It's faded. Like completely, ha. The car had been sitting for a long time. The engine flooded but the previous owner and his brother got it back running again. They revved the engine where the rough idle smoothed completely. Boom, I'm in love at this point so I paid what the guy was asking (Too much) I saw that it had an apexi exhaust and some office kei coilovers and was told a C's short shifter. Next step was to get in home to LA from norcal.











This is the rear rotor which was a good 15 or so psi lower than the front which is typical I hear but still in spec. The thing is that there was this major exhaust leak that I couldnt track so I decided to fix it all with a single turbo swap. I want to go through this thing properly so a 8374 was ordered from Turblown. I'm waiting on all the parts. I didn't know it would take 6 months and counting to get the full kit but I'll be excited when it's here. Supporting mods are also ordered and are trickling in.

I'll take pictures of everything from now on out. I needed to at least get a post up so i'd have a reason to take the pictures.

 

Nice starting point. Where are you Located in LA? I’m in Torrance.

FYI there is a person in the classifieds selling a Turblown kit new if you’re in a hurry.

 

You're close by then! I'm just south of downtown LA. Would you be down to swing by sometime to share some rotary knowledge? I'd jump on that kit normally but I have half the kit already. Just waiting on the cold side and all the supporting mods.

I need to install this guy...

 

Yeah man I can swing by after the new year. Have fun with that IC kit! It’s beautiful

 

Starting to make some moves! Now I'm needing some of that forum wisdom. Come on down! I making my way through the engine bay simplifying as aggressively as I can. I removed ABS which seems to be 90% of the clean up on the passenger side of the bay. Now I need to cut or wrap the harness back through the triangular hole. Any tips for sealing off unplugged connectors? I suppose I could cut them.

You can tell these wires on the drivers side are scaring me hahaha.

You can tell i'm less intimidated by the passenger side of the bay hahaha. Where are my wiring gurus at?


The steering rack out to be shipped to Chip Motorsports for a manual conversion. Had to hack off one of the tie rod ends. Dear god they can be a bitch.


I'm thinking about buying a new fuseblock subharness but they are like 750 bucks haha! What are people doing to clean up this area? Can anything go away?


Going to need to run new fuel lines for the E85. I'm going to look at taking off the brake booster so I can paint the area. Anything else people like to do over here? I'd love to clean some room to mount the ING-1a coils.

New coolant overflow tank and removal of AC and Heater lines. I'm going to go through with an RX8 condenser set up with new lines to the firewall. I'd love to be able to outsource this, however. If anyone is in the LA area I'd happily pay for some help. Also, what's the word on brake lines? I'd like to run new hard lines across the bay. I'll research what to do here. It seems pretty straight forward. I just want to clean up how the lines run. Are the ABS wheels sensors any use to a standalone or should I ditch them?


Can I remove all of this? It doesn't seem critical. I'd keep just the wiper motor. Starting to think I won't need wipers though lol. Rain X baby! Anything people like to mount back here with the ABS block gone? Thoughts right now are the water injection motor or tank.

I'm going to trailer the car up to have the engine bay repainted. I just have to do all the prep work. I forgot that I cant get the car rolling without a steering rack so I'll have plenty of time to prep the bay for paint while I wait for chips magic to be finished. I'm digging the metal look where brake fluid sat haha. I'll go back with the stock VR color though.

 

Where are you getting it painted? Most shops are too lazy to do engine bays. Even if you remove everything lol

 

I'm not sure. My Friends dad has a shop in Ventura/Oxnard. They said as long as I have it prepped they'll spray if for me. I'd need to reinstall the steering rack and find a trailer as well. Makes me think about doing it myself. Any ideas? haha!

 

While waiting for my Steering Rack to arrive I figured I'd start preparing the engine bay to be painted.



Instagram captions. but for real. I'm very curious about getting rid of the booster and resizing the Master Cylinder. Chase bays?




Glad I pulled the clutch master Cylinder. The back was sending some fluid into the cabin. Very Rusty. It will be nice to get a new OEM unit in.



God I love cleaning haha.



Brake fluid doing some work on this side.




