When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
2nd gear doesn't engage, but other than that it is pretty sound mechanically. After driving it some, I decided the car was too nice to part out which means I need another one for that purpose.
Here is a pic on the dolly bringing this baby home from the New Orleans area.
Just picked up in New Orleans
It had a pretty good dent on the other rear quarter panel, but I guess I never snapped a photo. Some rust on the passenger door, a few dents in various places. The front lower control arm bushings were shot. Back seats were trash, as were the driver door armrest and middle armrest. PO had already done the LS400 brakes.
Here is a rundown on some of the mechanical/electrical work to date:
Replaced all of the front bushings with a set of prothanes I had bought as a package deal for the chumpcar which only needed the rears at the time
Installed KYB shocks to replace the worn out ones
Replaced the rear seats with the ones I stripped out of the chumpcar
Had the instrument cluster and HVAC unit serviced by Tanin Auto.
Installed the stereo from the chumpcar, which turned out to not have all the speaker channels working so it is just occupying space right now.
Alignment was off even before all the bushing work, at alignment shop discovered tie rod end bad, so had that replaced.
So other than the problem with the W58 2nd gear, that got the car mechanically sound to use as a daily driver. However the paint was still an issue. I have a friend with a body shop, asked him to repaint the car. This garnet pearl paint as fate would have it is the most expensive paint to purchase apparently. Paint material alone was $800. Here are a couple of pics of the final product. I'll snap a few more when the sun comes out and I get a chance to clean it. While he was doing the paint, I asked him to prep and paint and install the rear spoiler which previous owner had thrown in.
Fresh paint!
That's about it for now, one of these days I'll get around to pulling the shifter out of the top and make sure it isn't simply a bushing, etc preventing 2nd gear from staying in.
Yes, this one will be strictly a street car and parts back up at races
Originally Posted by KahnBB6
It looks very good! Nice progress so far. Are you planning to keep it as a street car?
just for the occasional odd part that might fail. Example, I lost the pins out of the LS400 brake pads at the last race and did not have a spare set, so it would have been nice to have the car there just to rob those to finish the race. Was able to make something work in that case, but stuff like that.
I need some interior pieces to spiffy up the interior, need the driver seat recovered eventually, fix the a/c before it gets hot, among other small items.
I haven't updated this in a while. I haven't done much to this car other than swap the dash from my parts car, replaced the timing belt, replaced the a/c compressor, a few other odds and ends. I put a set of the chumpcar wheels on it just to see how it would look. I like the dark wheels.
Update on this car. Finally decided to pull the trans and attempt to fix 2nd gear. When I pulled the W58 apart I found the reason it wouldn't shift in to 2nd gear was due to the shifting fork being worn severely. I can't figure how that happens unless the previous owner just rode with his hand on the shifter pulling down while in 2nd in traffic? Also, the boot over the shifter was busted and all manner of dirt and crap was in the trans, sure that didn't help. Most of the gears had quite a bit of wear, but probably could have stood that. I had some syncros left over from a previous W58 rebuild for the race car, so I decided to pull a few gears and replace this syncro. Bad idea, broke teeth on the main counter gear and that is really really bad. Replacement has to be in a set and that shaft is around $350 alone. So, decided to just fry to find a used trans. Found one on car-part.com and had it shipped. I'll get back to the one out of the car some other day and put it back together. Put it in the car, trans works just fine now, great to have this car with all 5 gears finally.
Then I ran in to another problem, car wouldn't rev at the high end of rpms, like it was starving for fuel. Found the pump strainer was bad and had sucked in to the pump. Replaced the strainer, problem solved.
So this weekend I put the Tein Street Basis coilovers that I had to pull off the race car last year on to this car. Car feels pretty good on these "new" coilovers. They were hardly used on the race car, I think we only used them 2 or 3 races, so they are in like new condition. I am going to put a track alignment on it next week and try it out the following weekend where I am instructing at an HPDE.
So this weekend I put the Tein Street Basis coilovers that I had to pull off the race car last year on to this car. Car feels pretty good on these "new" coilovers. They were hardly used on the race car, I think we only used them 2 or 3 races, so they are in like new condition. I am going to put a track alignment on it next week and try it out the following weekend where I am instructing at an HPDE.
Have you shared your alignment specs before? Curious to know what you run.
Have you shared your alignment specs before? Curious to know what you run.
For the race car, we usually run a little more camber (about 0.5 degree more) on the "outside" wheels depending on whether the track is predominantly clockwise or counterclockwise (road courses turn both ways obviously but most turns will be one or the other). We usually run about 3.7/3.2 degrees on the front and about 0.5 less in the rear or 3.2/2.7. Caster usually works out to be less than 2 degrees. We try to run a little under 0.1 inches of total toe out in the front and about 0.2 inches total toe in for the rear wheels. We have found these settings to be pretty good for track driving and makes the car predictable and tire wear is fairly even.
For this car, I'll set it up with not quite so much camber since it is a street car, plus I have not slotted the sub frame to get that much camber anyway. You end up limited to about 2 degrees or maybe a little more depending on how much you lower it. I probably won't run quite as much toe out in the front just to make street driving tire wear a little better, same for rear probably set it up closer to factory specs.
Edit: You can't get the higher camber settings we run in the front on the race car even with the subframe slotting without either slamming the car, which won't work for a race car, or using offset upper control arm bushings. Hard to find them, but still around if you are patient and look for them.
I ordered the headlights that OG sells for the car. They look pretty good in the car. I can’t adjust the projectors low enough to get them to shine at the angle they should but they are close.
Small update on this car. First, I scored a set of 18” Lexus wheels from a local buddy who had unfortunately wrecked his car. His loss was my gain.
I finally got around to replacing the bad driver side door card and window trim that I had gotten a while back from somewhere.
Two items left to finish this car out is the upper rear seat has two tears (where they always are on these seats) and I would like to find a working complete factory radio. I have three of these out of various cars but none of them work 100% or they don’t fit this 93 harness connections. I really want to keep this car 100% stock so would like to stay with factory radio.
Some other pics:
Almost forgot, installed 1" spacers to bring these wheels out even with the fenders. I have done that on both street cars, to me the look is much better with the wheels flush with the fenders.
02-14-16, 11:13 AM
1993 Garnet Pearl (3K3) manual trans saved from parting out build
