Well, maybe I lied. I just wanted to finally be able to document all the work I've done.

No panties will be harmed in the making of this build thread. Maybe.

I started back in 2004 when my Dad bought this '88 convertible. It was in such great shape, but unfortunately we learned shortly after buying it that it had low compression.





I'm sure everyone's going to really dig these sheepskin seat covers











^ So those were all taken the day I got it.

Disaster struck shortly afterwards, as the engine finally popped on me. I only got to drive the car for about 2500 miles from the time I got it before I completely blew the rear rotor. It wasn't even while driving or hot-******* it. I started it up in the parking lot at work and it died instantly.

So, fast forward a few months.... without pictures (I'm upset with myself for that BTW) .... and I've rebuilt the engine.

And here it is all put back together.





Amazing so far... I know.

 

The day it started:

I'm watching the gauges, my wife's just happy it's movable again



OK. So now that's out of the way, I can start modifying it now!

I wanted to install an electric fan. I had no reason for it other than I thought it would free up power (nope) and it makes working on the engine so much easier (yup).





Installing this led me down the path of having to figure out why (almost) every time I pushed the brake lights the radio kicked off. Turns out that if the fan was on, radio on (aftermarket blaupunkt), and the brake lights came on, it would drop a relay in the radio. It turns out that the relay was dropping out because of an undervoltage condition. The S4 alternator wasn't up to speed, so I swapped in an FD alternator. Problem solved, no pictures

Fast forward a few years, nothing else much happened between that time. I painted some parts, prettied the engine up some, made a stupid "cold air" intake, removed the air pump (dumb...), got rear-ended at a red light and broke my exhaust... you know the usual stuff. The broken exhaust led to another bad decision: Monza Pacesetter exhaust.

So here it is right before I really started getting in to it.

 

Sheepskin seat covers! My *** is MOIST!

 

So then a rich guy up in SC was putting an LS1 in his 87 TII. He had an ad on craigslist for the transmission for $150. I called him about it because my NA transmission was whining again, after rebuilding it once already. NA trannies are pieces of ****.

So upon asking if he had the flywheel, clutch, slave cylinder, starter, and driveshaft, he asked why I didn't just buy the whole swap. "Well", I told the guy, "I didn't know you were selling the whole swap; you only listed it as a TII transmission".

"Oh yeah, everything from the radiator to the driveshaft is for sale, I'm swapping in an LS1 and the only thing I'm keeping is the rear end".

"Ok... how much?"

"$400"

"I'll be at your house in 30 minutes with a truck".

So I showed up with a pickup truck, a freshly charged battery, a set of jumper cables, a check book, and a compression gauge and checked the compression with the engine sitting on a wooden pallet.

After checking everything out I took it home and immediately started the swap.

















Goodbye old NA engine/trans. Sold to a guy in PA for $400 + Shipping. Never found out if he got it or not. He kind of dropped off the face of the earth after paying for it. Weird.

 

I had some cockamamie plan to make my own intake. Everything seemed like it would line up just so well (see 2 pictures up). That was until I realized I either had to buy a TII hood (didn't want to... I wanted to maintain it as a sleeper), or put a front mount on it. So the front mount piping interfered with the turbo inlet piping, so I had to do a sort of "short ram".

These are pics of the intake I was trying to make, but ended up not using.





So here it is getting a little prettied up. Also in progress of extending the wiring harness. I used the 88 vert ECU and wiring harness.



Finally got a legitimate FD->FC dual belt pulley. Knightsports



Getting there....



So here's why the Monza Pacesetter exhaust sucks. I unfortunately didn't take pictures of it (it happens a lot with me for some reason). The y-pipe was super restrictive. Right where it came together they had welded the 2 pieces together, then chopped it off and welded the single 2.25" pipe to the front. The only problem was that where it was chopped off, it wasn't 2.25". It was more like 1.5". So if you had looked in the y-pipe from the front, you would have seen a tiny little hole where the pipe split off. Garbage.

Here I am modifying the y-pipe. I bought a 3" downpipe, and it wouldn't connect to the Monza crap. I think I did better than they ever could

 

Yep. This isn't going to work now. Intercooler piping in the way, can't shove the AFM and filter in that spot.



Universal FMIC kit from Ebay. CXRacing I think.

Getting all mocked up:







Hey it fits behind the bumper! Oh... I can see it. Booooo



I see a silver intercooler and I want to paint it black



Relocated battery. I still don't use a battery box, but I did eventually get an Optima. Let that be a lesson: DON'T use a flooded battery inside the car. It has to vent off H2 and O2 which can be either flammable or explosive... freakin dangerous is what it is.



Universal intercooler... therefore I had to make stuff work. So I bought a HF bead roller



Here's the ghetto short ram intake with the AFM. Eeewwwww

 

While waiting on one last part I got bored and made an aluminum front air dam. It looked pretty good... while it lasted. The first time I drove the car to work I quickly removed it on a parking curb. Doh.







