Manny The Mistake: A Lesson In The Dangers Of Nostalgia

[randman2011]

randman2011 submitted a new DSM Profile :

Manny The Mistake: A Lesson In The Dangers Of Nostalgia


Read more about this vehicle here...

 

[randman2011]

I was not terribly active on this forum during my first three entrants into the world of DSM, so I'll start off with a bit of background before jumping into this car.

I grew up playing Need For Speed (Underground was my favorite as a child) and while I didn't know anything about cars at all, I was familiar with the appearance of all of the cars in the games. My parents told me that I was required to get my license on my 16th birthday. I was required to purchase my own car by that time and I was required to fund all of the costs associated with that. I was a rather enterprising youth so money wasn't an issue; picking my first car was more of a conundrum because the only car that I knew by name was the then-new retro Mustang. I wanted that one car from NFSU. You know, that one with the tail lights that go all the way across the back. The one with the tall hoop spoiler. Yeah, that one!

I wasn't aware that they came N/A and I also wasn't aware that they came AWD, but I knew that mine must be 5 speed and it must not be green, black, or white. After three months of searching, I found a red 1997 Spyder GST at auction, bid, and won. First surprise: it was in Sarasota and I lived in Cincinnati. Second surprise: the pictures were very old; they were from back when the car still had paint. Third surprise: it was rocking that 18 mpg highway style for the entire drive back to Ohio.

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I loved that car. As things broke, I would upgrade and it became pretty impressive to 16 year old me. T28 was the big upgrade, DSMLink, injectors, intercooler. I had it for 5 glorious years before a silver Caliber pushed me off the road in a snowstorm and totaled it. In serious debt from a body shop scam, without a car, without a real job because college, and more certain than ever that the 2G Eclipse was the best car ever made, I became set on AWD for my next one. Insurance gave me almost what I had paid for the car 5 years prior AND let me keep the car, so I began parting out the non-performance parts while I scoured the internet for practically-free GSXs. It took a month before I found a 1995 TSi AWD for sale in Storm Lake, IA that hit my price point. Clear neglect from the moment it rolled off the lot, a slew of horrific non-functional mods, and a fair amount of ignorance on the part of the seller meant that it was perfect for me. I rented a car in Terre Haute and drove the 9 hours out to Iowa and picked up my new DSM in a particularly severe snowstorm, taking 16 hours to get back.

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What a POS that Talon was. It is still by far my favorite DSM, but there wasn't much left of the chassis by that point. The strut towers had been repaired with Bondo already. It was several colors, electrical issues would drop it down to two cylinders if you cruised too long between 65 and 70 mph, etc. It came with an HRC FMIC and a botched 6 bolt swap, so I dropped in my 7 bolt from the Spyder and fixed it up. I moved up to an EIII 16G (what an awful turbo that T28 was) and thought that I had reached the perfect spot for a fun DD. A second engine swap and two transmission swaps later, I parked it next to a dumpster at a storage facility on the south side of Indianapolis and told the facility owner that I wasn't coming back for it. It was the day of my college graduation and I was driving, along with my entire extended family, back to Cincinnati from Terre Haute when my second replacement transmission went out. I was done.

I went home. Broke and without a job or a car for a second time, I was done with Mitsubishi. I looked at del Sols as something that would hopefully capture some of the fun of an impractical vehicle while also returning some good fuel economy, but my mom, the biggest force behind abandoning DSMs for good, sent me a listing for a black 1999 GST Spyder just across the river in Covington. I returned to my high school job (yay retail!) until I had enough to buy this Eclipse that she was practically forcing onto me. It was completely stock, the strut towers were pristine, it had the black interior. It was perfect except for the paint, and I had dreams of an AWD swap. Long story short, it lasted six weeks before the upper A arms in front separated from the chassis AND the rod bearings all popped out at once.

