Project Shell Game (Also moved over from Merkursport)

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This is the story of taking 3 plus XR4ti's to make 2 nice ones.

It started with a '85 that I traded my tricked out '87 Yamaha Banshee for. It also includes the '86 that I picked up from Topher. I had sold the '85 to my buddy Mike for his son but it ended up being Mike's toy. I then was able to pick up a rust free shell from Blugg along with a parts car shell.

Here's the '85 when we drove it home from Ann Arbor, Mi with no exhaust. The motor also made some lower end noises. The motor was swapped out and picked up a Rapido intercooler.

My buddy Graham got to listen to motor sing all the way home. Oh, did I mention the radio didn't work either?



Turned out that the rockers like on most Midwest XR's were rusted beyond repair.

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Here's the '86 that I picked up from Topher. This car had it's own issues. The wife and I traveled down to St. Louis to get it. It was a good thing we trailered it home. The driveshaft only had 3 bolts holding it in and they were finger tight. Some of the things I did to it was swap in a T5 trans, new dash, carpet was dyed, Cossie 2wd intercooler and Cossie exhaust housing. I also gutted the interior and cleaned it all up.

Here's a shot of us doing something to it. Possibly the trans swap.

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We stripped the '85 so the drivetrain and suspension could be installed into the blue '86. The drivetrain and suspension from the '86 will go into the '87 that I got from Blugg.

Here's the '85 leaving for the scrap yard. Here I'm guiding the front of it while we load it on the trailer



Here's a shot of us removing the engine from the blue one. Thatr's Mike wondering what time we're getting dinner.



Here's a pic of the blue one with the motor from the red '85. It also got a set of Cossie headlights from the UK that Mike stole off Ebay for like $50 for the pair.

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Last Thursday the blue one went home to Mike's house. It's not totally finished but it's perfectly drivable. He bought a new gillis MBC for it and he's borrowing my plug wires to see if they clear up a misfire under boost the engine has. We tried a bunch of other items while it was in the red car such as coil, PIP, & TFI.

Well, the '87 came home after being painted Jaguar Emerald Fire green. It also had Cossie arches and a Jetta bumper installed.



To start the build process, we swapped out the rear suspension out with one equipped with poly bushings, Koni's, BAT sport springs, MC2 diff mount and a LSD.

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We worked on it a bit last Thursday. Got the wiring harness partially installed along with the rear brakes.

It was, um, interesting trying to get this mess of wires back into that 4" x 4" hole. This is the harness drying after I took it to the car wash to clean it.



Here's an Englishman working on a English car's brakes. He kept muttering something about hating drum brakes. We got it all squared away in the end.



Here's a shot of the engine compartment.

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Spent some time out in the ol garage last night with some buddies. Got the insulation installed since I forgot to put it in before we ran the wiring. My buddy Mike was cussing a little bit try to fish the console wires up the A pillar and across the roof.

Also got the gas door and filler assembly installed.

Will post pics up in a bit. Family arrived last night for the week end so it was a easy night.

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OK, here are some pics from over the weekend. In between trips to the home store for bags of dirt, mulch, and lumber for the Missus and her brother to make planter boxes for her, I was able to clean & paint the dashboard and also install some minty fresh hardware from Mister Blugg.

Freshly painted dashboard


Minty fresh hardware.


More minty fresh hardware

New hatch struts and hardware.

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Got some work done on the car over the last week or so. Did some more cleaning and painting of bits such as the brake booster and the pedal box.









Also ordered up 100 sq ft of this stuff.

http://www.b-quiet.com/extreme.html

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Got a little bit done to the car toniight. The wife is making a car cover for it so we had to do a test fitting.



Needs a little work on the back end. Actually she's going to make it more of a fitted cover to keep dust of it while it's in the garage.



We got the head removed to it can go off to be ported and such.



Looks like cylinder 3 is running a richer than the others or maybe the rest are running a bit lean?

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Well, I took a drive up to Bluggs today for a visit. Had to bring along my big trailer since I was dropping off a bunch of interior parts AND was picking up a nice tan interior for my car.

The head will be dropped off on Tuesday for tweaking and the 2 sets of injectors are being sent out to get one good set. Being sent out to http://cruzinperformance.com/ since he's got some good reviews on TF AND approved by Blugg himself!

Will post some pics of the interior bits later.

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Got some more done last night. The brake line that goes from the front to the back was rerouted correctly and connected up. The parking brake cable was installed and adjusted. Also started getting the sound deadening installed.

We also swapped out the seats in Mike's car. He snapped up the Mustang seats that were in the car before I sold it to him. I'll be going with the tan interior that I got from Blugg.

The cylinder head was also sent out to be decked, ported and a valve job done to it. I checked the flatness of it and the spec is .003" and I was measuring over .005" so that's got to be fixed. The head gasket set, head bolt set, and turbo gaskets came in also. Waiting for the dowel pins and stainless brake lines to come in. I got a front set from Mike for the PBR calipers and ordered up a set from Pegasus Racing.

Here's some of the updated pics.

Before the sound deadening installed.



Not completed totally but getting there.





This is getting to be the normal scene on Thursday nights around my house. Back when we were road racing motorcycles, we would prep the bikes on Thursday nights so it just kinda flowed onto working on the cars.



Some more work has been done in the engine compartment.

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Well, we did get some work done on both cars actually. Mike stopped over and wired in the Euro headlight connectors. While he was doing that, his son Sean and I adjusted the rear brakes on the blue car. Also tweaked the hood stops so the hood lines up better with the fenders.

Also started on Walbro install but didn't get too far since we all had to go help a buddy drop the motor out of his Altima SER to fix the timing chain guides and tensioner.

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Oh, I also forgot that my injectors are on their way back. Not a big surprise one was shot, wouldn't shut off. So I sent in 8 total injectors, the 4 from the engine and 4 from the original engine from my red XR.

I'm getting 4 cleaned and tested injectors back, 1 bad one and 3 still untouched.

Also the front and rear stainless brake lines have arrived.

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The injectors came back and they look pretty good. Hopefully they work as well as they look.

I was able to install the rear stainless steel brake lines and got the Walbro mounted in the fuel tank. Also removed the resister wire and replaced it with a regular wire. Then taped the whole loom back together. Mike stopped over so I would have a guide for taping it all up.

Tried to get the fuel tank installed but wasn't able to connect the fuel lines. Looking for the insert for the snap connector. On 2 sets of plastic hoses, both were missing the internal snap connector.

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Got some more done to the car. Got the gas tank installed and all the fuel lines clipped right into the holders underneath the car. Was kinda surprised to still fine them there.



Did some electrical stuff also, Mike got the headlights wired in and I got the front turn signal and side marker lights wired in. Well, one of the turn signals got wired in. The salvage yard cut the wires flush to the connector so I need to see if NAPA or someone has them available.

Was told it'll be another couple of weeks till the cylinder head is done. I've also removed the oil pan with it's four different types of bolts holding it on. GRRRRR. The oil pan rails were missing also so I'll have to source up a set of them and all matching bolts.