Here's an out of sequence update from some metal work I did last weekend...

Here's the somewhat finished patch above the rear wheel well on the passenger side. Its double layer and came out pretty decently. This is all metal in the pics, so with a skim of filler it should look proper!



Here's the first layer of the patch above from inside the wheel well. You can also see where I plugged the fuel door hole. The previous owner had this left open, so water could easily get through the 4" diameter hole into the hatch. Probably a contributing factor to the rust...



This patch had two layers too. It came out pretty well I think.



Underneath on the passenger side, there were decent sized gaps that were either left open, or sketchily closed off with urethane before. I fabbed up covers for them all. I just tacked these in place, and I'll be seam sealing all the joints later.



I got pretty well most of the metal work done around the drivers side rear wheel well. The only thing left is to finish the spring perch area. Here's how far I got with that... I need to finish welding the piece in, grind all the welds flat, and put on a second layer of metal to make it look stock (you can see where I cut the outer skin)



Here's the drivers side wheel well all done (minus seam sealer..)



And the spot that was worst to begin with, now super strong with 16 awg metal welded in for the structural portion..



I rebuilt this area with three smaller patches.

Wow, awesome work Mike.

Alright these are pictures from yesterday, and I'll have the pictures from today up tomorrow lol.

Here's the rear spring perch with the main structural part repaired. I just need to add another layer of metal on top, then re-attach all the oem bracing I removed to get at the area.



I got my new intercooler and piping, so I figured I'd have a go at that to give me a break from the welding/grinding towards the rear of the car.

I figured the best way into the engine bay to have the intercooler piping as short as possible would be straddling the radiator. I would have to cut out areas on each side for the piping, as well as remove the bottom mounting point on the headlights (as it would block the piping otherwise).



Cut!



Bam!



Drilled out some spotwelds on the headlight...



Weight savings lol..



Now there's hardly any space on the side of the rad for the piping. To get the most clearance possible, I cut the fin thingys off the sides of the rad.



I then laid the rad on a 4x4, and hit it with a 2x4 on top to strategically dent the core lightly This gave me another half inch or so.



I wanted a nice solid mount for the bottom of my intercooler, so I figured I'd make it so I could easily bolt the bracketry straight to the rad support. Here's what I came up with.



Primed... (these accept m8 1.25 hardware)



Installed!

[img]http://i41.tinypic.com/14ub6ti.jpg[/img]

I wanted to retain the stock hood latch, and the upper rad support that was in the car was modified as the old hood used hood pins. I cut the same center piece out of another rad support I had hanging around, and installed the hood latch and worked on an upper IC mount.

[img]http://i44.tinypic.com/1zgdkpg.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i39.tinypic.com/ta0h6t.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i42.tinypic.com/e5r6lk.jpg[/img]

Painted!

[img]http://i41.tinypic.com/8xolf6.jpg[/img]

And finally, all the piping loosely mocked up, and the intercooler in place. Rock solid

[img]http://i41.tinypic.com/99kty1.jpg[/img]

y helo thar!

[img]http://i41.tinypic.com/2nhev0o.jpg[/img]

Stock Evolution X muffler on an ae86? Maybe...who knows?

[img]http://i40.tinypic.com/m8nwpi.jpg[/img]

So today I finished prepping the underside for paint. I seam sealed everything, and finished up the last of the patches. It should be sweet when I spray it tomorrow.

Passenger side:



Driver side:



In where the fuel filler neck used to be:



Spring perch hotness:



Last shot of the underside prior to hot new paintshop...



Bonus pic, totally ridiculous shift knob

I picked up some high build primer and semi gloss black single stage urathane paint.



Welded up the last of the rips in the sheet metal...



Ground everything nice and flat!



Mr. Bondo!



At this stage I had the right side of the rear facia pretty cut in, but was just starting to build up on the bondo on the passenger side where the fuel door was.



Not bad! This is before any high build primer or much sanding at a higher grit. I'll put a light skim over to fill in any little pinholes, then prime a few times before paint.



Working on the left side now...



Pretty well all of the rear facia done!



Drivers side started..

Nice progress Mike. Love that shift knob.
Good to see you using a good body filler like Ever coat.


So uh, when I start doing the body work on my Talon, wanna lend a hand?

Lots of updates to post as I've been busy with other things the past couple of days.

First off here's what I was up to for seat mounts. Because I'm 6'6" I needed to get the seat down as low as possible to the floor. There's no way I could use rails for this, so I decided to use the side mounts of the Sparco Pro 2000 seats I have.

I positioned the seat roughly where I wanted it, and marked the four corners on the floor pan with this BALLER white marker thingy...




With the seat out...