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I had just started my new long-term job in Indianapolis but it would be another six weeks before pay checks started rolling in. I borrowed some money from my boyfriend and rolled into the driveway with a $1000 Miata that was immediately called Rusty. I knew that it wouldn't last long and that I needed a real car to be my DD, so I hopped down to my nearest Ford dealer and put in an order for the just-announced Focus RS, which I was later told wouldn't be arriving for another six months. So I drove Rusty until the first time that I got under it and saw how there was nothing structural left. Rewinding a bit, the storage facility owner had pushed my old Talon into a garage for me and held onto it for almost a year before I gathered up my shattered pride and returned for it. I came back for it to sell it, hoping to get enough money to buy a worthwhile Miata, which I did.

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Then I turbocharged my new NA Miata. Then my boyfriend talked me into a Ranger. When the RS arrived, it became our fourth car, and I had already purchased two cars to be delivered from Japan. Between the Ranger, two Miatas, his Abarth, the RS, my Autozam, and our Jimny, my Ford was tied with the Ranger as the car that I least wanted to take to work every day. Things had gotten out of hand and after buying a house, money was tight. We sold Rusty and the Ranger mostly to clear up space, and I began thinking about a cheaper car to replace the RS as my winter vehicle. I was thinking Volvo 245 when a friend pointed out that a DSM would fit all of my criteria except a back seat.

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Using my inheritance from the death of my grandfather, I bought a 1998 GSX and listed the Focus for sale. This brings everything up to January of this year.

TL;DR I had Eclipses. Some of them were great. I bought another one.

Up next: the worst month in my life, my life sucks continued, and A New Hope.

 

[streetraceboi]

....any pics?

 

[chrysler kid]

I was not terribly active during my first three entrants into the world of DSM, so I'll start off with a bit of background before jumping into this car.

I grew up playing Need For Speed (Underground was my favorite as a child) and while I didn't know anything about cars at all, I was familiar with the appearance of all of the cabirthday. I was required to purchase my own car by that time and I was required to fund all of the costs associated with that. I was a rather enterprising youth so money wasn't an issue; picking my first car was more of a conundrum because the only car that I knew by name was the then-new retro Mustang. I wanted that one car from NFSU. You know, that one with the tail lights that go all the way across the back. The one with the tall hoop spoiler. Yeah, that one!.......
a month before I found a 1995 TSi AWD for sale in Storm Lake, IA that hit my price point. Clear neglect from the moment it rolled off the lot, a slew of horrific non-functional mods, and a fair amount of ignorance..

..I parked it next to a dumpster at a storage facility on the south side of Indianapolis and told the facility owner that I wasn't coming back for it. It was the day of my college graduation and I was driving, along with my entire extended family, back to Cincinnati from Terre Haute when my second replacement transmission went out. I was done.....
......
[BI had just started my new long-term job in Indianapolis but it would be another six weeks before pay checks started rolling in. I borrowed some money from my boyfriend and rolled into the driveway with a $1000 Miata that was immediately called Rusty. I knew that it wouldn't last long and that I needed a real car to be my DD, so I hopped down to my nearest Ford dealer and put in an order for the just-announced Focus RS, which I was later told wouldn't be arriving for another six months......
Then I turbocharged my new NA Miata. Then my boyfriend talked me into a Ranger. When the RS arrived, it became our fourth car, and I had already purchased two cars to be delivered from Japan. Between the Ranger, two Miatas, his Abarth, the RS, my Autozam, and our Jimny, my Ford was tied with the Ranger as the car that I least wanted to take to work every day. Things had gotten out of hand and after buying a house, money was tight. We sold Rusty and the Ranger mostly to clear up space, and I began thinking about a cheaper car to replace the RS as my winter vehicle. I was thinking Volvo 245 when a friend pointed out that a DSM would fit all of my criteria except a back seat.

Using my inheritance from the death of my grandfather, I bought a 1998 GSX and listed the Focus for sale. This brings everything up to January of this year.[/b]

TL;DR I had Eclipses. Some of them were great. I bought another one.

Up next: the worst month in my life, my life sucks continued, and A New Hope.

Man that's your life story and you haven't even gotten to the worst month of your life yet. I can't offer any wisdom, but you've seen some shit. Slow down with your life, possessions can't buy happiness

 

[buddahboost]

I love stories like these! Keep up the great work and don't leave out details!

