Seemed like a good idea on paper....

DjGreggieP wrote: I went with OEM uppers and one still failed! And I need to get an action pic of mine, the sway bars help immensely!! Car looks good, is it still going?

It's relegated to 50% daily-driving duty 50% parked. The driver side window is dead. The AC/heat display panel is dead (but the controls work). The interior driver door knob is black and Chinese while the rest of the car has tan OEM handles. If I seriously rev the engine, it sounds like popcorn or gravel or something not good. One of the coil-on-plugs disintegrated and is held together by magic and hope. Amazingly, I don't have any check engine lights and still get around 18 mpg in town, maybe 23-25 on highways, maybe.

One other tip: if you still have your engine out of the car or easy to remove, CHANGE THE THERMOSTAT NOW. It's staked in place by the oil filter with essentially zero access once bolted in. Yeah...

Yea, doing the swap I discovered the location leaves a lot to be desired. I am planning to do the water pump and timing belt again in the spring because I am close to the interval and I have to change the PS pump and and harmonic balancer anyways so may as well be on top of maintenance vs half way thru the season be tearing the car down for a preventative maintenance item, so may battle the thermostat at the same time because I am pulling the rad for ease of access and need to replace the rad hoses, possibly a rad if we find one that fits...

Upside, I work at Napa during the day and a shop after hours, so cheap parts and a place to work on Sundays and expertise on hand.

On a seperate note, does anyone have any recommendations on tires that are good for daily / spirited driving / some on track duty? I have run a set of NT05's but was not overall satisfied with their on track performance with a front heavy car. Have thought about BF Goodrich, possibly Toyo but anyone I ask has been more of a 'it looks so cool stretched' and local tire shops sell a lot more truck, heavy truck and Ag tires so they don't have any advice, so I thought that I would ask here for a performance stand point ideas. If there is a discussion on that somewhere, being pointed in the right direction would be greatly appreciated as well.

Thought I would share the link for my second go around at the track. Its a short track. This was prior to the seat install tho, need to upload those videos yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z3PTQXKDIw

Let me know what you guys think

Looks like fun! I'd love to flog my Mark VII around a go-cart track.

As soon as I saw that you had NAPA UP rotors on the car I figured you worked at NAPA. I do too, and it's been great getting cheap parts for my Benz (Thank god for ATM.)

Nice Intrepid. I had a `96 LHS for the longest time. What are you using for for subframe bushings? I went with the polyurethane ones and it made a world of difference.

I haven't changed the subframe bushings as of yet because shipping into Canada costs so much. The rear rotors were actually new in box in the trunk of the gold donor intrepid (along with all the full service manuals) so u put them on because I needed rotors lol.

Not much of anything to report at this time. Turbo is awaiting a rebuild, and a few more pieces have yet to be obtained. Putting a few general maintenance items on order this month through work.

I did have a question in regards to tires, is there anything anyone could recommend? I have a set of very used up 245/40R18 NT05's and I didn't mind them, not impressed enough to purchase another set tho.

Any insight on something that will be good traction on road and some track use, being two hours away from the go kart track I can't always make it to events so a dedicated track only tire is not in the budget yet. Mostly looking for a decent summer tire that can handle the road course I suppose.

Thank you!!

Yay!! Parts incoming!!

You see, this has rekindled my interest in the E36 M3-y cars of Mopar circa 1995. Garbage Avengers are a dime a dozen, and it can't be that hard to swap in DSM parts on to one of those, right?

I really like my Hankook v12 Ventus tires.

In reply to Acme Lab Rat For the most part, intrepids are easy to come by needing an engine, they are wide and long and have decent rotation around corners and stay planted nicely, the down side is a lot of parts are disco'd or custom made. An older avenger I could see working with neon / eclipse parts of the same era possibly..?

In reply to DaewooOfDeath

I will need to check those out, are the decent for life span? I don't spin my tires at every red light or anything, but I live 30 minutes from work every day so the highway runs wore down the NT05's really quickly.

In other news, my power steering pump, pulley, harmonic balancer and belt have arrived so the shopping list for maintenance parts is much smaller now, just the timing belt kit to get then more waiting til we have space in the shop to get it on the hoist.

Mine wore decently. They're definitely worth a try.

I will have to do some digging to see who can get them for me. A search on Hankook's site shows me only Dealerships can order them locally.

Thank you!

Acme Lab Rat wrote: You see, this has rekindled my interest in the E36 M3-y cars of Mopar circa 1995. Garbage Avengers are a dime a dozen, and it can't be that hard to swap in DSM parts on to one of those, right?

