Memoirs of another FB to TII Build
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Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 80
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From: San Diego, CA
Memoirs of another FB to TII Build
Hello, first of all I'd like to say that I've been using this forum for a really long time. Way longer than my join date says. I was mostly "trolling", looking up information during times of need and then moving on. I then joined a while back and now, the time has come....
My intention with this build thread is to document as much as I can the process of bringing back my FB and to do it as well as I can. I will explain why I say "bring back" in a moment. This particular FB is my 4th or 5th, I also owned an FD for a while, and I've been wrenching on RXs on and off since I was about 16.
Here it is!
Now a little background on the car/myself. The car was born as a 1984 GSL that came with power steering. I bought it in GA while stationed in Charleston, SC and got it up to speed since it had been neglected for some time, this involved dropping a ported 12-A engine in it, RB intake and carb, removing the emissions, and switching it to manual steering (removing the PS column, etc.). Then I got new orders to come to San Diego and got 31 days of leave in between. During these 31 days i drove down to my buddy's shop in Orlando, FL where we went to town on the car. We removed the 12-A, installed GSL-SE front suspension INCLUDING the crossmember, GSL-SE rear suspension, installed the GSL-SE gas tank, installed, a fresh old-style 13-B engine with S4 TII rotating assembly, a RB Holley intake, EFI CARB-like throttle body with turbo hat, installed a MicroTech LT-12s with X-6 box, SX 1200 fuel pump, -10 AN fuel supply line with -6 AN return line, completed the exhaust work, e-fan, Front mount intercooler, SX FPR, and MicroTech DASH unit. This was 2006. The car was tuned at CFT in Orlando on a friday in July and I was on the road to San Diego that Saturday morning with everything I owned inside the car including my seabag. It was a lot of fun, driving cross-country with a stupid fast FB. I drove the car on the streets of San Diego and terrorized my fair share of "Hondas" for about the first year or so. I then decided to go through the engine just to make sure things were going well inside. I took the car into the base's hobby shop (a place provided by the base where one can work on their car, which has lifts, air compressors, tool rental, etc.) and while the car was there the opportunity for me to acquire an FD presented itself. I pulled the trigger on the FD, then went on an unexpected deployment. When I came back from the deployment I had a bunch of parts waiting for me for the FD and so I went down the dark path of messing with the FD and left the FB in the shop. That cycle continued including an engine rebuild on the FD after an underhood fire caused by old and brittle primary injector o-rings. The cycle continued and it was now 2009 and I was getting out of the Navy and my car was still in pieces. I got the FB towed to my good friend's house up in Vista, CA where it sat for about 3 to 4 years waiting....Life happened (got married, had a daughter, bought a house) and still the loyal soldier remained awaiting his moment. Finally got the car towed to the house, but it sat outside under a cover due to the garage not being ready to receive it. Finally, last month I was able to get rid of the last few boxes of crap that stood in the way and now the car is in the spot, ready to begin it journey back to being streetable!
So... this build will more than likely take a few chapters, maybe more but here's a draft of what my plans are for the car:
Chapter I. Getting the car running again LEGALLY
The reason I say this is because, the car came into California with a Microtech and no emissions (and no way to go back to that configuration...lol) so instead of going the easy way and re-doing it this way and then finding a "rotary friendly" smog station, I would much rather do a full oem swap from a TII S5, take it to a referee, get my DMV special barcode and have a legit S5 to S3 swap which translates to worry-free driving (something that I learned to cherish after numerous run-ins with CHP in my FD after the military, when I was no longer "protected" due to being a FL resident).
So in short, the goal of the first chapter is to: Perform a clean, and correct swap from an S5 TII into the FB in order to make the car CARB legal. Since this may turn to be a lot of work and a major PITA I decided that before I dive in all the way with the car and do a full restoration, I should make sure I can get this done because if I can't then there's no point in spending the time and money to do the other chapters since I can't drive the car. So please bear with me becuase although I plan on coming back and re-doing the whole car the right way, right now I need to see that it can even go on the road after all.
Chapter II. Converting the car to rack and pinion steering!
Yes, it can be done, and yes there are a few ways to do it so let's see what this brings. Once the car has been smogged and all the business with CARB and DMV is behind me I will take the engine back out and work on a solution for the loose steering that plagues these cars. While I know there are plenty of you guys out there that will say that the steering on these cars is just fine, and that one can adjust the oem units and get them pretty tight, etc. I don't share the same opinion. Like I mentioned above this is my 4th or 5th FB and to put it simply, the steering is too loose for my liking. This was very bad on my 2nd FB which I also turboed (with a Haltech F-9 also back in Florida) and was scary to drive anywhere past 80 mph. Once the front began to lift at those higher speeds an inch and a half of play turned into three to three and a half, and that was scary so I refuse to deal with that.
