I though it was about time to start a build thread, since I've been working off and on (mostly off) for 5 years already. This '85 GS is my first car, bought it not running when I was 15 and had it running before I got my license. I drove it stock for about a year before I made my first custom turbo setup on it and drove it all through high school and college. The rust was eating away at it and I wanted to build it up the way it deserved. The goal was to take care of the rust, rebuild it, and make a new turbo setup capable of at least 350rwhp. I still have tons of work to do, but the hardest stuff is behind me now and I finally get to have some fun with it

ALL of the work has been done by me with minimal help, I gotta give credit to the guys at the machine shop and my dad for some ideas and helping me weld up the cage.

Here she is, mostly stock with some nice 15x6 rikken (I think) wheels and the side molding shopped off


After the first turbo setup, ugly and messy, but it worked


Added an intercooler and cleaned it up a bit


Now here's where the crazy stuff starts, car goes into the machine shop, I get a little happy with cutting wheels and welders and the long process begins.

 

new watts link...yes, I'm using 2 forklifts as a car lift...


Now back home, getting it cleaned up and painted the chassis, mariah mode one installed

 

And that's how it sat for a couple years, waiting for the motivation and money to work on it to come back. Getting a job that wasn't machining or wrenching was a big help, now I get to make scary **** and travel around. So what's next for the car....maybe a big pile of pipes?


Time to lay some pipe...that was quick...


Oops, that's not gonna work...now I need to get that damn alternator out of the way so I can lay the throttle body on top of the engine.

That's where she sits now, mounting the intercooler, oil coolers, and radiator next. Then onto the fuel cell and other bits before I can start wiring it up, and maybe finally paint the body

 

Made a little more progress today, mounted the IC and oil coolers, added the wastegate to the exhaust manifold, and started the downpipe.

 

I made a little more progress today, finished up the exhaust manifold and downpipe

I'm getting a little better at welding, not perfect but decent enough

I think these gloves are the only snap on tools I have...








And here's the tools I'm working with, nothing too fancy but they get the job done. The Miller Syncrowave 200 is a sweet little welder for the price. Finishing the intake manifold and getting that fuel cell mounted will be the next project, need to have it in place before I finish the exhaust.

 

Also, I recommend using quality cutoff wheels, gotta be careful with the cheap ones from harbor freight and ALWAYS wear safety glasses. Here's what it looks like when one explodes, it was a harbor freight wheel.

The pic isn't bad, no blood, but if you have a REALLY weak stomach then don't look.

https://i.imgur.com/v0438NS.jpg

 

ohh no deff loose the plumb back wastegate

nice build up mate!!

 

Thanks man, it's a "street" car, so I'm trying to keep the exhaust reasonably quiet. I'm even going to recirculate the BOV to help with turbo lag and it might help keep the ricers away.

The new radiator came in today, can't go any bigger than this one without chopping the frame rails Gotta run to the store and get some more alum angle and flat bar so I can make some mounts for it.

 

Nice job

 

Watch out fot the El Cheapo HF wire wheels too... You will end up pulling the wires out of your skin. LOL

 

Oh, I know....it's real fun when you try to walk and your jeans are stapled to your legs... The ones with twisted wires aren't too bad, at least not much worse than the others I've tried. They shed more at first but once they're broken in they throw needles about as often as the more expensive ones. The ones with straight wires are terrible. I try to stick to the sandpaper flapper wheel discs for stripping stuff, but sometimes you need a wire wheel to get into corners.

The one tool I really love from HF is that orange&gray electric die grinder a few pics up. $30, and it has a 6" skinny nose on it so you can reach into pipes real easy. It's got some ***** to it, way more powerful than any air grinder I've used. I wouldn't trust the HF wheels on it, it'll snap them to pieces before it thinks about slowing down. I got a good MAC arbor for the cutoff wheels and 4 different carbide bits for porting.

 

veny nice work Matt.. you did all this yourself? awesome! your not a kid anymore!