Youre actually right. A lot of things transfer, depending on the car. Thr only problem is, 2g dsms wereny good chassis either. The 4g63 was thr best part, and those dont transfer. Now....turbo mopar on the other hand..... think neon.

What about pretty sticky tires like falken azenis Rt615k for the stock wheels or maybe some smaller wheels and put some round and blacks on the 18s for daily. I'm thinking the 18s, although good looking for daily use maybe a bit heavy for track use. I don't know the weight of any of your wheels but it's a thought you may consider. Just a thought. Interesting build though, I enjoy seeing things out of the norm that people modify to their use/preference, pretty cool.

In reply to iadr

The Nitto's are actually scrubbing pretty bad, they have been fine on highway, but as soon as I went to the track and started to push it, the weight of the car (especially the front) they really started to have issues with turning, tho they were a season old and needed an alignment so they were worn down before hitting the track.

Before deciding on the NT05's I had checked private user reviews (occasional 'paid' user review) as well as compared them to other tires (Advan AD08's, Federal SS595's) that seemed similar in performance specifications. I took a lot of time before finally deciding

I will do some checking and fire you a PM when I kind of know the direction I am going

In reply to chidos

I have been thinking of dedicated track wheel / tire setups, just need to check into options. I have a set of factory 16's that have decent (re: all season) so I am going to check into putting track tires on those which is why I came to this board because they only person I know personally bought the most expensive track tires for his car and hates them because he is still slow (long story short on him, too scared of breaking the car to push it so he just throws expensive parts at it in hopes of going faster) so I will be researching a set of dedicated tires for next next season, after the turbo is on and relatively trouble free :D

Thank you for the inputs guys, I will be checking on sizing for tires on the 16's now so I can ask a lot of questions in the near future !!

Happy New Year guys! I guess now I need to reduce my spending on somethings and get cracking on getting everything for spring.

Have mostly everything for the turbo induction addition aside from an air/fuel gauge and piping I think, but something like this there will be stuff that we didn't think we would need.

Also need to purchase the rest of the maintenance parts, a pair of slicks, new tires on the 18's and try and squeeze in the purchase of a set of track tires, heard thru the grapevine tho that the go kart track we utilize has quadrupled their cost of rental so I am unsure how many track days will happen now.

I need to build a track on my farm.

Have you considered pulling the front swaybar and running stiffer springs? In my last two FWD projects, a Daewoo Nubira and my current Hyundai, that did wonders for tire-wear. There's some pretty in depth theory on why this is, if you want to spend a couple hours reading.

I think it was more of a weight issue. The car weigh is at 3600lbs with a 67/33 split, but still puts about 2400lbs on the front tires, which would be fine in a rear wheel / all wheel configuration, but when you factor in that they handle all the steering inputs, all the power inputs and majority of the braking, I think it was to much for the tires and their limit was exceeded.

I can try out disconnecting the end links, but stiffer springs will be a lot harder to procure.

You are definitely asking a lot of the front tires, but the thing is that swaybars ask even more. You are effectively transferring energy that would be causing the chassis to roll and making it into weight transfer onto the already beleaguered outside front wheel. Bigger springs don't do this.

Is there a reason it's hard to get springs?

EBay sleeves and 800lb/in springs are the answer here

Its a coil over strut assembly, the Tie rod end attaches to the front arm on strut assembly, sway bar link to the rear arm / nub, and the whole assembly rotates around hence the upper strut mount / bearing, which also suffers from premature failure if the sides are swapped OR if not positioned 100% correctly on the spring, and the spindle attaches to the lower portion of the strut.

(view of the entire front suspension. Says 300M but all the same in the second gen LH's)

Its one of those fabulous moments of Chrysler engineering.

The car does sit on H&R drop springs on KYB GR-2 struts all around, and the front rides stiff now. The car 'feels' solid, and the rear never wanted to come around under hard cornering, just feel the car slipping to the outside, and could hear the tires protesting this.

When I get a chance I will photograph my tires condition, it may have just been too much to ask from them on a hot day being a 'Ultra High Performance Summer' tire and not an actual track tire

Hurray, my turbo shaft has arrived.

Next step is to pull apart the turbo and hope I remember how to put it all back together!!

What size turbo are you going with? T25/t28 seems little for your motor to me (3.5l right?)

I have always loved the look of the Intrepid. I have always thought a proper drivetrain was all it ever needed.

Maybe a Charger Hellcat set up in it?