Acquired this del sol on 8/11/2019. Found it on Facebook and I was catfished by the pictures (the paint job it has is the shittiest Maaco job I've ever seen and it looks good in pictures and a whole different story in real life)

It was owned by a dude that clearly didnt know about cars/how to work on cars. He said over time, it was becoming harder and harder to start and eventually wouldnt start at all and it's been sitting for months according to him. He told me he's sent it to the mechanic shop (again, does not own tools and does not know how to even work on it) multiple times, changing the fuel pump, main relay, etc with no luck

When I first got there to look at the car, the first thing I noticed were the orange paint that has chipped off in huge chunks exposing the oem white underneath. I told him to pop the hood (which is apparently a carbon fiber hood with a huge crack where the hood prop goes).

There was a new ebay distributor that was not bolted correctly and had about an inch gap between the block and the dizzy it self.

He told me he's been watching youtube videos and thinks its the timing. I went to look at the timing belt and it is just straight up loose. Apparently he's been moving the belt one tooth at a time to see if it would start. He's doing this without tensioning the timing belt mind you so while we were cranking the car, the belt is skipping constantly.

He wanted $1,000 for it but I told him it's hard paying full price for a car that doesnt even turn on. I told him, I have $500 cash and i'll get it towed home. He went inside to ask his girlfriend and minutes later she came out with a signed title lmao. She told me she never ever wants to see this car ever again.

Got it towed home for $100. The car has Koni STR shocks with Skunk2 coilover sleeves, a d16z6 engine swapped in (chassis is an S model that came with the b7), new ac condenser and fan, new brake master cylinder, oem intake

This is where my adventure starts.

As with all del sols, they all leak, this one is no exception. The interior was mildewy and nasty. My first task was to remove the seats and carpet and interior panel and clean the **** out of it.

facebook pics from ad

catfish mothafkin paint

notice how theres no paint chipped off at this time. Must've been the day he picked it up from Maaco

why do people lower their car and leave it with a reverse rake?

 

how is someone ok with this ****?

I have seen worse but I knew there was much worse underneath the carpet

Surface rust and even a few rust holes yay!

how is there a inch layer of dirt literally everywhere?

digusting

I cleaned everything with some purple power and sprayed undercoating on the floorpan to hide the surface rust

looking a little better

gettin there

remember how nasty this area was before?

 

Random rust areas that will need to be taken care of asap

Now that the interior was somewhat cleaned. Time to see wtf is up with this engine. It wouldn't crank on its own, i tried to jump it and it was still too weak. It has an EverStart battery which is from walmart. I took it with it to see if there was any warranty left on it. Thankfully there was TWO WEEKS left of the warranty, came home with a free brand new battery, walmart ftw. Also got a set of spark plugs.

 

We need updates!

 

Is this one of W95's cousins?

 

Looks like he coppered his whole car to make the headgasket stick

 

lololollol

orange **** paint job is a paint code from a chrysler challenger. Mango Tango Orange Pearl


because of course it is

 

OK, after getting the new battery from wally world and sparkplugs. Got home, set cyl 1 at tdc and redid the timing and tensioned it.

Gave it a crank, no start but you can tell it was starting to catch.

Gave it another crank and SHE'S ALIVE!!


CEL but it stays on. Took it for a spin around the block

 

Wheels and tires on the car were straight doo doo. Got a cheap but new set of wheels and tires.

Also adjusted the coilovers and lowered it to a decent height. I thought it had Koni STR.T struts but I think they are old Koni Reds. Regardless, they were way too soft and rode like **** honestly.

No name wheels and tires but new is new


Adjusted the coilovers and lowered it

Rolled the rear fender

Before

After

Much better

 

As I mentioned before, this is probably one of the shittiest paint jobs I've ever seen.

I think this particular Maaco painter was both lazy AND blind.

There are overspray in the randomest place (windshield, rear window etc) and as mentioned earlier, the paint is chipping off by huge chunks.

The trim pieces like the sideskirts etc are dull and faded. So i decided to paint them with some Duplicolor Trim paint. Love this stuff, I've used it on all my cars.

Taped off certain areas with masking tape, and when I pulled the masking tape off, literal chunks came off....FROM MASKING TAPE

Looking at the paint job. I dont think the car was sanded NOR primed, I just see the oem white paint underneath.

I'm pretty sure if I used a strong gas-powered pressure washer, all of the orange will just peel. Kinda tempted to do that tbh


pitiful

ugh


Weirdest masking tape I've ever used. Dafuq amazon

This stuff is awesome

lookin mo betta already

aweee suki suki yall


watch out now

 

Went to the junkyard to get ac lines and etc stuff. I have a new ac condenser and fan. In the car, blower and other interior ac bits are still there thankfully.