 

[randman2011]

....any pics?

Nope. I'll get to why soon, but the abbreviated version is that the car has only been out of the garage for a cumulative two weeks since I bought it. It doesn't even have a license plate mounted yet. I haven't taken any pictures of my own. My profile pic is actually a picture taken by the previous owner years ago and it's all that I have at the moment. If it ever gets out of the garage, I have some picturesque magnolia and cherry trees that would make a glorious backdrop.

Man that's your life story and you haven't even gotten to the worst month of your life yet. I can't offer any wisdom, but you've seen some sh**. Slow down with your life, possessions can't buy happiness

I've already got happiness. All that's left is to clean up a bit, so to speak. And buy a house with a kitchen that doesn't suck, but that's a different matter entirely.

I love stories like these! Keep up the great work and don't leave out details!

Glad to hear! I always feel like I'm too verbose and bland, so I'm glad that someone enjoys my writing!

 

[randman2011]

I purchased my Eclipse Wednesday, January 3rd. I ordered winter tires to replace the completely bald all seasons that came on it that night, then took it to the BMV the following day to get it titled and registered, only to find that someone had attempted to break into it while I was at the BMV and had succeeded only in breaking my passenger door handle. I discovered that not only did the outer door handle no longer work, but neither did the inner handle. I had no way to open the passenger door at all. I got it to a dealership the next day who, after looking it over for a little over an hour, said that there was nothing that they could do short of cutting a hole in the door in order to gain access to the latch mechanism, and that it would be much cheaper for me to just do that myself. So I did.

I was able to go through the plastic behind the handle itself so my work was not visible from the outside. I was also able to salvage the handle itself since the plastic didn't break. It was the metal arm that bent out of the way. The end cause of the situation was an attempt by the previous owner to take some nonexistent slack out of the door handle by supergluing a large bolt into the slot of the actuator arm. After some time with a cutoff wheel I was able to remove the bolt and allow the door to open again. What a pain in the ass. I went to pull the car out of the garage and it ran for one singular second before shutting off with a CEL.

I lost a full day to troubleshooting before my boyfriend finally found his OBDII reader and I found a Crankshaft Position Sensor fault. Long story short, the balance shaft belt broke and took out the sensor. I overnighted the replacement sensor and put in a standard order for the timing components and balance shaft delete kit. At the same time I went ahead and ordered a 16G to replace my ailing OE T25 (130k miles) and for some reason that turbo arrived first. I got to drive the Eclipse for one singular week (with a turbo install right in the middle of it) before the DSM curse struck again.

I was driving to work on Monday when the engine just shut off. I coasted to the side of the highway and tried cranking, but it sounded like it was making zero compression. Had it towed back home and took the Jimny to work instead. Before I even had a chance to look into diagnosing the Eclipse, my boyfriend crashed his Abarth the next morning in an ice storm. He takes the Jimny to work and I'm back to driving the RS. The very next day as I am on my way to work along a smooth section of highway, I start to feel a vibration coming from the driver rear wheel. Concerned that it was a wheel bearing after some previous scares with bearings, I scheduled an appointment at the dealership. I left work at lunch to get to my appointment and about halfway to the dealership the vibration spread to all four wheels, with the steering wheel shaking so much that I cannot hear the radio anymore. I get to the Ford dealership and they get the RS up on a lift. All four wheels are mysteriously so far out of round that the ovalness can be seen with the naked eye. No balancing equipment needed here.

I was running a set of used Focus ST snowflakes with 18" winter tires. Since the wheels aren't OEM, my wheel and tire warranty doesn't cover them. My winter rubber won't fit on the 19" OE RS wheels, so I'm down another car and I have no money to buy another full set of wheels. Fortunately a friend with an ST had a spare set of absolutely hideous wheels that he was planning to scrap, so he drove in from the next city over to have my winter tires mounted on them. I continued driving the RS for the rest of the week.

