Connor’s overcomplicated simplify everything gen 2

Well I have been picking away at the car, haven’t updated this in too long, life’s been a bit hectic lol. I will be making a proper post soon with a real update, but it’s mostly been smaller stuff, and working on other things that’s been needing to get done for too long. My new powdercoat oven was completed, and now I’m working out some bugs with it, I have started to use it though and it works good when it feels like it. A buddy also decided to do a pretty crazy engine swap in one of his cars and has roped me into doing all the fabrication on it, so I’ve had my hands full trying to figure out how to make a turbo ls fit under the hood of a 2013 sti with no hood modifications, while retaining the entire sti awd drivetrain. That’s been a process lol. Just today I’ve been putting a bunch of my interior back together, and I’m just starting to pick at my chassis harness so that should be going back in in a day or so. Haven’t forgotten about the car, and I have a date when it needs to be done that’s not too distant in the future, just kinda forgot about this thread haha.

 

This is pretty crazy! from not knowing about cars to basically an entire rebuild of the car, AND painting it is pretty nuts..

did you get worried about trying to figure out how to put it all back together?

also, how did you get the car from inside the garage to outside and back in, when it was just a shell?

maybe i missed it, but do you have power goals in mind?

this is such a fun build thread, please keep it going!!!!

 

Thank you! I worry all the time when I’m looking at the mountain of parts in my basement that need to be installed lol. I took a ton of pictures and videos of every step so that I can hopefully get it back together.
I have a set of wheel dollies that my rx7 sits on most of the time that I stole to use to move the shell around. Basically I just put one under each front corner of the car where the subframe mounts directly under the firewall. The back I ran a 2x6 across the rear “frame” section and rested the 2x6 on the other 2 dollies. Kinda a pain to move but it didn’t need to go far which is good. The shell isn’t crazy heavy so it wasn’t too much of a concern with it getting out of control.
On the basis of power goals, I don’t want to spew insane numbers on here and then not deliver, but I’m hoping for mid 600s at the end. I have a friend with a very fast sti that I’m helping to build that I want to beat haha. Have to see if that’s going to be possible or not, with traction being my limiting factor for sure.
I do have a small update I should be typing up soon, just want to make sure I have enough accomplished to make an update worth it.

 

I guess it’s time for a small update on progress. Unfortunately nothing too exciting has happened, but I am getting some of the smaller and less fun parts back together. I left the car to sit for about 3 weeks as it’s cold here and I wanted to make sure the paint wasn’t too soft when I started to reassemble. I also finally got my new powdercoat oven working so I could start refinishing the crusty old parts.


First order of business was supposed to be the entire fuel system going back in. I am unfortunately still waiting on a couple stupid parts to come in for it, so I only have the filler neck assembly back together. I was shocked to find how many parts made up the filler neck. These weren’t too bad, just a little crusty from daily driving the car for years. I did end up shaving off the one bracket that holds some sort of canister thing along with what I want to say is the purge valve? Not sure haha, but I’m deleting the entire fuel tank emissions systems and just running an old school vent to atmosphere setup with a rollover valve in case of the worst happening. In this first load of powdercoated stuff I also did my tank straps, along with the top hat retainer ring for the tank. Once I get my last few parts I’ll do a more detailed post on the tank itself. The filler neck rubber retainer piece that holds it in the car had to be the hardest thing to get back in ever. I fought with it for an hour before I finally got it to slip back in place. All hardware was replaced with some stainless bolts, that were liberally coated with anti seize so that hopefully I can get them out again in the future.


While I was at the back of the car I reinstalled a bunch of small rubber plugs in the rear of the car along with the clips that hold the taillights in place. The rear bumper brackets were snapped back in place, still missing the hardware because I can’t bring myself to put the crusty old hardware back in them. Have to get something fresher looking for that. The rear crash sensor thing also got the same stainless bolts and powdercoat treatment as the filler neck did. Obviously didn’t powdercoat the actual sensor, just the bracket.



The interior was my next little project. I powdercoated the little chassis brace pieces that go in the hatch and the ones that go between the roof and b pillar. These were just bare metal from the factory so some coating did a lot for them. I also got the curtain side airbags back installed making sure those were right and not wrapped up on themselves. All the plugs that were on the floor got cleaned and put back and then we were at the point where the chassis harness needed to go back.


Usually this wouldn’t be a difficult job, just lay the wires where they belong and plug them in. My car had trailer light wiring that was tapped into the taillight harness that I wanted to get rid of as I took the hitch off like 1 year into ownership of the car. There was also an aftermarket remote start in the car that caused me nothing but headaches the entire time I owned the car. Along with the fact that it never even worked. So I laid the harness out on the floor and started chopping out every wire that wasn’t original to the car. Once I was satisfied, into the car it went. Everything laid out surprisingly well and it was pretty easy to get everything back where it belonged. I haven’t attached much on the firewall as I want the dash bar back in so that I can connect stuff properly.



Last part of this update is just going to be tossing the carpet back in. This was by far the easiest part as it just laid back where it belonged. No drama which was very nice, and it’s a pretty big step towards the interior coming together.



I think my next update will hopefully be the fuel system getting completed so I can finally get the tank back under the car. I’m also very close to dropping way too much money on the rest of the stuff for my suspension to get the car to be a roller again.

 

Everything looks awesome! You are doing top shelf work. I am liking the idea of setting up a powder coat oven...if you were to start a "off topic" thread about it .

 

I definitely could make a post about diy powdercoating and how I learned, it’s a great way to get stuff done in a fraction of the time that it would take sending it out. Oven wise I haven’t quite figured out, just last night my control board just exploded so once I get a new controller in there then I can make a post about the “cheapest” way to acquire a 2x3x6 oven setup. And thank you! Just a side note, I can see a run in one of my pictures haha, that will be sanded out properly and buffed, I’m not just leaving paint runs on the car for anyone wondering. I like to wait a good few months before sanding runs as I’ve had it backfire where the paint in the run is still wet since I tend to paint stuff when it’s way too cold.