2 88 ST165's

Hey guys, I'd like to start off by thanking everyone for all the information that is shared on this site. It has helped me countless times throughout my rebuild process. Ok now onto the build. I bought an 88 all trac off a buddy of mine for a price I couldnt refuse. But little did I know all the headache that would come with it. First off I NEVER heard the car run do to the fact the engine in the car had a spun bearing and he already started to pull apart the engine. Luckly the car came with an extra engine and transmission out of a all trac with 60,000 miles on it. I decided it was best to rebuild the engine with 60,000 before i pulled the engine and trans that was already in the car. I did just that and I paired the rebuilt engine and trans together and put them in (dropped subframe to pull the engine and put the new pair in through the bottom as well). My father owns a fully stocked auto garadge so i had all the tools I needed and a lift to do the heavy lifting for me. To pull the engine and and put in the other engine took MAYBE an hr at most. My father is verrrrry efficent and know his sh#$, blew my mind how fast it went. Soooo let me just go ahead and list everything done to the car...bare with me.....
Water pump
Timing belt
Timing belt tensinor and idler pully
Main and Rod bearings (Acl?)
every gasket you could imagin including valve cover seal
light weight fly wheel
stage 2 clutch
twin entry Turbo conversion (uncle owns a machine shop and made a custom spacer for clearence issues I'm sure you all are aware of)
Turbo rebuilt (Gpop Shop) VERY nice people even hooked me up!
fuel cut off to run higher boost
Super Air flow converter
Turbo timer
HKS mushroom airfilter
new OEM AFM
performance exhaust manifold
3'' down pipe
3'' exhaust all the way through
meagan muffler
boost gage
temp gage
blitz bov
new belts (power steering and alt.)
ASI radiator
Battery relocation to the trunk
MSD coil
new cap, rotor, wires, ngk plugs
short shifter

As to the exterrior
shaved door handles
Shaved rear wiper
Shaved antenna
new pant job (gun metal- lots of flake)

and the said part is....I still havent seen it run :x but hopefully that day will be soon.

problem I'm having is (what I believe) the AFM. I ordered a new one and it hasnt come yet so I can't confirm but when the AFM is plugged in the car has no check engine lights on but wont fire up just turns over and over and over, but when I unplug the AFM the car fires right up no problems idles for about 3 seconds and then shuts off. BUT the car fires up EVERY time when the AFM is unplugged and doesnt fire up at ALL when the AFM is plugged in.
is a bad AFM a no start problem???

I have an 88 st165, make sure that there is no vacuum leak at the AFM. I had a similar situation and with me I had not completely plugged the AFM connector all the way in. The little wire clip was in the way. My 2 cents, worth.

UPDATE....shes running, had a fellow member of the site ship me there extra afm, I plugged it in, she gave a sputter, tried again and she started purring like a kitten. Il upload pics when I get home. Symptoms of my bad afm were....
when plugged in there was no start not even a pop
No check engine like

When unplugged
check engine light would come one
she would start up everytime but stall after 2-3 seconds

like many of you on this form I decided to do a twin entry conversion but I went at it from a different angle and machined a spacer plate to fit inbetween the turbo and the exhaust manifold. Machined at an angle so it allows the clearence for the wastegate actuator rod. only problem with cocking the turbo slightly like this that I noticed was how it lines up with the rest of the exhaust but when a torch and a prybar we made it fit no problems. clears the radiator perfect, clears the 12'' rad. fan perfect, no clearence issues at all.

Then I couldnt find a gasket for a 6 bolt down pipe coming off the turbo exhaust housing so I made one out of copper. One problem Im having is that one of the studs when coming through the dp flange is sooo close to the dp tube I dont know of any nut to fit on it (circled in red in picture).

^^^the gorilla weld on the BOV is not my doing.....got it from a friend like that..I know verrry ugly but I plan on getting a different BOV in the future so for now I'm not too worried about it.