That weekend was OhayoCON and I was scheduled to participate in a group cosplay with some friends from Columbus, and the incredibly unseasonable warm weather meant that I could take the Autozam out of hibernation and drive my Japanese car to a Japanese convention dressed as a Japanese character. Having only had the Autozam for two weeks before the snow started, I was pretty excited to get some seat time in it. The con was great, and afterward we needed to go to the store to pick up some stuff. One of the guys there who had previously codriven my Miata with me asked to drive the AZ-1. Nobody there had been in it yet so I let him drive it and I let a girl who was familiar with the area ride shotgun while I drove the host's Focus ST with everyone else. We get about halfway along the 5 minute drive when I notice that the Autozam had gotten caught at a red light. I turn around, expecting to do laps around the previous roundabout until he catches up. As I near the roundabout I see the AZ-1's headlights approach, point skyward, and then disappear.

I find the Autozam parked at a disused roundabout exit, both doors open. Sam was walking away with his hands on his head and I never actually saw the passenger. I still have no idea where she went. The bumper on the Autozam is destroyed. There is a large traffic cone lodged under the car. There are warning lights all over the dashboard. The car doesn't have airbags, so I guess that's good at least. He had been speeding to catch up and didn't notice that the road curved into a roundabout. He went straight through the curve, mounted the curb, knocked over a street sign, ate a cone, slid through the roundabout, and came to rest at that exit.

Shockingly, the car seemed completely roadworthy. I inspected the suspension while everyone else went to work removing the cone. The suspension seemed no worse for the wear and all tires were still holding air. No fluids were leaking and with the engine in the middle I wasn't concerned about other engine damage. The sign turned out to be a temporary one, mounted on a stand and weighed down with sandbags. I set it back upright. The cone was so firmly lodged under the car that I had to back up onto a curb and even then the cone had to be kicked out because pulling didn't have any effect.

I got in the driver seat with Sam next to me, and we finished the drive to the store in a tense, awkward silence. We got what we needed at the store, and headed back toward the house in the same manner, but this time Sam described what had happened. I interrupted him, though, because I noticed that my headlights were getting dim. Aware that this engine is known for throwing alternator belts, it didn't take much to deduce that the battery was quickly dying. I shut off the lights (at 11:30PM on a Saturday) and Sam called the driver of the Focus to get in front of us. As we got nearer to the house, the battery voltage got so low that the brake lights would cause the interior clock to shut off and the engine would idle rough. But we made it back to the house and settled in for the night.

So that was Saturday. The host and I spent the entirety of Sunday scouring Columbus for an open store that might regularly stock a belt small enough for this 657cc three cylinder. After two hours of searching, we ended up at an O'Reilly who said that they could order one and have it delivered same-day, albeit four hours later. With no other alternative, I spent the day in Columbus, did a quick alternator belt install that night, and began the three hour drive back to Indianapolis that night.

Keep in mind that this is still January. It has been less than three weeks since I bought the Eclipse. I had spent so much money trying to deal with the Eclipse, the Abarth, and the Focus that I could no longer afford to sell the RS without taking out a personal loan for the difference in what I still owed. And there's a great place to stop for today.

TL;DR Everything's broken now (including my wallet) and it has only been three weeks.

 

[randman2011]

Before the timing belt had let go on the DSM, I bought a pallet of various parts in order to fix up the Eclipse and turn it into a comfortable daily driver. I got replacements for all four seat, door cards, steering wheel, airbags, lights, switches, wiper arms and motors, etc. The pallet arrived two days after the car assumed its resting place in my garage and has remained on my back porch as a reminder of how much I overpaid for this sub-par example.

With the RS still listed for sale, I began dailying the Jimny (6000 RPM at 60 mph! 54hp in a 4x4 SUV!) once the boyfriend's Abarth came back from the shop and that lasted me until April. I found a local boat and hot rod shop that agreed to fix the fiberglass damage on the Autozam and so I placed an order for all of the metal and rubber bits that would be needed. It was agreed that work would begin on the car once the parts arrived. In the meantime, I continued to scour the internet for another bumper, but a special edition bumper for a car whose total production run was 4800 examples in 1992 is unsurprisingly hard to come by. While under the Autozam making a list of suspension bits to order, I discovered that the metal fan shroud (a structural member) was deformed and the fan itself could not spin. The fan is available but the shroud is discontinued, so I also prepared a used parts list.

