bizzare JDM goodness, it is mine!

i love this

I rode around a sedan version in one of those in Atlanta.

John at Garage Zero put it together. If I recall it had a natrually aspirated 80's supra motor and a 5 speed swapped in. It was lowered on some 17' steelies (Charger/300 maybe?). Low slow and very cool.

If you decide you want to ditch it in New Orleans let me know

corytate wrote: buy my gold wheels so i can buy tires for my stockers! gold with polished lip 17x7 +40ish offset Raze I really need tires now so I'll do 400 for the wheels and the tires on em? the two fronts are done and one of the backs has a nail that i haven't taken out and patched up because it isnt leaking. they either look weird when they wear down naturally or they wore strangely from alignment issues or somehting of the like. oh, and I'm in the middle of nc so I guess reasonably close to you. and I love that car.

Reasonably close to my friend who picked up the car, I'm in NJ. Hes in West Point VA, how close is that to you? I still have to try and figure out what kind of offsets this car wants, not sure I'll be moving very quickly.

SlickDizzy wrote: Also, I have a buddy with a good 7M-GE (24v I6 from 3rd gen Supra) sitting unused on a pallet. He pulled it out of a Cressida to put a 1JZ in (JDM 2.5 twin turbo), and was trying to get $100 for it, last I heard. I don't know if he ever sold it, but that would be a relatively easy swap to make that thing a lot more drivable. MSEFI is documented well for the 7M too, to my knowledge. It's a lot of motor, usually really cheap from someone doing a turbo swap or parting a car. Maybe 240ZG flares? They seem to work well on a LOT of old Japanese cars.

Too soon to talk engine swaps just yet. Depending on the condition of this thing I may just very well leave it stock and enjoy driving it

And no disrespect to those who like them but I've never cared for "bolt on" look fender flares. I understand the aesthetic appeal, its just not for me.

Jay wrote: That's a widebody Starion bolt pattern... I'm just saying. From the photos it looks like you might even have enough room to get away with four of the 16x8 rears.

Yep and last I looked Mr SlickDizzy there was selling a pair of them. I think they might be a good look for the car, just need another pair that wouldnt break the bank. 'tis approaching christmas time which means car money is pretty non-existant.

Luke wrote: Torque-thrusts look good on these. For a JDM/Americana vibe. Or how about reversible Boso' mods just for the BABE rally. Ridiculous, elaborate exhaust extension, external oil cooler etc.

I do like the torque thrust look as well. I'm really just going to have to see what shakes out when I have some cash available. My buddy in Va has scrounged a corret(ish) pattern wheel so he can get it on the tow dolly and get it home which was the immediate concern.

Oh yeah, when I joked about the boso think it was purely for BABE rally and compltely reversible stuff.

integraguy wrote: Not too shabby...well, sort of. The next generation of Crown after that one is REALLY crazy looking, but if it has a manual transmission this one is super rare.

Werd... i believe its the 71-73 are crazy awesome.

Just got some pics from the retrieval today.

I love the way the tail lights extend beyond the hatch.

Awesomeness right there! I say 5mge or 7mge/gte slammed on widened steelies. Leave the paint alone and add fender mirrors...done!

driver109x wrote: add fender mirrors

+1

That thing is RAD! Should be a fitting stablemate to the 'burg!

Fender mirrors, yes

Widened steelies, under consideration, I might just start with wider but lower profile tires on the 14s

Leave the paint? I will clean and polish it but probably no major paintwork unless repairs are needed.

Drivetrain is quite possibly going to stay stock, I have enough "heavy lifting" to do with Wartburg 2.0, this one may just be a driver.

I heartily approve of your approach, oem+ is a wonderful path to inexpensive fun.

JThw8 wrote: Reasonably close to my friend who picked up the car, I'm in NJ. Hes in West Point VA, how close is that to you? I still have to try and figure out what kind of offsets this car wants, not sure I'll be moving very quickly.

mmmmmm didnt know it was that far away but apparently its 5 hours away or so lol.
and I'll probably still have em later if you want em, may or may not be able to get the coilovers I'm waiting on to get new tires and do an alignment on the car for the gold wheels. (dont want to do the alignment more than once, so I want to have it at the height I want with the tires and wheels I want on it to finish it the first time, which is why I'm gonna run stock again for a while...)