Good looking car man .. keep up the good work looks nice. Future plans ?

Ok I've been away at school sence the one time I've driven the car up and down the street. Before I left to go back to school
I noticed a small puddle of oil underneath of it and figured "ah, I must need to tighten the oil pan down a lil more" and figured
I would do it when I came home next week. Do to the crazy weather I havent been able to get back to work on it for the last 2 weeks. So i got home and got right to work and put it on the lift and had my buddy hop up and start the car because it oil seemed to leak oil when it was under pressure so I see the oil leaking from what I'm hoping is the corner of the oil pan but its under the cross member so i can't really tell we take the cross member out and what do you know....its leaking out of the $#%^ing rear main seal..perfect...So after a longg night of disconnecting wires and other things i had previously made pretty permenant considering I though i wouldnt be pulling the engine again for a looonggg time I was ready for the pull or rather the drop the next morning.I woke up early and got to work...dropping the engine out with a lift may need 2 people but is very easy so only took about 45 mins. w So we get the engine on a chain fall and get the transmission on a table and with a little love and tug seperate the two and guess what...the rear main seal isnt even touching the #$%ing crank theres about a 2mm gap between the two so i hop on alltrac.net and do a little search and wouldnt you know it I got a seal from a 2nd gen 3sgte so I order the right seal and the old retainer gasket from toyota..yadda yadda.....I take a look and my flywheel (which is brand new only driven maybe 1 mile) has hot spots all over it and the clutch disk is soaked in oil...great...I knew the transmission what screwy but didnt know it was really doing me this dirty(felt like I was starting off in 3rd when I was starting is 1st??). So lucky I have another tranmission and while its all off I'll switch to two. Also while the engine is out I decided I'm gonna solid fill the engine mounts with some industrial poly adhesive (I'll include pics when I do this) but i took a bunch of pictures because I know you guys would appericate it.

DAY 2 GO

wow , what shitty luck man ... well , you get an A+ for effort and thank the lord you have a lift to work with there ... both my alltrac motor jobs where on ground and out the top ... joy :bangshead:

the lift is what makes it all possible. hopefully the parts will be in this week and I will be driving it by the end of the weekend...It will be the first time the car has been on the road for more than a mile in 4 years.......dont let anyone tell you dreams dont come true lol.

Good luck man ... hey ... peek at those brake lines in the rear by the axle before you go out. 1st time out on the road in mine one started leaking ...

Hey Dustin, glad to hear the afm worked out for you.. but sorry to hear about the issues afterwards.. hope you get it all running and back on the road soon!!

UPDATE:

The car is finally on the road. Last weekend I finished everything up after lots of trial and error and a bhg. Plus an oil leak I still have to track down. I ended up pulling out the safc, I dont have the time to learn how to use it at the moment. Which means I cant boost then stop or I'll stall out. That issue along with a funky starter that doesnt seem to work half the time is a problem and pretty embarrassing at a quick red light. Besides that the car runs very strong and pulls nice. I've been driving it all week running 9lb boost and have about 300 miles on the engine/turbo/clutch now so I turned up the boost to 12lb and it definately made a difference. My schools car club has a lot of wrx's and sti's so after I feel I've brokin the car in I'll see what I can do against the subies

so I got a deal on another 88 st165 with some nice upgrades, a couple pictures...


Uploaded with ImageShack.us


Uploaded with ImageShack.us


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Great news on it running and road worthy !!! Add the relay on the little wire to the starter for that issue ... we all have had it and had to add the relay ... quick easy mod. The other issue , stalls after boosting ... good one. Check over it for vaccum leaks yet ?

Stalling out issue on the grey one was causes by the bov tension screw not being tight enough so it would remain open after boost. I've taken the grey one off the road to become my frankinstein build
and use the blue one as my dd. The blue one came with a g force Ecu, st205 tyranny and torsen diff, upgraded ct26, full 3"do exhaust, poly bushings , 3ge cams and many more goodies