i bought my GT sometime back in 2009, and to give the old girl credit during the last two and a half years as my daily driver she never once broke down or failed to start. 3 months ago my clutch started slipping badly enough that i couldn't ignore it any more so i took her in to the college shop (im an auto mech student there) and went to work, sadly it all went down hill from there. after dropping the cradle and pulling the motor i took the chance to change those pesky driver side spark plugs and this happened=



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a buddy tried using an easy -out but they would not budge, so head would need to be taken off. after the head came off another surprise was in store. all six piston had at least 1mm of wobble in all directions, the worst one having just over 1.5mm. it started looking like a full rebuild was needed. so i tore the block down and started checking stuff, luckily my crank was in perfect shape, and so were all the rods so pistons were ordered and the block was sent to the machine shop. while the block was away i tore the heads down to check clearances and found 5 warped intake valves, and 12 badly worn valve guides. at this point my 2 day job had passed the 4 week mark. after the block was done i reassembled the short block


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and borowed a buddy who had a trailer to tow it home


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after i got her stored at home i started listing all the little things that needed doing, after about the third page i realized that since i have access to more reliable cars to drive daily, and a garage and tools to use i might as well do it right.

where i want to do with this build make a kind of quasi roadrace street-car. since im doing this on the wages and schedule of a full time student, progress will be slow. also this is my first time doing anything this big, so all opinions and ideas are welcome. thanks for reading, and welcome to my build.

quote Originally posted by etofun: since im doing this on the wages and schedule of a full time student, progress will be slow. also this is my first time doing anything this big, so all opinions and ideas are welcome.

Good luck man, I tried to do work on my car while going to school full time and it just wasn't in the cards for me. It's great that you've got a reliable daily driver so you don't have to rush work on the weekends and are able to take your time to properly do things.

What are your plans for making this thing a road/track worthy car? Do you have plans to swap the engine? or are you going to try and beef up the 2.8L? It would be very interesting to see how far you can push the stock motor. I'm not sure many people have pushed the 2.8 much, so I for one would like to see where that can be taken.

Any idea on suspension or brakes? what year are you working with?

I'm a night owl so most of the time I'm working on it at night after work before bed, I think of it as a sleep aid XD. The motors not permanent, way later on I'd like to swap in a alluminum ls/nsx trans, but that's a pipe dream for wayyyyyy later in life. I'll cover it more in detail later, i want to port and polish the heads an intake, then build a set dual exhaust. It's already been stroked to a 3.1. As far as brakes and suspension go, I'm thinking koni/ebach and a 13 inch upgrade. Also my GT is an 88

alright, sorry if im cramming alot in one post i got a few days worth of progress to catch up on. my plan is to start by stripping the car down to a rolling frame fix a couple of rust problems, stitch weld the chassis, sandblast, apply a under coat of something like 3M. here are a few pics of the process.


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the chaos of the garage at night



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the dash about to come out



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all the crud thats accumulatted under the seats



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on the drivers side floor pan. brake fluid had leaked out of the clutch master and soaked the carpet over a long period of time causing the undercoat to peel up.



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here the culprit



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and this is what the floor looked like after i used a razor blade to scrape some of the bubbled paint up. it looks worse than it is, some surface rust but nothing to deep. when i start sandblasting all this should clean up nicely. i guess this shows why most of the hot rodders i know run DOT5, and ater this i think i will too.



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on the passenger side things are a little better, the only real damage is this rather large dent. there are no hard creases or tears so it should just move pack into place nicely with a little persuasion.



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nice little rat nest i found between the rad and condenser.



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after the blower system came out, except for the harness and shifter the interior is stripped.

after the front was disassembled this is the only non rust damage ive found so far


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i dont know what happened but its solidly epoxied in there.

[This message has been edited by etofun (edited 01-16-2013).]

so far im almost done stripping the down to frame, the only body work left on still is the rear clip.

rust on the roof above th A piller on the driver...

and passenger side.

and some more rust by the front facisa


and a little more right by the driver door.

and also just for curiositys sake, i weighted a door minus the panel. 80.9 pounds. im gonna tear into one of these and see what kind of weight i can shed off this thing.

Nice project! Looks like you're doing it right.

Good luck.

Be careful of the T-top weatherstrips. They're made out of unobtainium.

Good luck on your build!

Was the 80lb door weight without the inner panel, but with the outer skin? Or was the outer skin also removed?

thanks, first time doing anything this big so good to know im doing something right. The T-Top seal on the driver side was hashed up pretty bad, so that one came out in pieces, but the passenger side looks like i may get the seal out in one piece. i actually thinking i might take the T-Top out and rep-lace it with a solid roof, im going to be putting in a full cage and that damn top always leaked. i had the idea to weld a set of rails in then make a removable carbon fiber panel. it'll tie the carbon hood and deck lid together, and i could use the stock weather stripping.

the door weights 80.9 with the inner panel taken off, but not the outer skin.