As you can see in the above picture, there's some ribs in the floor pan in the marked areas. I used a ball peen hammer to massage these areas flat so I could weld 1/8" plate to the floor structure to make solid mount points. I cut the plates from 2.5 inch flat bar stock and laid them in...



The flat bar I bought was pretty rusty, so I media blasted the anchors...



Coated in zinc primer...



Prepped floor pan, remarked at the center points...



Tacked in the plates



Then I put the seat back in and measured from the door sill to make sure the seat was perfectly parallel with the sides of the car.

Front



and back

Jumping around a bit now, but I took a break from the seat bracket, and got a bit back into the body work.

I picked up some MORE supplies. This is getting ridiculous with over $400 spent in interior paints alone... Gotta do it right though I guess... Picked up some more spot putty, some 3m finishing glaze, some reducer, paint for my roll cage, etc.



I'm a fan of the piranha myself lol I bought this stuff to fill in little pin hole dots in the spot putty for the rear facia section I'm working on. This stuff is very liquidy and easy to sand once cured.



Here's the paint for my roll cage. What's that? Porsche you say?



Ah yes, L2D8, from a 2008 911 GT3 RS.




Applied the Piranah hotness and got the panels a bit smoother. More to do with these as I've kind of been putting off the final prep work. I'll be using 3-4 coats of high build primer with 180 grit in between to get the last little imperfections out.

So as I was thinking of ways to best paint the interior of the car, I got the idea in my head that removing the front windscreen would make spraying the inside much easier. I wasn't having much luck trying to mask the inside of the window, so screw it...

I called around to a a bunch of shops, but no one could get the glass out for me until after the weekend. That wouldn't do... Against the advice of a few people I spoke to about removing the glass, I decided to attempt the removal myself. Apparently the windows are very easy to crack when you take them out...

Here's the unsuspecting car with its window still in.



And the tools I picked up to get the window out. The tools only cost $25ish and the cheapest quote I got to remove the window was $50, so so far I'm ahead lol.



First off I removed the shrouds and trim to get at the window itself.




The upper trim wasn't put on correctly last time it was removed... it was held on with god like amounts of silicone. Needless to say this trim will be replaced with a new piece...




I then used the good ol wire trick to cut the urethane around the window. Be careful here as it's easy to chip the glass, or scratch paint...



Success!

I was happy to see VERY little rust in the windshield frame itself. Theres only a bit of minor surface rust in the center up top. I'll fix this before reinstalling the window.



Bye bye old urethane.



I also removed two triangulation bars from my roll cage to help with the low headroom. This gave me another inch or so. I used a recip saw to get the bars cut out. It was probably the shadiest thing I've ever done lol. Bouncing recip saws are ridiculous to control. Luckily, with only about half an inch above the cage, I didn't so much as graze the oem roof skin I'll grind down the remaining bits of the pipe I cut out with the die grinder.




Back to the seat brackets...ugh..

After what seemed like endless measurements, I had the seat where I wanted it, and started to fab the upright bits of the brackets from 1/8" 2 inch flat stock. I used the tool I bought to set up my driveshaft angle to make sure the seat was sitting totally level.





All welded!



Sweet fitment, all bolted in.



Kirk hop'd in for some pretend bickies

So much good quality work! Love this thread

So I wrapped up the car tighter than a jimmy hat





Then I set the pressure on the gun and mixed the primer. This is very high build stuff.





Primed!





And painted! The green is ridiculous.

Soon....

Wow, crazy Mike.
Are you painting this in your garage?

First I seam sealed everything..




Then paint! I hope it turns out nice when its dry. I'd rather not do any more coats lol. I'm DYING to start reassembly...

Ok this is sweet. I got the painting done, and I took all the masking off the car. I'll wait until the interior is done to remove the masking on the roll cage so the paper will protect it from scratches etc in the mean time.

It was nice to finally see the engine again!





Installed the door hinges, the jam, a few trim pieces, and the fender brace.



Front suspension. It paid to mask everything meticulously. No overspray whatsoever on the bits under the car.



Some pics of the paint inside. Also installed some bits like the hand brake etc.






The super thin blue plasticy 3m transition tape I used made for some nice clean lines where I painted the door jambs.



Rear panel came out nice. Can't wait for the paint to cure so I can bolt in my tail lights

[img]http://i50.tinypic.com/21ca4ux.jpg[/img]

Clean underside

[img]http://i48.tinypic.com/2jax0up.jpg[/img]

Wow, nice. That thing is all quality!

Oh look!




Installed the pedals...



This is the line that will go to the hydro ebrake in line with the rear brakes



From up top...

Mike...Unreal man..

Keep up the good work, everything looks awesome!

So I started off today by installing the battery cut off switch, and working to rewire the battery. It took a while to get all the wires neat and tidy.