Chapter III. Body, Paint, and Interior.
The car may go back together after the rack conversion just to make sure that everything works together nicely and the car handles well. Whether this happens or not I don't know at this point but eventually the car will come apart again this time to bare metal, thermocoustic, rust treatment, re-wiring the rest of the car, it will be painted and put back together.
Chapter IV. Beyond.
Here's where who knows what will be after. I have not mentioned suspension and or brakes but I think these things can be done together with others or worked on in other chapters. As it sits, the car has Racing Beat's suspension package (sway bars, bushings, tokico adjustables, stainless steel brake lines), and a few other things I may be forgetting about. Depending on how much power I end up making, rear-end work may be needed and again who knows what that will be.
I would like to point out that the car already has the TII tranny mounted, and the driveshaft mated to the stock LSD (GSL-SE chunk with 4.07:1 ratio). This was done when the car was first turboed in FLorida.
I would also like to point out that my intention is to present the referee with a clean and correct swap initially. Once I get my decal and my first smog out of the way the game changes and things like BNR turbos and RTEK or POWER FC upgrades WILL show up.
Also, while doing my CARB-related research I came across the possibility of a revision to the old pre-75 emissions exemption rule which may make this all pointless for me. It appears that the air board has acknowledged the fact that there are no longer enough cars from 1975 to 1985 on the road today to make any type of impact to air quality and so they may move up the year to 1985. If this happens, well, I will still have to do some work, but it will be for dropping a 20B in this FB...lol! Either way I'll have something to do.
I will appreciate any and all support I can get on this build, and I will thank everyone in advance.
Let's move forward!
My intention with this build thread is to document as much as I can the process of bringing back my FB and to do it as well as I can. I will explain why I say "bring back" in a moment. This particular FB is my 4th or 5th, I also owned an FD for a while, and I've been wrenching on RXs on and off since I was about 16.
Here it is!
Now a little background on the car/myself. The car was born as a 1984 GSL that came with power steering. I bought it in GA while stationed in Charleston, SC and got it up to speed since it had been neglected for some time, this involved dropping a ported 12-A engine in it, RB intake and carb, removing the emissions, and switching it to manual steering (removing the PS column, etc.). Then I got new orders to come to San Diego and got 31 days of leave in between. During these 31 days i drove down to my buddy's shop in Orlando, FL where we went to town on the car. We removed the 12-A, installed GSL-SE front suspension INCLUDING the crossmember, GSL-SE rear suspension, installed the GSL-SE gas tank, installed, a fresh old-style 13-B engine with S4 TII rotating assembly, a RB Holley intake, EFI CARB-like throttle body with turbo hat, installed a MicroTech LT-12s with X-6 box, SX 1200 fuel pump, -10 AN fuel supply line with -6 AN return line, completed the exhaust work, e-fan, Front mount intercooler, SX FPR, and MicroTech DASH unit. This was 2006. The car was tuned at CFT in Orlando on a friday in July and I was on the road to San Diego that Saturday morning with everything I owned inside the car including my seabag. It was a lot of fun, driving cross-country with a stupid fast FB. I drove the car on the streets of San Diego and terrorized my fair share of "Hondas" for about the first year or so. I then decided to go through the engine just to make sure things were going well inside. I took the car into the base's hobby shop (a place provided by the base where one can work on their car, which has lifts, air compressors, tool rental, etc.) and while the car was there the opportunity for me to acquire an FD presented itself. I pulled the trigger on the FD, then went on an unexpected deployment. When I came back from the deployment I had a bunch of parts waiting for me for the FD and so I went down the dark path of messing with the FD and left the FB in the shop. That cycle continued including an engine rebuild on the FD after an underhood fire caused by old and brittle primary injector o-rings. The cycle continued and it was now 2009 and I was getting out of the Navy and my car was still in pieces. I got the FB towed to my good friend's house up in Vista, CA where it sat for about 3 to 4 years waiting....Life happened (got married, had a daughter, bought a house) and still the loyal soldier remained awaiting his moment. Finally got the car towed to the house, but it sat outside under a cover due to the garage not being ready to receive it. Finally, last month I was able to get rid of the last few boxes of crap that stood in the way and now the car is in the spot, ready to begin it journey back to being streetable!
