95 VR single turbo
 

Time for a new build thread! I had a thread going for the car but have since lost the account I had all the pictures uploaded to. Since I'm nearing the end of my single turbo build I figured it would be best to start fresh with a new thread for the new direction of the build.

History: I bought it 5 years ago when I was working in North Dakota. We lived out of a hotel while working out there so naturally we befriended the bartenders of the hotel bar. One of the bartenders always talked about this car she was trying to get rid of that was twin turbo and from fast and furious. After calling bullshit and laughing, she invites me over to see for myself.

Well it turns out she wasn't bullshitting. She bought the car from her ex boyfriend who was in trouble with the law. He asked her for a 8k loan, she said she would loan him the money if he signs the car over to her. Long story short, she has the car sitting in her garage for 5 years untouched. He is unable to pay her back and all she wants is her 8k back.

I knew nothing about the car. I knew nothing of rotary engines or turbos, but I did know what the car was worth and knew I had to have it.
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Here it is in her driveway when I first got it running. Looking back, the only thing wrong with the car was a missing c-clip on the secondary turbo actuator (took me awhile to figure that one out), I should have just done a nice stock restoration considering it is a Dec. 1995 car. But I figure I will never get rid of it, so I should have some fun.

I got it running really well and wet my feet with some simple things. PFC, midpipe, intake, silicone rats nest, ported wastegate, etc. Here it is at it's prime, one of my favorite pictures of the car.
https://i.imgur.com/LgKTuoP.jpg

I eventually blew a coolant seal and that was the end of the sequential twin days.

Today: After the engine came out I completely stripped the engine bay of everything and gave it a shiny new coat of VR (which I lost the pictures of) and started slowly gathering parts. Short block from addicted performance with stock ports and seals, Turblown cast efr 8374 iwg kit, custom vmount, dual 25 row oil coolers, CJ motorsports fpd fuel rails w/ ID 1050x2 and ID 1750x2, battery relocation.

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Nice! Those wheels it came with are the worst :).

How many miles were on it when you got it?

Dale

We will see how boring it is soon enough :lol:

120k
I'm hoping to get everything going by this summer if everything goes right. Elliot @turblown will be tuning

Looking good!

It's been a bit since I last updated. I decided to bring the car to Elliot and Shawn at Turblown/Turbosource for some finalization. I just want to give a big thanks to those two for taking on the job even though they don't typically get involved in a situation like mine. And especially for taking over a project that was started by an amateur (me), I know first hand how much of a pain that is in my line of work (interior finishing). So basically they will be taking care of wiring in new sensors, wiring fuel pump, installing adaptronic modular, fixing intercooler pipes, installing grannas manual rack, and finding/ironing out my mistakes. They will also be installing the AEM cd-7 dash and evo-r carbon gauge hood...I originally intended to run gauges off of a in dash tablet, but I'm taking so long on this build that technology has surpassed my original plan....good thing though because this thing looks bad ass and I'm pretty excited about it. Here's the latest pictures from Shawn..
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Also added this beastly fuel filter...ID F750
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Because Elliot tunes Adaptronic ecu's and lives 20 minutes away from me...AEM dash because I don't like gauge pods.

Looks interesting. I'm really old school (and really old). So, I'm interested to see how this more modern AEM dash works out for you. I gather it probably has some interesting displays and all. Look forward to following the build.

Thanks for checking it out. Your build thread is/was one of my favorites to follow over the years...the real OG build thread. I like that I can retain things like fuel level, turn signal indicators,high beam indicator...and obviously having all important sensor read outs right in one spot rather than looking at a pod on top of the dash, then swinging your head over to look at pods on the a-pillar.

It's just a stock fd....with stock wheels and stock cat back :us4allswi


The car is running and driving. I'm about 400 miles into the break in and things are looking really good. More to come when break in period is done...

Thanks. The AEM dash should provide a lot of data and you won't have those dated 3 pod gauges up there.

The break in is complete along with new clutch master, slave, brake master, pads, and rotors. Things have been going pretty smooth until we got about 2 miles away from the dyno... All of a sudden the clutch won't disengage and the car won't go into first while running. We manage to make it to the dyno, and mess with the old LC-1 wideband, that I got used off of the classifieds, since it started acting up on the way there. Elliot starts doing a pull and the wideband sensor goes out. We could get the sensor to work for a bit then it go out about half way through the pull. Even though it was a loss of a dyno day we managed 320 hp @5800 rpm with 10psi boost.
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I have a new LC-2 on the way so we can finish up with a street tune and hopefully get closer to 20 psi...If the transmission holds up. I made it home with the clutch/tranny issue, let the car rest for an hour or two, and now it works perfectly like nothing ever happened. Shifts smooth as butter. So I don't know what to think about that..bad input shaft bearing maybe? Oh well, I have another tranny sitting in the garage that can be rebuilt while this one clings to life. I'm still pretty happy about the whole situation, it feels like the car is at the same power level as when I had the full bolt on sequentials, but it is way way quicker.

All right, two months into it and I haven't melted it down yet. I ended up getting the new wideband and got a new cat back before putting the power to it. I ended up deciding on the Tanabe medallion exhaust, I think it is even more quiet than the hack job 2" "stock" cat back that was on there.
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I ran out of fuel pump at about 16.5 psi and that's where the tune sits right now. The car is an animal and lots of fun to drive, borderline scary. Now that the power stuff is out of the way I can focus on chassis/suspension. This winter I plan on taking everything back apart, getting one of the transmissions rebuilt, new bushings everywhere, and some ohlins dfv to go along with new wheels and tires. My collection of parts is growing again, I imagine another update will be coming soon!

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