I've decided to start a build thread for my 86 GXL Touge project. I picked this thing up about a month and a half ago from craigslist completely in pieces, no engine, no trans, interior mostly there but tossed in the back and no seats...
(this is the only picture i could find, but this is after 2 weeks of piecing everything together.)



The plan is to build a balanced Touge vehicle for when i move back out to Montana in a few years. No turbos, no automatics, no v8's (for now) and trying to keep the whole project under $5000. The other thing i hope to accoplish from the project is to hone my automotive skills working on body work, electrical, engine tuning and budgeting.



as of 9/13/13 i have:
removed the sunroof assembly (to be welded over with a panel)
stripped the engine bay down and began sanding and inspecting rust (hope to have the engine bay painted before winter)
found seats, door cards, gauge cluster bezel, better tail lights, better front bumper, complete rear black carpet


will post some more updates soon.

 

so you are basically slowly building a track car except you are going to use it only where it is illegal...I know track days are expensive but autocross cost very little and there is quite a bit more to gain from it. Ive seen initial d like many others on this board but that is a show in a FAKE world, you will eventually be caught and drag racing/reckless driving tickets are not fun...I know your build budget total is your average lawyer and fines for that, let alone not driving for awhile.

 

thanks for the life lesson, I'm using Touge to describe the desired setup not to describe how i'm using it. There's plenty of fun to be had driving Legally in the winding mountains of Montana. and on that note, i don't need a thousand posts reminding me cartoons are fake and illegal racing is illegal.

 

Lots of autox here in montuky, bout every Sunday
Hit up the MT thread when ya get down, we'll be here

 

This Tuesday I'm going to be checking out a few engines i found online. 2jz-ge (gs300), rb20de (silvia) and a 4agze (mr2). I'm leaning towards the 2jzge because the car has already been hacked up by the previous owner for a 2jz swap and should be a fairly straight forward swap. I've also been spending the past couple of days stripping the engine bay for some shaving and paint.

 

where about? I'm only familiar with the Bozeman/Belgrade area.

 

a few more pictures I took tonight.

interior is coming together nicely, seats don't look that blue in person.

new door panels

 

today i pulled the trigger on a 2jz-ge from a 95 GS300. It has around 160K on it and was still running well when it was pulled. The general plan is to rebuild it to OEM+ specifications with a few bolt on performance parts to simplify the build and possibly be running on AEM standalone for future upgrades and mods. The plan at the moment is to work on body work for the next couple weeks to get the paint down to the OEM red and start filling holes (antenna, spoiler 1 and spoiler 2, etc).

 

2jz? Sounds exciting

 

vacuumed out the car today and picked up the garage a bit. Next week i'm planning on finishing up the rear strut towers (removing the speaker mounts) and fixing my seat mount for the factory seats i picked up. I think once i get an engine stand I'll seal everything up and sand the car down to the factory paint/primer.

 

started scraping her today to get ready for sanding and body filling. It took about an hour to get one quarter panel done.

 

The races are mostly in great falls, there's a few in Missoula , one in frenchtown and a couloir in Helena as well.

The next race is in great falls on the 6 of oct. I get to race my bridgy for the first time

 

a little more progress chipping off the top 12 coats of aftermarket paint.


once i get this side of the car scraped i'm going to go pickup a D/A sander and start working down to the factory primer while i scrape the other side.
additionally i finally picked up an engine stand today to get the engine off the ground before winter.

 

two more after another scraping session

 

Damn that's a lot of hard work fuuuuuuck that

 

Seriously, good luck with that!

 

started working on the passenger side last night and started figuring out how i'm going to weld in patch panels to delete the hole left for the flip up headlights. I'm going with an Aluminum vert N/A hood (assuming it ever gets here) and running projectors in the lens area of the bumper.

priority for the winter is getting all the body work done so i can get it painted and the interior mostly put back together.

just for fun

 

Haven't taken any pictures in awhile but i'm getting pretty close to done with removing the Industrial Enamel from the out side of the car. I also finally put to rest my issue with Lmill86 as i finally got A hood (it's not the one he sent me a picture of but it's straight and aluminum so whatever) also looking for a local place to buy some dry ice so i can start working on removing the old sound deading material and finish up the interior. last but not least I'm working on picking up some 5 lug hubs from another member here which should be done dealing in a few days or so

(ps a buddy challenged me to Photoshop an anime girl onto the concept drawing dubbed "waifu car" hehe I'll post a picture of it later)

 

challenge accepted

 

been a tad busy lately with work and changing my major at school but as it sits.
bought a D/A sander after i finished scraping the industrial paint off the car
I've sanded about 1/3 (maybe more since the hood didn't really need it) of the car
It's effing cold so I haven't been able to effectively use the air craft stripper i have
2jz engine is stripped to the short block but i still can't lift it on the stand (no cherry pickers or friends hehe)
progress in pictures over the last month:


dustyyyyy and cooollld








that's about it, I think I'll try breaking the sound deading out of the interior once it drops below 0° in about a month and finish sanding the body for primer in the spring.

 

Wow, you took on a hell of a project. Lot of work to be had still, but good luck and keep up the good work. I'm sure it will turn out great once you're done...but are you really going to keep the 2Jz without some boost?

 

At first it will. since both engines (2jzge and the 2jzgte) are so similar, if i change my mind down the line the swap will be easier since the brute of the fabrication will be done already.

 

Sounds good Minnesotamoose….Looking forward to seeing your end product

 

Lots of hard work man good job! Can't wait to see what you make out of it!

 

It's been too cold to do much body work the past couple of days so I decided I was going to tackle the gauge cluster bezel issues. much like most old plastic, it gets brittle over time and breaks apart. well the cluster i bought off ebay (while it did come with all the switches) had most of the posts broken off of it to mount the switches to. I've read somewhere that you can take epoxy and some plastic tube and recreate the posts similar to this



I'll be sure to document it for future tech sticky.