I’ve been watching too much “Wheeler dealers” or “Holmes on homes” so for this build I’ll be meticulously tearing apart the work that was previously done.
Goal: Rebuild the car to have OEM cleanliness, reliablity, and inspectability using funds generated by selling off aftermarket parts.
I started with this:
The car made good power and has some decent mods to it such as the ppg transmission and brembo brakes.
The real problem with the car and reason why I couldn’t sell it is because the stand alone ecu won’t pass emissions.
how not to paint ABS side skirts (someone forgot to prep them)
gauges come out, only to find the the wires are soldiered at each joint as well as zip tied to the stock wiring harness under the dash. Making it impossible to remove until I get the dash out.
seats gone
wheels sold, my old snows put on it for now. Calipers removed so I could fit them:
this thing is an absolute mess and to make it worse most of it was done by a big name professional shop.
melted plug:
everything has 5-6 zip ties on it making it take forever to unwind everything:
melted wire loom:
this is either a coolant or oil line that is capped off:
instead of the proper connector for the injectors someone put these pieces at the end of the wires. Just by hitting the wire with a wrench I accidentally unplugged an injector.
all the vac/boost lines are in multiple pieces. The line to the boost gauge inside the car used a 1" section of larger line to mate two different sections. I can’t imagine the gauge getting the proper reading with this:
Anyone who was remotely interested in the car was told that the wiring should probably be redone (and it should probably get STI heads/turbo setup as well) before they even came out to look at it.
Granted I didn’t know of ALL of these problems until I started digging into it, and I’m sure I’ll find more.
looks like yo need to put insurance on it, reg, plate it, 10 day reg., and start it, let it burn down… yo must have got a deal i wouldnt have paid $500 for the car.
yep. Wiring is something that as soon as you touch it, you’ll never get it right again.
I have a pile of OEM parts I’ve ordered or will order. Turbo kit is coming off and being sold.
I considered putting STI heads on it, STI OEM turbo setup, and the ECS merged harness… it’d be a killer car but frankly I can’t risk putting all that money into the car and getting offers of 7k on it (see my BMW thread)