So... this build will more than likely take a few chapters, maybe more but here's a draft of what my plans are for the car:
Chapter I. Getting the car running again LEGALLY
The reason I say this is because, the car came into California with a Microtech and no emissions (and no way to go back to that configuration...lol) so instead of going the easy way and re-doing it this way and then finding a "rotary friendly" smog station, I would much rather do a full oem swap from a TII S5, take it to a referee, get my DMV special barcode and have a legit S5 to S3 swap which translates to worry-free driving (something that I learned to cherish after numerous run-ins with CHP in my FD after the military, when I was no longer "protected" due to being a FL resident).
So in short, the goal of the first chapter is to: Perform a clean, and correct swap from an S5 TII into the FB in order to make the car CARB legal. Since this may turn to be a lot of work and a major PITA I decided that before I dive in all the way with the car and do a full restoration, I should make sure I can get this done because if I can't then there's no point in spending the time and money to do the other chapters since I can't drive the car. So please bear with me becuase although I plan on coming back and re-doing the whole car the right way, right now I need to see that it can even go on the road after all.
Chapter II. Converting the car to rack and pinion steering!
Yes, it can be done, and yes there are a few ways to do it so let's see what this brings. Once the car has been smogged and all the business with CARB and DMV is behind me I will take the engine back out and work on a solution for the loose steering that plagues these cars. While I know there are plenty of you guys out there that will say that the steering on these cars is just fine, and that one can adjust the oem units and get them pretty tight, etc. I don't share the same opinion. Like I mentioned above this is my 4th or 5th FB and to put it simply, the steering is too loose for my liking. This was very bad on my 2nd FB which I also turboed (with a Haltech F-9 also back in Florida) and was scary to drive anywhere past 80 mph. Once the front began to lift at those higher speeds an inch and a half of play turned into three to three and a half, and that was scary so I refuse to deal with that.
Chapter III. Body, Paint, and Interior.
The car may go back together after the rack conversion just to make sure that everything works together nicely and the car handles well. Whether this happens or not I don't know at this point but eventually the car will come apart again this time to bare metal, thermocoustic, rust treatment, re-wiring the rest of the car, it will be painted and put back together.
Chapter IV. Beyond.
Here's where who knows what will be after. I have not mentioned suspension and or brakes but I think these things can be done together with others or worked on in other chapters. As it sits, the car has Racing Beat's suspension package (sway bars, bushings, tokico adjustables, stainless steel brake lines), and a few other things I may be forgetting about. Depending on how much power I end up making, rear-end work may be needed and again who knows what that will be.
I would like to point out that the car already has the TII tranny mounted, and the driveshaft mated to the stock LSD (GSL-SE chunk with 4.07:1 ratio). This was done when the car was first turboed in FLorida.
I would also like to point out that my intention is to present the referee with a clean and correct swap initially. Once I get my decal and my first smog out of the way the game changes and things like BNR turbos and RTEK or POWER FC upgrades WILL show up.
Also, while doing my CARB-related research I came across the possibility of a revision to the old pre-75 emissions exemption rule which may make this all pointless for me. It appears that the air board has acknowledged the fact that there are no longer enough cars from 1975 to 1985 on the road today to make any type of impact to air quality and so they may move up the year to 1985. If this happens, well, I will still have to do some work, but it will be for dropping a 20B in this FB...lol! Either way I'll have something to do.
I will appreciate any and all support I can get on this build, and I will thank everyone in advance.
Let's move forward!
Chapter I. Getting the car running again LEGALLY
The reason I say this is because, the car came into California with a Microtech and no emissions (and no way to go back to that configuration...lol) so instead of going the easy way and re-doing it this way and then finding a "rotary friendly" smog station, I would much rather do a full oem swap from a TII S5, take it to a referee, get my DMV special barcode and have a legit S5 to S3 swap which translates to worry-free driving (something that I learned to cherish after numerous run-ins with CHP in my FD after the military, when I was no longer "protected" due to being a FL resident).
So in short, the goal of the first chapter is to: Perform a clean, and correct swap from an S5 TII into the FB in order to make the car CARB legal. Since this may turn to be a lot of work and a major PITA I decided that before I dive in all the way with the car and do a full restoration, I should make sure I can get this done because if I can't then there's no point in spending the time and money to do the other chapters since I can't drive the car. So please bear with me becuase although I plan on coming back and re-doing the whole car the right way, right now I need to see that it can even go on the road after all.
