I'm leaving now to head to Goon's place. It's like... a 6½ hour ride or somesuch so we'll get there at 9 or so, I suppose... I'm bringing my laptop so my capacity for pictures will be virtually unlimited

Here's what's going down:

• getting his black/silver VG30
• full interior swap for black/gray cloth
• getting the custom hood and E36 headlights/corners
• WSP ypipe and he's welding up my exhaust and stuff
• getting a cluster and 3 (yes THREE) window regulators for matt's 89SE

and yes, i AM going to figure out a way to fit a 3 liter engine in my backseat..... no idea how.... but it's gonna happen. Yea i know, pics or it didn't happen right?

Sadly i won't be able to fix my misfire (ohm'd my injectors.... #1 is no-continuity) so i'm going 800 miles on 5 cylinders but it's whatever... i mean i'm picking up a replacement engine anyhow right?

I may or may not be able to update when I'm down there. But i'm an Org junkie so i know i'll be on like... as soon as i get back, if not sooner.

 

good luck.
advice: don't leave the seat in during the trip back.
unsure where you will put the cushions, but itll be better than grease stains/dirt or whatever, and indentations from a 400 mile trip.
or you could do a quick swap in a driveway somewhere.

and, yes, :

 

i was thinking i might put plywood underneath it or something..... to buffer the indentations, and behind it too.

the engine itself is sparkling, remember? i doubt if any grease or dirt is on that beaut.

 

There can only be 1 Wizard......

 

Pics or ban.


800 miles on 5cyls. get ready to bend over at the gas pump mang.

stop by my place on monday, well toss a ve injector in real quick. plus i'd like to see my old vg motor again.

 

gud luck

 

you could be the first mid engine 3rd gen...

 

So ridiculous that he thinks it's even relatively possible to fit a 600 lb engine in the back seat. Caped: ease up on your post whoring habits and learn some common sense.

 

Maybe it'd fit in if he took the back door off to get it in?

 

That's what she said.

 

why not put it in the trunk?

 

Have you ever felt one of these engine's on a hoist? Iron block is unbelievable. I doubt he's going to get it in the trunk or back seat. But I'll have my fingers crossed and hope he figures something out.

 

trailer hitch and a uhaul

 

May have to take it apart to get it to fit.

 

that's what I was thinking when I read this post.

My VE block (nothing attached to it, no heads, pistons or even a crankshaft) was still heavy and clumsy.

 

Ease up on the flames there big guy, i have a feeling that you may be eating your words in a day or two.

I believe with one rear door removed, along with exhaust manifolds, and a few other minor engine parts removed, it should fit in the back seat area. the vg is not that big width wise as most people would think. And i believe the engine is closer to the 500lb mark with the accessories removed, so your talking about 2 250lb people in the back seat, i've had close to that in my car with no problems going down the road.

 

Heyy... I'm selling a trailer hitch for a 3rd gen! What a coincidence!

 

I hope he does prove me wrong so he saves the whole $20 or $40 it would cost to rent the u-haul and avoid the hours of stress and work it'll take to get the sucker in and out of the back seat. Seems hard to believe that there's any clearance for the hoist, and if there is, it's going to have to be very high up on it which is going to be a problem in itself. Maybe I shouldn't have written it off as impossible, but it's definitely going to be a completely avoidable pain in the ***.

 

In it for pics!

 

and pics you shall have
http://s164.photobucket.com/albums/u...sit/?start=all

we decided to go ahead and swap the motor... due to how incredibly miserable the car is to drive with a misfire, and just cuz he's got all the equipment and tools and stuff anyways. pulled the old motor out today and yanked the vacuum gallery and IM and stuff to put on the silver/black motor. chances are i'm gonna go home with the Fidanza flywheel too....

exhaust is the 2.5" mandrel WSP pipe, 2.5" all the way to the rear seats, and the final bends are stock size. but i'm gonna be on the lookout for a q45 at the JY to nab the muffler and get some pipe bent up to mount it.

interior is coming along... i broke a couple things that i'm gonna have to replace. smartly i swapped my VIN plate over to goon's dash. my headliner is the wrong color tho... since i don't have a sunroof we couldn't use his headliner. matt's actually handling the majority of the interior installation, leaving me and tim to focus on the engine swap. i liked how he had to cut one of the bolts out of the rear engine mount cuz i put it on before the member was raised so i put it in from the wrong side haha... sparks shooting out from under the car, out the top of the engine bay... twas exciting.

oh and his dog is REEEEEALLY friendly haha

 

looking good bro...keep us update.....

