So earlier in the month i was invited to tag along with GVX19 and m4ff3w to the challenge, but i was non-committal.
After a while i caught wind they weren't even set what car they were going to take but it was going to be one of their DDs. m4ff3w DDs a 1987 Shelby Lancer i traded to him and asked me what we could do to upgrade it for Challenge action. The gears were turning when i thought "Wait a second, why should we risk anyone's DD when i have ANOTHER lancer just sitting here and a pile of parts to throw at it? We can cruise to FL and blow it sky high and everyone can still get to work on monday!"
Thus began the current build.
I havent had this car all that long so i don't have much in the way of 'before' pictures. All i'd done to this car since getting it was add a better muffler to the full 3" exhaust and put the wheels from the Shelby Lancer onto the Lancer Shelby. I was courteous enough to do this BEFORE i traded the Shelby Lancer to m4ff3w so no theft was involved.
There it is with the stock wheels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Lancer#Lancer_Shelby
New drivetrain pre-assembled and ready to go.
M4ff3w's son was there to help out, as much as an 11y/o can be expected to. He has since turned 12 so we are looking forward to some improvement there (please excuse the horrendously messy background of this and all future images). 
Check out that sweet creeper. I broke it by falling onto it like a fatass about a million times. m4ff3w donated a slightly less broken one to the cause later.
Turn's out having m4ff3w's son Demetrius take off the tires was a good idea because if it weren't for child labor it's possible one of us adults would have been exposed to this menace.
The little bastard crawled into the caliper before i could humanely crush it, so we were forced to humanely burn it to death with lit brake cleaner. For the children.
I have found through many years of K-car ownership that the easy button for drivetrain swaps is to drop the engine and trans together straight out the bottom.
Then, when it's on the ground, use the hoist to pick the car up high enough to slide it out, and then hook a chain to it and just pull. These K-car drivetrains have smooth bottoms and slide well on concrete.
New motor+trans. A rebuilt, never-run 2.5L and a413 auto trans. I'll list the specs of these farther down.
Did we clean the engine bay while the engine was out? No. The last motor had a horrible front main leak and the entire underside of the car is nasty. We'll get around to it...
Slide the new one in and hoist it up!
We had the new drivetrain hanging on the mounts before we stopped on 10/14. It took a solid 3 hours of work in the 4 hours we were there to get it that far. Gotta love K-cars... They're easier to swap the whole drivetrain on then they are to R&R a starter or a turbo on. 
There are brackets in there. Im cleaning them. I own 2 parts washers and this is me cleaning some brackets.
The tires are not very aggressive and too wide for the wheels but i doubt we want to spend real money on real tires. There is plenty of room in the budget to borrow some, however. 
That's about all there's room for!
This is where the mapp gas and HF alumaweld sticks come in.. to be continued!
Here we have a super custom gauge panel for boost, fuel pressure, and wideband. It will be painted opaque at some point. And, you know, the gauges will be hooked up.
Trans cooler and the hole we opened up to run charge piping. Supposedly 2 2.5" pipes will go through there. It's gonna be tight..
There's the intercooler mounted to the bumper support. I put it all back on the car and stared at it and i think i need to flip the intercooler and move it up a bit. Should just be drilling two more holes to make our charge plumbing a lot easier.
Gratuitous shot of engine. Wish that AC compressor and lines would paint themselves but oh well. 
