mckpat's mountain/winter/rally beater DSM - I've never cared so little about a car.

[mckpat03]

What's up everyone.

So I was looking for a new DD/project sort of thing and a DSM just seemed right. It just fit the bill... NOT FWD, turbo, fun, cheap, etc. Also, two of my friends are DSM buffs, and so really it was the only thing I was allowed to buy .

Anyway, I was looking for a DSM and couldn't really find any very cheap (read: not dirt cheap) but a friend of mine was selling his 91. I made him an offer and we worked out a deal. He was in need of some money, I wanted a DSM, it was a win-win.

So I picked up a 91 TSi AWD 5speed.

Sorry for the crappy cell phone pictures.

Here are some before shots, shortly after I picked it up:



And the before shot of the engine bay:


Those are the only pictures for now. I need to host the rest of them. I've been really lazy/busy with other stuff lately. So more pictures to come this week.

Anyway, the engine was filthy, with some bizarre oil-vapor pump sucking out of the top end (basically spewing oil everywhere). The engine definitely had some issues, but we got it all worked out. Had to source some parts from my friends' stockpiles and had to buy some stuff (timing components, waterpump) and now I've got a perfectly running DSM.

Bought the car for $1200, put about $150 into it. So for under $1500, I've got a perfectly running AWD 5sp Talon. Gotta buy tires yet, too, so basically I'll spend less than $2000 overall for a perfectly daily-driveable DSM.

More updates will be coming in soon. Pics from the tear-down and whatnot as well as some custom stuff like a lift and whatnot (homemade roof basket comin' at ya, too).

[mckpat03]

All right, so I quit being lazy.

First things first... get that ridiculous valve cover vapor sucking bull**** out of the car.


And this wasn't all of it, but some of that garbage that got torn out.


Riveting the spoiler down



Random crap pulled out


I think this was the end of the first night of teardown


New valve cover, and stuff still torn apart and scattered about


List of stuff to buy... why not just Sharpie it onto the hood?


End of the first weekend, pushed outside


I'm a Mustang person so I had to give it a tiny bit of Ford character. Mach 1 grill delete anyone? And yes it's permanently being held on like that. That's how much I care.



Australian made wheels? I'll take it.


Doing the timing job


List of needs... crossed off. Plus we need a couch for our house we're moving into.


How it currently sits, awaiting tires, lift, and some other small stuff.


Gettin' paid this week, so tires will be here this Saturday I should think. More updates coming soon.

[mckpat03]

Also, a big shout out to my friends Kyle (15psi88) and Kevin (i know you lurk but I forget your username, talonkev maybe? lol) for helping me out a tremendous amount thus far.

I wanted to give a preview of tires, as well. I think I'm going with these in that exact size 215/60/16 which I believe comes to a 26.15" diameter. Stock is about a 24.87" diameter. I wanted an A/T because I don't want to worry about summer treads if I would buy snow treads now, and this is all I could find in a size close to want I wanted.

[jrdellecker21]

i like would def do this with my 1g gsx but its just to clean makes me wanna buy a beater 1g awd

[15psi88]

I think everyone need a little rallybeater in their life. I wish our region of scca held rally events. It's just not practical to run these things all over the state to compete.

[mckpat03]

Rallybeaters FTW. So much fun.

[VarsityDetail]

Wow you got a great deal on the car. Good luck with the build!

-Connor

[mckpat03]

Thanks.

I forgot to mention in the original post. The car came with a catless 3" Megan TBE, Aluminum rad, KYB AGXs in back and AGXs waiting to go on the front, tubular o2 housing.

[mckpat03]

Got tires this past Wednesday. Haven't done anything else. Haven't even really had a chance to take it off roading or for a mountain ride. Nonetheless, 15psi88 and I were together to compare lift/no lift and I snapped a few cell phone pictures.





215/70/15 Firestone Winterforce on left and 215/60/16 Yoko Geolander AT-S on right. The 215/70/15 is about .8" larger in diameter.

[pearly11WRX]

Nice man, I dig.

[mckpat03]

She saw her first action on the mountain. Took her out Sunday afternoon, as well as just this evening. There's just a little bit more snow out on the mountain than here in town, haha.






I'm having an issue with the throttle cable, though. I bought a cheap non-cruise cable from Rock Auto, and it seems be binding/hanging up at the firewall for some reason. I'm trying to take care of the issue this evening. Actually, it left me sitting earlier when I got off the mountain and I had to call for help and tools in order to get it back home.

[mckpat03]

So, I think I got the throttle issue figured out. I bought a non-cruise cable from Rock Auto. Freakin' junk. I actually bought two, because a friend needed one for his drag build, because the one he had ended up on 15psi88's rally beater. So I bought these two cables, and I don't know what the issue is, but they both were just junk, I almost couldn't depress the gas pedal. It actually made the car immobile, more or less.

So, I was gonna steal the cable off of 15psi88's GVR4 just for a few days or whatever until I could get my own factory cable. As I was kicking around some stuff in 15psi88's garage I found a factory non-cruise cable sitting in one of his project cars. Forgot he had it. Lucked out big time because non of the boneyards around here had one.

Threw the factory non-cruise cable in, and it works perfect. It's magic. So now it's on to more important issues like mud-flaps, roof basket, etc.

Picked up a tow strap too. Picture coming shortly.

[mckpat03]

Junk ATP non-cruise cable:


Tow strap:


Got a little mud on the tires today:

[mckpat03]

Finally took her out and put her to good use. Climbed the big shale bank out on the mountain. Did some rallying around out on the mountain.

These are from the top of the shale bank.

[Jeff822]

Nice project, interested in selling any parts?

[mckpat03]

I don't really have any spare parts to sell, unfortunately. Sorry.

[mckpat03]

Just some more random driving out on the mountains (sorry for the crappy iphone pics):

[mckpat03]

No real updates. The only work I've done on it is fix my temp sensor wiring. I thought the temp sensor was failing, but in reality, the wires were just complete crap. The connectors actually broke off in my hand when I pulled them off the sensor. So I cut it back to where the wires were good, and put new connectors on, and she ran great.

I just ordered some bike fork mounts so I can start toting my bike around on it. Gonna hopefully get a roof basket built soon. I've been entirely too lazy/exhaust from how busy I am at work to even think about working on cars.

[mckpat03]

Well, I had my friend confirm what I had suspected. It's been knocking around pretty good, and its definitely rod knock. I'll be (hopefully only) slapping some rod bearings in it one of these next weekends. Also, gonna start my roof basket build this week.

[mckpat03]

So I never updated this, but I had the car down for about 2-2.5 months doing rod bearings. It took so long because, well, I got lazy and just plain didn't want to work on it because it pissed me off too much.

But alas, I got it back on the road about a month, month and a half ago.

She runs great, no bottom end noise. I've got a top end noise of some sort, but I care so little that I'm going to keep on letting it make noise, haha.

The inspection ran out in May, so I drove it out on the mountain a couple times just to see how it was running, and decided to get it inspected and have my friend tell me if/what I should replace before I try to drive it to the shootout in August.

Told me, at the least, to replace tie rod end and lower ball joints. I've been working on that this weekend. Got in there and noticed my one control arm had a rust hole in it. The sway bar end links are blowed out, breaks aren't exactly in great shape. I made to decision to just go ahead and do it all while I'm in there. So I'm waiting on parts now to get the front end back together. She's gonna be a brand new car soon! I can only hope that after all of this she'll make it all six hours to the shootout, haha.

This is how she sits right now: