1 month $2013 1988 Lancer Shelby build

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Vigo wrote: I actually think the car itself is good looking once you lower it and put the right kind of wheel on it (wheels cost $$ so im not putting them on this car for the challenge). Here's one with better wheel offset.

What wheels are these? I'd love to get some mesh style wheels for my CSX at some point.

Ok, you win. It definitely looks sweet with different wheels and lowering.

What wheels are these? I'd love to get some mesh style wheels for my CSX at some point.

I think they were a custom 3 pc job but i do know they were 15x8. If i were to make an educated guess i would put the offset around +15-20.

Been busy with family medical stuff but hoping to mess with the car again tomorrow.

In reply to Vigo:

Thanks. I don't think there's room for 15x8's on a P-Body without running coilovers, so that's out. Since my car is going to remain Challenge budget-friendly, I'll run my newly acquired Mopar Performance front strut assemblies and the stock springs and replacement shocks out back. There's barely enough room up front for the stock 205-50-15's on the Centurion II's.

I know that some guys run the Fiero GT mesh wheels, so I'll keep my eyes peeled for a non-staggered set of those. I nearly had a mint set of those for only $50 a few months back, but some loser bought them to put stretched tires on them and mount them on a Subaru.

Hope everything is ok with the family.

I think I have a set of cut MP rear springs that came off a road race CSX-T and a set of Monroe GP rear shocks (Factory CSX/CSX-T shocks). Whoever needs them pays shipping (Large flat rate should do it)

I know that some guys run the Fiero GT mesh wheels, so I'll keep my eyes peeled for a non-staggered set of those. I nearly had a mint set of those for only $50 a few months back, but some loser bought them to put stretched tires on them and mount them on a Subaru.

I was actually trying to find Fiero GT wheels for this car for a couple months before i gave up. They're 15x7 +30 so they fit MUCH better than stock k-car wheels (as far as looks). I came to the point where i said "If im going to end up paying $200 for used 7" wheels i'd rather spend $390 shipped for brand new 15x8s off ebay".

I think the Shelby Lancer wheels can look 'ok' on it if i bring the fronts out a little bit and the backs out a lot. I doubt we'll get around to much in the way of cosmetic concerns before the challenge..

So i dropped the front bumper back off to flip the intercooler and found out my stepper bits set was sitting in a car that someone took to work this morning, so i'll need to go to harbor freight which is ok because i wanted one of those bigger stepper bits anyway.

So instead of messing with that i tried to figure out how to get charge piping to the front of the car. It worked out fairly easily except that i'm going to have to make a new battery tray for a honda-sized battery (i forget the group number) that will be turned sideways. No biggie i guess. Charge pipes Intake pipe. The filter end will be shortened a bit. Coming out the front.

Looking good!

Not sure how the budget in the Challenge works as far as something like a battery, but a lot of Neon guys were running lawn tractor batteries with good success. May free up some money vs. buying a Honda battery.

I would just steal the battery from my CRX. I figure i can trade a big battery to myself for a small battery for $0 or something like that. Or hell, if our budget ends up like i think it will i will sell it to myself for $500.

I tried really hard to talk my Dad into buying a Dodge Lancer Pacifica in white. He was replacing our 83 900 that I had totalled and there was one at one of the Dealerships we stopped at.

Maybe after the challenge when this build is over i will dump a bunch of Lancer pics in here for y'all to look at. I collect every remotely good picture of every k-car body style i like so i have a few. Still, the Lancer pics folder is pretty small. There's just not that many of these things out there! Lancer Shelbys specifically, there were only 279 of. Who knows how few are left..This is a pretty rare car for whatever that's worth.

I flipped and remounted the intercooler and set the bumper back on to eyeball plumbing some more. It looks much better. I need to take it down again and move it forward towards the bumper support some more. Luckily this is easy because i mounted it on a pair of big long bolts with a bunch of nuts so all i have to do to slide it forward is just loosen the nuts and turn the bolts until it pulls itself where it needs to be.

In reply to Vigo:

Honestly, they are so rare that I forgot they even made a 1988 Shelby Lancer. For some reason, I thought they only made them in 1987. I have never seen a 1988 in person that I can remember. Can't wait to see this thing in a few weeks.

Much like anything Shelby-Dodge related, there's the stuf Shelby did in Whittier, California and the stuff Chrysler did after that.

In 87 there was the the Shelby Lancer, which was red and was either equipped with leather seats or cloth ones.

Then in 88 Chrysler came out with the Lancer Pacifica (aka Lancer Shelby) which had all of the improvement Shelby had made to his cars, only with the forged bottom end and stronger transaxle, an extra wing and longer warranty.

Keep in mind, Shelby had to buy each car his team built from Chrysler at wholesale price, so he was getting screwed left and right by Chrysler's bean counters. Which eventually led him to split in 1990 before the 90 CSX could have been sent to market (89 CSX-VNT with 16-valve turbo with magnetic suspension, Recaro's and a beautiful blue paint job, etc.). Sad since that would have been a pretty awesome car, but would not have sold well since many knew to wait for Chrysler's version in 91 (Spirit and IROC R/T anyone?).

Lancer pacificas are awesome, the guy I bought the shelby charger I had from used to have tons of turbo dodges, but a perfect lancer pacifica was the last one he ended up keeping after getting rid of all the others (4 rampages, T&C woody, 87 GLHS, and many more).

I really like this build. I have always been a fan of turbo dodges.

The Lancer Pacifica was a little different from the Lancer Shelby. The conventional wisdom seems to be that it was only sold in California and only about 500 were made. None of them were intercooled T2 cars, and they didn't have the roof spoiler. They did have the ground effects. I'm not sure on suspension differences. So, even though there were more of them produced and they had less goodies, they are a real oddball and probably more "desirable" (i use that word loosely) than an actual Lancer Shelby. Unless you really like the roof spoiler, which i do.

Yesterday i did get the intercooler location adjusted forward. It looks workable now.

More work on the car tomorrow! All i did today was stare at pipes and figure out some odds and ends needed for pipe fitting purposes that i hope to pick up tomorrow.

Today i did a couple of things. I got a burr that will let me fit the pipe ends to the IC core. I slotted the downpipe flange to fit the turbo discharge, installed the wideband bung in the downpipe, and bolted it back to the motor.

I have also now officially re-used a part off my 2009 Challenge car: A 3" exhaust band clamp.

My friend Mason was over (thanks for the burr!) and we were messing around with battery tray stuff. I ended up figuring out that if i trimmed a little bit off the core support that the honda battery would sit flat on the inner fender, so i dont really need a tray. I just need a hold down. Need to go get some nuts for this all-thread sitting here.. Stupid standard thread..

So we don't need this nice chunk of aluminium? I'll bring it anyways, because I like it.

Of course we still needed it! We made a battery hold-down out of it. Once i get some pics from Matt i will update with today's accomplishments.

How do you not like the looks of the Shelby Lancer?! It looks like the illegitimate child of an early 4-eyed Fox-body and an EEK.

I would also like to point out that it is a HATCHBACK which adds cool-factor.

I started the car for the first time today. Set the fuel pressure after doing a quick calculation on my phone, jumped the fuel pump circuit to prime the system, turned the key and bam, started right up.

I dropped off the sections of our intercooler plumbing that needed to be welded to a very cool friend who offered to help us out with that.

I put a factory non-intercooled charge pipe on it so i can run it on low boost to do the motor break-in. I need boost for the break-in, you see. I need to adjust the toe angle since we changed the camber setting to "ALL OF IT", then i can put it on the ground and see if the transmission works.

If it does, i hope to take some runs down the street tomorrow!

Pics are coming..