My 88 Yugo GV street toy

Its slow, it handles poorly, it rarely runs and always gives me crap. But it's an absolute blast to drive it flat out and rarely exceed the speed limit in the process, and cheap, very cheap. I don't have more than $1000 in this thing.

Project started in mid May, below is a copypasta of my build thread at another forum.

1988 Yugo GV $450, no brakes, wont idle, needs a CV boot and a few structural areas patched(very solid for a Yugo) driver side rear strut tower being the worst of it. Car has new rotors, calipers, pads, shoes, wheel cylinders and hardware. For some reason it has a VW grill and no timing belt cover or spare tire, kinda important in this car, the spare is part of the crumple zone. I plan to have it on the street long before fall. I should have well under $1000 in the project, including the car itself, when you can find them, parts for these are dirt cheap.

The tow rig, surprisingly enough the Chrysler product with 200k on it didnt give me any E36 M3.

We didn't get the straps tight enough or something and it fell off the trailer after 1/2 a mile in town, this is the result, not sure what to do about it, if anything. After some random guys stopped and helped us pick it up and put it back on, followed by tightening the straps as tight as I could get them, the trip went smoothly.

It felt like it had some brakes, but it turns out there were none. So i figured I would use reverse to slow it down, when I rolled it off the hauler it decided to start and I learned how to drive a yugo in reverse quickly. This is where it stopped.

A couple undercarriage shots.

Decent interior with factory AM FM Cassette deck.

Most of the clutter will be removed.

Picked up these tires on the way home for $60, they are new 145r13 off a Diahatsu minitruck, made in Japan, no dot number(just a DOT style date code) as they are JDM truck tires, but whatever.

Fired it up and drove it carefully into this shady parking spot closer to the garage, this is where it will spend most of its time for the next month or two.

PLAN in roughly chronological order: -Get yard driveable -Remove interior, dash, heater, fenders and bumpers, treat all rust, weld in patches on structural E36 M3, fiberglass everything else. Fix dings and dents, mostly with bondo. Rattlecan over my repairs. Clean interior and fix any issues there. -Go through suspension, replace bushings and E36 M3. -Address powertrain concerns, timing belt, coolant flush, tranaxle fluid, CVs, carb, etc. Rip out all the emissions E36 M3(AIR pump, EGR, EVAP) and build custom exhaust system from manifold back. -Collect odds and ends needed, spare wheel, complete speedo cable assembly(the gear and E36 M3 that sticks in the trans is gone, just a plug in the hole), timing cover and hatch struts being the important ones. Some weatherstripping should probably be replaced. -Assemble and put on road, use as ratty looking summer DD, maybe run it at the Woodward dream cruise(will really pop out in a sea of 69 camaros, mustangs, and 57 chevys). -Park in fall. -Paint properly next spring.

Tl;DR: My trolling car, 1800 pounds of Yugoslavian steel, the most useless thing I have ever bought.

Early August

Carpet out, while this looks good, 3/4 of the areas under the seat rails had to be cut out.

This was hiding under roofing tar

May need some help here

Cutting and welding, the Chicago Pneumatic 714 is now my favorite tool of all time.

My friend with welding skills, enough to put this POS car together again with a POS fluxcore welder, welding in board shorts, berkeley OHSA.

Strong and ugly, about all we could expect with the equipment on hand.

Crap removed

Grill added, I believe this came from a split grill 2nd gen camaro.

Replace heater vents with gauges, because race car.

My awesome heater block off plate made from mylar bubble wrap house insulation glued to cardboard, and the heater core bypass composed of no less than 6 hose clamps.

Red timing cover adds at least 10 hp. A belt not from 1988 probably helps too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvKLUn6MZRQ&feature=plcp Headed to woodward.

Custom plate triples the cost of tags, to $24.

Pictures from the weekend. Soon to come are some ok(audio wise, it's WAY more impressive in person) HD vids of it roaring in tunnels and deep underpass trenches.

Big car

Went to Belle Isle to run the worlds bumpiest race track, unfortunately the good (fun at legal speeds) section was under construction.

Freshly washed

Lost spark, burned a coil and couldn't get it running with a new one.

You can register that?

DoctorBlade wrote: You can register that?

Yes, no questions asked, just an eyebrow raised at the very low weight category.

The exhaust setup, stock manifold and 2 into 1 downpipe, 2" pipe going back from the collector, a cheap 45 crush bend made into more like a 60 bend, long 2" thrush glass pack, short tailpipe exiting in front of the drivers side rear tire. No cat, scrapped it for muffler money. Only in a place like Michigan can you get away with a setup like this in a car where you are only keeping up with traffic shifting at 5000 RPM.

And then, there's the noise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnRqzxOTOh4&feature=plcp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCwQVLok44k&feature=plcp

Nice seeing that timing cover being put to good use.

My Yugo has rust in the same places...

Don't try fixing the bumper mounts properly, not worth the time and effort. Just tie the thick spot the bumper bolts to back into the frame rails with 1/8" plate, and fiberglass the rest. Use the liquid resin, not the jelly, its more like extra thick peanut butter than jelly. Black polyurethane roof flashing sealant is the same crap as seam sealer, just dries slower.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: Freshly washed

That is AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!! . . . . .

