Build Thread As Requested: Project Horse Manure

[Boosted92LX]

My son and I have embarked on a long painful journey. As a father, It's hard to say no to the ones you love sometimes.. Really hard. I told this story over in my New Shoes thread:

It's a funny story. I had a sweet straight reef blue roller I was going to build.. a 93 LX hatch. I had a 351W I was going to stroke and install into it, then I spotted my green car on corral and had to have it. SO, I flew to NC , bought it, and drove it home to Texas. This was 2011. I went to put the roller up for sale and my son threw a fit because he wanted it. So I kept it. A few years go by.. he changes his mind, and decides he wants a truck. This is fine with me, as he's less likely as a new driver to get hurt in a truck, so I sell the roller. Perfect clean car. A little more time goes by and he flip flops again. He spies this turd rotting away in a friend of mine's yard and asks about it- as luck would have it, my friend GIVES IT TO HIM.. aaaand he's in love. :facepalm:

Nope. That's not her. That's the roller I sold. For a thousand dollars. This car now resides in the Rio Grande River valley and has an LSX engine in it with an 88mm turbo turning high 7 second 1/4 miles. Yeah..



Here is the earliest pic I could find of the car. My Samsung Note II took a dump and I lost all of the really good ones..

It's really hard to appreciate this car's full glory from this pic. When we got it the front end looked like it had been dipped in paint stripper and left in the weather for ten years, engine bay, and fenders. There was no hood because it, as pointed out by Mr. @hoopty5.0 , most likely came open at speed, acing the cowl area, hood hinges, and creasing the doo doo out of the roof. Yes, I am a glutton for punishment.

 

[Boosted92LX]

Here you can begin to get a feel of what I'm working with, although I've pulled the 4 inch deep dents in both side of the cowl panel back out and hammered them somewhat straight. the primer was just an attempt to slow the rust, I'm in no way done with this panel, I just wanted the hood to open and close. We'll come back to this later, when we tackle body work. The windshield: yeah, along with the nice hood shaped bodyline creases in the roof. Look close.. yep, that's them.. Nice huh?

Believe it or not, I have fixed worse..

 

[Boosted92LX]

As you can see, she's a real peach.. I'll get more pics up in a bit..

 

[Boosted92LX]

This fender was installed around the time the cowl was beaten back into shape.. the one that was there was too far gone. Gives it a nice calico look..

We have a new, er... good hatch door also to replace the rusted out one in the previous pics as well.

My son loves the draglites. I know a lot of folks hate them, he LOVES them. They came off of @hoopty5.0 's coupe.

 

[A5literMan]

Love the thread title btw! And yeah jr should have stuck with the first car LOL. looking forward to watch the transformation.

 

[mikestang63]

Damn, that roller car was amazing. You gave it away at $1000.

But I can't see turning away a free car. As long as the car isnt a rust bucket or frame tweaked beyond repair, I say your son did great.. All my son brought home was his broke ass friends to clean out my pantry.

 

[A5literMan]

I actually like draglites. They're not my favorite but I do

 

[CarMichael Angelo]

Ohh Me, Me!!!.

I'm one of those people that hates Drag lites.

 

[Boosted92LX]

Yeah, I'm a draglite fan. I'll admit it, lol. I have gotten him some jegs 15x7s for the front though so he'll be able to stop. No rubber on them yet.. we'll get pics of them up later..

 

[Boosted92LX]

So, the car was free, but I had to buy the engine. Turns out, it was the original engine that came with the car.. My friend acquired the whole get up from his cousin, who supposedly had "rebuilt" the engine once upon a time... We agreed on $250 bucks.. not bad for a once rebuilt engine..

This is the only pic I have of it torn down, again.. I had all of this documented with my old phone before it dumped. My son rebuilding his first engine. Back up your photos, people!

Note the ugly duckling under the cover...

 

[Boosted92LX]

The "rebuilt" motor turned out not so much. Pulled the pan and popped some caps to find copper as far as the eye could see. The most interesting part was the wire wheel bristles throughout the engine. Apparently someone used one on a drill motor to clean the lifter valley, I'm guessing. They made their way into the pan, plugged (mostly) The pickup, and embedded themselves into the bearings, main, rod, and cam, surprisingly. I have never seen anything quite like it. Don't use power tools to clean an engine you are not going to tear down all the way, folks. Anyway, the crank was ruined. It possibly could have been turned, but a friend had a .010/.010 crank kit on the shelf I worked out a deal on.. I honed the bores out, MICed them.. Looked pretty good. Popped out all of the freeze plugs and oil galley plugs and had a friend tank it for me.( not all in that order of course..) We acquired some new rings and cam bearings and The boy , with Dad's guidance assembled it. He checked clearances, and torqued it all after being shown how. I was very proud of him.

Oh, BTW.. Stock E7 heads (off my car) with an E303 cam, pro products typhoon intake. No more mods, he needs no more power. And before someone screams at me for using an E303 with stock heads.. it was so it would sound cool. This is for a teenager folks..

 

[Boosted92LX]

I had a fellow named Ed Anderson in Freeport, Texas help me with the trans. We used the T5 that came out of my car when I installed the TKO 600. Ed used to race down here and is pretty well known in this area, he let us help with the tear down of the T5 and part of the assembly until we hit a stopping point and needed a part. Good experience for the boy.

Again.. no pics here.

 

[Boosted92LX]

Cleaned up and primed engine bay.. this kid spent hours in here with a 4 in grinder and wire wheel. We used quite a bit of ospho before spaying the primer..

Engine bay painted, engine and trans set.

 

[Boosted92LX]

Piecing it together..

Fully operational EFI 5.0

 

[Boosted92LX]

Needs a little more spit and polish, but hey, he's tickled with it so far..

 

[Boosted92LX]

backing up a little..

^Here's one with the exhaust we bought from Hoopty.

 

[Boosted92LX]

Still backing up a little, installing exhaust.

 

[Boosted92LX]

Turbo sweetness in the foreground here..lol

 

[hoopty5.0]

Hahahah sweet. I laugh because I know it was probably as much fun installing those tailpipes in one piece as it was to get them out.

Glad to see a progress thread come together.

 

[CarMichael Angelo]

You know, there once was a member on here that lived in TX,....went all the way to somewhere on the east coast to buy a Calypso green hatch..........

Guy disappeared for a bit......but then he reappeared.

I forgot it was you man,... it took seeing the green car and the TX references to bring me back to Earth. Sorry.