Austarion

Well, i bought this 87 tsi out of a junkyard out in bumfart nowhere for 150 bucks, was pretty ugly looking, but the biody was straight. Since I:m doing the 1jz thing with my 86, I got to thinking, I might as well throw the old engine out of my 86 into it, then we got thinking, well hell, that flat black subaru looked pretty good in an older issue of SCM, so I went to the local paint place and ordered a gallon of flat black and hardener, 48 bucks later I had some nice ppg flat black and hardener.

We pulled the shortblock out of the 87 junker, which was actually in good condition other than the rust on the deck, pulled my 86 engine out and cleaned it up. I sent my marnal to the machine shop for the hell of it and had it planed so I had a nice flat surface for the ajusa I was going to toss in. I secured one of alans 272 cams, and started tearing the car apart. After a bunch of work cleaning the engine up and painting it, polishing the valve cover, getting the head back, etc.... we dropped it into the car, it looked pretty damn good.

Today I finished sanding, and made my first half assed attempt at doing a quick paint job in a dirty garage. I ended up having some problems with the air coupler not feeding air right, it would flucuate, so that made it kind of hard, that and the low light/small area to work with gave me a few screw ups. Had some runs here and there, but i figure I can always sand them down later and fix it. The car was looking pretty good by the time I finished. Arnold and I headed off tot he drags, so I didnt get to see what the thing actually looked like dry, but he gave me a call and said its looking pretty damn awesome. He mentioned some crap had settled onto the paint, which I expected since we didnt have a very clean area to paint in. I:ll be picking the car up tomorrow, and finishing the wheels and engine, and hopefully I will get some pics up of it.

I've put about 40 hours with some extra help, into pulling 2 engines, and reinstalling/assembling one, painting the car, and getting all the missing electronic componets put back together. Considering I am into this car for only 300 bucks, and should have it driving tomorrow, I think it is a successful project, that looks a hell of a lot better than when i bought it, and hopefully it should be running low 14s next weekend.

The only thing that sucks is I dont have enough money to even transfer the title whihc is clean, ro get it licensed.

This is what the car looked like when I bought it, minus some dents in the panel between the hood and the windshield.



After

Getting rid of this butt ugly maroon velour was one of my top priorities, so i got to it today. Removed the seats, dash, carpet, rear stuff etc.. I haven't done the doors yet, I will probably get to that tomorrow. If I keep this car I will probably just mainly race it at the strip, track, and drift, so I thought about leaving the interior out completely. After looking at how ugly it is without a dash, I decided to put my black interior in it. Just puting the black dash in really helps.

My plans for tomorrow are to put black carpet in, black door panel seatbelt, etc. I will just be rolling with one seat for now. Unfortunately, i have no black leather seats, but I do have some maroon leathers in good condition, so that will have to do for now, nuless I pull a seat out of my 86 for a while.

shit you blokes are spoilt in the usa , good work airbats

Its doing alright, went to start it yesterday, found out, someone cut the distributor plug off from the engine harness. The starter also isnt clicking over. Still some electrical problems to work out.

maybe i spoke too soon

well, between my friend and I we have 2 cars each, im sure we can find something. They just got an 87 black on black tsi at the local aprts yard, we tried to save it, but they wouldnt sell it to us. Bummer.

Well, i got all the parts needed and managed to get the thing started. I:m running a custom ground 272 cam from a buddy of mine, and I seem to be off a tooth ot so. The car is a bit loud without the downpipe :)

Dude your streering wheel's on the wrong side.

When you get that .272 cam going right, let us know how it goes :)

What steering wheel? :P

you guys just drive on the wrong side of the road ;)

If I get the car running right tomorrow I will try and get a report back on the cam. If the drag strip is open this weekend I will take the car down it and see how it feels. I dont have many mods, so it shouldnt make ahuge difference, but maybe a few tenths.

Fingers crossed

Well, got to take the car for a good flogging today. Since I havent changed the title over and got tabs for her yet, I decided to take it up to the good ol logging roads. Besides, I can do all the crazy stuff I want and no tickets up there. I didnt get a chance to test the car out on pavement, but she felt damn good on the gravel.

I discovered my right front brake caliper is unhooked, I obviously screwed somethign up when I did the abs removal. So braking with only the left front and rear brakes made for some spectacular sideways skids :).

I only ran stock boost, a 1g MAS and an 89 ecu. I was very happy with the 272 cam I have in the car. I didn't play with the timing at all, but once you got on boost, this car was a rocket, especially for stock boost. I could spin the tires in the first 3 gears going up hill down ihll etc... I didn't have my tacometer installed so I couldnt tell you what I was revving to, but I was revving the piss out of her. I'd say 6500 or so. I wanted to make sure she wasnt going to break before I take her to the drag strip.

I did discover a bad oil leak coming from the oil filter housing area, I'll have to look into that tomorrow. I also need a thermostat, she would get pretty hot with the constant 6k revs and power slides. I tihnk it gives me a pretty good idea on what I will be facing if I try drifting it. I definately need a radiator upgrade. It's too bad I didnt have a cameraman, I had some awesome power slides going on :)

that last pic looks good with the stormy back ground. you need to rally it more often and smother it in rally decals. :D

Yeah, I love doing rally, not sure if I could find a co driver though lol.

I:d need to get an scca approved cage in before I decided to try it.