At the end of February, after being lost for more than two weeks, the parts arrived. I dropped the AZ-1 off at the shop along with the pertinent parts before work, but when I finally got through to the shop owner to talk about the work to be done, he said that boat repair season had begun and he was scheduled ~3-4 weeks out. I left on a business trip the next day so I didn't have time to find a new shop with a shorter lead time. After returning from the UK in the middle of April, one Mazdaspeed AZ-1 bumper was listed for auction online. I bid my heart out, but lost as the final cost hit $600 for the bumper and $300 for shipping from Japan. I called up the fiberglass shop to ask when I could bring the car in, and was told that he had accepted a large restoration project that meant that there would be no availability until well into the Summer. That day I scheduled a visit to an out-of-town auto body shop who seemed very excited to help out with the repairs until the inspector found out how much of the bumper was missing from the crash. She could repair tears, she said, but not recreate missing sections. I just happened to find and purchase a very rough Mazdaspeed bumper from a guy in Australia to the tune of 600AUD shipped that very same day. As of writing it has shipped but not arrived.

I should point out that I sent out the original fiberglass quote to the group of people that were there the night that it was crashed, just to show how expensive fiberglass repair is. That group was at my house the following weekend and Sam inconspicuously left a check for the quote balance on my dining room table. Hopefully sanding and paint on this previously repaired Australian bumper isn't too expensive because I have already put about half of that money toward just getting the thing to me.

Some time in the middle of February I was finally able to tear down the 4G63 and inspect the damage. All eight exhaust valves were bent and stuck open. All four pistons had deep gouges in their faces from impacting the valves. None of the valves had broken off, so repairs would just be a matter of replacing or rebuilding the head and replacing the pistons. It took almost six weeks before I could afford to place the order, and the order that I did finally place addressed everything except the head. I was still planning to buy a used or rebuilt head as opposed to finding a machine shop here in Indy to rebuild mine for me. MANY people offered their heads or complete used engines to me but it was the end of April before I was able to actually find a seller that didn't disappear as soon as I talked about sending payment.

Many other things happened during this time that aren't super relevant to the story, like me proposing to my boyfriend and him trading the Abarth for a Fiesta ST. The Jimny also started drinking coolant and I was adding more than a half gallon per week by the time the weather warmed up enough for me to take the Miata. I was sent on a business trip three times in this period and received two threats from insurance over previous medical bills that they didn't want to pay and one from the Illinois Tollway Authority regarding fines from a stolen car wearing my expired plates while I was out of the country.

So it hasn't been a great year so far. But here's where things stand today:
* I have the parts needed to rebuild the Eclipse, including an already-rebuilt head
* A bumper for the AZ-1 is on the way
* A shop to repair the AZ-1 is already onboard
* I already have the parts needed to completely refurbish the AZ-1 suspension
* A used working fan+shroud has already been acquired and installed on the AZ-1
* The Focus RS was (finally) sold on Monday
* Police reports are done
* Work has put a temporary hold on all travel
* My 55 hour work weeks are finally coming to an end

There's the background. That's why I'm frustrated. Bitter, angry, exhausted. Broke. But I think it's time to actually get into this build!

 

[randman2011]

I am not one to implement temporary solutions, nor am I one to do things halfway, so the hope is to address all of my potential future needs from this engine in this one build. It centers around a set of Mahle 9:1 pistons to be mounted on Manley H-beam rods. Aside from the standard slew of gaskets, bearings, and ARP hardware, the engine will be supported by a 255lph HP in-tank Walbro pushing 93 octane through 1000cc Deatschwerks high impedance injectors and kept in check via an Aeromotive A1000 FPR. The aftermarket underdrive crank pulley (hopefully it hasn't been on there long) is being replaced by a Fluidampr unit. The balance shaft delete will be completed by installing rotated bearings. A Gates Racing timing belt and OE timing component kit will prevent this issue from returning.

