soarer.jzz30
New member
Ok, so where do I start? The car was purchased in October of 2008 as a daily driver for my girlfriend at the time for $2000. It is a 1990 California spec with 80,000 miles on it. The paint was sun faded from lack of care and one of the tires was dry rotting because they did not stay properly inflated. The interior was full of old clothes and fast food bags and dirt. Everything was basically stock with the exception of the crap head unit and wal-mart shift knob. It was in barely running condition.
List of faults:
Faded paint
Crappy autozone HILA tint (faded to purple)
Leaking radiator
Boost leaks like crazy
Shaft play in the turbo
Speedometer wasn't working
Front bumper bottom lip broken off and pass. fog smashed.
So I started by getting my buffer and some good 3M rubbing compound, spent about 6 hours buffing, polishing and waxing it back to par, my girlfriend scraped all the tint off with a blade and a heat gun. I decided to clean the engine bay up a little so I wrapped up the alternator with a bag and rubber bands, sprayed it with purple power and sprayed it down for a bit. First sign of trouble, the car would not start for some reason after that. Took off the I/C and the plug wires were probably not changed since 1996 or so (guessing) The boots did not seal off the plugs at all. Water was in the holes. So I took lot's of paper towels and soaked up all the water, took out the plugs and let them and the wires dry for a few hours. Installed everything and it started up again. The car made NO boost under normal loads. I had to brake boost for about 15 seconds to make the stock gauge even register. It had about as much accel as my modded 1990 5sfe coupe. Which is not much. I checked all the rubbers and come to find out someone at a dealership "fixed" the connection at the throttle body with epoxy and wires. So yeah, not holding anything for pressure. It was at this moment in time I decided to park it and really get a feel for where this thing was. The more I pried the worse it got. Apparently the previous owner thought it was OK to put in aluminum radiator repair in his rad for 2 years straight. Never replacing it or having it repaired. This upset me very much. how dumb was he? He did not deserve this car at all! I started ripping everything apart to see what the damages were.
I managed to get the head off and low and behold, LOADS of aluminum powder stuck in the head and rear water jackets of the block. Now to mention all the calcium lime and slight rust build up. The oil was at least 2 years old. Most of the harness was so saturated with oil that some of the connectors simply fell apart when I was taking out the head. Sooooo. I take the cams out and head down to the machine shop.
They take out the valves and springs for me to do a mild port and polish. I ordered a kit online and followed the instructions very closely. I had them do a deck job and valve job along with checking the guide clearances. Also I had blasted it and had it tanked. Install new viton valve seals and cam seals.
I ordered a new aluminum radiator off ebay along with a tubular manifold and DP, I had a front mount from an SRT-4 laying around and decided to see if it would fit. IT DID! mounted to the stock fog light locations (90-91).
Ordered a front mount 2.5" I/C piping kit off ebay. Cut everything to fit. Mean while, I was having a machine shop machine my housing to fit a t-04 b trim comp wheel, re-clocked it facing down. I cut the waste gate actuator mounts of and had a welder re-weld them to fit the clocking. Polished it up using the port and polish stuff I had left over. Blasted everything in the cooling system and Exh. housing part of the turbo. I ordered a re-build kit from ebay and started re-building. I sent the center housing assembly off to the G-pop shop for balancing. Ordered a MBC off ebay and installed it nicely.
Here's what happened.
I installed everything and tried to start it. No go. Turns out the haynes manual has a reverse plug wire installation? Puzzled me so much because there was spark and fuel. I actually took off the valve cover and re-timed it just to make sure...
Well, it started right up with a wild idle, bobbing up and down. I take it out for a test drive... I push about 10 psi for most of second gear AND!!! A bog and LOT'S of white and blue smoke. I did not install the dynamic seal properly, the metal water lines running along the block were leaking from corrosion. Oil was spitting out of the BOV. Still overheating...
I know I'm leaving out a large amount of story and mods here. I will start to update and put of LOADS of pics tonight and tomorrow. I really screwed up the first go around, but there's hope!!
List of faults:
Faded paint
Crappy autozone HILA tint (faded to purple)
Leaking radiator
Boost leaks like crazy
Shaft play in the turbo
Speedometer wasn't working
Front bumper bottom lip broken off and pass. fog smashed.
So I started by getting my buffer and some good 3M rubbing compound, spent about 6 hours buffing, polishing and waxing it back to par, my girlfriend scraped all the tint off with a blade and a heat gun. I decided to clean the engine bay up a little so I wrapped up the alternator with a bag and rubber bands, sprayed it with purple power and sprayed it down for a bit. First sign of trouble, the car would not start for some reason after that. Took off the I/C and the plug wires were probably not changed since 1996 or so (guessing) The boots did not seal off the plugs at all. Water was in the holes. So I took lot's of paper towels and soaked up all the water, took out the plugs and let them and the wires dry for a few hours. Installed everything and it started up again. The car made NO boost under normal loads. I had to brake boost for about 15 seconds to make the stock gauge even register. It had about as much accel as my modded 1990 5sfe coupe. Which is not much. I checked all the rubbers and come to find out someone at a dealership "fixed" the connection at the throttle body with epoxy and wires. So yeah, not holding anything for pressure. It was at this moment in time I decided to park it and really get a feel for where this thing was. The more I pried the worse it got. Apparently the previous owner thought it was OK to put in aluminum radiator repair in his rad for 2 years straight. Never replacing it or having it repaired. This upset me very much. how dumb was he? He did not deserve this car at all! I started ripping everything apart to see what the damages were.
I managed to get the head off and low and behold, LOADS of aluminum powder stuck in the head and rear water jackets of the block. Now to mention all the calcium lime and slight rust build up. The oil was at least 2 years old. Most of the harness was so saturated with oil that some of the connectors simply fell apart when I was taking out the head. Sooooo. I take the cams out and head down to the machine shop.
They take out the valves and springs for me to do a mild port and polish. I ordered a kit online and followed the instructions very closely. I had them do a deck job and valve job along with checking the guide clearances. Also I had blasted it and had it tanked. Install new viton valve seals and cam seals.
I ordered a new aluminum radiator off ebay along with a tubular manifold and DP, I had a front mount from an SRT-4 laying around and decided to see if it would fit. IT DID! mounted to the stock fog light locations (90-91).
Ordered a front mount 2.5" I/C piping kit off ebay. Cut everything to fit. Mean while, I was having a machine shop machine my housing to fit a t-04 b trim comp wheel, re-clocked it facing down. I cut the waste gate actuator mounts of and had a welder re-weld them to fit the clocking. Polished it up using the port and polish stuff I had left over. Blasted everything in the cooling system and Exh. housing part of the turbo. I ordered a re-build kit from ebay and started re-building. I sent the center housing assembly off to the G-pop shop for balancing. Ordered a MBC off ebay and installed it nicely.
Here's what happened.
I installed everything and tried to start it. No go. Turns out the haynes manual has a reverse plug wire installation? Puzzled me so much because there was spark and fuel. I actually took off the valve cover and re-timed it just to make sure...
Well, it started right up with a wild idle, bobbing up and down. I take it out for a test drive... I push about 10 psi for most of second gear AND!!! A bog and LOT'S of white and blue smoke. I did not install the dynamic seal properly, the metal water lines running along the block were leaking from corrosion. Oil was spitting out of the BOV. Still overheating...
I know I'm leaving out a large amount of story and mods here. I will start to update and put of LOADS of pics tonight and tomorrow. I really screwed up the first go around, but there's hope!!