Joes NEW Grey Beast
Hey guys,
I'm sure at least a few of you remember my last SW20. I hared around Wakefield Park in it at the beginning of the year and had a blast!
I asked a lot of people for advice regarding whether I should build the N/A Bathurst engine to take a turbo for all that high-comp turbo goodness, or just sell it and start again. The N/A just wasn't quick enough for the track for me.
I sold it 2 weeks after returning home. 3 weeks later I went and bought this beast!
1992 SW20 Turbo with a genuine 150,000k's on it. Completely rebuilt 30,000k's ago. One of the cleanest examples I've seen, and, along with Zmit's SW20, one of 2 known SMG MR2's in the state!
The guy I bought it from really had no idea what he was sitting on when he sold it. It's been clear of the forums, and the first Aussie owner tried to make it a drift car, judging by a lot of the goodies I've found in it
I flew all the way to Brissy from Adelaide just to take a look at it. EssDub (I'll save the embarrassment of uploading the photo of him posing in the previous spot) kindly gave up his weekend to help me drive it, non-stop, back to Adelaide.
A 24-hour drive home, and it was sitting in my driveway.
Of course, I scoured the engine bay for goodies and problems before I bought it, but taking it apart to fix the problems we found proved to find more than we were expecting!
On the entire drive home, it never reached proper operating temperature, was hitting fuel cut when we planted it occasionally, had a blown turbo manifold gasket, leaky axle seal, leaking and worn steering rack, ridiculously old coolant and brake fluid, etc, etc.
The next few weeks were spent sourcing parts to fix everything that was wrong with it, get it ID checked and registered in SA.
The repairing process took longer than I care to admit.
Originally I attempted to rebuild the steering rack myself, but failed and attributed my failure to power-steering racks working through witchcraft, and bought a second hand one instead to install the new rack ends in.
The operating temperature issue was because of a tiny thermostat that did nothing to impede coolant flow and allow the car to reach an ideal operating temperature.
Here's a comparison of the old and new (OEM) thermostats (OEM on the right), in one extremely out of focus photo.
The wreck in the background appears to have stolen the limelight...
The receipts I got with the car show extensive work done to it, dating back to 2006.
In '06 it was rebuilt twice, once as a basic rebuild, and the second time 2 months later with forged pistons, ARP head studs, metal head-gasket, etc, etc.
The gearbox was also rebuilt and a Quaife 1.5-way installed, for maximum locking up during u-turns, and hektik drifts!
Replacing the Turbo manifold gasket, and all other gaskets, allowed me to get a good look at the turbo, since it was clearly pulling a fair bit more than stock power, and spooling very nicely.
I found a CT20B, as well as a MUCH fatter XSPower Intercooler with water sprayer installed. I later found the water pump in the boot, still working, but with no reservoir. That's a project for down the track.
To top it off, it came with an ARC intake and Blitz Nur copy 3" turbo back exhaust as well.
Eventually, I replaced all the troublesome parts, got some fresh coolant running through it, stopped all the oil, power steering, exhaust and coolant leaks and actually got it running properly.
Fast-forward a couple of months and it's my new daily and I'm having a lot of trouble behaving myself
More recently, I rebuilt the brakes. One rear was seized and the other wasn't far off, and painted them yellow because I felt like it.
I think they look pretty good, even if my painting skills aren't up to scratch.
They are truly ugly wheels...
I'm having some issues with my knock sensor, and I've done a temporary fix on it for now, but it's far from an ideal finishing point.
Given it's reliability at this point, it should be track-ready once I've got better brake pads, wheels and tyres.
A new ECU is on the books, as well as coilovers, a bigger brake kit and various other intake mods which will make it all the more fun to drive!
Looking forward to the coming years with this one!
Will post as progress allows :)
post edited by Joe - 2015/06/17 18:48:05