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I didn't know that Blockbuster Video still existed!

I think its the last operating Blockbuster in existence. Located at the corner of 9 mile Rd and Livernois Ave in Ferndale MI.

LOWER IT!!!!

No seriously, ditch the 4x4 action. Lop a coil off the front, maybe a coil and a half if you feel like it but start with one coil.

Holler at me if you need to know how to put together the $10 lowering kit for the rear.

And holy hell, it makes me appreciate the $100 yugo I snagged out of a junkyard which eventually became the YFH, despite a hard life lived in central PA its rust free.

JThw8 wrote: LOWER IT!!!!

Ever driven in the Detroit area? Or Michigan in general?

The community college near my home town, a pretty big school, has A SEASONAL WATER CROSSING on one of the roads used to get there from the south. Like 6 inches of water over the road, a month every spring, with warning signs and everything.

Even the race tracks are bad

With that being said, it could go down an inch or so, and needs more swaybar or stiffer front springs. Perhaps in the spring when it will get new ball joints and front end bushings I'll clip a coil.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: With that being said, it could go down an inch or so, and needs more swaybar or stiffer front springs. Perhaps in the spring when it will get new ball joints and front end bushings I'll clip a coil.

Even with a coil clipped and a "kit" in the rear you will have plenty of ground clearance.

This is the YFH on X1/9 struts and springs (which gives about the same drop as removing a coil, I've done both with this car) and about 1.5-2" of lowering in the rear. Still plenty of daylight under there. And call up Addco and see about a rear swaybar kit, they still make them and they make a great improvement. Dont forget removing a coil is going to stiffen up your springs as well.

I've been meaning to ask for a while, is the Yugo decal on the YFH a custom thing or something the factory offered?

Kenny_McCormic wrote: I've been meaning to ask for a while, is the Yugo decal on the YFH a custom thing or something the factory offered?

It's actually custom painted on. I'm going to cut it in vinyl when I re-do the car.

Checked the jets, all clear. Tried using WD40 for starting fluid, it fired right up and idled rough. Then I looked at my fuel pump.

I think I found my problem. I tested the fuel pump, got an ounce or two from 10 seconds of cranking, PISS YELLOW FUEL. Isn't gas supposed to be blue? I dont have any HEET, but I did have some marine grade stabil. 6 CCs into the carb vent some shaking of the car, vrooom. Then I rolled it around the parking lot again, noting that it ran better and better for about 10 seconds, then worse and worse.

Come to think of it, I topped it off with premium at a station on a not nice section of Woodward Ave Saturday. Then it started acting up and gave up on Sunday. Coil must have been a coincidence.

Time to grab a bottle of HEET and two gallons of 93.

Two bottles of ISO HEET in the tank, with a shot straight to the carb. After some playing around, it started. The car would now pull up to half throttle or so before cutting out, and usually recovered from cutting out. After about 10 minutes it decided to cut out entirely again. Tomorrow a siphon and gas cans will be acquired.

Ok, I give up. Tried siphoning gas out of the tank, couldn't get a flow, tried siphoning through the pickup, couldn't get a flow. Tried dropping the hose in a tank of fresh gas, no start. Checked spark again, lost spark completely this time, good spark at coil, distributor cap and/or rotor has an issue now. This bitch clearly doesn't want to run.

Time to find a dolly and haul it home.

I was thinking the other day and I think I've finally figured it out. Shortly after towing it home and mothballing for winter, I had the coils sent out to be tested on some fairly sophisticated equipment at a major automaker's engineering department. I was right, the old coil was failing, and the new one was good. The old coil must have cooked the ignition module to a point where it will only function at low revs, its the only plausible explanation. Luckily it appears an early 80s Rabbit module will fit, plenty of those at parts galore.

How have I never seen this before. I love the blue with white wheels, looks great. Where in SE Mi are you? I think we need another SE Mi get together in Feb.

Adrian_Thompson wrote: How have I never seen this before. I love the blue with white wheels, looks great. Where in SE Mi are you? I think we need another SE Mi get together in Feb.

I was thinking of white E30 bottle caps, but the cost, fitment, wobble bolts(Yugo is 4x98, like a Fiat), and how fun it is sliding on full height 145s killed it. I'm a full time engineering student in Detroit proper.

Kenny_McCormic wrote:

Adrian_Thompson wrote: How have I never seen this before. I love the blue with white wheels, looks great. Where in SE Mi are you? I think we need another SE Mi get together in Feb.

I was thinking of white E30 bottle caps, but the cost, fitment, wobble bolts(Yugo is 4x98, like a Fiat), and how fun it is sliding on full height 145s killed it. I'm a full time engineering student in Detroit proper.

I know of a set of Lancia Beta wheels for sale (that were on a Yugo) if you ever swing through the Chicago south subs.

my brother has some fiat spyder wheels for sale...if ya want me to get more info email/pm me

Alloys may be investigated when I wear out the paid for rubber on it. That may be a while, its got JDM 145R13 6 ply truck tires on it right now. Adds to the cheap go kart feel.