I picked up Chris'(350TPI) car on Saturday. ;) I drove for about 13-14hrs total(about 5.5hrs down there, about 7-8hrs+ on the way back hauling the car, encountering rain/storms, etc.) to get it. It has a few little quirks, but overall is a VERY solid car. The engine & transaxle are in great shape. At 159K I'm wondering if the transaxle is rebuilt because it feels exactly like the trans in my low mileage car. :icon_cool: If you see this post Chris...you might be kicking yourself. The extremely loud whistling was coming from the throttle body. I can put my hand over the top of it and muffle it pretty good. ;) Most likely a tiny pinhole leak on one of the gaskets there, I haven't taken it off to fix it yet. Since charging the battery and getting it running fine, I have not seen so much as a puff of smoke from the car(not even at wide open throttle). When the battery was dead and it was basically staying running with the alternator, the car did smoke a little, but it was running like crap with that very low voltage messing things up. The car was dying every time the ABS pump cycled, not when you let off the gas(due to the battery, it was reading an anemic 5.39volts when I checked it. I charged it up fully and I guess I'll find out soon if it will hold a charge or not.)
The car has a few mods on it already:
-Jeff M. x-over
-topgun 160 chip + 160 t-stat
-straight pipe in place of cat, stock piping + mufflers are still there, it sounds good. It sounds very close to my Black car with a totally different exhaust setup.
-Windows are tinted.
-Kenwood cd player & some type of aftermarket 6x9's in the rear. I assume the fronts are aftermarket too, but I haven't looked at them yet.
-"GTX ram air" floormats intended for a later model car.
Besides that stuff, the following parts look to be replaced very recently.
-Oil return line
-coil packs & ignition modules. The ac delco wires on it look pretty new as well.
-transaxle mount appears to have been replaced before.
-It has damn near brand new Yokohama YK520 tires on it(these retail for $480 shipped at DiscounTireDirect). They're a 60K mile tire and I'm guessing they have maybe 5-10K on them at most.
-It's been converted to r134a, but I haven't tested the ac yet. I'll try it out tomorrow and hook up my manifold gauge set to it.
-I believe Chris said he replaced the accumulator on the car when he had it also. The ABS functions fine, the anti-lock light did come on at one point though.
Also, Chris included a rebuilt T28 with the car. I think it's a T28 anyways, it's smaller than our stock turbocharger(.42 A/R compressor housing, I forget what the exhaust is, it's small too. I'll look it up to find out exactly what it is later.. It would probably be fine for a 3.1, but I might adapt it to some 4cyl equipped car later. It'd take a lot of work to put on a TGP. I have an extra crossover, I'm considering throwing it on my 1993 Grand Prix SE... :icon_razz:
The car has a few cosmetic issues, they are as follows:
-It has several door dings and a few small dents in it. Paintless dent removal could pretty much rid the car of dents for $200-300ish.
-Headliner is falling a bit, I'll fix that myself.
-One of the fender flares is oxidized and/or the clearcoat has failed on some parts of it. It's only a small 8-10'' section on the driver's side front one.
-The rear bumper is a bit different color than the rest of the car. It almost appears to be painted with some single stage paint. I'm going to get some paint and respray it myself as there are a few places where it's peeling.
-The engine bay needs a good bit of cleaning and the battery tray needs to be cut out and replaced eventually. It's rusty there where a battery leaked in the past.
-Underhood, there's some overspray. Under the valence there's plenty of overspray too. Various parts of the car appear to have been repainted at one time or another. I'm assuming the whole car was painted and then the rear bumper was painted by someone else sometime after that. After a bit of buffing/polishing, the car will probably look great judging by how it looks now.
-The driver's side hood louver has a very small crack in it.
-Driver's seat has some wear and tear on it. The rest of the seats are in great shape, carpet is in awesome shape as well.
I plan to pretty much take care of 99% of those cosmetic issues quickly. Right now I'm concentrating on getting it running 100% which it's not far from now. I need to throw a boost gauge in it to see what the turbo is putting out. The car isn't as fast as it should be at the moment, but I still ned to check over a lot of things...
Thanks again for the great deal Chris! $500 was a steal for this car. :icon_mrgreen: :icon_mrgreen:
Anyways, here are a few pictures. I'll post some engine and interior shots tomorrow. These will be my "before" pictures. I'll start posting "after" photos as I get things straightened out.
