My official GS-T To GS-X conversion thread

[turboglenn]

i was just teasin with the slacker part, nothin personal meant at all bro, sorry. Just tryin to motivate ya a little too

 

[etay89]

Nothing personal . I'm a radiator, a few couplers and bolting up the driveshaft away from being done...but then along came Mr. Holset

 

[turboglenn]

Wow, i'm working to get that close.. we are ready to bolt the tank in now, as well as putting the rear subframe in place. Then we're gonna tackle the trans tonight as well and after that's in i'll put the D-shaft in place and mount it's brackets

The bolts are all in place right now and i've tack welded the areas inside the cabin closed (the ones i opened uip to move or add bolts.) after this post the tank and rear shuold be in before 5 pm (one hour)

The trans I predict done by around 9PM tonight, got a flywheel and surfaced it on my mill to exactly .610" and have all bolts, brackets, and crap accounted for except my mental stability

 

[dsmarmy777gst]

poor donor car haha.. looks like your going pretty hard!

 

[turboglenn]

well, tank adn rear sub are installed and good to go, just have to hook up a few upper control arms, the top strut bolts, and feed the e-brake cables through and hook them up.

Then we will turn the car around and start the tranny swap

going great so far, there's a lot of things in the write ups that don't get mentioned, so to advise everyone there's one of the FWD tank bolts besides the two on brackets that needs to be cut off for good fiot too (pass side more towards fender well.

c'mon trannyt swap!!!!!!!!!

well here's a parting pic for now

Her'es more pics

this is where the rear subframe bolt access holes were opened up

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this is where the front tank bolts were dropped through (the rears were welded beucase i had to replace some sheet metal that was gone where the hole should have been)

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And this is the rear assembly and tank both finally in, the ebrake is hooked up but not adjusted and the fuel lines are slid on but not tight. I also have not wired the pump and senders yet (using only one pump to get it together and then will start to modify it once i have wheels to get around in )

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It will also get a good undercoating once i have finished witrh all things that need either welded or ground on (just the d-shaft brackets left )

Glenn

One more update, fuel pump and senders are wired, lines tight.

Need to remember to snug the tank protector bolts i needed the wobbly for (oops)

but the car is on the ground with it's rear wheels back on at this point and looking stock again

Tomorrow now (sadly) i will do the trans swap and get the d-shaft in

let me know what ya think

 

[turboglenn]

WEll, I was able to drive the car enough to turn it around to pull the FWD trans out a little bit ago, the damn o-ring setup in the tank had my 255hp pushing a whoppping 15-20psi fuel pressure , I made a spacer to keep it up and in place for now untill i build my twin pump setup and change it around a bit

There's only the rear motor mount and top trans mount left holding the trans in

One thing i'm having issues with is that the fuel gauges aren't working and i wired them exactly to the diagrams in the long merged thread about doing this swap..anyone ghot ideas on that one?>\

I'm hoping that the t-case doesn't interfere with anything else i've got going on but until i get it set in there i'll never know

I found the left front axle-stub shaft seal at o'reilly today i'll post a part number later they have a weird name for it and it's not what they pull up on the 90-99 left front CV seal.

Instead of actuially cutting the front carrier bearing bracket off my car and welding in the other one i believe i'm simply going to weld in some studs that are well supported. with washers TIG"ed to em. The rearward one i will weld in as needed but being that it's studs were stripped where the bolts needed to be i have to cut them up and weld in new pieces

will update as we go tonight, I hope to have everything put together and ready for fluids by morning, then i can stop and have it aligned properly and start to play a little

 

[97gst_spyder]

Looks good! I'm dying to start my AWD Auto/Lsd swap! Just waiting on a bonus check.

 

[Aproductions]

I envy you and your motivation with this awd swap. Can't wait to see more.

 

[turboglenn]

Thanks for the kind words,but besides the motivatin of it being my only DD car i also have a nebraska winter coming and the more powered wheels the better areound here . Overall things are going well but due to some personal issues i didn't start untill almost 5PM today , oh well i guess, now i had to take one more day off from working on the karmann ghia of my customer's (making money that is) to get this done.

I took all the cross members, t-case, trans, and any other greasy part to the car wash tonight and soaked them with engine degreaser and power washed them to the best i could get them, much nice wheen the parts are at least not soaked with grease

I've just got to install the AWD trans (FWD is out), Bolt the t-case to it and weld in the studs for the carrier bearings now (have an alignement too of course)

My gas gauge still isn't working i didn't even have a fuel light when the tank was dry, i need to cut the access to the driver side sender and check that out again, but one way or another i'll get this damn thing reading something

One question, can i use GL-5 80-90 oil on all three transaxle, t-case and rear end (have viscouse LSD in rear)??????

Overall this swap isn't "hard" but time consuming and requires great attention to detail, there's so much going on at once that it's easy to lose track of something and make what could be a fatal mistake by leaving just a bolt loose

 

[turboglenn]

Wel, Had it not started raining last night the car would be done, but today i plan to get the carrier bearing bolts welded in and all i need to do is find two of the long t-case to trans bolts and she's gonna be running again!!

