Colt attempts to LS swap 2 FDs

[VladtheSmiter]

Bold and Beautiful, I love it man!  Can't wait to see it all put together.  It's been too long for you.  Mine will look so basic parked next to yours!


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Thanks man.
Compared to some guys it isn't that long. I'm currently almost at 14 months since my first FD was crashed. Last car took 9 months to get where it was when it flooded. Now i have two pretty close to that same point in 4.5months. It's a long time coming and but I'm finally starting to see the light at the end of this long carpooling with the wife tunnel. Really my own fault for not buying a cheap daily though.

[digitalsolo]

Gah, those seats are amazing.  I need to get my car far enough along to get some stuff sent to Austin.   Just beautiful work.

[AV8rZ]

Gah, those seats are amazing.  I need to get my car far enough along to get some stuff sent to Austin.   Just beautiful work.

I just saw these in person and they are gorgeous!  On top of that the shop and Austin and Alex are top notch.  DO IT!


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[VladtheSmiter]

Gah, those seats are amazing.  I need to get my car far enough along to get some stuff sent to Austin.   Just beautiful work.

I just saw these in person and they are gorgeous!  On top of that the shop and Austin and Alex are top notch.  DO IT!


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Just now dawned on me that AV8rZ was you Curtis lol.

[AV8rZ]

Gah, those seats are amazing.  I need to get my car far enough along to get some stuff sent to Austin.   Just beautiful work.

I just saw these in person and they are gorgeous!  On top of that the shop and Austin and Alex are top notch.  DO IT!


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Just now dawned on me that AV8rZ was you Curtis lol.

Haha, that's funny!


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[VladtheSmiter]

Little update. Silver car has been sold to another forum member. Gonna spend the next week knocking out some stuff to get it ready to go to it's new owner.

The blue car still needs wiring finished and once that's done and tested it'll be time to flick some of the interior panels and get the interior all done and then start the bodywork and paint process.

Also just ordered a console cover from redline goods. Black leather black stitching. Pretty understated but i didnt want too much going on and end up overdoing it. Would've flocked the piece but I don't want to flock areas that'll get touched and rubbed on a lot.

Also got a couple projects involving magnets. One is a removable cupholder held in place by a 1"-1.5" neodymium magnet. Another is putting a fusebox behind the airbag cover and holding the cover on with magnets. The 3rd is replacing the overly strong gauge hood clips with magnets. We'll see how that all works out.

[leo81486]

nice build there.   how much the blue going to cost when is done.  ?

[VladtheSmiter]

I'll be into the blue car at least 50k when all is said and done

[jparker7]

I'll be into the blue car at least 50k when all is said and done

50k it better put down some 4 digit dyno numbers 

[VladtheSmiter]

Unfortunately not. Probably ~750whp on the juice

Parts carried over from wrecked FD = 13188.46
Parts carried over from flooded FD = 13763.91
Parts bought since buying this car = 15339.83
Part/labor total = $42292.20

These numbers include some outsourced labor (powdercoating, etc)
Anticipated cost of paint and bodywork isn't factored in (probably around 6k).
This doesn't include some future items like drag pack or nitrous setup or smaller odds and ends (fluids, tools, etc).
Numbers don't account for parts sold off of the previous cars or extra spares I have (which is a lot)

After factoring all the insurance claims/purchases/sales of cars I basically got the "keeper" car chassis for free as a roller with samberg radiator, subframe, transmount, and ronin 8.8 IRS setup


If i didn't buy all the "cuz its pretty" parts it would be much lower. It'll probably be one of the most expensive slow RX7s. If you call high 9 low 10 sec 1/4 miles slow.

This is pretty much me:

[VladtheSmiter]

So as I said earlier i got home and started getting the silver car ready for sale. I planned to finish it but saw a few people looking for projects and figured it would be a win-win. They get a build mostly finished with everything to finish it up and I get to devote more time to finishing my other projects. Pretty much broke even on the whole deal moneywise and got a free ronin 8.8 setup out of the deal.

Note to self, don't assume people know not to push a car from the spoiler


Luckily I had a spare and got it repainted silver along with a passenger headlight cover and set of side vents.

Pushed the car inside, reinstalled all the interior and threw in the spares i had to fix the broken pieces. Then made up the exhaust. The car is VERY low so I suspect it'll need to be raised up if the new owner doesnt want to scrape the exhaust everywhere.



Finished putting everything together and off she went to her new owner. After seeing his previous builds I'm sure he'll build it nicer than I was planning to

[VladtheSmiter]

With the silver car gone, I started focusing on the "keeper car". I installed the abs delete kit w/ line lock and bias valve i got from alex rodriguez, but haven't wired up the line lock yet. I also installed the turn one power steering flow restrictor fitting. I got some inspiration on where to mount my ac and fan relays and fusebox for the pcm from a couple helpful forum members. Here's some shots of their solution:










So I got started making my own much uglier version:







I had planned to possibly mount my pcm there too but the ls1 pcm is a good bit larger than the aftermarket options



It might be something I'll redesign later and make prettier but at the same time it's not something you'll ever see unless your already having a bad day

[VladtheSmiter]

Decided to knock out a bulk of my wiring diet on the car.

I deleted the large fusebox and relay box from the front. I only kept the TNS and the horn relay from the large front box since everything else isn't used on my setup. I'll silicone the connection area to these relays to seal tehm from the weather and mount them in the bumper support. Also i moved the B1 and BTN fuses on X02 and put them in the place of the EGI and Retractor fuses on X01. I then relocated X01 and the headlight relay to the DS bin. Fuel pump was wired directly from the battery to a relay in the access panel in the hatch with a signal wire wrapping around the hatch and running back to the pcm fusebox. Luckily all this modification was made easier because i still had all the wiring from teh flooded car which was already modified in a very similar way. Ignore the silver car, this post is a bit out of chonilogical order.

These books have become my bible:














Took everything home and started thinning it all out (this is about half of what was pulled):


Front harness all wrapped back up and ready to go in:










I also decided to throw in my rear speakers while I was at it. (I should have wired them up too but I didn't  )



I also picked ordered a bunch of new connectors and terminals from Mouser that I'll eventually intergrate into all the wiring for nice disconnects.



And ran my engine harness and reconnected everything:

[VladtheSmiter]

Got my wheels and rollbar back from powdercoating. Got them done in a chrome base with translucent copper topcoat. I wanted a more chrome-like finish but they definitely pop. Paid more for the powdercoating than the wheels cost lol. I love reps



















Threw the dash back in for the last one.

[digitalsolo]

That garage full of FD wiring looks a lot like my garage did this morning.