A resurrection, or getting back to basics

Mrs. f1y was reminiscing this morning of our trip to the challenge and how loud, rough and uncomfortable the car was to ride in. That just makes me want to drive it that much more! I keep thinking of things to do to make it better/faster then realize that I should just concentrate on making it run first.

So the rims are almost stripped but I'm on vacation as of today.  I'll resume when I get back in a week.

Back from vacation a little early, I decided to spend the afternoon in the shop and do a little clean up on the head.

I'm not pulling it to clean it so my son brought his shop vac and detailing tools over. That's more better.

Since pulling the cam is easy and there's a lot of dirt and junk sitting in there, out it came. I also took the liberty of grinding up a little more cam to see how it would work on the street.

I used this cam in a 200 hp turbo 3 my friends built about 10 years ago.

Stock cam is 192 at .050"/.332" lift

Cam I've been using is 226/.395", mildly rough idle, nice for the street.

This one is 240/.420" We should be good for about 8000-8500 RPM now and it will idle like E36 M3. Curious to see what happens with the boost. When i put the 226/395 cam in my max boost dropped from about 25 to around 15. Might only see 8-10 with this one, we'll see. Maybe I should have asked Bob for cam advice.

Side motor mount is pooched. Doubt that's available. I'll see but will probably have to make something.

I remembered when I saw it that it has an under drive pulley. It was a prototype from a company that used to make Suzuki parts. They sent it to me to try but never did make any more so it's a one off. Also noticed the part number on the (shorter than stock) belt. Looked curiously like a Hyundai number and the internets says it is. It's a belt from a Hyundai Pony. I looked though my pile o belts and I do have at least one spare. It's also likely 30 years old like this one too. The numbers say it's a fairly standard belt, though, so I should be able to get one.

While removing the front cover and motor mount I moved a hose out of the way and discovered this beauty. It's some sort of miniature irrigation sprayer that I found at Home Depot. It's attached to the windshield washer pump which is wired into the high zoot fuel system and sprays ice water on the intercooler on boost. I used it for Maxton and it actually worked.  The black thing on the top is a valve to regulate flow. As I remember it has a nice spray pattern that covered most of the intercooler.

Tomorrow I chase parts.

Parts are all on order, rims are closer to being done and tomorrow I'll see if I can find  cheap battery, but that's it.

So for now I leave you with a pic of me staring into the sun

Hard to believe it's been a few weeks.  Back from vacation but I'm leaving again Monday for a week. No wonder it's getting harder to get anything done.

All the parts are finally here. Hard to believe Rock auto can make money shipping that way. Last order to arrive from a separate warehouse was a fan belt by itself. Nonetheless, I'll take the wait, it would have cost me more than double what I paid to get the stuff locally.

Motor mount is done, though I don't think it actually does much, this should be more than enough. I cut the old junk out and pressed this aluminum insert in with soap and water as lube.

I'll do the timing belt, lash the cam and change th oil using some cheap conventional for now. Run it a bit, hope it picks up what grunge I couldn't get, then change it up for some good stuff.

Watching...

Also watching. Some of the better, and I use that term loosely, available tires in the size you were asking for:

https://www.tires-easy.com/tires/?filtering=,price,sizeWheelDiameter,13,sizeCrossSectionWidth,175,speedIndex,H,speedIndex,V

Mike, ya know , that at the current exchange rate that car would be a contender for best finisher on a $1009 budget. You and the missus could do another trip to reminisce about the first time. And it's an "all autocross" competition this year which wouldn't hurt either. Just sayin'.....

In reply to DeadSkunk :

I think I was top car under $1000 back then too, but they seemed to have trouble with the whole currency conversion thing.

The Mrs. and I often reminisce about that trip, and it usually goes something like... "Oh sure I remember, sitting in the border patrol office being interrogated because nobody actually believed that you were really racing that car, then driving home through a snow and ice storm on my 40th birthday, just what I always wanted to do"

Then she remembers in Florida how rough and brutal the car is on the road and how it died at the lights after we got off the highway Saturday night and had to push it into the Burger king parking lot. No need to go back down that road

The car is about 30 minutes from running. New timing belt is in, cam is lashed, the top of the motor buttoned up and it's filled with inexpensive 10W30 that hopefully takes care of whatever dirt and nonsense I wasn't able to get before I closed it up. Most of the new parts are in. The only thing left is to install and connect is the intercooler and battery. Working the weekend, nights, so hopefully I'l finish up the rims. They're about 90% prepped already and mostly need cleaning before paint. They'd better turn out after all that time I spent on them.

I'm getting pretty excited to drive it - and just for clarification, it's going to be a street driven car, and daily in the summer, at least as long as I can stand it, so some of those 175 50 13 tires probably won't cut it as street rubber, at least not for long.

Still looking and I may buy a set of the ones mentioned earlier, but it looks like it's gong to ride on 185 55 14's. At least I can still get them at not crazy prices. That bumps my gearing a bit but I can buy most of that back with the installation of a 4.4 final drive (which I have - 4.10 is stock). So if  that needs to happen, it's a few hours work to swap out transmissions.

But to clarify... I have every intention to bring it back to the challenge. Hopefully we can take a few weeks and do it as a Florida vacation.

I've been trying to get my kids interested in building a challenge car, they're both motorheads, but they're busy doing their own family stuff, at least for now.