The reason I say this is because, the car came into California with a Microtech and no emissions (and no way to go back to that configuration...lol) so instead of going the easy way and re-doing it this way and then finding a "rotary friendly" smog station, I would much rather do a full oem swap from a TII S5, take it to a referee, get my DMV special barcode and have a legit S5 to S3 swap which translates to worry-free driving (something that I learned to cherish after numerous run-ins with CHP in my FD after the military, when I was no longer "protected" due to being a FL resident).
So in short, the goal of the first chapter is to: Perform a clean, and correct swap from an S5 TII into the FB in order to make the car CARB legal. Since this may turn to be a lot of work and a major PITA I decided that before I dive in all the way with the car and do a full restoration, I should make sure I can get this done because if I can't then there's no point in spending the time and money to do the other chapters since I can't drive the car. So please bear with me becuase although I plan on coming back and re-doing the whole car the right way, right now I need to see that it can even go on the road after all.
Thread Starter
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 80
Likes: 0
From: San Diego, CA
Chapter I. Getting the car running again LEGALLY!
Well, here we go! Let the fun begin. So to begin this first chapter, I think it will be good to go over what I am trying to accomplish in this chapter. I also want to point out that my plan will probably have to adapt a bit based on what I run into, and that it may also cover other small topics as I make progress, that may or may not be related to the goal of this first chapter.
Just to kind of bring everyone up to speed with some of the not known facts about this build and also myself I will go ahead and lay down some facts that may help shed some light into "my world":
*This car sat for a VERY LONG time between it's time on base, my buddy's house and then mine. IIRC the last time this car ran was sometime in late 2006 or ealry 2007, so it has been 8 years. Half of what's going on with the car has yet to come back to me, so as I go through the car I start remembering things...lol.
*My background is electronics. In the Navy I was an Electronics Technician and now that I work in the civilian/commercial sector, I still do work related to electronic systems, devices, etc. so the task of having to look at wiring diagrams, pinouts, having to splice harnesses and things like that are part of my everyday work. Since most of the work involved in performing this swap has to do with wiring, I feel confident that it won't be such a problem.
OK, so where do we stand right now?
These are items I have already obtained for the swap:
*N370 ECU
*S5 EM Harness
*N370 Boost sensor
*CAS (Using my old one)
Items I still need before I can get somewhere decent progress-wise:
*S5 Dash/main harness
*S5 power harness (Battery/tranny)
*S5 USDM LIM
*S5 N370 AFM
Once I have these parts I can make do with a J-spec S5 engine from a place like eBay or whatever, and I already have the SE oil pan, and front cover and other things needed for the install into the chassis..
Things I may need but I'm not sure about yet:
*S5 front harness
*S5 Turbo Gauge cluster (I'm thinking of installing in place of mine if I can but just a thought).
I guess that for now, there will not be much progress until I have all the parts I think I need. One thing I can do is start removing the dash since it is necessary for when I get the dash harness so that I can start figuring out how I'm going to make it work with the FB chassis.
That's all I have for now guys! Keep on REvving!!!!
Just to kind of bring everyone up to speed with some of the not known facts about this build and also myself I will go ahead and lay down some facts that may help shed some light into "my world":
*This car sat for a VERY LONG time between it's time on base, my buddy's house and then mine. IIRC the last time this car ran was sometime in late 2006 or ealry 2007, so it has been 8 years. Half of what's going on with the car has yet to come back to me, so as I go through the car I start remembering things...lol.
*My background is electronics. In the Navy I was an Electronics Technician and now that I work in the civilian/commercial sector, I still do work related to electronic systems, devices, etc. so the task of having to look at wiring diagrams, pinouts, having to splice harnesses and things like that are part of my everyday work. Since most of the work involved in performing this swap has to do with wiring, I feel confident that it won't be such a problem.
OK, so where do we stand right now?
These are items I have already obtained for the swap:
*N370 ECU
*S5 EM Harness
*N370 Boost sensor
*CAS (Using my old one)
Items I still need before I can get somewhere decent progress-wise:
*S5 Dash/main harness
*S5 power harness (Battery/tranny)
*S5 USDM LIM
*S5 N370 AFM
Once I have these parts I can make do with a J-spec S5 engine from a place like eBay or whatever, and I already have the SE oil pan, and front cover and other things needed for the install into the chassis..
Things I may need but I'm not sure about yet:
*S5 front harness
*S5 Turbo Gauge cluster (I'm thinking of installing in place of mine if I can but just a thought).
I guess that for now, there will not be much progress until I have all the parts I think I need. One thing I can do is start removing the dash since it is necessary for when I get the dash harness so that I can start figuring out how I'm going to make it work with the FB chassis.
That's all I have for now guys! Keep on REvving!!!!
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