well I feel I can join the build thread "crowd" finally. I'm slowly working on my 97 EJ8, I bought her for $1500. She came with a b18b1 swap, that's about it for modifications. It has some body damage that will be fixed before the paint process. It was FBP but the paint has started going through quite a drastic change. I'm not very far into the build quite just yet, but I feel I'm making good progress on my somewhat restricted budget. Ok, enough talking enjoy the pics...there are a lot!

How I first bought her!










It definitely was in dire need of some TLC









And after a little treatment my buddy and I have it

































STAY TUNED FOR MORE TO COME!
next up is the beginning of the body work and new exterior parts

 

not bad start broo get the rust out of that car

 

yeah, it took a great amount of hours to get the rust gone. I'm going to be posting more pics as I keep the restoration going.

 

is that the colour for the whole car or just the bay?

 

@canadaek

its just for the engine bay, I'm doing the exterior of the car matte white. Just trying to change it up for the midwest

 

Great start, would love to see the process on this build!

 

good start
good luck

 

thanks guys! the block is at the machine shop getting refreshed, should be back wednesday (7-11) I'm pretty excited!

 

Damn! Sick! is that powder coated ?

I stay in chicago as well, it'l be nice to meet up with you and get a cruise going.

 

nothing is powder coated. The black is just rubberized undercoating, just trying to give a different look for the car and in my area.

 

Hope it turns out good for you. That car body is rustay!

 

Well time for another slow update on the car...more pics are here! If you are curious, the parts are being rubber coated for a different look I'm going for. The doors, trim, mirrors, fenders, and grill are ready for wet sanding. I'm getting pretty excited watching this car come back together!

 

bump for illinois, but its too flashy for me.

 

Very nice platform to start with. The rust doesn't seem too bad. So far the work you have done has come out nice.

What is the deal with that motor? It looks kind of neglected. Are you keeping it or dropping something else in. Either way the car is nice.

 

@skittle 107 the only thing I plan to have "flashy" on the car is the engine bay

@furious94ls the motor is getting completely rebuilt. I'm leaving it pretty much stock though, I want this car to be completely reliable and easy to drive.

 

If you don't mind answering a couple of questions related to the engine bay.

How did you prep it ?

What paint accessories did you use ? Gun style ? Paint ? Additives to prepping it ? etc ?

 

it was quite a long process to get the bay ready for paint. we first started by grinding down all of the holes and filling some with putty (no welder available) We starting by sanding with 80-100 grit sand paper to get it started, once we hit everything with that, we moved onto 320 to smooth everything out. We sprayed a high build primer (2k equivalent) wet sanded that with 1000 grit. We moved onto a primer sealer and wet sanded that again with 1000 grit to finish off. Then we waited a day to spray the paint. Using a HVLP gravity feed gun ran off of a craftsman 33 gallon 1.6 hp compressor, we sprayed the paint. We used an entire quart of paint, an entire quart of metallic flake additive, and an entire quart of clear. The paint is duplicolor ready to spray paint that can be found at your local parts stores (we went to advance auto parts). There were no additives to the paint, we just did a full clean of the gun between each step, and prepped the surface with a tack cloth each time so there was minimal dust or dirt on the surface.

We ended up counting all the hours and we have 56 hours just in prep and paint time. This is the first time I've ever removed everything from a car so the time could be off from most others tear down and rebuild. But the estimate that we wrote up for paint in the bay comes out to somewhere around $5500-$5700!!! We spent less than $500 and learned a lot about the car in the process.

 

Just a few more pics...trying to keep this build going...and this thread alive!

Don't mind the dirt, I haven't cleaned the bay in a week or so.

 

Nice ! I'm definitely staying tuned for more !

 

Fresh. Should've tucked the brake lines as well though IMO.

 

 

Nah, I disagree. I understand the visual of it, but it's not really a "should have". A should have would to have cleaned and painted everything you're bolting back into the engine bay so that it looks brandy new. New bolts, new brackets/painted brackets and cleaned up gaskets. IMO.

Overall, it's a good start!


Steve

 

Yes I could've tucked the brake lines, and yes I could've cleaned and painted everything. The reason I'm not doing a brake tuck (yet) is because this car will be a daily driven car, and I'm not really big on that (yet). I have painted and cleaned up everything, with the exception of the radiator and fan. Which I plan on replacing later on with a larger (still half sized) aluminum radiator with different fan. I want to make this car easy to work on if needed. I do plan on keeping the power steering, but it will all be cleaned up and set up nicely. The main reason I'm not doing the full tuck/rebuild/show quality set up.......I'm broke lol. I'm trying to do a budget build that will be fun to drive

 

Custom door panel inserts

$7 for fabric
$12 for spray glue
$3 for screws and washers

Looks pretty damn good for my first time doing it!

 

Those doors are baller.