Aside from the down pipe (which i'm currently miodding) and the fluids being filled (broke my little pump and about to go get another one) I've finished the swap... No more being eaten alive for the first 60 feet by bone stock hondas

Other than the DP and fluids I only have to put the battery and UICP back in and i can take a test ride WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

so glad to be done with this!

I did learn that you can't run as wide of a tire on the back of a AWD as you can on the FWD, I am running 225/55/16's and the rears were rubbing the upper arm from the hub that goes to the upper control arm in the rear. I bolted on the spacers for my FWD slicks and all is good for now but it looks like it's time fort different titres wheneevr i have some money (like never )

Here's the front studs i made and welded into the Gs'T's bracket saving a lot of time instead of drilling out the spot welds just to weld in an almost identical bracket.

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here's the rear, again this was cleaned up and welded nicer once i was sure it was where it needed to be and had taken care of some other things in the immediate area

The studs on this bracket were ruinbed from the get go so as you can see i TIG'ed some new threaded pieces and re-enforecement washerson this bracket as well. I don't want anything coming apart, and it was depressing to see I spentthe time pulling a bracket that was litterally no good

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Here's a link to the folder of pics in case some want to see some of the shots i didn't post on here
http://s548.photobucket.com/albums/ii330/turboglenn/Fab work/

One last little update for the night, I'm officially stopping to rest for the evening with the only things remaining being

1.) Put the Airfilter and intake Tube back on

2.)modify the turbo-back 3" exhaust i got with the drivetrain i purchased to mate up to my down pipe. (i barely had to mod the new 3" SS one i recently made in order to get it to run perfectly where it needs to be for an AWD car.

I'm not thrilled at all about the muffler on the system that came with the drivetrain (it's only 2.5 and a parts store fart cannon) But the system has the 3 bolt flanges like my thermal R&D so if i can't sell the thermal for a decent price i might cut it up for the muffler and asome stock of 3" SS pipe

Some questions for others who've done the swap.

1.) what did you do about the heatshielding in the driveshaft tunnel on your GST? Did you replace it wthg the AWD stuff or just cut it up to fit around the AWD parts?

2.)Aside from having double checked every bolt, fastner and such is there anythying i need to keep an eye out for in the beggining besides leaks?

Overall I would have to say this swap is 100 times easier than you'd first think being a GS=T owner and wanting to perform this mod. BUT there's so many hundreds of bolts, nuts, and things in your way that either need changed, removed or modified that aren't in the threads that everytime you set a schedule for what you'll get done on a said day, don't be upset to find out you got half as far

I planned this to be a 3 day swap all in all, looking back on it today is the 6th day but worth every busted knuckle, stained shirt and late night of aches and pains (i hope) still haven't gotten to take an AWD test drive

 

[97gst_spyder]

More pics! More details!

 

[Awdspyderman]

HEY TURBOGLENN, when it came to the heat shield i just took it off the gsx donor and it bolted up just fine. As for the fuel guage issue, did you check the fuel level sender? There is some spring(I can't remember for the life of me what it's called rite now) or something with the arm of the sender that is not making contact within the sender so you have to adjust by hand again before you seal it back up. I'm really sorry i can't remember what the hell it's called hopefully someone can chime in real soon.I believe that's what is the issue with the guage(there is a thread on here somewere) The swap looks good man!

 

[turboglenn]

well, i'm stopping for dinner but it lives!!!!!!! There were a few wires that got broken while swapping the shifter cables (one got damaged when being tied out of the way) The MPI relay trigger and the power to the J&S knock sensor, being that they are located way up behind the dash it was quite the ordeal tracking them down.

All that's left tonight is to fill the radiator and put the interior back together and i can test drive it

I only have half of an exhaust on it right now becuase i want to take the time to place the hangers and such where they need to be, so the exhaust cuts off right at the first bearing carrier for the d-shaft It's loud but i can FINALLY hear the whistle of that big ass turbocharger

i'll get more pics and such up later for everyone!.

EDIT: As for the tank and sender unit, well that was my dumb mistake, once i rotated the pump and sender housings to their proper positions and let it sit with the key on a while the fuel light actually came on and the gauge registered. I put a few gallons in through a gas can and the light went off so i guess i'm good to go on that point!@

Well, I just went for the maiden voyage and aside from not having put holes for the screws to secure the panel over the driver side fuel sender causing me to get fumed out i have to say it drives really nicely, i'm impressed. I only putted around the neighborhood since the exhaust is just basically an over length open down pipe, but there was one spot where i got on the main road and used first to get out in traffic and WOW was it worth every bit of blood, sweat, cursing, skipped meals and the week of time i lost doing the swap.

I"m done for the night as i'm beat, and it's dark out and no good for pics, but tomorrow morning i'll have some good stuff for every one and more detailed thoughts about the swap, things that went well, things that went wrong and other general gibberish

 

[miguelmcv]

Nice glen,,,, you all ready did it.
I was wondering.
Did you paint the welding spot?.
They can get rusted very bad.