In the engine bay, the only lines are the ones on the pass side frame rail.

SO i needed high and low pressure lines that goes under radiator and infront of radiator. Ac compressor, bracket, tensioner, belt. Drier, hardline that goes to drier and condenser. Pressure switch for condenser. Two softlines that comes out of compressor.

Went to the junkyard and got distracted, got a few of the lines and compressor bracket I needed. Also picked up this ebay header + test pipe from a crashed eg sedan.

Tried to put the header/testpipe on but it just would not fit at all. It hit the rear motor mount/tranny brace. Orientation was far too far to the right. Even just the header + stock cat and it didnt fit. Waste of a few hours but at least i was able to return it to the yard.

In the meantime, the old o2 was stuck as **** on the oem header and i pretty much destroyed it taking it out. Went to the parts store and picked up a new Denso unit. Also fixed the vtec solenoid wiring because both wires were cut for some damn reason.

Cranked the car and no more CEL!! And also vtec works!!

Wasted an entire day trying to swap the header but at least I got a new o2 sensor that took care of my CEL

Did an oil change too. Trying out amazon's oil

My buddy gave me his old headunit with bluetooth. Installed one of these Infinity FX35 dual woofer amplified Bose subwoofers. They sound great in small cars.

Painted the lower radiator support., The white looked terrible and dinghy and it was bent :/

 

I was having a high AND surging idle. Went and cleaned the fast idle valve, glad i did because it was disgusting and all rusty inside.

Assembled everything back together and it no longer surges but still idles high 1,500rpms

Also did a coolant flush

 

A few more painting small bits here and there. Installed new trunk struts that came with the car as well.

before

after

oem header heatshield

new trunk struts

 

Car came with eg seats. Came across a dude parting out an EG and got 97' edition sol seats with the required driver bolster rip.

But also a brand new OEM EG lip. $120 for seats AND lip!

 

Oh man, you need to make that thing a Jack-o-Lantern for Halloween!

 

Sweet, keep on fixing it up! Also i know amazon sells everything but I did not know they had their own oil line lolol!

 

nice score on the front lip! gives it more of a simple and clean look.

 

hah! that'd be hilarious

Yup! lol

Thanks!

 

Keepin on with the updates

Installed some Alpine speaker in the doors and some MB Quartz in the rear deck/wall?

 

New speakers, head unit and Bose sub sounds really good!

Next, I found a salvage yard that had a 97 del sol thats apparently been there for years and they barely sold any parts off of it.

Had to climb another car to get to the del sol but I found some gems

all interior/roof seals
drivers side seat without a tear
misc ac harness and brackets

salvage yards like these are so damn weird

Compressor bracket and belt

Engine bay ac harness

Bought a reman'd compressor from ebay

Getting there

Driver seat w/o a rip. Very hard to find in this cond

Just needs a cleaning

Got some condenser and lines because I thought the new condenser that came with the car didnt fit but it ended up fitting. Just needed to get some various hardlines from the yard

 

nice work so far, keep at it..

 

Thanks man!

 

So at this point, we have AC in the del sol!

Had a bit of back and forth with my buddy who works at a toyota dealer who helped me refill the freon. Had to take apart the evaporator, you wouldnt believe how much dirt and **** was in there! Changed all of the o-rings and put it a new expansion valve for good measure.

 

Continuing on with the interior

As seen a few posts up, I took out the carpets and most of the interior panels so i can clean the floors and spray some bedliner on them to minimize rust.

I got some insulation material from Wish and I covered the entire floorboard with it. It helped a bit, the shifter seal was ripped and it was letting in an ungodly amount of heat through the tunnel. I put a few layers on insulation and no more heat!

 

Interior is....mostly...sorted. Got carpet back, floor is insulated, oem del sol seats are in.

Want to do tint on the windows. Found a precut kit for around $30, kinda want to try to tackle it on my own.

Now we shift our focus on to the suspension. As mentioned, it came with skunk2 coilover sleeves on Koni red struts.

The chassis has 250k miles and i'm seeing that the majority of the bushings are shot.

We start with all new Koni yellows all the way around and we will reuse the skunk2 sleeves, added extended tophats as well.

Front suspension will get new camber arms, inner/outer tie rods, new lower control arms, and new lower ball joints.


old and word

got some surface rust on the springs so i hit em with some paint

assembled new unit ready to go in

rolled the front fenders

much better

extended rear top hats

old and new tie rods