(http://home.alltel.net/mfewtrail/images/rd2.jpg)
The valence is hanging on the right side since I removed some of the bolts. I was going to remove it to put the car on the tow dolly, but Chris found me some wood to put on the dolly's ramps so the car wouldn't scrub.
(http://home.alltel.net/mfewtrail/images/rd1.jpg)
(http://home.alltel.net/mfewtrail/images/rd5.jpg)
(http://home.alltel.net/mfewtrail/images/rd4.jpg)
(http://home.alltel.net/mfewtrail/images/rd3.jpg)
Random TGP related info:
-I now own two cars that Rick(Rick5638) on this board has owned. My black car came from him back in 2003. :icon_mrgreen:
-The previous owner of the red car before Chris/350TPI has the same first and middle name as me and spells both the same way. :icon_cool:
PS: Expect some group TGP photos soon! :icon_wink:
Nice score, Matt! It's like looking outside in my driveway lol. Before pics aren't bad at all, so I cant wait to see the after!
SWEET :icon_mrgreen: I spoke with him a couple of months ago, Just could not find the time to go and get it. Glad you got it, I know it will be VERY well taken care of. Good luck with your purchase.. :icon_cool:
Adam
Matt,i am glad you like the car and i am also glad that it will be taken care of.I really did hate to sell her but i just didnt have the time and money for her.It was good meeting you.Take good care of her. :icon_mrgreen:
Quote from: 350TPI on March 18, 2008, 07:08:43 PM
Matt,i am glad you like the car and i am also glad that it will be taken care of.I really did hate to sell her but i just didnt have the time and money for her.It was good meeting you.Take good care of her. :icon_mrgreen:
It was nice meeting you too Chris. I'll definitely take good care of her. I have a few people offering to buy her from me already. :laugh: I think I'll hang on to it for a long time as I really like it. Hopefully I can get around to buffing the car this weekend and post some new photos. I tried out some new products with my rotary buffer last night and they made the paint on a 12 year old vehicle that hasn't been maintained very well look like it came off the showroom floor after two passes with the buffer. :icon_eek:
Very nice, Matt
Quote from: TGP Nick on March 21, 2008, 10:03:57 PM
Very nice, Matt
Thanks. ;) I'm going to try to respray at least the front valence this weekend if I get a chance. I've been busy doing a ton of other things the past few days, so I haven't done much to the TGP. I bypassed the throttle body coolant lines yesterday and that was about it. I've bypassed them on all my 3.1's just to get them out of the way. When they have the stock style clamps(that are usually placed where they're nearly inaccessible), they can be a pain to remove unless you have cable operated hose clamp pliers. :icon_wink:
exactely, I still don't understand why they had to build it that way, crazy. BTW I'm jealous
Quote from: mfewtrail on March 17, 2008, 10:22:47 PM
The extremely loud whistling was coming from the throttle body.
I actually found out that it's coming from the intake manifold gasket or underneath the intake. I haven't pulled it yet to fix it, hopefully the intake manifold itself isn't cracked so I can keep the cool "Turbo" plenum. :laugh: Also, the turbo has a pretty big exhaust leak where the exhaust housing bolts on it. It's missing some bolts. The turbo itself has zero shaft play and I think it's in good shape. I'll probably have it running great again by next week. I haven't had a lot of time to mess with it this past week.
Adding a few random interior pictures. I'll take some more pictures including underhood shots later this week. Hopefully I'll get a chance to really clean it up and take some "after" photos sometime this week. It's going to look a lot better once I hit the car with my buffer. I've been trying out new products this week on various cars with awesome results.
(http://home.alltel.net/mfewtrail/images/int2.jpg)
(http://home.alltel.net/mfewtrail/images/int1.jpg)
(http://home.alltel.net/mfewtrail/images/int.jpg)
I need to finish pulling out the spare wires, etc. that were ran in the car for subs & an amp. I'm going to look for a few late model factory cd players in the junkyards later this week. I want to find two of them, so I can install them in both TGP's. The kenwood cd player in the red car works fine and the speakers in it sound pretty good. It has Alpine 6x9's in the rear. I haven't checked to see what's in the dash or in the doors yet.