I picked up this '88 Vert recently from a forum member in east Texas. He stripped the car down to practically nothing and had planned to do a V8 swap but he decided to sell it instead. He pressure-washed and re-sprayed underneath as well as new 2-stage base/clear paint on the exterior as well as the engine bay. The body is straight, vinyl top and paint looks great, the BBS rims and tires are near perfect. The car came with no wiring for the dash or engine bay, no p/s rack, steering wheel or seats. Basically a stripped shell. My plans are to resurrect this baby with mostly s5 stuff from a few friend's donor cars. I want to keep it all stock (it's for the wifey) and it will take a few months to complete, so I will post regularly as things progress.

A few initial pics:
Empty engine bay pics: (She did come with a new clutch m/c)

 

I snatched this engine/tranny from a guy for FREE last fall. He did a LS1 swap and needed to free up some space so I gladly hauled it home. It came with all ancillary parts, including oil cooler, coil packs, air box/AFM, etc:


This guy must have had some fun trying to blow this engine up before he did the swap, as both rotor housings and one rotor were TOAST.

 

Hey man, do you have enough red Rx-7's at your house?

 

I need just 1 more to fill up my driveway, but I insist that it be a FD

I wanted one of each FC: Vert, TII and GXL.

 

Oh man, how cool!!!

I t looks great, nice base to start with, must be piece of mind to know it's so clean. I am really looking forward to watching this progress, I was actually thinking of doing up a vert as my next one - except it was gonna be for my mom, haha....

Keep it up Scrip.

 

Thanks NJ. Here's a couple pics of the interior as it came when I bought it:

 

I removed the random interior pieces and the dash, which was literally hanging un-mounted on the bulkhead. There are no ducts, no heater box, a/c box, blower housing, logicon, or idiot cluster. All of that is being ripped out of the donor car. I grabbed the main wiring harness (about 15 feet long), took it to the car wash and blasted it good with soap and a good rinse, then dried each connector with compressed air. It was ready to be snaked through the small hole on the driver's side of the firewall, one connector at a time. It's a bitch.

 

Got the harness snaked through the firewall. Whew! I plan on re-taping the harness and using vinyl conduit loom wherever I can. This harness goes from the passenger side of the interior up across the dash and out along the driver's side of the engine bay, across the front all the way to the pass. side headlight....a bazillion connectors all along the way.

 

I managed to get the harness taped and installed, making sure to sand any painted grounding points to bare metal, followed by a coat of dielectric grease (especially the main ground at the strut tower). Also pressure-washed the oil cooler and installed it and the leading coil pack.

 

I cleaned up and installed the trailing coil pack, tried to clean up some corrosion on the main and circuit opening relays but the zinc plating wouldn't shine up, so I lightly scuffed them up and painted them black. I may end up doing that to several pieces of tubing and brackets, as most of the donor car pieces are "weathered" a lot.

 

Flushed the a/c condenser with a solvent specified for use with a/c systems, followed by compressed air. Straightened a few bent fins, re-painted and installed it today:

 

Sweet, as summer gets under way I'm second guessing my decision to remove my A/C...I might very well reinstall.

What freon are we supposed to use?

 

hhmmm.... im at the stage right now of cleaning and repainting my bay... should be fun.

what exactly did you use to rewrap your harness?

 

Our cars originally used R-12 refrigerant, which is mostly available in 30-lb. cylinders for anywhere from $700-$900 per cylinder. Rarely do you see stores with 12-oz cans anymore. R-12 is the better choice if you can find a friend or forum member that will sell you 12-oz cans at a reasonable price. There are a few substitute refrigerants that work fairly well, such as Freeze-12, but most contain a mixture of the newer R-134a anyway and don't get quite as cold as pure R-12. The remaining option is to convert your system to R-134a. It's easy to do the conversion....just go to a parts store and buy the conversion fittings (they install right onto your original R-12 fittings) also buy a receiver-dryer that is compatible with R-134a (most replacement dryers are) and Ester refrigerant oil (comes in pressurized cans as well as 8-oz bottles). If you're doing this with your own gauges make sure to pull a 29" vacuum on the system for 30 minutes before adding the oil and refrigerant. Now here's the down side:
Our original compressor's shaft seal was only designed for R-12 and the higher pressures of R-134a usually results in refrigerant loss at the seal. Not complete loss, but enough to reduce cooling somewhat. If you were to replace your compressor with a new or reman unit, most likely it will have the R-134a seal and you're good to go. Have I confused you yet? haha. The other limitation in cooling effectiveness is the original condenser (in front of the radiator). It is a "serpentine" design, which worked well with R-12 but not as well with R-134a. Today's cars mostly use parallel-flow condensers with much higher capacity and most will get ice-cold. Ok here's my suggestion:
Use your stock condenser. Since your car is Turbo, it should have an electric cooling fan in front of the condenser. Make sure it's working properly. Install the conversion fittings and new dryer. Install a new or reman compressor (optional, but preferred) and pull a vacuum and install the Ester oil and R-134a and Voila!

 

I un-wrapped the original vinyl wrap and removed the orignal convolute tubing. I used brake cleaner (non-chlorinated) to clean the oily goo from the wiring and also cleaned the connector plugs and terminals with it, followed by compressed air. If you use carb spray cleaners such as B-12 it might "attack" the plastic connectors, so stick with brake cleaner. It evaporates quickly which I like. I used new vinyl split-loom tubing (available at most parts stores in various diameters and lengths) and used black electrical tape to re-wrap everything. Simple.

 

Got the brake booster, master cylinder and brake lines installed....

 

Shined up and installed the a/c lines. I used a ScotchBrite pad to clean them up.

 

The emissions harness came in yesterday:



Snaked it through the firewall (much easier to do than the driver's side harness)

 

Looks good. I just went through the same thing with my vert. Except mine was a flood car so I had to do it.

 

I would be the previous owner of the vert this was bought from... For the record I never planned to do a V8 swap, I wanted a turbo vert with this shell. Instead i bought another and have a white 91 turbo vert...


Anyway the car is looking great I'm glad to see somebody taking time and fixing it up correctly and not half-assing it. I take it your wife is happy with the project?

keep up the good work

 

Nice work. When you are done, could you do the same to my 88?
Pwetty pweeeze?

 

Very impressive. Keep the descriptions and pictures coming. It is very helpful for my own project.

 

looks like a fun project. you are doing a great job with the resto. looks like a new car to me!! i'll continue to follow the thread and look forward to your progress!!!

 

Thanks for the compliments. Yes wifey is thrilled with it so far. I do have to keep finding that delicate balance between spending time working on the Vert and spending time with the wife. The females do get jealous at times!

 

Got the wiper motor, cruise control servo and vapor canister installed: