Hoffman5982's Super Awesome Driveway Swap- Finally Running

[Razi]

$550. I'm picking her up tomorrow!

Daaaamn

[Hoffman5982]

Good damn or bad?

[Razi]

Good!
Car looks really clean.

[krash]

you practically stole it haha

[TimTurboZ]

keep that vinyl on the side haha

That is too awesome to get rid of.

Completely Agree with above statements

[jsturges18]

nice! excited to see what you do the s13 since i love your s14 so much

[Hoffman5982]

Well I got her home tonight! I'm super psyched about this thing. There is one small ding that I can see on the entire car. With the exception of the drivers seat bolster, the interior is mint. No cracks on the dash, and the carpet looks new. All but the front passenger side floor mat is there as well, and they all look clean. The trunk carpet and trim is all present and unstained. The trunk does have a leak somewhere, most likely the tail light seal.

Unfortunately my camera is horrible at taking night shots, so I only got one good one, and the other is a cell pic. I'll take plenty of pics tomorrow if I'm at home at any point during day light.

[Hoffman5982]

Alright guys, I got some more pics.




Now this is the battery tray. Not sure how I'm going to go about this. I'm trying to find one in a scrap yard that I can cut the section from and weld it in. I'd rather not go tubs or anything crazy.


Other than that, engine bay is great, just dirty.






I really need to find the leak in the trunk. I pulled the carpet up and the spare tire well had standing water. On top of that, the factory tools were in it and of course developed surface rust. It was like digging through the titanic. I drained the water and luckily on some surface rust had developed. The tools all wiped clean. The factory wheel chalks were in there as well which is pretty cool. I'm off Monday so I'm going to push the car out and have someone spray a hose around the rear while I'm in the backseat looking into the trunk to find the leak. Sometime this week I need to pull the transmission and the rest of the single cam crap out and pressure wash the bay.

I may not be going dual cam. A friend is hooking me up with a redtop motorset for super cheap(like less than I paid for the car). It's in pieces so I will have to put it together if I wanna use it, but at the very least I could part it out and double or triple my money quick.

[Razi]

The graphics on the side are pretty rad.
With the cheap redtop, sound like that car is turning out to be an amazing deal.

[Hoffman5982]

They're definitely staying for a while. if I could have the clear on the roof and hood fixed I'd be psyched.

And yeah, if I decide to keep the redtop I would only need a few things like bearings and gaskets. He has some Eagle rods as well that I might try to get. But if I go that route I could probably get away with having 1200 in the car and motor, which I don't think is too shabby.

[SX APPEAL]

Now Hoffman, what have we learned about going cheap on SR's in the past...

lol couldn't resist, but for real be careful. None of us want to see you go down the long painful path that was your first SR experience all over again.

[Hoffman5982]

Lol that's why I'm considering parting it out

[Hoffman5982]

I've really been neglecting my s14 lately. I popped the hood for the first time in a while and was disgusted with how dirt the bay had gotten. Today I decided to give her a wash. This past week I also got around to polishing the intercooler piping and radiator. I could probably go back and get it a little nicer, but as is it looks worlds better than before.





I have a few goodies on the way, but with Christmas I haven't been able to do much with either car. The s13 is in the driveway right now. I've fixed the trunk leak and put my s14 seats in. Other than that I've just stripped the bay and started wire wheeling the trunk to get the few rust bubbles that have formed. I should be picking that motorset up this weekend!

[mechanicalmoron]

Why did you say that s13 would be a "beater"? that looks really clean, and the side graphics are really pretty neat. Might I humbly suggest giving it the same over-restoration type of attention you've given your s14?

....You know there's something classic and sexy about s13's that s14's don't have....

[Hoffman5982]

I really need to find a more appropriate word for it.

When I say beater, I mean a secondary car that I can drive to keep wear and tear down on my nice car. I'm not going to trash it. For all I know, it could turn into a full on build, but for now I just plan on getting it running so I have a back up car.

[allenms240]

Now Hoffman, what have we learned about going cheap on SR's in the past...

lol couldn't resist, but for real be careful. None of us want to see you go down the long painful path that was your first SR experience all over again.

This, it seems like alot of things were neglected with the SR when it was swapped in. Hopefully this KA will go much, much smoother than before.

[Hoffman5982]

Neglected? Care to explain?

Do you even know what you are talking about?

[mechanicalmoron]

I thought the problem was that he didn't neglect it?

And I thought it turned out as a really clean, good looking car, with a good motor, thanks to his mucking around and tearing it down when he got it, even if it was slow and painful.

Maybe I was napping, though.

[fiznowler]

Man your car has came together! And that is a killer buy on the coupe. I LOVE the decals

[Hoffman5982]

Thanks guys!

First, since it's kind of non car related, I recently got a Logitech G27 steering wheel setup for Gran Tursimo, because I'm a nerd and all. My brother's christmas present to me was building me a stand for it. I'm super happy with how it came out. We used the Tiburon seat I picked up a while back.



So I finally got an oil filter relocation. I went with the Circuit Sports kit. It's very well put together, although the lines are way too long for me. I'll make new ones next oil change. And since I can get Mobil 1 oil filters for less than OEM filters, I decided to upgrade my oil(I've used Castrol GTX in the past)



Mind the dirty bay. It has been on a few road trips and I need to clean it up.


Also, and I know most will see this as a redundant purchase, I scored a brand new OEM valve cover for super dirt cheap


I may decide to use it, at the very least while the wood grain cover is getting refinished(the dust look is getting on my nerves now), but not until I find a new coil cover.

Also, I have 4 big things on their way

[allenms240]

Neglected? Care to explain?

Do you even know what you are talking about?

I'm talking about the pistons, rings, and head. You threw the motor in and ran into a million problems. Might I suggest a nice rebuild with some machine work with this new one? Your s14 looks really clean and it's definitely one of the few that I like. And it's nice that you've endured through all of that trouble and came out on top. It just seemed like alot of it could have been avoided with a rebuild early on.
OVerall though, I dig it.

[Hoffman5982]

Why would I have needed to do anything with the pistons rings or head? I wasn't building a high hp motor, I just wanted my $2200 motor to be healthy. I ran into problems because the engine set I got was a piece of sh**, not because anything was neglected. If anything, I went way further than 90% of the people who do the swaps. Most put on a new water pump and t-stat and call it a day. But I appreciate your input

[kouki munster]

I'm talking about the pistons, rings, and head. You threw the motor in and ran into a million problems. Might I suggest a nice rebuild with some machine work with this new one?........... It just seemed like alot of it could have been avoided with a rebuild early on.

Your point is invalid, I'm living proof that as long as you get a good engine you don't have to do anything but the basics to maintain reliability. I have bought 2 separate sr's, (both from ebay sellers) then put on a new oem oil pump/water pump, metal hg with head studs, bc cams/springs, a 20g and then proceeded to beat on them on a daily basis. The first one lasted a year until my own inexperience with tuning fried 3 out of 4 pistons, then I continued to beat it harder for 2 months until I pulled it to replace it. The second one continues to receive abuse(15-23 psi and 8000 rpm) on a daily basis and has done so for the last 3 years. I didn't even pull the the bottom end apart to check the bearings on either engine.

[allenms240]

"Do it right, or do it twice."

[Hoffman5982]

Again, I went further than most people do when performing the swap. Why would I need to rebuild a motor that I just want to be a daily driver? If I was planning on beating on the car all the time then you might have a point. But when paying that much for a motor swap it should run right without having to touch the pistons. I replaced everything else, and even when I finally did replace the pistons and rings I still had problems.

But I get it. My ~$2500 in parts on top of the motor in the beginning was not enough and was just me being a cheap bastard.

[allenms240]

No, you're right, you did way more than most people do. Most people won't even change the oil and drop that sucker in there. I paid a good amount for my motor, but I don't trust what other people tell me about stuff like that unless I know a background. I understand that thought, why SHOULD you replace the pistons/rings/check the head after paying that much. I guess it's just me then. I got the motor, and did and OEM rebuild from the bottom up. I guess it's not the norm and just what I perceive as "the right way".
I just didn't want to go through all that work, drop it in, then run into problems. In the end, I paid a good amount of money for the work I put into it (parts, labor, machining), but I really only ran into three problems on startup. My starter was bad, I had spring an oil leak from the turbo oil feed because it was stripped, and I had low oil pressure due to the oil-pickup o-ring being smashed when I installed it. All of these problems were fixed in a matter of a day or two without having to take the motor out. The worse I had to do was drop the lower oil pan.
But you did alot more than I've seen problems. It just seems you got a bad apple. I LIVE by the "do it right or do it twice" now, and yea it costs me extra cash, but my motor isn't breaking down anytime soon.
Please don't take this the wrong way, I just hated seeing you run into those problems (as I'm sure you did too), that COULD have been avoided. I'm just offering my opinion, and if you don't feel the same way, that's fine. It's over. Back to YOUR build.

