FD-5.3/glide/twin turbo/samberg straight axle 8.8

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So I wanted to completely build my car and then make the build thread so it wouldn't be as drawn out as the build itself but I figured I'll go ahead and start it and maybe get some ideas along the way. Enjoy- constructive criticism only. ☺️


1993 rx7 touring-
Samberg front subframe
Samberg read 8.8 live axle
Samberg modified QA1 suspension- be jealous
Alum 5.3 block, shaved 243 heads Intake- ls2 or ls6 depending on the dyno results
Power glide with pro edge converter
Twin Precision 6266 turbos- probably a2a possibly a2w depending on how a2a works out
Painless performance chassis harness
 
That's the jist of the initial build but things have happened since I started so I'll include the changes in the timeline throughout the build.

Ok so a little history about myself and the car. I actually bought this car while I was in RN school. The car had been together for about 10-11 years and was originally built by Hinson. I bought the car off its 3rd owner. The original owner had Hinson build the car and the second owner played around in the car for a while and then it sit for a while.

As anyone knows, college kids usually have no money but I bought and sold a few things and had some friends at the bank so financing was doable.

As far as my car building skills. I come from a back ground of motocross and dsm's. Before switching to an fd I had an awd 2g eclipse 10.5:1 compression hx40 car with a built auto trans. This was the first car I had ever buiilt from the ground up (first short block, first tranny) and it's first time at the track went 10.85 @130. Anyone familiar with dsm's will know about their unpredictable tendencies. And mine was a PITA nonetheless. Finally after the love/hate ship had finally sunk I decided to part the car out and bought a ls/fd and so glad I did and I'll never look back.

My original plans were to just drive the car. Fix some of the flaws and just cruise around and now we are at a race car level; well more like 'streetcar' in the most loosely used way available.


Here is the car when I got it. Stock ls1 engine with ls6 intake and t56 trans

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Since I had originally planned on keeping the car simple- I lost that battle with myself and I decided to take the stock ls1 and put a set of milled 243's on it along with a xer273 cam and JTR headers.

 Before the car made 315ish whp. After the mods the car made 418whp tuned with hptuners.

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One thing  car is absolutely going to have to have is a paint job. The car was originally black and was painted cyber grey by the buddy (previous) owner I bought it from. Because the car had sat so long the leaves and weather really got to the paint job and I wasn't able to save it- plus I believe he got shafted on the paintjob he had paid for, sadly, because the car looked awesome when it was first done. The prepwork had to be horrible because the paint literally chipped off in big pieces, I'll post a picture showing what I mean. The clear was hazy and no amount of buffing was helping. At this point I had also been battling the sleek headlights. I wasn't familiar with them at the time, I still think they look better than flip ups but I've grown a strong hatred for them..

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This is where the car took a very big turn for the worse and better at the same time.

A buddy of mine was a reputable body man and had moved back into the area. He resumed his trade at a new body shop and talked me out of plasti dipping my car and we worked out a deal for him to do my car on the side in his garage

At this point the body work consisted:
-straightening the body
-shaving all the squirters
-rear wiper
-antenna
-hood pins











Just a few shots of shaving everything

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Now that one that has lead to the other, and the trans was already out of the car (busted it at the track) and the engine is just so easy to get out I decided to do the engine bay too, this bay needed some serious love.







Insert cringe face


Cringe again!




I've decided this aint going to work, I'm really wanting the engine bay to be the 'cherry' on top..so back to work and I have a few ideas now.

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Did some lookin and some 'figurin.' and I decided to shave the bay big time. I don't wanna give away all the details but just keep scrollin' and you'll see the progress and hopefully enjoy. I definitely liked how it turned out. 

First thing I decided I wanted to cut this lip off and weld it up and get as much as I could off the fire wall.




This scared the absolute shit out of me after I had cut the lip off, I don't know how much I recommend this unless you have a lot of fab/welding skill, which I do not. In fact this entire bay was welded up with a really cheap gasless mig  (LOL) this "lip" is where the body is stamped together and it made it extremely weak so I welded as many spot welds as I could and then went back in between them a couple times to make more spot welds. The mig welder sucked and the metal was so thin it was a PITA.

[Cavity_Filla]

  go on

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Finally got all my welding done, I wont post pictures of the welds because I spent more time grinding then I did breathing the few days it took me to do this.. but here's some pic's of the glass work.

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So I had been reading around on here about the 3M Di-Noc and decided I would take a spin with it and see what happened. Seems to be pretty cool looking so far. Haven't had a chance to do the gauge cluster/hood but here is the hvac panel and console cover. Not much I could do at the car at this point, so I needed something to keep me occupied. I tallied up about 30 hours in the engine bay-I might have missed some tallies though.

This wasn't too bad if u have a heat gun, book of new curse words and/or patience. I used to install vinyl atv/dirtbike graphics so that may have helped the process some.

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Now back to the body of the car, its primmered and ready to be blocked, blocked, blocked until its as straight as an arrow, or the dragons tail in TN -> O_o

Oh and if anyone here is a body man and can start to has any "hmmmm's" about any of the body work.........*sighs* keep scollin...it gets interesting later on..





and here is how the bay turned out under primer.









tried to do a panorama

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Now the car was about ready for some paint. I had changed my mind a dozen times on paint and got a smoking' deal on some BMW carbon black metallic. So here's a sneak preview of what this paint looks like



I really wanted to go with more of a candy color, but the paint was going to be way over 1300 just for paint/clear. I did settle, but this color has grown on me

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Car being sealed and painted.





















Get ready for a plot twist.

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*****Plot twist time*****




That picture is the last time the car will see this color. The story goes:

The "buddy" that had been painting the car decided to relapse in his addiction recovery toward the end of the paint job and right as he started spraying materials. He dipped out on me and the car (not finishing wet sanding buffing and assembly). I had been paying him each week for what was done that week so I lost MY ASS +/- a few hundred. He also pawned some things that I had been leaving at his garage- some tools and my really cheap gasless mig I was more upset over the grinder than the mig lol. The work up until this point was split about 60/40 with me being 60. The guy went back to rehab and this is how the car sat unfinished and the paint had started to shrink and it looked like hammered hell when I had came over the last night and seen it like this (above picture). He had sanded through the clear on some parts and the car had so much material on it the paint wasn't even hardly drying. It had runs in it and some parts of the body were hazy and where he basically "panel" painted it, the panels didn't match. This picture was taken around 10/13. To this day, two years later, I have still not talked to him nor do I know exactly where he is, just that he's about 6 hours away in Bowling Green.

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I got my car out of his garage now that his dad and I had a few words of the course of a few days. I decided I wanted to strip the car back down past what he had done and start over completely.


wiiiitttthhhhhhh thissss.

Tri-coat pearl metallic. The paint code can be found on the newer Gm vehicles but there is a variant to the code. Behold the variant.




It took a lot of searching to find this exact color code. Its almost like GM hid it (atleast in my area).

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It took me about 3 months to really get over the sting of the bs I had encountered and to find a place to take the car. Much happier with the paint I had picked this time. I learned one good lesson the hard way, don't ever settle when something like painting is about ready to happen lol.

Last time this thing will ever be this color, and time to erase a bad memory



new body work, ready to be blocked.....again