So for the past while I've been living 350km away from the car, hence why the progress is really slow, but I'm taking Thursday and Friday off this week and putting 4 hard days into it. Sadly I'll only get until Sunday around noon, but I'll try to get the most done I can. I'll also try to make frequent updates over the weekend with pics pics pics.

Anyhow, I've done a bit of work with the car in the mean time so here's the starting point for me this weekend:

Gauge cluster I bought from the previous owner:





Here's a shot right after the bay was painted and I had the electrical harness reinstalled:



I installed the sideskirts properly. When I bought the car, they were held on with huge amounts of urethane. I removed all the urethane with a blade tediously (took forever)... Eventually I had it all cleaned up and removed the clip mounts that involved drilling out a few screws in the skirt back bracing.... The car shell was originally an SR5, so there was only one skirt mounting hole in the rocker panel. I lined everything up and installed them the way they would have been done from the factory. I used stainless nuts as standoffs from the body.




I blasted the pedals then etch primered them (this shot) followed by gloss black.


Here they are installed. Notice how I added the upper mount for the clutch pedal. The previous owner didn't have this mounting point added (the car was auto from the factory), so there was a bit of flex in the pedal with a heavy clutch... I drilled out the spot welds holding the mount from a GTS manual trans car, and welded it on.


Various suspension peices after blasting:



AW11 MR2 manual rack installed:



I now have the supra intermediate shaft and tercel u-joint needed to hook the AE86 power steering column to the mk2 rack. Pics of that later

Gotta mock up the intercooler piping soon...ugh



This is after the brake lines were all done and the Wilwood master was back in.
[img]http://i47.tinypic.com/e7ku86.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i45.tinypic.com/rbeeqe.jpg[/img]

Oh yes!

[img]http://i46.tinypic.com/k1747p.jpg[/img]

New welding setup!

[img]http://i45.tinypic.com/2hhjgqr.jpg[/img]

Stay tuned!

Cant wait to see it done. Always wanted an ae86.

Wow is all I got to say!!! (insert drool here)

Ghislain

I want those doors for my car! I am yet again jealous of your car/build.

Someday I hope to turbo my ae86, but I'll stick with the stock 4AGE till it blows up (saving money until that day happens) and I'll swap in something with a bit more power.

Thomas.

So it's a little after 1:00 am and I just got in from turning wrenches. I got off work today at 4, and then had a 350 KM drive before I could commence

In the five or so hours I had at the car, I installed the Supra steering intermediate shaft and tercel u joint which let me hook my mr2 rack to my power ae86 column. Crazy combo lol.




I centered up the rack, and aligned the car by eye until I get it on the alignment rack. I swapped in the Sparco wheel with detachable hub from my other AE86. I swapped the whole column actually lol.



I gained a nice bit of steering angle doing this steering rack swap while keeping the steering knuckles from my old power rack.




Suspension check! Just need the brakes now



After setting the rack dead center though, with 1.5 turns to lock each way, it appears the position of the outer tie rod is actually farther out on the drivers side.... Is this normal? I suppose no matter how these are adjusted, the overall travel of the tie rod end would be the same wouldn't it? (notice the difference in the amount of exposed thread on the inner tie rods)

Pass side:

Drivers side:


I got some new goodies! I'm redoing a bunch of the fuel lines with -6 an and Aeroquip fittings.




I was going to use this SS manifold, but....



I'm thinking I'll use my heat-wrapped log mani for a while longer. I pulled off the turbo and swapped the log manifold back in.

[img]http://i47.tinypic.com/2l8ddg9.jpg[/img]

Tomorrow I'll try to finish up prepping the motor to be installed in the bay. I have to remove the FWD waterpump and swap in the RWD pump with the associated lines and such. I also have to swap accessory brackets and get my VR crank sensor setup up on a bracket...

Wow im jealous i wish i could build my car from the ground up like that. Could i have it when its done , good job man cant wait till its done.

Well today was slow going as I was trying to get winter tires installed on my daily driver, and I was trying to get a pile of other car related stuff done.