External to the block, the 16G is going back on. The car came with a tubular steel equal length header which will be reused and an OE cast manifold which will be stored. It also came with the lowest quality turbo-back exhaust that I have ever seen (Megan Racing) which will be reused until I have time to assess what I want to do with the exhaust. Inserting a high flow cat into the existing downpipe is the current priority.

Brakes are the stock dual piston calipers and the world's worst drilled and slotted aftermarket eBay rotors and pads. They work, so they will be staying until I get some free cash to replace them with some quality non-drilled rotors and grippy pads.

Suspension seems to be stock to me. Not original, but not upgraded either. It desperately needs stiffer springs. I am contemplating coilovers but haven't done any research into the matter yet. The only aftermarket suspension on any of my previous DSMs came on the Talon when I bought it. I have no idea what it was, but it was definitely comprised of lowering springs and some kind of non-adjustable aftermarket struts. It was very soft. They were definitely installed for aesthetic purposes. Since the existing suspension is in good shape, upgrades are a low priority.

The car came with the OE 17" GSX wheels. One wheel is bent at the lip enough to slowly leak air, but not enough to prevent balancing. They are wearing some new winter tires and will remain my winter set. I will need to purchase a set of lighter and more robust wheels for summer duty to support some yet-undecided Extreme Performance Summer rubber. Everything else in my garage is running ZII Star Specs, so the GSX may end up on ZIIIs. I will revisit this need once the car is running.

The car is currently running the factory sidemount intercooler and original cloth charge pipes with a (possibly knockoff) TurboXS recirculated BOV. All of this will be replaced with an ETS 7" street intercooler, proper aluminum charge pipes, and a yet-undecided BOV. Given that this is a street car that will not see competitive use for the remainder of the year, I don't feel uncomfortable about leaving the useless intercooler on the car for now. I don't yet have a boost controller picked out either, so I won't be pushing it hard for quite a while.

So with all of this, you may be wondering what I intend to use the car for. That hasn't completely been decided, to be honest. The original plan for the car was just for transportation when driving the Autozam or Miata is impractical. Snow and times when I need a hatchback are pretty much the two use cases that I have planned for. The Autozam and Miata both fulfill DD and autocross duties, so if the Eclipse does see competition it will be a one-off thing just to do something different. I have no plans in the works to upgrade to something larger than the EIII 16G nor to make the jump to E85, but I wouldn't rule out that possibility in the future. I am well aware that forged internals are way overkill for what the 16G can put out. If the pistons didn't need to be replaced I would have kept the stock bottom end, but I am seizing the opportunity to bump up the compression ratio.

In addition to this build, there is a small list of maintenance items to be addressed. The steering rack leaks. The cracked windshield needs to be replaced. The cheap aftermarket headlights need to be upgraded back to stock. One tail light is cracked. The driver seat needs to be upgraded to a manual seat. The fiberboard trunk floor became waterlogged and ripped into several pieces in the past. The rear wiper was deleted. I have the parts to fix all of the above issues except for the trunk floor, the windshield, and the steering rack.

The last parts for the engine build, the rods, are out for delivery today. I don't expect to be able to work on the car this week, but come Friday night I'm hoping to disappear into the garage for two days. Hopefully I remember to take pictures. I say that every time. I never do.

 

[randman2011]

No real update. I got the pistons inserted into the block but a friend stole my torque wrench so I worked on other projects for the rest of the weekend. The wrench is back but I lost another weekend. I really need the car to be out of the garage by the 19th and I will be out of town from the 16th through the 18th so I am quickly running out of time.

 

[ishnish]

This build thread gives me anxiety..

 

[streetraceboi]

Any updates???????????????

 

[randman2011]

Unfortunately not really. Last week I was able to pull off the oil pump and lower balance shaft, but I can't lower the engine enough to get the top balance shaft out because the AC compressor hits the subframe. I have borrowed an angle grinder to help me get that balance shaft out but all of this week has been consumed by other things. Hopefully Sunday I can finish up the disassembly and start putting this engine bay back together.