Done for now. Any idea how to redo the seal sealer? I thought about griding some it down or at least filling in the areas where it's cracked. I love a simplified OEM look so some texture is nice. Also is there any reason to do a single-stage paint for the engine bay? Something that will hold up and be easy to apply? I Need to find a guy with a spray gun.


The Previous owner dropped off a spare Engine and Trans the car came with originally apparently or at least when he bought the car. I can't wait to dig into this purely with the pleasure of taking it apart. I'll see what parts are worth restoring. The Coolant passages on this motor are cleaner than mine. Some yelllowish green coating on the insides of the aluminum keeping things nice and corrosion-free, unless this stuff I'm seeing is corrosion haha.


All sorts of oil in the rear rotor. Front rotor housing very shiney with all the chrome.


Clean OEM CD player FOR SALE! I didnt know they had CD players then.

 

Yes, you need a brake booster.

 

Why?

 

Why not is the question. There is a reason all cars have them. It's not like it looks out of place in an engine bay.

 

i get the purpose of one and why they’re in modern cars the thought is that would the brakes be more predictable especially at the limit of braking when I don’t have ABS.

 

Are you a good enough driver to be racing professionally and will you be racing professionally? If not, then you do not need the "extra feel" because you won't be on the ragged edge. And even many types professional race cars use power assisted brakes and steering.

 

The edge of when the brakes lock up I mean.

 

I'm just saying you will never benefit from any increased feel because you are not a pro driver in a pro situation where you would actually benefit from such a minute level of feel.

Just because you don't have ABS doesn't mean you need more feel from non-assisted brakes. It doesn't work like that.

 

I’ll leave it alone then. Thanks!

 

Have you driven an FD with working ABS? It's pretty good, the only time it has seemed intrusive was at very slow speeds with gravel or sand on the road. At an autocross or track day it never bothered me. Drifters might have different opinions, the ABS might get in the way if you're trying to purposefully put the car sideways.

I would consider manual brakes (no vacuum assist, and independent master cylinders) if it were possible to do that and keep ABS. I've only driven a single-seater (Formula SAE) car with manual brakes (no vacuum assist). The feel was different because the pedal moves less, but probably manageable if the cylinder is sized well.

 

I would have kept the ABS but the manifold was leaking and I didn't want to fuss with repairing it considering my love for simplicity. Interestingly you'd consider manual brakes only WITH ABS. It's an unknown for my what that pedal would feel like but with the shorter throw you mention I think I'd be working against what I'd be going for even with a resized MC. I'll attempt myself when I do a BBK.

 

Firewall stripped.




Fixing a big ding on the firewall where someone smacked it when pulling the motor I imagine.



Fixed the metal as much as I could then used a little filler to round the corner nicely. Have sense cleaned it up more.



Doing what I can with what I have, haha. Nerve racking for sure.





Here we go! Color going on.









New Short Block from the Ray Crowe. I can't wait to meet this guy. I feel like I email him every week.



Thanks to my buddy Bryce for coming to lend a hand.

 

Nice work! You might want to put everything back on the engine before putting it into the engine bay. It is a lot easier putting everything back on outside the engine (turbos, downpipe, injectors, solenoids, etc.).

 

Looking good man! The engine bay looks great!

I second that you should put the motor together first. You don’t want to take a chance on scratching your new bay.
I recently did just this, painted everything myself and reassembled. I installed everything back in the bay and then dropped the motor in. Then I installed the transmission from under the car. It really was the easiest I’ve ever installed a motor. It literally fell into place and then the trans went in, 10 minutes for the whole process and no scratches!

Keep it up!

 

it’s as if that’s how the factory planned it!

 

Too Late! This was the best way I knew not to scratch anything. Some big updates though. I've moved to a new garage after looking forever. It's a goal of mine to get a garage to use as an incubator for automotive companies to come together. This is feeling like a ways off so I went for a spot in a car storage place. Here is my old spot for reference.



And the new!





Started by seeing what all I can install. Polished the intake manifolds and got the CJ Motorsports Fuel system installed.



Aeromotive hooked me up with a twin pump solution for E85. Give them a call if you have fuel questions of any kind. They will help you build out full systems to fit your needs.