And of course, the obligatory smoke from the tailpipes picture after getting it running:



Here's the final driver's side intercooler piping. I still kept the power steering and air conditioning I thought the silver wire loom would look good. Yuck.



Then I got a powdercoating gun from Harbor Freight!



I used a little toaster oven at first. I eventually moved up to a regular kitchen oven that some lady didn't want anymore.



So I had to start somewhere







Purty.

 

I also did the turbo compressor housing:







I didn't like the intake manifold... so I powdercoated it too.





So that's the end.

 

.

 

Naaah. It's never over, is it?

I needed MORE. It had power, but I craved MOAR!!!!

So I bought a T04B hybrid turbo!!

It wasn't indexed right to bolt right up, so I loosened the exhaust housing a little and went to turn it. This is the result:





It literally crumbled when I turned it.

So I rebuilt it with a new CHRA, had it balanced by a local diesel shop. Long story short, they messed up balancing the turbo 3 times. I guess I'm fully retarded for letting them do that 3 times, but you live and learn I guess. That turbo literally ate 3 compressors because of them.









That was the last one that was eaten, and I had enough. I bought a stock turbo to install until I could afford to go hybrid again. The last turbo explosion only had 2 survivors. The compressor cover and the turbine housing. Everything else went down in a fiery blaze.

While I was building turbo after turbo, I decided I had enough of the stock ECU's shenanigans. I bought and built a megasquirt II v 3!!!

So once again, everything came off.



And I bought this radiator, because I didn't like how the front mount was blocking too much airflow to the stock radiator. I figured this aluminum Godspeed radiator could handle a little less airflow, but still cool the engine better than the stocker.

Unfortunately, one little issue left me with a radiator that didn't fit. The lower hose connection for the heater hose interfered with the sway bar. So I couldn't bolt it up in the stock location. I tried returning it, but being in the military I bought the radiator, got deployed for a few months, went past the 90 day return policy, and got stuck with the damn thing. I found that most ebay sellers are really cool, but some are straight up buttholes.

So I did what I always do when life gives me lemons. I squeeze the **** out of them in someone's eye and make myself feel better. I v-mounted that bitch.

While installing a megasquirt.

While building another turbo.



Hey! It fits right here!



Oh, and I still kept the AC.



Got a little carried away with the powder coating, and asked my wife what color the pulleys should be.

Here's the mock-up:

 

Oil cooler relocated:



All mocked up!!



Building the ECU:





And I had to do something about the fact that it was v-mounted, right? It needs airflow out the top, so I bought an EVO VIII hood vent. I'm already not a fan of it at this point, but I thought it would have done the job.



Here it is, all megasquirt'd, all put together, awaiting another turbo. This was right after the 3rd blowup, so I'm waiting on a stock turbo here.



I did a little interior work. Door panels re-covered in black vinyl (need to re-glue the bottom part again). I also stitched together an e-brake boot in the same vinyl.



Did a little duct work. I used plexiglass to mock it up for now, it's cheap and easily cut. I'll make it pretty another day with some fiberglass or something.



Made myself a belt tensioner as well. I hate not having a tensioner for the alternator.

 

I picked up some TII seats that were reupholstered on the cheap Not worried about the headrest speakers, they didn't work anyways. I still have the convertible seats that I'll recover one of these days. For now, these look gooooood



I also picked up a black S5 windblocker for free. My grey one was fine, but I'm working (slowly) on converting the interior to black. It had a great big hole in it, so I covered the hole with an amplifier and 6x9s.



I also got an ALUMINUM hood finally. I had one when I first got the car, then a week later I got in a wreck and could only get a steel hood locally.



Unfortunately, the air didn't flow through the intercooler like I thought it would. It didn't flow less though, because you can't get less than zero airflow. Turns out, the hood is sloped. The EVO VIII vent dead-ended any airflow from underneath with all the air trying to go in through the top of the vent. So, sadly I decided to cut this new hood up too. I fabricated a hood vent from aluminum this time. It works. Not pretty, but it works. I'll make it pretty (or completely replace it with a fiberglass vent) later.







That wreck where I broke the exhaust? I also had to replace the bumper. Only thing I found was an S5 bumper, but at the time didn't know the difference. I thought it looked funny on there until I finally figured it out. So I kept it all S4 with an S5 rear bumper until I came across a set of cheap S5 coupe tails. $25! So I decided to install them and really liked the way it turned out, so I'm now going to go down the path of converting the rest of the car to S5. It looks a little goofy right now as an S4 with S5 rear bumper and tails, but that should change soon.





I also replaced the trunk strut. Yes, strut. One. The other one came off because I used the bracket for the hood strut.

 

You, sir, have a highly refined sense of humor. Thanks for posting. I enjoyed it.