I need to get the Eclipse running because I need to take the Miata down for work now. The power steering failed a few weeks ago and I have been driving it ever since somewhere between "removed the belt" and "looped the lines." I need to pull the rack and finish deleting power steering. Then, when that's done, I get to address power steering leaks on the Eclipse.

In other news, I finally fixed the coolant leak in the Jimny and the Autozam has been dead reliable for the past 2000 miles. Everything has calmed down significantly but I still don't have time to fix this damn car.

I'm thinking about painting it orange.

 

[randman2011]

Both balance shafts are out and the new bearings are in. Now I get to deal with my favorite part of this job, paper gaskets! The front cover is clean and I'm working on the oil filter housing now. This gasket is putting up much more of a fight. I removed the fuel injector resistor pack while I was in there today. I have amassed quite the pile of removed parts and I'm excited to weigh it all to see how much I have removed.

I've imposed an arbitrary deadline for this car. I will have it running by Friday night so that I can drive it to Ohio Saturday morning. I have done a whole piston ring job in three days, so I know that it can be done. Once these gaskets are done progress should be swift.

 

[10's or bust]

Yikes holybatmowheel batman that sick big time but good you're sticking with it

 

[jinscho]

Both balance shafts are out and the new bearings are in. Now I get to deal with my favorite part of this job, paper gaskets! The front cover is clean and I'm working on the oil filter housing now. This gasket is putting up much more of a fight. I removed the fuel injector resistor pack while I was in there today. I have amassed quite the pile of removed parts and I'm excited to weigh it all to see how much I have removed.

I've imposed an arbitrary deadline for this car. I will have it running by Friday night so that I can drive it to Ohio Saturday morning. I have done a whole piston ring job in three days, so I know that it can be done. Once these gaskets are done progress should be swift.

Let me know how you manage to get that front case gasket off. I've been fighting with mine for about 4 hours total now, thing is practically fossilized to the aluminum.

 

[randman2011]

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The head is installed and torqued!

Let me know how you manage to get that front case gasket off. I've been fighting with mine for about 4 hours total now, thing is practically fossilized to the aluminum.

For the parts that didn't break off in one piece, I'd soak it in WD-40 just to soften up the outer layer and keep scraping. Eventually you get down to a really thin layer of paper and the WD-40 will make the gasket swell. The you take your razor blade and hold it almost vertical and scrape that last little bit off one millimeter at a time. Holding the blade vertically greatly reduces your chance of scratching the soft aluminum and also makes the gasket easier to grab because the blade can't bend out out of the way and jump over the gasket. I spent about six hours on the front case and the same amount of time on the oil filter housing. I found the housing to be MUCH more difficult. If I had time I would have soaked the parts for a day or so.

 

[randman2011]

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As of last night the engine is timed and the covers are back on. The end is in sight!

 

[Paraquat]

I had an amazing blue car in 2003.
I romped on that thing like every red light and stop sign was a Christmas tree counting down. I'd dump 7k launches until I broke axles. I was not nice to that car, but it never flinched.
It surfaces every once in a while, and I'm tempted to buy it back. One time I even went to look at it. A friend brought a magnet and there was almost no steel left. The entire side was bondo, the engine bay looked like it had been drilled out 27 times for an alarm horn.
Sometimes dreams are meant to just be dreams and left in the past as good memories.
You chase the dream only to realize you're chasing smoke and fumes.

You seem to actually be making progress so don't let me deter you. After that blue car I owned at least 6 more DSMs. Yours is coming along nicely.

 

[motomattx]

Is this car coming to the shootout?

 

[randman2011]

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It needs transmission fluid, the battery, and a tune update for the new injectors. I'm definitely leaving work early today. I'm too excited to start this thing up! Hello shitty early 2000s tuner culture!

Is this car coming to the shootout?