 

Still a bit sad never seeing Goon's car painted. Especially tied in with his lighting mods, etc... That thing was in primer for so long it was just the perfect canvas in waiting. Glad it's able to breathe new life in to another enthusiasts car though.

 

yea those headlights are SICK! I can't wait to install them.

 

Looks like christmas came early for somebody! Whats gonna happen to the spacers?

 

intake spacers? I'm keepin' em. We plopped my UIM and LIM onto the other motor cuz it had no intake stuff at all on it, just the heads and the valve covers and the exhaust manifolds (gloss black mmmmmm).

Yea that Fidanza is a little tricky still..... partly due to my craptastic motor mounts and partially just cuz it takes more skill to drive it. But my god, this thing gets up and GOES now. Every time I take off from a stop, the engine is just BEGGING to be spun up. WSP + Fidanza = win.


There is a problem though... it seems that my left rear strut has crapped out.. no compression OR rebound, so due do the wide stance of my new tires/wheels, when I take a right turn i have to go SLOOOOOOOOOOW to keep that corner's tire from getting sliced by the fender. I'm gonna try and get some new struts (even monroe, i don't care, it's temporary... i just need to NOT destroy my brand-new tires) on there this weekend... i'm gonna put the stockers back on the rear tonight to prevent any further damage, because the tire rubs also on big bumps/dips, and under hard low-gear acceleration.

but other than the brake dust shields that ended up being a bad idea to put on, an exhaust hanger that we ran out of time to fix, the motor mounts (were already a problem), the botched alignment job I got at Pepboys (yea... not doing that again) and the struts... the car's never felt better.

more pics tonight when i dig through the rubble in my backseat and find my camera.

 

Well I take it you made it home alright...

 

yea. rolled in around 5:30. i'm working on putting together the list of stuff i forgot haha. one you might have noticed is that the center console is still in your living room..... oops.

 

well, see that crack rock I got in your sig? i stole it from you, when you were smoking its big brother, "the rock the size of my ****", I think you called it.
your words, not mine.

 

ben, ben. you must be using the last of yours right now cuz i've got NO clue what you're talking about


anyhow there's more pictures and a couple videos up in that photobucket link. no pics of the headlights aside from the pics of them on Goon's car that you can find in the VG Love thread. the very last video where matt says "take two" is the first time the engine actually fired.

but um yea... on the return trip, i changed lanes to the left to pass a slower-moving car. As soon as I got into the other lane, I noticed that the car I just passed DIDN'T ACTUALLY EXIST . I promptly woke Matt up and told him it was his turn to drive

 

I've been there.

 

I can believe that you guys got down and dirty on your Max.

I once "saw" a giant Hummer that took 3 lanes and and some guy hanging on a non-existing powerlines and I almost hit him. I was aware of the illusions and was more wide awake on the trip home. After that I vowed no more driving while sleepy again.

I must have missed it, but what happened to your other engine?

 

all the stuff that I took out is still at his place. he told me to make a list of anything i forgot and he'd sent it back in a box.

I was gonna keep the heads off the old motor cuz supposedly it was a cali-spec engine out of a 94 (round tooth belt = 94, plastic-clip injectors = 93-94, egr temp sensor and BPT valve = cali as far as i know), which has better-flow exhaust valves that boosted member wanted to get ahold of... so i was gonna let him have them if it was really cali valves.

I'm just amazed how far this car has come since I got it... still got a long ways to go, but I'm learning as I go, breaking as little as I can, and hoping for the best. Up next is the front brake upgrade, 'secret sauce' polyurethane motor mounts all around, then struts, springs, and fender rolling. Gonna be a month or two before that cuz I gotta pay Goon off first.