First thing in the morning I went to Mitsubishi to pick up my winter tires (Blizzak LM60 245/40R18). Now today it snowing pretty bad, and my car had COMPLETELY bald summer tires on it... Because of this, I couldn't take the car somewhere to get the tires changed over. I had to bring the wheels... But all my jackstands were in use under the Corolla, so I had to do two rims/tires at a time. I ended up jacking up the back end of the car, and taking two wheels to a rim shop up the street.




After dropping off the rear wheels to the rim shop, I hit up fasteners plus, canadian tire, a sheet metal shop, automotive supplies, and napa. What a bunch of running around. This cut into progress time, but was essential as every errand was related to getting it done.

One of this first things I did was remove the FWD water pump.



I replaced it with the RWD variation with all the factory lines. I didn't snap a pic, but you can see the RWD lines in later pictures of the engine.

Next I replaced the RC 550 injectors I had with a set of Denso 660s that I used to use in my Talon. I found the Densos great, and I'll be close to the limits of the 550s, so I might as well



Lets see....then I bolted on the Fidanza flywheel and Spec clutch, and bolted on any accessory brackets/VR sensors and such to the engine



Time to toss her in!



Bammm!!!



Good day clutch!



Starting to look like a car again...



Rad in



I got mail today! Hydro e-brake and Wilwood proportioning valve. I mocked it up, I'll be welding up a base for it soon.

[img]http://i46.tinypic.com/wsuvsm.jpg[/img]

Anyways, I never did get all four tires changed over today. Two are done, but two rims are still at the shop. My poor car's held up by two jacks lol

[img]http://i48.tinypic.com/2z82hch.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i50.tinypic.com/29ehieb.jpg[/img]

Shweet looking build Mike! Keep up the good work.

Looks like you have quite the collection of bad ass cars. EVO MR would have done it for me.

Put some work in on the car today!

I had been having trouble lately with the sandblasting as the garage is humid and I guess the sand was clumping from the moisture... Anyhow, I finally picked up a massive dryer from princess auto which takes pellets that remove the moisture. I also hooked up my new regulator/particle separator to the system. The result was some great sandblasting

I had these parts roughly cut out before, but today i bead blasted the areas with surface rust, and cut out the metal with holes. I've got almost all the rusty pieces out now thankfully.

Sand everywhere!



I blasted where the plates for the cage were welded in. I guess after they welded the plates in, they didn't put any new paint on underneath.



In around here was pretty bad before. I blasted it all and cut out a section up top. I'm going to be cutting out another piece on the bottom of the seam where you can see the hole:



Oh snap I'm makin' new pieces from sheet metal! For the large patch I made for the bottom of the quarter panel, I used vice grips to bend a coat hanger to the profile of the rocker of the car, and brought the shape to a sheet metal shop. They made up the patch panel piece and I cut it to size.




They fit pretty well!




Gotta make ones for the other side now, and do some more sandblasting before I can weld these puppies in!

Mike, please let me know how that dryer works out and how long those pellets last. I have been having TONS of problems with moisture in my blasting cabinet. I have tried smaller dryers without success, and cant seem to justify huge bucks for a refrigerant dryer. I tried a smaller dessicant drier, and it filled in minutes...would love to hear how this one works..

Ziggy, I have moisture problems also, my air compressor has a small tank and runs lots to keep up. The princess auto stuff worked but the pressure drop was nasty or if the pressure drop was ok, the filter or trap would fill too quickly. Canadian tire stuff was no better.

I have switched to DeVilbiss disposable filters. Minimal pressure drop and they last when painting/sandblasting. DeVilbiss also makes larger filters for more commercial applications.
Although I don't know where you would source them in Ontario as I get them at KMS Tools which is only located in B.C. and AB. Here is a link KMS Tools - filters
Just some more options for you to consider.

Thanks for that info..I am sure I can find those in the US somewhere...and they dont look that expensive. Everything else I tried also gave either HUGE pressure drop or just didn't do the job of removing the moisture...

Are these what you got?

Amazing car man, Very nice work on the build.

New parts!

Big ol box!



It's actually two boxes, here's one opened!



Oh nice! A new hood!



