14b on a 4g63 4 me!, proper introductions Options

[xian 1g]

Hello DSM Central,
I am brand spanking new to you, DSM's, and the world of wrenches. My name's Christian, and I am a student (for 4 more weeks) at the U of I. I've actually had the pleasure of meeting some of you at the autocross in rantoul, as well as serving some of you at Chambana's finest Pickles, Family Food and Fun.
So how did I end up here??? Well, you can blame KOU In3. He stuck me in the back one day with a needle full of crack and DSM. He said everyone was doing it. Soon, stealing his car wasn't enough to get my fix any more, so about three weeks ago I purchased a 90 awd tsi talon with the money I had saved up to go to Vegas with the ex.
Then, I spent all of spring break with KOU at pickles and in the shop. We got 12 hours of sleep for the week. Three true all nighters, and 4 nights with 3 hours of sleep. But, in one week we finally got the project to fire up on the sunday that ended break (then i slept through the next two days of classes.) I have to give a huge thanks out to KOU for all of the time he invested into the car with me, as well as for the time the car spent out at his shop/garage. With out him none of this would have been capable. (Seeing how before purchasing the car I could barely remember how to change my own oil from my one shop class at Limestone.) Now I can say, among a multitude of other things, I have pulled and dropped both an engine and transmission.
Over the next week we worked on getting the car to fire up consistently, and being in class i missed spending every spare minute of time in the shop/garage smelling like gas. New spark plugs and altenator gave the car the spark that it needed. But, it was still bucking like a mechanical bull. So, over the last week we had another one of Chambana's Dsm'ers drop by the shop and lend a huge hand to data log and play with the wiring harness and sensors. Another big shout out to Eric. Thanks man, can't say it enough, but I owe you more than what I can post here.
Finally, tonight I drove the beast home. The car still has some issues, but mainly minor ones. (Such as when I dropped it into second to turn into my subdivision and the front lights went out and wouldn't come back on. lol.)
I have a lot to learn, and I respect those who are my elders. I wish I had more to contribute back to the board, but the truth is that I'll be learning from you. I'll try my hardest to not ask stupid newbie questions, and check out vfags and other links in my quest for knowledge before I bug you guys. Over the course of the week I'll try and post up some pics and dialogue about what all we did to the car. I just wanted to formally introduce myself and give a HUGE shout out to KOU and Eric for all of their help.
thanks, and good to meet you,
xian 1g

[ICGerms]

Welcome to the Wonderful World of DSMs ...

[MidwestDSM]

Welcome man! I've met ya a couple times, at Pickles and at the AutoX in Rantoul when you and KOU were tryin to put the slicks on the Laser. Anyways, good to see you here!

[natedogg]

Welcome to the board!

[turbohcar]

Welcome to our home. Feel free to take off your shoes and jacket and stay awhile. Don't feel that a question is a stupid one as long as you've tried to research it before hand. We've all been newbies at one time and all of us are still learning new stuff all the time. Make yourself at home. :thumbsup

[SCCA Stang]

welcome to the board, i remember meeting you at rantoul, glad to see you stuck with us and picked up a DSM, look forward to meeting you again

[JBone]

Congrats on the buy, Christian. I was the one that raced the KOU Motorsports sponsored AWD 1G.

[xian 1g]

Thanks for the ride through the course, you drove it better than me I made up the last half of the course.

[xian 1g]

Madame X~ my little radio flyer




Allright, it took a little while for me to deliver the pics, but here they are.
It's my understanding this radio flyer has a been passed around a few hands on this board like the first girl to put out in gradeschool. And now, that dirty girl is with me... Thanks Rob





Take a look at her pretty interior... it's the last you'll ever see of it. Car is going to go from a pretty princess, to (quote wortdog) a cold hearted bitch that plays rough.




and now.... all the inside paneling is gone... This pic is pretty early in the process. I've scraped all the sound dampening off, except inside the dash, which is where i'm headed next. Last night broke out some brake cleaner and started polishing off the sexy metal frame, i'll get pics of that later.




Needless to say, the car is going on an atkins friendly diet. Sorry, no more rice until your licensed and insured babe... Well, i'm in my database class and it's time to go, i'll finish with the rest of the pics in the next class that i learn nothing in...
xian

[xian 1g]

This is what we had to start off with. The black sound dampening cloth against the firewall is gone, as well as all the power steering, ac, cruise control and bunch of other crap.




there's the heart and soul of the car. And yes, that is Mr. KOU stopping to look at porn during our week long extravaganza.




The motor is dropped in and it's looking more like a car. The exhaust manifold has a broken stud, hence an exhaust leak. But, we'll take care of that later. Wiring harness was hacked, Wortdog came over and helped to get all of that straightened out.




That's basically about it. We got the car up and running in one week. Pretty much all stock. Has a lightened flywheel, slightly upgraded clutch, and aftermarket UIC. Pretty much following the upgrade path after that, we just had to deal with what we could get at the time. After yanking all the luxury crap off the engine and out of the engine bay I've got a lot of room to work with in there. Bumpers are soon to go, pulling off the dash this week and scraping more sound dampening out. Cleaning out the interior and give it a nice shiny ricer red paint job. Have to sand down the wheels and give them a flat black paint job so i can drive around listening to reo speedwagon and not feel out of place. rear calipers are frozen, hoping pb blaster will get the e-brake to work. Other than that, spending all of my money and spare time this summer learning more about the car and trying to get her into the 12's by august. I learned a lot in that week, and learned how much more there is to know.

thanks again to all who made it possible.
xian