Oh, that's coming up. I hadn't thought about it. There's a Test & Tune that weekend here in Indy, but I might be able to do one day at the Shootout. 4.5 hours is a long drive for a day trip, though.

 

[randman2011]

I will tell this story in a series of pictures.

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Leaving the garage for the first time in 7 months. Having tuning issues.

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This is the first tank of gas that I have ever put in this car.

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It made it 44 miles toward Cincinnati before the alternator died. Fitting license plate.

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I finally got to Cincinnati for my sister's birthday and an FC Cincinnati match!

There is still so much work left to do. Like permanently installing the wideband, hooking up the boost controller, lots of tuning, and the pallet of interior parts in my basement. It needs an alignment badly. It's running on winter tires right now. The exhaust needs to go immediately.

But it's fun. It's so much fun.

 

[randman2011]

I wired up the wideband today and also removed probably 8 lbs of speaker wire from the car but when I was removing the O2 housing to replace it, one of the bolts broke off. One of the bolts that I installed a week ago. I left the old housing in for now but it is so leaky that the wideband is reading ~55:1 at idle, so I can't really do anything to the car until I get that fixed. Unfortunately it means removing the turbo which is a complete pain in the ass with this no-name header attached.

I didn't have time to do anything with the rear wheel bearing either, so that is another reason that the car can't be driven.

 

[randman2011]

I'm still frustrated by the broken bolt in the turbo so I decided to tackle the wheel bearing this weekend. It took me all weekend and it was very painful, but I finally got the bearing replaced.

...only to realize that I replaced the wrong one. So...I guess I'm ordering another wheel bearing and I'll tackle the driver side rear this coming week. It's a good thing that I haven't returned the slide hammer that I rented yet...

 

[randman2011]

I pulled the wheel bearing from the driver side Monday. It was clear that it had been replaced by a non-OE bearing very recently, and it only took 45 minutes from pulling in the driveway to having the hub off the car. I didn't even need the slide hammer/axle puller for this side! The new OE hub arrived Wednesday, so I threw that on in about 20 minutes after work. So at that point the car was riding on summer tires at the rear but still has winter tires on the front.

Since the wheel bearing took significantly less time than expected, I played around with some other tasks. I replaced the torn power driver seat with an intact manual one. I replaced the passenger seat since I had it out already, but the old one wasn't really bad. I replaced the alarm lock sensor on the driver side door as well. It turns out that both lock sensors had broken, so rather than replacing them so that the alarm wasn't triggered every time you unlock the car with a key, the previous owner just removed the horn fuse so that the alarm wasn't as obnoxious. The headlights still flashed, though. The driver side sensor works so I can unlock the driver side now, but unfortunately I broke the second sensor while I was installing it, so the passenger side's is still detached.

While I was in the door I reattached the front lower window slider to fix the rattling with the windows down. I also replaced the door card with a much cleaner and less broken one. And one-touch down works now! I reinstalled the horn fuse and replaced a relay so the horn works. I installed a rear wiper motor and arm, but I didn't have the correct 21" blade so I installed one of my spare wiper blades from the Miata, which clears off almost none of the window at 18" long.

I removed another several pounds of miscellaneous audio wire and reattached the hatch trim panel; the metal clips were all still there but none of them were holding the trim on anymore, so I had to pull them out of the hatch and stick them back on the trim piece. I also siphoned some fluid out of the tail light but I couldn't get it all, so it is out and drying.

The rear interior is stripped in preparation for a fuel pump install and rewire, but otherwise the only thing that the car needs is this O2 housing so that I can tune it. I pulled the turbo and O2 housing yesterday and spent two hours drilling the broken turbo bolt for an Easy-Out, which broke off in the hole. I have no idea why the broken bolt is seized so tightly since the other three came out without any effort and I haven't driven the car since the bolt broke. The fiance took the turbo to work today and will be stopping at the machine shop over lunch. I've got the turbo install down to a 20 minute process so I should be able to get the car back together quickly tonight, as long as Al can get the old bolt out. New turbo hardware and some other miscellaneous pieces are out for delivery today. Once that's done, I get to leave for the Shootout!