90 Alltrac build "project hotdog"

A close friend and member on here bought an all trac a while back. Fruci101. I had the pleasure of working on it throughout last winter. Not knowing much about these cars I quickly learned what kind of animal it was. It was miserable to work on. But over the course of the winter I saw the challenge and difficulty in the cars. I did research and obsessed like many of us car nuts do. And I saw some romance behind these things. In no time flat I fell in love with these cars. Miserable to work on, finicky and a constant struggle to keep reliable. BUT when it all comes together you have a rare dark horse that will take you deep into the mists of Avalon. I had to have one. So I shopped for months and months. Craigslist ebay etc. I found a couple ghetto overpriced st185s in seattle or portland but nothing worth my time. If I was gonna spend the money on an alltrac it was gonna be the right one. And then one popped up in Boise. Listed for 9500$. Really clean. Completely unmolested. Talked to the owner. Told me all about the car. Just one problem. It's not currently running. Lol. So We agreed upon 5500 and id try and fix it there and drive it back. But based on his descriptions we assumed it was a timing belt in which case we would just trailer it back to spokane. hauled the trailer to boise the next weekend. We pulled into the guys driveway and there she was. She was wounded but she was the one. Body was super straight and a few rotations of the starter told us it was indeed a timing belt. So we loaded it into our tiny cargo trailer. Barely fit. I did my research and figured it would fit but would have to remove front and rear bumpers lol. That was a task in itself. We arrive back in spokane and get cranking on the timing belt. Did normal service while doing timing belt such as water pump and seals etc. after an agonizing day and half she finally lit off. I drove the car of my dreams for the first time. While stock and really kinda lackluster I was deeply in love with this car. I enjoyed this car for a total of three days before the clutch started slipping. And hereeeeee we go. So the hotdog has been in the garage for the past few months while I've been accruing parts for my first small little build. As I am only a couple weeks from tearing into the build I've got a list of parts I have. If anyone has suggestions please throw them out there.

Clutchmasters fx300 clutch
Mishimoto radiator
Mishimoto fan setup
Rad hoses
Arp flywheel bolts
AEM Wideband fail safe guage(built in boost gauge too)
Boost controller
Fuel cut defender from hawkleys (which is awesome)
Rear main and whatnot
Turbo timer
Fuel pressure regulator( any thoughts? Is it worth the trouble?)

Build starts soon so any suggestions will be great. Any tips on the clutch job?
I will be gutting the cat and probably get 2.5 exhaust too.
What's a good number to crank the boost up to?
And what can I expect performance wise with that much boost?
Any parts that I will need that I have not foreseen or anything you would reccomend?
Thanks so much in advance
Kody

Heres a pic of the original Craigslist ad.

Interior

In trailer. Like throwing a hotdog down a hallway.

Also in trailer

At home.

She's a looker.

Good find and good luck with the build. It is very nice to get the car in good shape and be able to actually enjoy.

Very nice find and welcome to the forum. I like your planned mods, but I would offer that finding one of these that hasn't been messed with is getting harder and harder. So I would try to not do too much to it.

...just my 2 cents

So we've spent quite a bit of time on the clutch. Finally got the motor back in. Spent hours and hours just cleaning the motor and grant and detailing the bay a little bit. Got most everything hooked back up. Just have to install driveline, exhaust, bolt the axles up, install the mishimoto rad and fill the tranny fluid and coolant. Once she's running again I need to do something with the exhaust. My flex pipe is leaking and I also need an O2 bung. What do you guys recommend? I'm a little strapped for cash right now but what's the best way to go about a cat back exhaust. Is there a way to get an exhaust shop to build a mid pipe without a cat, legally? Also I gutted the car in the downpipe so how should I go about this? Thanks and enjoy the pics.

Shiny new clutch masters fx300 ready to go in to the car.

All cleaned up and ready to go.

Hours worth of work to clean tranny.

nice build. There are full turno back exhaust systems on ebay for reasonable coin. They're obviously not the highest quality pieces out there but they're a good bang for your buck option. I know around here its no problem to have an exhaust shop make up a system without a cat but I'm not sure about your local emissions laws.

Scaryyy

Almost home

Dropping the car onto the motor

Tadaaa! What a project. Almost there. After this point I had to watch ALOT of videos and look at a lot of your cool builds to see past how difficult this car is and remember why I wanted one in the first place. Can't wait to get this lovely lady on the road.

Good to see you're enjoying the challenge. FYI, put some chocks or 2x4 behind the rear wheels to ensure you don't have the car rolling back (or forward)

If you haven't gutted the downpipe already, don't. They're usually worth a lot at metal recyclers because they have a lot of platinum, to the point where you can nearly buy a proper downpipe with the funds from recycling the stock one. For the rest of the exhaust there's a thread on here with links to inexpensive midpipes, and then there's the usual eBay midpipe + axleback combos that are pretty good for the price (low).