fishmagician

Hi I'm new to the forum & project cars in general so I created this build thread to help things go (hopefully) more smoothly.
I'm 23 and I live in Western WA state

I picked up a 90 DX hatch with a SIR II B16a and LS cable transmission from a friends garage for $800US, the car had been sitting in there for maybe six years and was missing a lot of parts.. lost the album I had from then but no exhaust, radiator, transmission hanging from no forward mount, no shift linkage, bad tires and the motor wasn't wired in.
SpeedFactory in Tacoma wired up the motor, installed a Hasport shift linkage & for the exhaust used a stock resonator into a Vibrant resonator w/ 2.5" piping and a Vibrant muffler put in sideways to keep an OEM look. (I want to turbo, so i'm unsure how bad I did myself here)
I had the manual steering rack & upper control arms replaced, did the starter myself & put on a set of new Thunderer Mach II tires on sale at Les Schwab..

about half a year later this is what I have








I have the lower section of the rear seats in my house, they're in good condition. For the front seats, I wanted to bring them to an upholsterer to fix the tears and maybe add a little bit more hug? I like these seats a lot.






Whoops, Id like a shorter header. I want to bring my car down another inch but still want to be able to get onto the WA state ferries. (I don't scrape getting onto the ferries, yet)


Yuck.. I've considered taking on redoing this wiring myself, it would be my first time.. taking it slow with the car parked indoors. Worth bringing to someone with more experience?


Yikes! I have an aftermarket replacement waiting to be installed when I catch up on buying more suspension components...


As for the direction I'm going, I want to turbo this car & daily drive it, the goal is to have decent mpg but be able to pull at speed. (40-80mph)
I will be paying for most of the mechanical work done to this car, but in the end I want to land in the 350whp range with room to reach 450whp range should I chose to down the road. I'm going to start with what needs fixed and move from there, working with ~$6-8,000 budget.
I'm unsure if I should keep the B16a block I have or build LSvtec, I feel like I can reach these power goals easier with what I have.

For now, what I want is to..
- have the motor completely rebuilt for boost (it has problems) but have a lot of reading to do regarding compression and turbo trim sizes
- convert to obd1
- update the shot suspension
- pull the dents from above the windshield and repaint the car
- relocate the cigarette lighter & climate controls above the small storage trays on top of the dash
- rear wiper delete
- probably wash the car at some point.

The motor runs funky, the brakes are leaky and the rear suspension is bent up.. I will need a lot of help picking parts and brains, so please try and be patient with any interesting questions I really appreciate any help I get here!

fishmagician

The biggest problem I've had with this car is a terrible sound coming from the head that so far nobody has had a solid answer for.
It sounds like a rock skipping around in the valve-train.. it's usually only a couple clicks (as heard in the video) but fairly often it will go off like a string of firecrackers for 10-20 seconds.
The car runs and drives fairly fine, but will sometimes bog down like its losing power. Re-applying throttle always fixes the power loss.
The valves click, the distributor needs rebuilt or replaced, it could use a timing job and new lost motion assembly's and i haven't changed the fuel filter.. anything else this could be that I am missing?

edit: reuploading vids to youtube tomorrow...