My Conquest adventure started late 07 or so, me and my best friend where discussing buying a new car vs. and old car and he was showing me a bunch of "classic" cars, Alpha Romeo, Thunderbird SC, Merkurs and some Vettes. Then he showed me a Fiji Conquest. I was amazing, I never saw or heard of that car before and immediately fell inlove with its styling. Immediately I knew I had to have this car.
Cut to early 2009 I actively start looking for the car. I had a few leads, one as far as Vancouver, saw none locally near Joiliet to test drive and see what the car is like.
Another month went by and I found my car. It was in DC, a 12 hour drive, it was cheap, $1,200 and had a "rebuilt" engine.
Me and my friend jumped into my Civic and started driving East. Here is how it all unfolded from there


Updated 7.4.10


My DD, picking up my friend early in the morning

Hitting the road, Ohio I think

The awesome roads in Pennsylvania

Lots curves, good drive

Oh yeah

Tunnel!

Good reverb

Getting dark, we switched drivers

Great scenery

Almost there

12 hours later, this is how I started to see things

and feel

Whoa..

Thar she be!

:D

Pulled in the first plaza to get some food, a bit before midnight local time

My friend drove first, I never really driven a RWD car and I was too tired to try

Just over two hours later we pull over to switch drivers. Car wouldnt start again, starter came loose. It's 3am,
found a tow truck to come and take it back to the shop for a quick repair.

Me driving it after the repair just after sunrise, somewhere in Pennsylvania, nice wet descending mountain road.

Horrible, horrible hack job

What you cant see is the shifter lever banging against the bezel in 5th gear

After the steering hydraulic line failed, I had to fight to keep the wheel straight, for 10 hours...

Getting gas, coffee, rest

Some rust, but not too bad. Car was from the south

The fix

After fixing the busted accordion hose with electric tape I finally get proper boost

75 miles from home she dies. Turned out to be a faulty secondary injector and the accordion hose ripped more.

5 hours later I was able to get free towing

My baby is home

Further inspection in the morning

No battery tray

Cracked thermostat housing

Just came right off

Temp fix. Previous owner bored out a bigger hole, SAE instead of metric, big PITA

First car wash

Than the water pump fails

Radiator falls apart as I take it out

New pump

New belts and hoses

Replaced the PS line as well

New radiator

Sway Bar

Replacing rear plate brackets

Replaced radio and heater control also shift boot

New motor oil, tranny and LSD

Removed charcoal can and a few other things

Replacing throttle body, checked out the rocker as well.

Trilogy Injectors

New ignition cables, rotor, plugs

Than this happens...

Replaced both sides

New coolant/oil lines to turbo

New calipers getting primed

Painted

Driving to friends house who has more tools and a garage

Fun

<3 the Mau5

Notice the news paper holding the speaker in place, lol

Out goes the tank

Struts

Rusty :/

angle cutter to the stuck hand brake lever

Took us over 2 hours to separate that

burning bushings is fun

Took about 20 minutes for them to burn out enough to pop out

New struts, bushings, brake lines, brakes


Very dirty

One down

The other one took even longer

X-member

The beer adds 10hp

Rearend halfway done

Front now

Installing brakes

Notice the zip ties

almost...

All done

Drive back home

As she sits now

Some rubbing

New rims and tires

Shiny

Good looking tread!

New rocker cover

At a local meet

Quest Parade

Fellow questers

New KDM air intake with 1G MAS and a bigger intercooler

New ST swaybars

Back to work, new swaybars, IC, intake piping, alternator fix, a few other

Got the fool out

Broken Tension bolt

Nice macro shot

solderd back a broken wire

Old and new

Endlinks securing

Starting to take out the stock IC

Damn thing kicked my ***

New IC

Test fitting

Rear swaybar

Getting it installed

A better fit, cut out to make it fit

Done for the day

After replacing worn rear spring mounts

Everything but BOV and MAS hooked up

This awesome doohicky

New Fuel Filter and PSI gauge

New fuseable links

Just noticed that there were two missing bolts, securing that gap gained me 8mpg!

Got me a heatsink

after treating it with Aircraft Remover and a grinder

Eching primer

Black caliper paint

RFL!

Perty

New tools

All hooked up

It's all finaly done!

Taking off that nasty oxidation

Looking good!

It works

Stitching up the busted air dam for now

Sexy

Repaired the heat mat and painted the shield

Painted heatshield

Re-installing the bumper after stiching the whole air dam, about 80 zip ties

Much easier to install when jacked

Cheap, but effective.

