I've been slowly building my car for many years and feel that while being younger and in a hurry to finish things I have left certain things not up to my standards. This along with some change in taste has me diving into my car this winter.

A little bit of background:

I've now owned my car for 12 years. It was a bone stock Brilliant Black car when I purchased it. Shortly after purchasing the car I found a front clip that was equipped with a single turbo kit. I swapped over the kit and got all the needed supporting mods. The drive train still remains the same set up today (different motor of course...).

Years went by and I went over how I wanted the exterior of my car to look like. I bought pieces as I found them for sale........and then they sat in my garage for a couple years. Getting closer to getting a new paint job I had an opportunity to paint the engine bay, so I sprayed it the future Sonic Blue Color.



I did eventually get the rest of the car to match as well......



Just needed to get some new wheels. A little Work was in order.



So this brings me to some of my goals for this round:
- Paint the engine bay. Going back to black but a semi flat this time.
- Clean up and re-paint powder coat any bracket or component I can
- Remove things that I don't need anymore like the giant and ugly ABS unit
- Make a cold air duct from the passenger side bumper to the turbo intake / Make an air duct under the intercooler leading to the radiator.
- Get my seats re-covered.

 

One reason I have chosen now to do this is that I have finally gotten a house with a garage. Being a former mechanic I vowed I would have a lift in my garage.



Here is how my engine bay looked just before I started tearing things down:




First thing out was the transmission



Engine all ready to pull out



And engine out



Some things like this have been driving me crazy. I had factory suspension when I painted the engine bay. I've since upgraded and the paint is all messed up where the old struts covered.




I'll do my best to keep this up to date. This will be all for tonight but I should have updated pics soon. I've recently started pulling everything out of the engine bay and removing body panels.

 

Nice car and garage. Subcribed for the refresh.

 

noice, im jealous of your lift!

 

love that color! cant wait to see how this turns out

 

Very nice. Loving the lift in the garage

 

I like that body kit, your car remind me of JhnRx7's.

 

Thanks everyone.

Unfortunately the below zero temps have kept me from getting anything more done. Sounds like it is going to be in the 50's this weekend so hoping to get some more work in.

 

The weather finally warmed up and work has slowed down a little so I got some more done. It's just about ready to prep for paint. I'll post some better pictures this weekend.

 

What color are you going to paint it?

 

having a lift in your house garage = winning!

Looking forward to your build!

 

The engine bay is going semi flat black. Somewhat ironic since it was a brilliant black car when I bought it.

 

It's nice to feel productive on the car again finally!

I stopped and got a new tool to add to my garage. It's a small soda blaster. After looking into them I decided it would be a nice addition to this build.


Soooo, since I can't wait to try out new toys I decided to test it out. I've always been amazed at how good control arms look when people take them off and sand blast them. Since soda blasting is so much easier on components I decided to take a shot at doing it without anything removed or taped off.

Before:


After:


I was very impressed with how well it worked. Getting to every angle was a little bit challenging without it removed, but still much easier and faster than removing it completely to sand blast. The clean up is super easy, just get the hose out and wash the soda away. Now to unleash this on some other parts.....

 

I have that same blaster I clean everything with it but it sure does make a mess. It also kills grass. haha

 

Just about finished with painting the engine bay. One more coat should do the trick.

 

Details on which model and where you got the soda blaster and components.

Looks great!

 

The soda blaster is from harbor freight. It's the 15 lb model. I was pretty pleased at how well it worked.

 

I finished spraying the engine bay this past week. Also got some goodies in the mail, time to run some brake lines!

 

It's amazing what cleaning a part will do. Cleaned and sand blasted frame connector next to another untouched.

 

It's amazing how fast time goes by anymore. I've started dedicating some more time to getting the car finished lately.

After breaking two POS flare tools from AutoZone I ended up buying a brake flare tool from Eastwood. This thing is freaking awesome! Perfect flares in seconds.

I'm finishing bending up my last brake line. I'll get some pictures of the engine bay before the motor gets set back in.