Darth Viper's LT1/FC Build

[digitalsolo]

Cory (Darth Viper) bought this from Dave (N2Odart) and sent it up to me to finish the build.

The car is an S4 TII, champagne with red interior, and is in pretty good shape overall.   The interior is nearly perfect.   One cracked triangle window demister, and a little bit of fading, but otherwise excellent.

The car has an LT1/T56 combo in it.    Hedman 69640 headers, basic swap essentially.    It has a prepped harness, mostly plug and play already with it, and the driveshaft is already in as well.

I'm going to be finishing the swap, building a mandrel bent exhaust system, installing a poly suspension kit, DTSS eliminators, new suspension, cooling system, fuel system, A/C system, and making the stock gauges work (+ Integra speedo swap).

Here's the bay as I received it:











Here's the start of the suspension.

Before:



After.   Tokico Blues, Tein springs, Energy Suspension bushings.



Engine bay as it sits.   There was a BAD oil leak out of the intake manifold, so that's pulled off for a gasket change.   Also cleaned the oil off of the brackets, cleaned up the accessories, and replaced the optispark and water pump along with the pump gaskets.    I'm also cleaned up and primed the intake.   It will be painted red wrinkle finish with polished fins, per Cory's request.



Got sludge?    The Castrol GTX commercial comes to life...     A few changes with some Rotella high-detergent stuff should clean this crap out.



Camber plate:



The car after the lowering springs, I also rolled the front fenders, as the clearance is fairly tight, depending on camber:

[Defenistrator]

Nice swap so far.  Wish I could claim to have a nice interior too... think I'm going to have to replace 2/3rds of it!

[Darth Viper]

I can't tell you how much cooler it is to be reading a swap thread that's about my own car.  So far Blake has been awesome to work with.  Even the color of the car is growing on me...but I still think I might have to have it painted one of these days.  I picked up some S5 tails for it, so that will look nice.

[digitalsolo]

Yeah, the lowering springs and new stance really help the look of the car a lot.

There is something to be said for the sleeper aspect of a champagne colored car, too.       Just get the little bits of rust cleaned up and hit it with some factory matched spray paint and you're good to go.

BTW, my phone is on the fritz (I'm calling it suicide, I picked it up and it just shut off, and now the keyboard and trackpad don't work).     Did you order any diff mounts and/or DTSS eliminators?    The diff mounts are pretty much dry rotted, so I'd expect the DTSS aren't any better.

Also, I'd recommend we snag some spray on bedliner and I'll shoot underneath the car.

[Darth Viper]

Yeah, the lowering springs and new stance really help the look of the car a lot.

There is something to be said for the sleeper aspect of a champagne colored car, too.       Just get the little bits of rust cleaned up and hit it with some factory matched spray paint and you're good to go.

BTW, my phone is on the fritz (I'm calling it suicide, I picked it up and it just shut off, and now the keyboard and trackpad don't work).     Did you order any diff mounts and/or DTSS eliminators?    The diff mounts are pretty much dry rotted, so I'd expect the DTSS aren't any better.

Also, I'd recommend we snag some spray on bedliner and I'll shoot underneath the car.

I ordered both diff mounts and DTSS eliminators.  The payment went through Sept. 11th.  I take it that you did not get them?  As far as the bedliner, I'm cool with that.

[digitalsolo]

Nah, no sign of them yet.    Just wanted to make sure they were coming.   I'll wait to tear down the rear subframe until those come in.   

[jim3]

The color will grow on you, my bronze Manta looks better to me every day.
 
That's not sludge, you should have seen my 157k Z28.
 
Check out the back of the heads and see if that's a manifold leak or the EGR stuff for the discoloration at the back of the engine bay.  Also there is a kit to eliminate the EGR from back there.  That just gives a little more room in a tight place.
 
Exhaust?  Why not just spend a few $$$ and get the Grannys?  Less time and headache.  Ready to roll.  Okay, after further review it seems like you will still be using the 69640 headers.  Why?  After all this work get the 1 3/4 primarys and be done for any future engine work. 
 
Cam change?  I hope you did while the front of the engine stuff was off.
 
 

[Darth Viper]

The color will grow on you, my bronze Manta looks better to me every day.
 
That's not sludge, you should have seen my 157k Z28.
 
Check out the back of the heads and see if that's a manifold leak or the EGR stuff for the discoloration at the back of the engine bay.  Also there is a kit to eliminate the EGR from back there.  That just gives a little more room in a tight place.
 
Exhaust?  Why not just spend a few $$$ and get the Grannys?  Less time and headache.  Ready to roll.  Okay, after further review it seems like you will still be using the 69640 headers.  Why?  After all this work get the 1 3/4 primarys and be done for any future engine work. 
 
Cam change?  I hope you did while the front of the engine stuff was off.

I bought the car from Dave and it already had those brand new Hedmans on there.  This is meant to be a fun, yet inexpensive vehicle and my aspirations aren't really to build this FC to be rediculous.  I'll probably get an FD and do a powertrain swap if I were to do that.  I think at 300-400 RWHP with some nitrous, the headers will be alright, although I agree the Grannys would be a nice upgrade.  Blake is doing a full mandrel bent exhaust for me and I bought the parts so cheap that I bet nothing will touch the cost of my entire setup, so I'm pretty happy about that.  As far as the cam change, that was the original plan, but I decided to do suspension first (control before power?  BLASPHEMY) and ran out of money. I wasn't gonna half ass it (stock everything with a big bump stick), so I just put it off.  By the time I bought the cam, lifters, rockers, pushrods, springs, retainers ect, I would have been in it for another 1000 or more.  Blake did measure a fair amount of crank play and although Dave said the engine ran great, Blake's engine builder said I should run it for now, but know I'll need to freshen it in the next few years.  I figure I will enjoy it for now and learn some road racing skills with the lower power and then freshen it up in a year or two, doing a big cam ect. 

[spacevomit]

Like a coin machine, this makes cents.

[Darth Viper]

Like a coin machine, this makes cents.

I lulz'd.  I'm really trying my hardest to keep this budget in check.  For the first time in my life, I have a car project below budget, but I betcha something will come up to bring it back in line. So....I'm trying to keep my eyes and stomach the same size, if you catch my drift. 

[spacevomit]

Same here. The less it costs, the faster you will be driving it, right? And what do they always say "get time behind the wheel".

[digitalsolo]

Hah, yeah, on a swap like this there are always nickel/dime stuff to deal with.

I'm slowly adding to the list of stuff we still need:

Integra speedo, some random wiring, battery hold down (will probably just build this, good way to learn stainless with my new MIG), battery itself, bends, straight pipe, tip if you want one, metal stock, oil/tranny fluid, coolant, yada yada.   Not a TON of money, but all that little crap adds up to a not insignificant amount.

[Darth Viper]

Blake said he was gonna throw a TT build in for free because I'm so awesome.  Thanks Blake!

[digitalsolo]

LOL, yeah, I'll get right on that. 

BTW, by free, I meant I wasn't going to mark-up the work that Tracy's going to do.   I think he said pricing was "if you have to ask, you don't wanna know" or something like that.   Sounds pretty cheap. 

[Darth Viper]

LOL, yeah, I'll get right on that. 

BTW, by free, I meant I wasn't going to mark-up the work that Tracy's going to do.   I think he said pricing was "if you have to ask, you don't wanna know" or something like that.   Sounds pretty cheap. 

What?