing up some body work and doing some painting.

I've hated the front bumper that's been on the car since I bought it, the previous owner cut an access hole under the driver's side headlight thinking there was a bolt behind it... He was an idiot..

I picked up a used bumper a while back that has the Mitsubishi diamond (another thing mine did not have), a new passenger side front fender (mine was completely rotted out on the bottom in that oh so common area), and new ground effects since mine had a bunch of broken clips and were never secured properly.

I'm hopeful that by the time the body work is done, my Southbend clutch will be here and I can get back to putting the new drivetrain in. I'm extremely excited.

 

[jinscho]

Not too much I can do while I'm waiting on parts.. so I decided to do a test fit of the motor and mock up the rest of the intercooler piping so I can order the missing pieces as it was a used kit. To my surprise, I only need to pick up a single 8" section of straight 2.5" piping, which I promptly ordered from STM. I can't wait until this is a permanent fixture in this engine bay.

The motor will be coming back out when the clutch gets here, I'd rather not have to try and torque the flywheel bolts while it's in the bay.. so much easier to do with the motor out. I also have to swap the stock exhaust manifold out for the FP manifold I picked up, and I decided I'm just going to port the stock o2 housing instead of using the atmospheric dump o2 housing that's currently on the motor.. I don't like how the dump tube points DIRECTLY at the intercooler piping.

Needless to say, I'm hoping all of the parts get here this week and I can have everything together by the end of next weekend.. the 65 degree days we've been having lately are prime drop-top cruising days that I'm missing out on right now..

 

[jinscho]

Clutch was delivered today.. so I decided to push myself and get as much of the car back together as possible. Getting the trans and motor mounted up was a bit of a pain in the ass, I've got back issues lingering from when I herniated a few discs a couple years back so I had to rig up a mounting system using some 2x4's.. wasn't pretty, but it worked..

When the wife came out to the garage to check on me at 1:30am I figured it was time to call it quits for the night. Here's where she sits currently:

I'm a little upset that some of the paint flaked off of the valve cover, so that'll be getting repainted in the near future. Also broke a stud on the turbo exhaust housing while trying to remove them since I picked up an ARP bolt kit from STM for the FP manifold. Battery on the drill died while drilling out the broken stud and I found out the hard way that I forgot to plug in the spare batteries.. so that's why the turbo is MIA..

Hopefully by the end of the day tomorrow, I'll have everything buttoned up. Unfortunately we won't be starting anything until mid week at the earliest as I'm still waiting on a few odds and ends to be delivered.. So close though..

 

[jinscho]

It's alive! I have a small oil leak at the turbo, looks like the copper crush gasket didn't seal properly. And it's running SUPER rich since the only adjustment I made to the tune was to scale the injectors up to 960 (PTE 1000cc injectors, overkill for the build but I got a great deal on them). Tomorrow I just need to pop the axles in, put the wheels and fenders back on, and I can take it around the block quick! Can't wait...

 

[jinscho]

It's been slow progress lately, car is still on jackstands, had an issue with the axle seals on the car.. turns out the trans has a 25 spline diff in it so the OEM seals that I bought for a 92-99 F5M33 trans were too big and didn't seal properly. Not a horrible thing, as it actually makes it VERY easy to convert to equal length halfshafts, just wish I would've caught it while rebuilding the trans as that added more wait time while parts were in transit.

While there was nothing I could do on the mechanical side, I started working on the body. I trimmed and painted the OEM front bumper that I picked up to replace the beat up aftermarket one that's been on the car since I bought it. I also painted the fenders I picked up since the bottom on each side of the old ones were completely rotted out and well.. gone.

For the record, this was my first time ever painting with an HVLP gun, and it's in no way perfect.. but it passes the 10 foot test and I'm happy with it. I also only had 8 bugs get stuck in the clear on the front bumper (perks of painting outside I guess... It adds character )

Still need to reattach the passenger side fender, but I got the bumper secured and the driver's side gaps adjusted. Here's where she sits currently:

The back half of the car is going to need to be resprayed too.. but the car was filthy when I pulled it in to start this project, and the fresh paint on the front clip really makes it stand out just how dirty it was..

 

[jinscho]

There's always been a hole drilled into the armrest storage bin underneath the cup holder. Don't know why the previous owner did it.. but I finally found a use for it. Easy access MTX-L serial logging!

 

[jinscho]

Just wrapped up an after hours remote tuning session with @dacowgod , anyone looking for a tune.. I recommend Ricky 1000%. Not only is BlackBox tuning a pain in the ass, but I also had a corrupt xml file causing errors. Ricky wouldn’t quit until we got it figured out and the car fired up. Now that the car fires and idles smooth, we’re gonna follow up with cruise and WOT when it’s not 10:30pm.. I don’t want to piss off my neighbors too bad

so excited that my next step will be to take the car out and drive it

 

[jinscho]

Been tough coordinating a time with Ricky to finish the tune due to work. I decided to just take the car around the block today just to feel it out... Feels like a COMPLETELY different car..

Clutch needs some minor adjustments, I'm not a huge fan of the engagement point right now, but otherwise everything felt great. Manual boost controller is turned all the way down at the moment, but you could still feel the boost building.. and hearing the BoV discharge for the first time ever... I need this car back on the road ASAP...

Gonna touch base with Ricky in the morning and see if we can schedule some time to finish things up.