 

what kind of short shifter is that?

 

Here's where I get downright serious.

I got sick of the nearly 200k mile completely stock suspension.

Tanabe GF210 springs
Prothane suspension bushings
Stagg (we'll see how they work out?) struts





Off comes the suspension:



The front was easy. The back wasn't as fun as I thought it'd be.



I could NOT get that passenger's side cv axle out.

So it stayed



While I was waiting on the struts to arrive, I pulled the turbo again:



I sent the turbo off to Evergreen Turbo in Ocala, FL. Charlie at Evergreen is the best. Nicest guy ever, and he does a great job at a hell of a price. I highly recommend his services

 

I got one picture of the disassembled turbo before getting too excited to take photos. Next thing I know, it's installed.





There she is, all installed. The final T04B hybrid

I got the suspension all bolted up back together too! It rides so nice and smooth.



And a lot lower too. The GF210 springs are supposed to lower a coupe 1.5". I'm not sure how much lower it drops the convertible, but I like it!

Except I'm not one for the "stanced" look... or whatever it's called. It tears the tires up, so I needed to be able to properly align the car. I drive it on the street people. As clokker says, "because streetcar".

Therefore, I made my own adjustable camber bar.



I took out 20mm so far, I probably need another 20 or so out. I just want the camber close before taking it to get aligned. I really don't like trusting people to work on my car

After all that was done, I took it out for a spin. Let's just say that I was disappointed. I had an S5 exhaust manifold and turbine housing, but it leaked. I needed it machined, so I took it to a machine shop to get the flanges cut. They called me back and doubled the original quote, so I told them to go to hell. So I had an S4 turbine housing and manifold sitting on the shelf that I used. I'm scared of the S4 wastegate, so I ported the **** out of it. I guess I ported it better than I did the S5 wastegate, because it would go up to 5 psi and hold. Not a single psi of spike, creep, nothing. For whatever reason before with the S5 housing, it would build to 10 psi and have a spike every once in a while to 12 or so.

So anyways, 5 psi wasn't going to cut it, so I ordered a quick fix:



Circuit Se7en manual boost controller. Seems like it's pretty decent quality too. At least it's not made from hardware store parts

I dialed the boost up to 15 psi, and I feel like I'm driving around in a rocketship now!!! I'm still ok for now, as I'm pulling 11.00 AFR at 7k rpm at 15 psi. I may be maxing the injectors out for that, so it's something to look into (550 primaries/720 secondaries).

 

You know it

Thanks!

The stock shifter. It's 2 pieces held together with rubber. I just dug out the rubber and welded a bolt to the top of what little stub was left. I also bought a 2" mild steel ball from ebay, drilled and tapped threads in it, then powdercoated it white. It weighs a good bit, so shifts are nice and easy, even with the shortness.

 

How do you like the powdercoat gun from harbor freight? I am tempted to get one and try it myself if I can find an oven. If not It's gonna run be $100 or more to have a friend do it for me.

 

Where's the S4 twin scroll!?

 

It works great actually, and the whole thing costs less than $100 to do as many jobs as you want. $60 for the gun, and I paid $10 for the full-size kitchen oven. Powder comes cheap from harbor freight as well, or you can get fancy and get it from eastwood or other suppliers.

Well, funny you should mention that. The only S4 manifold with the twin scroll flapper that I had, I sold right before taking the S5 manifold to the con-artist machine shop. So all I had left was one that I got for free, that someone had removed the twin scroll flapper and welded the hole shut.

Also, you bought the only twin scroll actuator that I had about a year ago.

I ported the little runner on the turbine housing to match the same size as the larger runner. Boost comes in hard a little over 3k, so it's not that big of a deal. I just really wish I had it though. I could easily make the Megasquirt operate it with no problems.

 

I just realized after I posted that... "I think I bought that from him for 20 bucks"

 

A very entertaining journey, sir.

It's always interesting to see the evolution of a car as the owner begins to imprint on it.
Choices made and later regretted, hardware purchased and then discarded, concepts spun into metal and summarily rejected...all part of the process.

Even the mental deterioration made manifest in the My Little Pony pulley set is pretty common.

 

interesting and entertaining journey thus far. i, too, get a kick out of your understated humor.

i can't wait to see the rest of the photos though. for some reason, not all of them all loading on my end. i think it's my computer's time of the month.

 

That was the last bit of what's been done to my car. I finished it right before Christmas... then ran out of money again

I think I may be fabricating this hood vent in the near future:



I just need to source some thicker aluminum sheet. The 22ga aluminum you get from Lowe's racing isn't strong enough.

 

Excellent build, how are you liking megasquirt? Any silliness you encountered getting it to work with the 13b? I like the looks with the tanabe's too, I'm looking to go with those eventually (whenever some more $$ walks into my wallet) as my springs (with 220k miles) are worn to a point where the whole car sags to the passenger side, haha