My god, what have I done?

Hmm...I just found out a few more details & they're not necessarily good.

• The engine was rebuilt about 20,000 miles ago & was running fine at that time.
• He reused an old head gasket from another engine he had, but later replaced it with an Advance Auto one. 
• He parked the car for about 3-years after he moved out of his parents house & didn't have room at his apartment for it. 
• The oil/water mix began when he moved it to his new house. He changed the oil, it happened again, then he changed it once more before he sold it. He did not find any metal on the drain pan then & it has no miles since then, just loading unloading...so the metal I found on the drain plug is a bit concerning.
• It has larger 1994 brakes. 
• He ran a compression test & said it was good. 

So at this point I'm going to keep moving forward & see how the notes look once I get the head off, as well as look for any visible damage to the head.

Baby steps & a couple updates. I've not had much time to work on the car this week, but I've slowly been removing pieces to get the head off. 
 

Also, I verified the car does have a rear LSD. 

I got a few more details from the builder too. He said it has 850cc injectors and a Walbro 255 fuel pump. Does that seem like a reasonable combo?

In reply to Pete Gossett :

That's good for over 400hp at the wheels.

In reply to Stampie (FS) :

I just hope the rest of the engine/chassis is too. Somehow I have my doubts lol. 

This thing is going to be a monster

In reply to RacetruckRon :

Maybe, if I'm lucky. But it's going to take going over the whole car nut-by-nut & bolt-by-bolt, as well as a steep learning curve on DSMs, turbocharging, and ECU tuning. 

Youcandoeeet!

As an example of me newly-found OCD-ness(?) I find myself doing things like taking time to clean all the parts & hardware, before tagging and/or bagging them.

Also, I hadn't realized until tonight, but with this car rather than trying to tackle any big jobs, I've been accomplishing it in a series of 30-minute or less steps. Which might also explain why progress is so slow...

Major thanks to engiekev, who managed to somehow get these shipped to me in the middle of a pandemic!

$800-shipped for everything, but invoiced individually, so in case I need to free room in the budget(which shouldn't be an issue for now since I can easily zero the car out with the extra parts included) I can adjust as needed. 
 

Pete Gossett said:

As an example of me newly-found OCD-ness(?) I find myself doing things like taking time to clean all the parts & hardware, before tagging and/or bagging them.

Call it the 'GRM Effect' 

And this looks like an absolute score for challenge money. It should be stupid fast when it's done. 

In reply to Gunchsta :

"If" it gets done. Given my track record there's definitely no guarantee I'll ever complete it. Though I do really like the car(for now), and I'm not feeling any pressure or impending deadline to complete it. I figure even if I don't have it ready for the Challenge this year, there's always the next one. 

In reply to Pete Gossett :

I don't think this one will be that hard to get going.  Tackle that head gasket and then you have a running driving car.  After that you can do all the little projects.

In reply to Stampie (FS) :

The biggest potential setbacks I see are the unknown condition of the engine, and whatever other "little things" that I need to fix to make the car more safe and/or reliable. Add to that weather - if this summer is as miserably hot as the last one, I won't be spending much time in the garage. 

In reply to Stampie (FS) :

That's easy for you to say, you gave me a car with a bad head gasket, with the same advice, and now look were its at.

Lesson here is Pete, don't follow my example.

Since no one else has mentioned this...

If you have questions about DSM engines, go immediately to Jafromobile's youtube channel and start binge watching.

In reply to Honsch :

Wow! If you guys don't hear from me for a while...

In reply to Pete Gossett :

Oh I would have told you about Jafro but I falsely assumed everybody who ever spent more than 5 minutes thinking about a 4g63 already knew. I'm not even a DSMer and don't plan to be one, yet Jafro is still my favorite youtube channel. 

In reply to Daylan C (Forum Supporter) :

I made it through about half of one of his vids explaining his tuning process. It was informative, but I think I'd rather read a manual/book.

I made a bit of progress on my first day of vacation. 
 

Adding to the growing list of sketchiness:

The lower timing cover was missing several bolts. I'll be scrounging through my salvaged bolt bins for suitable replacements. 
 

And this - it's the power steering line, that for some reason has this excessively long metal line that loops down & protrudes our the front bumper(I thought it was a tow hook when I first saw it). I have no idea...

That's a simple cooler for the PS fluid.  Many Japanese cars have them.

In reply to Honsch :

A loop of tubing provides enough thermal mass/area to function as a cooler? I would have never guessed...

Well enough for street car power steering, yes. Ford does similar, this is my Tbird with an sn95 cooler loop

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

If you can find a DSM without a damaged lower timing cover with all of the (correct length) bolts, then you've found one that's either never been apart or the car had a great PO. 

One of my HS boy racer fantasies. Now I'm happy to watch others misery. LOL

I think the most ridiculous PS cooler award goes to the SC300 though...

In reply to Crackers :

Not even going to look under the GS now