This is the Garage Zero one I mentioned earlier. www.garagezero.com

John is the guy I know over there if you wanted more info on it.

Hotlinked for your pleasure.

Way awesome dude.

Might I suggest this look.

Got an update from my co-driver Eric today. Needs clutch hydraulics ($15 thank you rock auto) carb rebuild (RA again $2.50) and we'll see from there.

But the interior brought the best comments, I'll let his words do the talking....

Eric said: I've never pressure washed the interior of a car before, but I did today. Holy hell, a lot of E36 M3 came out. My shop vac is now heavily contaminated with god-knows-what. Three gallons of mud. Also, someone WAS recently living in the car. Canned food, a resume', a ticket from the courts saying that his wages were being garnished, a letter from DMV saying that his license was revoked (for an un-named non-traffic conviction), a receipt from DMV for an i.d. card (guess they physically took his license, too), KFC leavings that hadn't completely decomposed, and underwear. And toilet paper. The DMV stuff was from late October. I guess that means that the car smelled less like mildew, and more like BO. It's remarkably less wretched now.

More updates from Eric, I can't wait to get my hands on this thing, but he's doing great work :)

"I took a few minutes to crack open the carburetor. It's in pretty good shape, just a few of the air bleeds for the emulsion tubes were blocked. cleaned it up, reinstalled it, and voila!, it idles. It ran pretty acceptably well, without ever adjusting the carb, or timing, or anything. So I took it for a drive. Not a speed demon, but not a slug, either. I'm guessing power to weight ratio similar to that of the Oldsmobile (69 Olds Delta 88 with a 350 we had on BABE 2009- Jim). The transmission is clunky and vague, with a mile between throws, but all the gears are there and it doesn't jump out or anything. The brakes work well. Light sanding of the rust off of the rotors may be the only thing necessary, aside from rubber hose inspection.

A fan clutch may be warranted. It has quite a bit of slop in it, and I don't know if it engages correctly or not.

I'm going to let it cool, then check valve lash and see if I can get an idea of how much valve guide wear there is. The stem seals are definitely shot, as there's a small smoke cloud on cold startup."

So much win in this thread...Just a FYI: G35 coupes and most Nissan Sedans in the last several years (read decade) have 5x114.3 bolt pattern ...

Id say any of those would be a good look under that wagon!

actually I think after much debate we're gonna stick with steelies. Probably either 15" mopar cop car units or 17" magnum steelies like on the tan sedan above.

Might even just keep the stock wheels and hubcaps for awhile :)

boo...but understandable

Some news from the MTR remote workshop in VA. Eric has her running well but the engine noise once warmed up was ominous. So he dropped the pan and sure enough the bearings are shot. Luckily the journals all look good so a new set of rod and main bearings are on the ways (still available and relatively cheap)

Another rally team is coming from GA to pick up their BABE car from my place on Jan 7th so they will be stopping to bring her to HQ at that point. The "to do" list after the bearings isn't terrible and all this waiting time has given me too much time to mull over other ideas. Then these arrived in the mail today....

Oooohhhhh. That car is ultra cool!

Just needs a 2JZ at it will be all set.

fast_eddie_72 wrote: Oooohhhhh. That car is ultra cool! Just needs a 2JZ at it will be all set.

Nope, keeping the driveline stock, this is just a cruiser.

Yeah, that's what I'd do too. Just funnin' ya. Seriously neat car though. I'd leave the paint as is, clean it up, throw some wheels at it and have fun.

There are some awesome reproductions of classic JDM wheels out there now 'days. I have Konig Rewinds on my '84 Celica (a new car compared to yours!) They're fun because they're copies of Watanabie wheels, which are copies of Mini-lights near as I can tell.

Many jeeps are 5x4.5, anything newer than a cj. So square headlight wranglers, and cherokees have that bolt pattern. I believe the cherokee has different offset rims. I'm guessing they could work out for you, and they are available for cheap. Lots of car trailers also use that bolt pattern, so in a pinch that might work for you to get the thing home.

how about some 16" P71 steelies? 98-02 wheels are traditional rwd style offset.

i wish you were hard up for cash because i would offer you 2x what you paid for the car. but that would just get me in trouble and ruin my other plans.