Snow Quest

Storing my dead Civic battery

Selective Yellow in my Civic

Can't wait for Spring

Flooded plugs

No wonder she wont start

All four

Chicago winter destroyed them o-rings

Time to pull it apart

RTV is probably not the best gasket...

Unburned gas, car actually started with fouled plugs and no TB plugged in on that fuel alone!

Exposed wiring on TPS

More RTV...

new orings

Meh, better than before

Shiny

Soaking in the Simple Green

Mock up while I wait for rebuilt kit

moar snow

New Stage 3 Clutch

6-puck

New flywheel

Shiny new gasket

Changing the oil

Replacing throttle cable

Back from the car wash

I love how that red stitching stands out

Runs super smooth

So damn fine

LEG 1.5
So at this point I said, screw it, and decided to do an engine swap fro a known good, low mileage engine that wont let me down.

Driving out to Fond du Lac

Right to business, pulling hoses and pipes

Almost everything disconnected,time to pull

Getting her out, friend being awesome

Out it goes, leaving the tranny in place

So much dirt and grime. I wish I had more than a day to scrub and clean everything

Oil in the tunnel, I guess I finally fond my oil leak

New flywheel, clutch and pressure plate installed on the new engine

Yup

Front end. May not look clean but its proven

The old money pit

In she goes

Old transmission mount, its gone. I replaced both tranny and engine mounts with new poly ones, what an improvement!

Also pulled the AC and cruise control, so much cleaner

Where the condenser used to be

Old crappy exhaust

New one

Gurgle!

Moar exhaust

Indeed it does suck

More exhaust pics

All straight pipe

Slight curve

Yup

New injector clips

Later that night alternator siezed up, getting on a tow truck, barley clears

So replaced the alternator and decided to clean up the tires

Brake dust loves me

Good ole wheel buffing and waxing

All 4

New garage

So empty

Here is my insert problem right there

All set right

107ft.lb

Prepping wipers arm for paint

Primer

Results

Now time for short throw

For now.... (I could see the drive shaft spin when driving)

Repainted valve cover, came out orangish

time to restore headlight covers

Yummy

Clear foglight lenses and restore

Painting rear runners

Wrinkle Black on air deflector

Driveshaft and exhaust

Time to fix frame railes

Diamond Plate!

Results

New tranny

All clean

Primmed

Painted

Ready to install

Old tranny

And it's fluids

Installed

Got my exhaust tucked and secured

Time for more wrinkle black


:D


THE END!
...for now

 

Thats a dandy set of problems you ran into. nice work!

 

That's bitchin. I've always loved those cars and been afraid to buy one... looks like my fears were justified lol.

Good luck. They're fun when everything's working right.

 

are you sure thats not an 88?

 

haha damn that looks intricate

 

love those cars

 

Sweeet! Looking forward to seeings this build progress!

 

My bad, 1988. Going back to work on it today, maybe I'll have it running.

 

damn man.. nice progress!

 

nice upgrades!

 

looks like that car found the perfect owner. nice work.

i really want one of those engines for my '87 SWB montero. it's a 12 wire swap that just drops in; i can't imagine this little rolling 2 door box with boost, but it's surely fun.

 

Nice car, and i thought my talon was a PITA to work on lol.

 

deadmau5 ftw. cool project too.

 

Awesome ride my only complaint is it looks lke money pit, but hey isnt that what all cars are at end of the day.

 

I think I spend just under $7k total. on new parts, tools, the car itself, gas, oil.

Then only major work left is paint and a new exhaust, about $1,200 all together.

It was either pay $5-9k for a built quest or do it yourself.

 

great job keep us posted

 

My cousins and uncles had tons of those cars when I was growing up. Conquests and Starions were my 1st love!!

 

Awsome build. Keep it updated

 

I love the look of these cars, especially the blue tsi's. I heard you need to swap heads with one from a dodge caravan. the conquest head has a coolant passage that tends to crack.

good luck with that thing!

 

Never heard of the head swap but a built head is always nice, they go cheap like $500. After its back on track and all in working order I will drop like $2k for an MPI

 

dope project bro.

 

what a great project car. one of my old school favorites.

 

Nice Project. Theirs a guy up the street from me with two of these.

 

Success! I was able to resolve its revving issue. Must have been my stock intake, after fully installing my new intake (and getting water out of the IC) the car runs great! Revs to 8k rpm without issue!

It now only stalls when idling, I'm using my stock MAS, need to play around with that some more.

 

Awesome build thread. Props for building a car not many of us get to see nowadays !