I hope you did...

By the way, nice job glen..

keep us posted, how it turned out.

I had the same problem with the gauge But it was backwards.

The gauge sender unit was not working on the GSX, Once I put the tank and changed my upgraded fuel pump in the GST, It works good.

Well.
At the beginning it was not working, Once I fill up the tank It start working.
Nice Job though.

 

[turboglenn]

I've got a bit of primer and sealer left over from some paint work i did in the past and i plan to coat that with duplicolor truck bed liner spray a nice rubbery and water tight seal should hold her from the rust rahter well i hope

 

[Aproductions]

Wow, finished already? :hell yeah:


Now you can come do mine haha.

 

[turboglenn]

Wow, finished already? :hell yeah:


Now you can come do mine haha.

Yep!! 7 days from start to finish, counting the one day of the donor car arrived and just sat here to be looked at (which wasn't even needed in the end), i only used one carrier bracket and the rear sub-frame from it. all other parts were bought from another guy 3 hours west of here

If i still lived out east i'd tackle yours (for labor of course)

but the best thing abotu this swap for me (being that i'm broke as i've ever been in life) is that i have under 150 bucks in the thing total (if you don't count the value of parts i traded for driveline and other pieces i needed)

Honestly the only thing i'm unhappy about is that i couldn't get my dual wallys in the GSX tank without messing up the time fframe of the swap. I could have been finished sooner buit i took probably 2 days of time mixing and matching parts, picking the best ball joints, rebuilding CV's , swapping the LSD rear end into the rear sub and so forth.

Now my only worry is how fragile the stock trans is going to be?? It shifts beautifully though, I did something a friend of mine who builds his own trannies suggested and that was to take and add one quart of ATF (dex III w/ mercron) to the trans and then fill it with GL-5 fluid, the ATF helps the friction part of the synchros grip better where the GL-5 fluid is good for shock load but too slippery for the synchros according to some trans builders


The list of things i have left to do in order to feel 100% complete on this build are as follows

1.) hang the back/second half of the exhaust

2.) burp the coolant

3.)put cotter pins in front axles (had to get them after i was done and checking over the swap, didn't like re-using the old ones)

4.)check for leaks from any of the new driveline parts

5.) Prime/Paint the undercarriage where i either welded or added parts from the AWD car with a good primer/sealer and truck bedliner (thin coat of bedliner by duplicolor) for rust protection inthe nebraska winters (this place eats cars alive)

Now i have to sell

1.) FWD 6 bolt fidanza flywheel with new friction surface

2.) FWD TRE Stage 2 trans with Quaife LSD

3.) FWD weld draglites with the used up slicks and lug and spacer set they came with

Need all that gone ASAP cause i'm behind on bills BIG TIME

 

[jdxnc]

WOW was it worth every bit of blood, sweat, cursing, skipped meals and the week of time i lost doing the swap.

Pretty much the exact same feeling I had when I did mine. It's like a whole new car after.

Great work!

I had trouble with my fuel gage as well, the colors of my wires didn't match up to the guide, took a few tries of different wire combos but it ended up working.

 

[Chrispy0530]

Grats on the speedy swap!

Def worth the hassle and headache to send the power to all 4 wheels.

 

[bastarddsm]

Glenn, the 2 spider center diff will be a weak spot. Other than that most things should be good other than it shifting like crap. See if you can't come across a 91-92 style tranny. Between me and a few others we can guide to building a decent tranny on the cheap. I have about 6million launches on mine so far with no breakage.

 

[okm12346]

ATF fluid will deteriorate the seals of a dsm trans. Dodge and Ford manual trans run on ATF , because they are designed for, but DSMs need good quality gear oil

 

[turboglenn]

This morning i got the second half of the cat-back hung, now all i need it to come across a free muffler some where or hopefully once i sell the thermal R&D from the GST i'll have some cash for one.

The thing sounds great with no muffler on it, I can actually hear the exhaust whistling through the turbine wheel, I'm about to take it on it's maiden voyage across town, got a trunk full of tools and a prayer in my head, lets hope all goes well, i've double checked about everything so hopefully all is well, lugs are torqued, trans is tight, so is starter and anything else i could think of, also made sure i had cotter pins in all axles so nothing major falls off, gonna load the jack in the trunk as well just in case

 

[skatershawn]

Good luck with the cruise! Let us know how it goes!

 

[turboglenn]

Well, I just went 30 miles round trip and everything was good (aside from no muffler on the 3" cat back - ughhh)

The only issue i ran into was running lean when i'd get into boost, I don't think the O ring and cap that was in the sending unit is holding pressure or something. I can't get the 255HP to put out over 60psi no matter how high i turn up the AFPR and on the last tank i could peg them past 80psi easily, guess i'm gonna have to chop up the AWD sending unit/hangar tonight unless i can come up with a better way to make it hold pressure

 

[dsmcrzy]

WOW!! congrats on the fast and cheap swap!!!