Another box, what's that?



Bam!! A hatch!



Money shot...

Make sure those babys fit proper, those bastards are know for screwing things up with their bad fitment.


What ya' making a road racer or a drift "machine"?

Its looking sweet eather way.

-Manuel

Absolutely B.A. !

So I bolted the hood on the car, tried to close it, and it encountered resistance about half way closed. Turns out Seibon didn't cut out the holes behind the two hinge mounts like the factory setup. These holes allow two hooks above the firewall to fit up into the hood as it closes.

Here's a shot of the hood with the missing hole.



Then I drilled some holes (I could see the indentation of where the recess was supposed to be).



Then I did the other side.



I did up to this point indoors, but next needed air tools, so I headed to the garage. I used the die grinder with a grinder bit to smooth everything out.




This needs to fire soon!



Schpladow!




Next I need to get the window out of this one! I have a lexan window that has a hole for the fuel filler, but I don't really want to run it on the street... I think I'll lower the filler neck slightly, and run regular glass. I'll just have to pop the hatch at the gas station....no biggie.

Wrenched a bit more today!

Hatch glass is in! I also cut down the fuel cell filler neck about 1 inch so I could have the filler below the oem glass window. It was set up for a lexan window with a hole for the fuel filler originally, but that wouldn't work well on the street with rain and such...




Side view... Ill be replacing these lexan windows with either glass or new lexan without the vents... Again, rain + holes = nono...



Next I started to work on my panel gaps in the front end. I screwed in the standoffs for the hood, and adjusted them so the hood was flush with the fenders. Next, I realized the D/S fender needed a little tweaking so I pulled if off the car.




After I put the fender back on, and adjusted the gaps with the power headlight covers, the gaps looked pretty mint!




And finally, a bit more sandblasting and metal work on the rear. Hopefully all this will be done in another weekend or so.

You should grab a pair of carbon fiber head light covers to match with the rest of the carbon bits

Loving this thing, awesome job.

-MSR

love your ae86 build. so jealous of your carbon. i am hoping to start a build like that this year

So last night consisted mainly of beadblasting the front and rear rotors, caliper mounting brackets, and the calipers themselves.

Here's how the calipers looked when I got them. Previous owner apparently painted them some silly teal colour, then let brake fluid get all over them. Not good enough...



Nothing a bit of blasting can't fix though!



Here's a front rotor. 11.5 inches. I mainly blasted the hat and the slots but gave a quick once over on the outer friction surface. I will be getting this turned slightly before reassembly to remove all the overspray on the braking surface.



Painted...



And lastly the BBK brackets to move the calipers out from the hub to accommodate the larger rotors:

This build is awesome! I only can dream of a AE86 build like that!

Keep up the amazing workmen ship!

So the brake components are all painted with 3 coats of VHT caliper paint. They came out pretty nice, and will sit inside the house for 7 days to cure before I have the rotors turned so I can install them.




I also cleaned and assembled the rear axle. The backing plates are still curing, so one they're all dry I'll be able to torque in the axle retainers. It has Ford 31 spline axles, 3.73 ratio R+P and an Auburn Pro LSD. Interested to see how it locks up!

I also sorted out all the rear suspension bits. The five link is all ready to go, but I still need to modify one of the technotoytuning traction brackets (for the larger diameter axle)




Lastly, I removed the rear lexan windows. This will make painting the interior of the car easier, but the main reason they're out is to swap in some real glass windows. Given I'll be daily driving this car in the summer, I don't really want to have rain coming into the car through the vents that were on the lexan windows.



The next thing that will be on my plate tomorrow will be to finish sand blasting the area where I cut out some rusty metal. Most of the cutting is already done, and new metal will be welded in soon after I shoot the areas with weld through primer.



Im suprised the rust was so far along as the entire car is solid with the exception of the drivers side spring perch area, and the bottom of the rear quarters in front of the wheel wells. This has all been media blasted and all the cancer cut out.

So today I didn't get a whole lot of time in at the car, but I did manage get a bit of sandblasting done in the area where I cut out the rust in the perch. I will be spraying the area with weld through primer, and welding in new metal hopefully in the next week or two.



