Intro thread for Steve... (pics first, then long story)

[Bert]

I love these 'no title' threads. I always presumed that Americans were the most inventive race of people on the face of this earth.
We've all got worthless (to insurers and gov't) cars with rivet-on serial plates, (and deciduous door post stickers, and somehow damaged/disappeared firewall stamps), that are attached to bolted-in dashboards and yet I continually hear about 'no title' woes.
I know we can't talk about this openly but ingenuity and inventiveness does exist, and Americans are re-knowned for this ability.
There are folks out there assembling whole new WWII Willys Jeeps around old serial plates while others are moving an old piece of stamped sheet metal on to already assembled bodies. There is a difference?

Darn, what would I know about any of this. I'm just an overly imaginative Canuck.

[Christ]

I love these 'no title' threads. I always presumed that Americans were the most inventive race of people on the face of this earth.
We've all got worthless (to insurers and gov't) cars with rivet-on serial plates, (and deciduous door post stickers, and somehow damaged/disappeared firewall stamps), that are attached to bolted-in dashboards and yet I continually hear about 'no title' woes.
I know we can't talk about this openly but ingenuity and inventiveness does exist, and Americans are re-knowned for this ability.
There are folks out there assembling whole new WWII Willys Jeeps around old serial plates while others are moving an old piece of stamped sheet metal on to already assembled bodies. There is a difference?

Darn, what would I know about any of this. I'm just an overly imaginative Canuck.

I didn't modify anything. I researched laws from different states and filed the proper paperwork to get a clear title for the car. It cost me about 2 hours of time and $180 including registration and insurance.

[Christ]

Oh, nothing much...





Temporarily mounted a GT1752 (I'm pretty sure that's what it is, but I haven't gotten the numbers off it yet...) to the stock manifold, and checked clearance on the engine with it.

I'm probably going to need to cut off a flange from another manifold to get the extra 12mm or so of clearance to make everything jive correctly, but seems like it'll work fine without re-clocking the housings at all. The oil drain won't be perfectly vertical, but it shouldn't hurt anything at a slight angle (less than 10*) since it's such a large diameter (something like 20mm).

The rear two bolts on the manifold, after removing the studs, accommodate 2 of the studs on the GT28 flange. Knowing this beforehand, I have only mounted the turbo by 2 studs, and plan on welding some material to the remainder of the flange to accommodate the other 2 studs. The turbo sits canted away from the engine on the cold side as a result, but this should not affect anything, since there should be plenty of clearance to the radiator here.

I will not be running an IC for this any time soon, if at all, since I'll only be running it at about 5 PSI on the B3. Later, if I decide to turn the boost up, I'll have a buddy make a PWM circuit based on a pressure switch to control water injection and an auxiliary injector for when the stock ECM can't handle the boost level.

Next things to do are grab a spare oil pan (from the first engine in this car) and get it ready for an oil return plug, figure out where to draw oil from, and pipe it up on the mock-up engine. I'll probably plug the coolant ports on the turbo since they won't be necessary at low boost. Again, if I need them later, they'll still be there.

So... that's what I done tuhday. What'd YOU do?

[Christ]

I may switch to a stock Festiva manifold as well... I'm thinking the cast iron manifolds probably flow somewhat better, since they don't have weld-bead right at the exhaust port edge blocking something close to 10% of the openings... rolleyes

So if I do that, I'll cut the flange from the Aspire manifold pictured to get the extra clearance necessary. Otherwise, I'll have someone weld the tubes to the flange from the outside and grind out the inside welds to kinda ease the flow transition a bit. I know these heads don't flow for crap, but I have to imagine that every little positive change is helping, or at least not hurting.

[blkfordsedan]

Looks like a sweet build!

[blkfordsedan]

Sorry I missed this thread.

[Christ]

Welp, the new engine in Steve is knocking, REALLY bad. #1 rod bearing is taking a dump on me, and it's getting worse by the day.

In the mean time, I'm fixing up the red '89, so Steve can become the VW swap candidate.

He'll be lifted some and rockin' off road style, tube bumpers and ~27" M&S tires.

It was a chance putting the 'off the floor' engine into Steve, and it didn't work out this time 'round. No biggie, I'm used to repeatedly changing vehicles.