1988 ST165 Project

I bought a 88 ST165 with 300K miles back in February of 2020 because I figured I would have lots of time, which was mostly true.
I had bought it with a blown clutch and some cool mods, at the time the fog lights didn't work, it was throwing check engine lights and the Supra CT26 turbo wastegate actuator was held on with zip ties and combined with all my knowledge and lack of experience with cars, it was bound to be a interesting money pit.

I got started taking apart the engine bay, and with the help of my step dad who actually knew what he was doing in about 2 1/2 weeks I had the engine out.

I went ahead and removed the transmission and had the flywheel machined to go nicely with a new Stage 1 ACT clutch, which should be nice for the power I was making with all the modifications done to the car.
The next weeks mostly had me ordering gaskets and tearing apart the engine down to the cylinder head to be ready for paint.

I also had begun the long process of cleaning all the brackets and painting them black or silver before starting on the valve cover to be painted a nice silver.

While the primer was curing on the valve cover, my step dad had painted the block and intake manifold, which turned out pretty well.

Next, the engine went back in the car and had a lot of running to the manual and back trying to hook up the wiring harness again, but eventually about a month after the engine was removed I had put the engine back in the car and had it running... with a coolant leak from the turbo gasket though.
After the leak was sorted, the car was throwing the infamous code 52, and after closer inspection the engine had no knock sensor, but it had the adapter for a GM sensor so I soldered in a new one and it seems to have fixed the code, except for once every few months when the engine changes its mind and decides to throw the code again.

However, in July I noticed a unusual noise coming from the engine whenever my foot wasn't on the clutch pedal and it soon came clear my throw-out bearing was failing... again. I was incredibly frustrated at this so I decided to put the car for sale as soon as I confirmed it and as I was driving with it on my last drive home, the throw-out bearing burnt itself into oblivion at a stop and I had to limp it home and took down the ad.

As I was incredibly lazy during the summer, progress went much slower as I didn't know if I needed a whole new transmission or just a small part, so it took much longer to remove the engine and I was also replacing the valve stems as well because I was burning quite a bit of oil, and by December of 2020, the car ran again with a new slave cylinder which destroyed the bearing because it was completely seized up.
Since then I have been tweaking the car, making it better very slightly by running boost leak tests, getting new fog lights and mud flaps, and proving its worth by taking it on a road trip an hour and a half away from home and back with no issues.
I also had the deafening straight pipe exhaust quieted down with a 16 inch resonator which helped a lot with the 2.5 inch exhaust piping.

The car has been running strong since and been very fun to drive. It has a bit of turbo lag below 3000 RPM but the boost coming in just after that is incredibly fun just accelerating and the 3SGTE has been awesome combined with the AWD in the PNW, making it perfect for not the best conditions.

Nice work bringing it back to life!