Here's what the outside looks like. Still needs to be blasted.



I also did the final assembly on the rear axle. The Toyota backing plates came out nice after modding them to fit the Ford 8.8 housing ends.



Lastly, I modded the second T3 traction bracket to fit the larger diameter axel tube

So I wanted to get my brakes installed today, and the pinion angle at ride height figured out so I could fab up my transmission mount. Below is how far I got with it...

I cleaned up some rough welds in the hatch (mostly removing slag) and prepped all the areas I sandblasted with chassis saver. I'll be using weld through zinc primer for the patch panels I'm fabbing up.



I'll be masking the front half of the interior, and painting the rear half from the B pillar back. Just waiting on the hvlp gun I want to come in stock for this...

I managed to wrestle the rear axle into the car by myself. It weighs a bloody ton compared to the stock toyota one



Rear brakes...



Here it is sitting on its own weight. A first for me with this car lol. I can now get the ride height set and set my pinion angle.



Traction brackets bring the lower links nice and parallel with the ground



Nice!



Soon to be secure transmission...



Shifter position...



I got the front rotors on, and the caliper mounting brackets, but I need to pick up some hardware for the caliper itself tomorrow morning...




Shot of the engine bay

[img]http://i44.tinypic.com/67p8jl.jpg[/img]

Amazing car!

WOW

So I removed the diffuser that was on the car originally. I'll have some pics of that process after, but the SD card they're on is a bit messed up...

Here's the JDM bumper before I cleaned it up:



OEM Toyota bumper brackets!



Installed! I primed the rear section with weld through primer, and later on I'll get the rear panels smoothed out. Pics of that soon.



Measured the wheel spacers I need in the rear. 1 and 1/8th inches...



Horrid fitment lol



Moved onto the front brakes! Here's the BBK caliper mounting brackets



Passenger side:



Driver side:



Rear hatch area...



Took off the front bumper, in preparation for the JDM treuno bumper. I also cleaned up the engine bay a bit...

Damn this is a sick build
i wont be happy till i can build my car up like that it wont be my rs ofcourse
but damn mike you got skills
now i know who to call when im building mine up i hate to steal but ima gona have to, sorry Mcdonalds but IM LOVING IT!!!.... lol.

As promised, here's some shots of the rear diffuser mount removal.

But first, lets toss an AEM wideband into the daily driver!

I had an extra wideband bung added to my Ultimate Racing downpipe, so installation of the sensor was a breeze.



I followed the factory front o2 sensor wire to a grommet in the passenger floor well and routed my AEM cable through the same hole.




You'd never say it was even there



For now the gauge is just sitting in my cup holder as my gauge pod is still in the mail. Pics of that when its installed...

Now onto the Toyota destruction. Here's the extended rear section the way it was to fit up against the diffuser:




The diffuser mount came off fairly easily, but I tore the factory metal a bit getting off the weld points. I'll patch this from inside with some new metal and grind down the welds soon. I'm happy just to have the clean rear lines back with a real bumper...





Lots of bondo being removed to bring the rear valance back to bare metal


[img]http://i39.tinypic.com/25at6yx.jpg[/img]

Fuuuuuuuuuu!!!!

[img]http://i41.tinypic.com/5vwuaq.jpg[/img]

Yesterday I was back at the transmission mount situation...

First I heightened the rear by about 1 inch to even it out with the front. I don't want the car sitting too low for slalom and such, or I won't have any suspension travel. Setting the rear height will allow me to ballpark the pinion angle so I can figure where I want the tail shaft of the transmission to sit. I should have some spacers for the rear soon to correct the fitment.



This is the rear mount I was working on, using 6 inch flat bar. Upon further thought, I'm going to do this over with 4 inch stuff. I was initially measuring the cross section of the transmission tunnel from the four stock mounting holes. I've since moved this around a bit, making the new mount more narrow.



So I got started with a template, and after a few tries I got the bolt pattern from under the car onto paper



Then it was time for some circles!



I traced the center diameter of the trans mount onto another piece of paper, and overlayed it to scribe out where the 4 bolt locations are.