I'm digging how clean that bay is with the brake line relocation, thinking about doing that myself when I upgrade the BMC.

_Allen

[amolao]

How is going Hoff??

Nice score on the coupe, word of advice on the CS relocation kit, mine started leaking at the engine end connectio. I tried a few things, tightening, teflon tape,etc and still leaked. I end up removing the whole thing and going back to the OEM filter configuration until I get the chance to try a different kit...... I guess that end is the one that sees warmer temperatures and the unit tends to leak easier .....

[Hoffman5982]

How is going Hoff??

Nice score on the coupe, word of advice on the CS relocation kit, mine started leaking at the engine end connectio. I tried a few things, tightening, teflon tape,etc and still leaked. I end up removing the whole thing and going back to the OEM filter configuration until I get the chance to try a different kit...... I guess that end is the one that sees warmer temperatures and the unit tends to leak easier .....

Hrmm, that's definitely good to know. I'll have to keep an eye on it I guess. I guess I should look at getting a Tomei oil block adapter to avoid that issue. I'd definitely prefer that setup. I'll definitely be keeping a close eye on it.

[Hoffman5982]

What the hell?! Am I actually working on my car?

I am. But before we start, let's get the sad part out of the way. My car is in the worst shape of its life. My ABS light is flashing and my cruise control just stopped working. On top of that, I hit a deer the other night...

I had been sick the previous 3-4 days, and since I was feeling better I decided to go for a quick cruise down the street. On my way back I was going about 50-55mph (55 zone) and noticed a deer just chilling on the side of the road. I started to slow down and got in the opposite lane, but as I was passing it the fu**er decided it needed to get across that instant. I caught its head/neck on the passenger mirror and flipped it into the door. The damage is minimal, but it still hurts. Mirror is done, and I have a nice crease protruding along where the brace runs diagonally inside the door.



Trying to cheer myself up, I put this stupid sticker on the mirror.


And the crease:


All in all, it could be a lot worse. Had I not have gotten over, it would have surely destroyed the front of my car. I'll be taking it to a paintless dent remover to get the crease out, and I got a mirror from a friend that I need to get painted.

Moving on, the new shoes came in. Before anyone says it, yes, they are reps. Yes, they're fairly cheap. I basically came out of pocked like 80 bucks after selling the Z wheels to get these, so I think it was worth it. They're the Konig SSM's 18x10 +15 all around. I'll be ordering tires tonight or tomorrow hopefully. I'm gonna go with 224/40's.



The rivets are removable, so I may do something with them, but we'll see.

So, I've been wanting to rebuild the calipers for a while now. I had already bought the front seal kit, and this past week I picked up the rear kit. I also decided that the red didn't look right behind the new wheels, so I'm changing the color up a little. I started tonight:




Trying to keep everything organized


I'm really happy. I've seen many people jump into this and find that the threads on the end of the bolts holding the calipers together to have broken off. Mine all look great:




So that's where I'm at. I need to grab an air compressor from a friend to shoot the pistons out and move on to painting them. Hopefully I can have the base coat on by tomorrow evening.

[mechanicalmoron]

That sucks, but could have been a lot worse. I did nearly the same thing once. My parents quarterpanel still doesn't look quite right.

Being farther over from a deer sometimes seems to make them want to lunge... I think they're trying to second guess you, like you're trying to feint and then go over and eat them, so they go for where you are, like deer reverse psychology. And then sometimes they don't even care you're there. Very fickle, unpredictable, and thus dangerous.

I slow down to parking lot speeds when I see deer, no matter how the people behind me hate it or honk or tail me. Had too many close calls, and my one actual strike. And yes, just think how it would have gone if you hit him head on.... would have totally ruined the car, and maybe ruined you as well. And it could have shot a deer through the windshield into your face.

And remember, if you see deer, you probably don't even see half of them.... where there's one, there's a ton.