So, here's a long overdue [and long] update
This was pretty much the starting point in September after we got accepted.
After working inside the car I realized it needed a cleaning, bad. I never really cleaned it over the course of 7 years.
Rob came over one Sunday and we got the crossmember and part of the rear suspension back in. Cleaned the diff off and started removing the old shot trailing arm bushings
After assessing what the car needed, I set out to sell some of the nice go fast goodies I had on the car before to reinvest in parts to make it more reliable and cost-efficient to run. I had enough money left over to do a little racing while waiting for parts. Drove a mini-stock that a friend lent out to me [the #88] for a handful of dirt track races in September
Won a main event my 3rd race out. Pretty cool considering it was in a car far less competitive typically than the Preludes and Integras.
Even drove in a LeMons race at the reconfigured Thunderhill track in an Opel. Aside from a blown clutch on Saturday and a wreck courtesy of an ass in an E36 it was fun!
All the racing got me motivated to work on the car more. I was it was tough since I was a little hampered still by knee and shoulder injuries from skateboarding accidents in August
Made a new dash layout. I sold Harribert an R-sport cluste a while back and he did not need it right away so he let me use it. Thanks dude, and thanks Roger for the restoration. Wonderful job
Rear end back in with a couple fresh studs [a few broke after the rear end took a fall off a workbench] and other bits from Kaplhenke. Also, scored a stock tank and complete LH fuel system setup from Justin [blu92in99]
I quit my job of 4 years in August to free up time to finish the car and enjoy myself. Still did a lot of sidework on cars for people, cooked at caterings, trimmed weed and drove this badass dump truck to get by.
Rob and Alden came over one weekend and we got the engine together
Engine and trans going in
A job well done
Started mocking everything up
I got it mostly together ready to fire up, but it did not want to run. I spent a few days chasing problems but it never started. I built the entire engine and chassis harness myself and I felt it had something to do with it. At this point it was 1 week from the race, the car did not run, a laundry list of other items needed to be done and drastic action had to be taken.
I said screw it, and ended up switching the fancy harness I made that did not work with a factory LH 2.2 240 harness, and instead of EZK went with breakerless ignition from a 240 Turbo at the advice of Erik [Cosbysweater].
Stayed late that night getting the new harness in and sure enough it fired first try. My friend came over the next day and helped me fab up a downpipe and flex section for the exhaust.
I worked on a multitude of other items that weekend to make the car hopefully be able to drive. Rob came over that Sunday, we got it running pretty solid, got the brakes bled and it drove on it's own power for the first time in 8 years. I needed it to be able to drive onto a trailer the next day to go to Evil Genius Racing for some new door bars on the cage.
One small problem though - California finally got rain. Lots of it. And unfortunately, my shop was out in the middle of a field so the area around it turned into a mud bog. I was not going to drive it in the dirt. So I ended up putting the car on my gojacks in a small patch of concrete in front of the door and tried backing up the trailer. Well, sure enough my truck struggles with the mud in 2WD [it's a dually] so I unhooked the trailer and we hooked my landlords 4x4 Chevy up. Well, she gets her truck and the trailer stuck much worse. It ended up being a giant fiasco, but I got her out with my dually courtesy of a long rope, than I had to physically lift the trailer and rotate it 180 degrees, dragged that out with my dually too and we ended up using a bunch of stacked plywood to back my truck and the trailer up to the car and finally got it loaded. I was supposed to be at John's shop at noon, but ended up there at 530. He stayed late and finished it.
That night it started to absolutely pour and it continued all week. We were 3 days away from the race. There was no way of taking the car back to my shop to finish it because of the mud making it such a pain to load and unload [before I had rented a open trailer to tow it to Sacramento but for the race we were using my friend's enclosed.] Thankfully my parents lent me their garage. Ben came into town and we worked and worked on the car for 3 days straight just about and we got it done and went racing. No theme though.
Here's the thread from that race
http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=303671
I'll post updates from here on out in this thread. We are running Sears Pointless next month and I am in the midst of getting the car all ready for that.