Then I lined up everything to be parallel with the front of my other mount template, and transfered over the measurements.



BAM!! A template:

The metal bar place was closed over the weekend, so I'll get back to the trans mount at a later date.

The next thing on the list was to prime the inner areas behind the front doors (inside the rear quarter panels). I had sandblasted these areas, and now I'll be hitting them with some weld through primer and working on the new metal pieces to fit in.

Here's what I've come up with for the driver's side:




This is the stuff I'll be using for the areas to be welded. Zinc coating weld thru primer.



Starting to mask the area to be sprayed...



Drivers side painted:



And the passenger side:



Patch panel and some other random pieces sprayed:



And finally, I got my tool for measuring the pinion angle



More updates soon...

Great updates, I really enjoying following this thread.

How are you enjoying the X? I took one for a drive recently, and felt it was much more well rounded than the IX.
I think I'm leaning towards getting the X rather than the IX

So I took Friday off to get some extra work in today. Things went pretty well!

I started off with the transmission x-member. I picked up some 4 inch 1/8" bar stock and chopped it up (using my paper template from a couple of posts back). This was my first time doing any real welding so I'm happy with the turn out.




Bam!



I had to trim the shifter hole forward about an inch. I dropped the transmission to do this, and grabbed the saber-saw. The position is pretty well centered now.



After ensuring everything fit well with my new x-member, I took it back out and wire wheeled the welds in preparation for etch primer.



Primed



Painted.. This will be ready to bolt back on tomorrow morning.



Next I poked around at the intake manifold a bit. Its a smallport manifold, being converted for RWD. I chopped the ends off the manifold and fabricated new ones...





Lastly, I finally welded in one of the new rear quarter panel dogs legs. Welding the thin sheet metal was MUCH harder!

[img]http://i39.tinypic.com/6ylesg.jpg[/img]

Bottom spot welded in...

[img]http://i39.tinypic.com/2mxnbfd.jpg[/img]

All done!

[img]http://i44.tinypic.com/14kbeq1.jpg[/img]

After I finish up the other side, I will work on mounts for the rear bolt hole on the skirt end caps. You can see here how the end caps cover up the whole patched area.

[img]http://i39.tinypic.com/2mga0bd.jpg[/img]

Peter the Evo is great. I doubt I'd have wanted an older evo as a daily driver. If it was a track only race car I'd probably take a 9, but the X is the winner on the street. The SST transmission is super awesome too.

So today I went to bolt my trans x-member in, and one of the four bolts stripped out. I ended up enlarging the forward mount holes with a larger M12 1.25 tap.

Finally in...



Next I whipped up a mount for my hydro ebrake. It'll get welded on soon. I just need the short M8 hardware. The holes are tapped and ready.




Next I moved onto body work. Here's a little patch I whipped up.



Here's the passenger side rear quarter dogs leg I finally got around to fabricating...



Here it is welded in! Thanks to roaster for doing the welding for me tonight as I was taking care of cutting out other patches.



Another random patch I'm working on...



Drivers side primed:



Passenger side...

Sup brahs? About damn time I post an update lol.

As you may already know, during the week days I'm 350 km from my car, so I can only get in one or two hard days a week at it max. This week, I decided I'd try to get something done back in Gander where I work. It's a small town, so there's not much out here other than a Canadian Tire/Dominion/Wal Mart)

I did, however, end up finding a welding shop. I brought them out my intake manifold, for which I had already fab'd block off plates, and told em what I needed done!

Here's a shot of the chopped mani and the plates:




I'm converting a smallport 4age fwd intake manifold to fit my rwd setup. Pretty straight forward. The guy ended up doing a pretty nice job on the mani. It's a bit dirty right now, but I'm going to bead blast it again to make it fresh prior to the install.




Used a large NPT tap for the GM open element air temp sensor.



I'll be making a bracket soon for the throttle cable on the back of the intake mani this weekend hopefully. I'd like to have my whole intake system (ic piping/ic/bov) done the weekend after next... Lets see how it goes.

Nice work every time

This thread eats internet connections like George Bush eats kittens!

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.