I had previously reloomed the entire body harness with 3m electrical tape as the stock stuff was pretty tired and cracked after 24 years. I installed the reloomed harness last night, and wired up the fuse box etc.




Next I got the dash installed. After I got the dash bolted to the firewall, I finally removed the masking from the roll cage. All the painful masking finally became worth it.



Engine harness all ran!



Woohoo, the electrical system is finally operational again! headlights and tail lights work, as do wipers and the few other things I've been able to test so far




Finally, as I was looking though the pictures from tonight, I noticed a cameo appearance of my turbo's exhaust wheel in a shot of the pedals and fusebox lol.

So yesterday I had the car out of the garage for the first time since the day I took delivery of the shell. It was nice to see it out in the sun! It was also the first time it had been down on four wheels with the suspension totally bolted in.



I installed the seats and silly shift knob, and cleaned up the wiring a bit under the dash. I still need to reconstruct the EMS fusepanel I made, as well as mount the computer back onto the firewall.



I'll be picking up some spacers for the rear wheels so they'll sit pretty well flush with the fender flares. Tomorrow I'll bolt up the flares and take some measurements. I'm thinking 30mm spacers will do it lol.



As it started to get dark, I got the car back inside. At this point I had installed the doors, fenders, front bumper and front sections of the side skirts.

So close to finishing. Yay!

That shift knob though...

I have to admit, the roll cage color turned out great though.

Big props to you and your dedication.

Finally got the rear glass installed, and took a few pics of the car as it sits now.

I've ordered a few parts I've needed, including some baller DEI gold heat tape, and a Ford Racing 4.10 8.8 gearset. The new ratio will be way better than the 3.27s that are in it now lol.

I also removed all the vinyls from the car! In these pics I haven't removed the sticker residue yet. I'm planning on waiting until I have the windscreen in roll the car outside and remove the gum panel by panel with gasoline followed by soap/water. I'll wax afterwards lol.



I absolutely HATE the trim around these windows. It clips on and it was such a bitch to get it to snap onto each point.



Terrible rear wheel fitment is soon to be cured with 30mm spacers which are en route



This is so baller! I wish my evo had a sweet sunroof like this. This must have been the absolute sh!t back in 1986.



A bit of silliness..



I think I'm going to ditch the plan to run the hydro ebrake even though the mount is made and such. Instead I'll just have the wilwood prop valve so I can dial in the bias.

Apparently the hydro ebrakes cause the brake system to be sluggish and less responsive as if it weren't bled correctly. But this supposedly happens even when the system is bled properly.

If anyone has any experience in hydro ebrakes, I'd love to hear it. I really want to run it, but if it means spongy brakes, NO DICE!

Made a heat shield for my master cyl yesterday! It came out quite nice I think.

Here is what I came up with from a bit of sheet metal that was lying around. It fits real nice and is attached with a mounting tab to one of the master->booster bolts. On the bottom it bolts to the frame rail with a small standoff I made.



Next I primed and painted the shield...



Test fit! Looks good.



DEI gold tape that apparently reflects 80% of radiant heat applied. Looks baller.

I also got the fuel system finished last night. I'll be wiring up the pumps today!

First thing I had to do was make a new gasket for the bulkhead for the return line. It was a bit tedious with scissors and a blade to cut the little holes, but it came out pretty good in the end.



Here it is installed, the upper right plate



Feed and return lines all done. The feed line has an aeromotive filter that steps down the -8 to -6, and then goes to a second Walbro 255 LPH, then up to the rail.

Almost there! The car is really coming along nicely.

Braced the manifold today. I'll probably have a machine shop machine the 4ag flange to make it sit perfectly flush against the gasket.





There's just a quick easy brace to fabricate tomorrow that will join the turbo compressor housing to the motor mount. Hopefully there will be very little strain on the manifold after all the bracing is done. If it cracks, it cracks, but hopefully taking some time now to strengthen things will pay off.

I love this thread, and love that car. Amazing work!

^^^^^^ As do I. Really is exciting to follow this.

Just realized I hadn't posted any pictures of the outside of the car yet. I cleaned it about a week back and removed all the sticker residue.

It took a lot of elbow grease, but it all came off with minimal paint damage (couple of spots of painted lifted on passenger side skirt is all really).

Look great Mike!

Thanks Anthony! You should pop by and see it

Its 330 am and I'm wiped. I'll post a better update tomorrow, but for now here's a couple of pics.

This is Stellar work Mike! We should have a "I have a ridiculous shift knob" club

luke's shift knob is huge and weighs probably 10 pounds, lol

Ya man, drop me your number and let me know when you're working on it and I'll give you a hand.