WELL? DID YOU GET IT YET?!?!?
WELL? DID YOU GET IT YET?!?!?
Man, that thing is mint!
sethmeister4 wrote: Looks like I found THE place for troubleshooting/parts/general knowledge & info. Top End Performance
They seem to have good, straight-forward info. Makes me want one again....
sethmeister4 wrote: Looks like I found THE place for troubleshooting/parts/general knowledge & info. Top End Performance
They seem to have good, straight-forward info. Makes me want one again....
Sorry guys, no pics of my new ride yet. I would have gone today, but he was unavailable this morning, and I work the evening shift (2:30-11:30), so our schedules didn't mesh. I'm supposed to meet him in the morning around 9, and I will be there with $3000 in my pocket, and a handgun in the other. 
Unless there's sludge in the motor, a milkshake in the radiator, or it's a rust bucket underneath, it should be mine by lunch time tomorrow!
SlickDizzy wrote:sethmeister4 wrote: Do these respond well to a manual boost controller like most other 80's turbo cars?NOOOOOO! Cooling and fuel lines FIRST. No exceptions! These motors are strangled by their pathetic cooling system, and the 2.6 has a reputation for eating head gaskets/cracking heads in the jet valve area when even mildly overheated. That's not even getting into the brittle fire-starting OE fuel lines. You are just plain asking for trouble if you don't take care of that first...the TBI can handle about 300HP but drivability suffers pretty badly. Basically, build the engine as if you were going to run it in the Paris-Dakar...THEN add boost. These guys will have all the parts you need to build it properly. http://www.racetep.com/dod_mit.html
Yes, I think stock is good for a while. Tune up, NGK everything, and just drive it and learn the car. This is assuming I get it. 
And yes, I already discovered racetep.com...I will be spending a lot of time on there!
It's after 9.....
Well, that sucks. The seller told me last night that he had a meeting at 9 at work, but it would be quick and he'd be back before 10-said he'd text me if he was early or late. I headed to the bank when it opened at 9 to get out the balance in cash that I needed. I meandered down to his place since I hadn't heard anything yet, expecting him to not be home yet, but arrive to the guy from Tennessee loading it up on his trailer-it's about 9:30. Grrr. My only consolation is that it wasn't quite as nice in person as it was in the pictures. But that's a stretch, it was still pretty sweet. I guess it wasn't meant to be, so that hunt continues! Thanks for your patience guys, sorry I don't have pics of my new ride! 
That sucks big time. 
Yeah, he could have at least texted or called to tell me the other guy was there. Oh well, I'm not gonna sweat it.
Starquest is pretty much the best example of the best car with the worst engine. Kind of like the RX7 i suppose.
The motor itself is good though.
Its not the engine that's the issue, its the stock EFI system that blows.
Yeah, maybe it's for the best. I'm supposed to be looking for something fun yet practical that gets decent gas mileage. The Conquest fits only the fun requirement. Oh well, at least I tried.
beans wrote: Its not the engine that's the issue, its the stock EFI system that blows.
Ya and it's generally too much effort and cost to change it to something else. You might as well engine swap them just like some do with a RX7. 4G63T is a good idea.
On the engine the head is also complete garbage. You need a newly manufactured one pretty much or something off of a foreign car, and it's specific ones you need it from not foreign Starions unless it's a 3 valves per cylinder engine which IIRC are rare and idk if they will bolt on. Otherwise you can expect issues if you want to do any modding or hard driving, just as much as with the TBI. They are known for cracking due to some silly emissions design. edit: The 3 valve per cylinder head is for the sohc 4G63T JDM GSR-V (narrowbody) starion and it doesn't work with the 4G54, was wrong sorry.
I guess i'll rephrase my statement. After you replace both the TBI and the head you are left with an otherwise excellent car.
Look at that Top End Performance site, they sell both a TBI replacement and a head replacement, iirc. Buying both will probably equal what you paid for the car. I would definitely get a worked head so you have fun above 5200rpm. edit: Actually it looks like their system still is tbi.
Heres some quick MPI conversion info. http://www.starquestclub.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=80356 Heres another good site for info: http://forums.austarion.com/ Australian car sites are extremely active for older imports.
Once you read up on that a bit 4G63T engine swaps start to come to mind as a better solution. At least in my mind. I chose instead to go with another car, however when i was young my neighbor was a fanatic of these and I love them so i might revisit in the future.
Unless you REALLY like the Starion, and have experience with fabrication, engine swaps, working with cars with limited to no parts availability, I would go with something else. The 4G63T JDM/AUDM/EUDM Starion is also TBI and they are not widebody so no improvement by importing them other than weight and you could probably MPI convert a TBI 4G63T much easier along with a dohc swap since those parts are stateside and support is there for that engine.
That blows. I hate it when sellers do crap like that.
I have a black 87' Conquest with stock wheels, stock black volouer seats, 1uzfe swap, and 350z 6sp trans. I took the motor out to redo the wiring and getting a new harness.
TEP is alright but most things you're going to do to the car is stuff people have experiment with.
You'll get tired of the 2.6 really fast. If it's not rebuilt or modified right it gets pretty damn annoying. Idk wtf mitsu was thinking when decided to put the g54b in the American cars and not the 4g63t. Treadstone and jdl makes t3 manifolds for the g54b. You'll notice people will run a 16g and a dsm maft for a bit of a boost in performance. The stock 12a turbo spools quick and is out of air even quicker. Most will balance shaft delete the motor, throw a marnel head on it, switch the ic setup and get a slightly bigger turbo.
The injector clips are a huge failure point and you will need to replace them with some nice bosch ones or similar (solder them in do not crimp). I've seen people swap to mpi and go fully built and make power but I've also seen them blow up 4 times too. There's no friendly ems for our cars. Mostly have to rig up a piggy back or build a ms system.
Then theirs suspension. We have the d2 coilovers which requires welding and cutting to your spindle/strut housing assembly. D2 decided earlier this year they won't be making anymore for our cars. Mookeeh made coilovers for our cars too but you don't hear too much feed back on it. As far as replacement suspension... Yeah nla for shp struts and I believe you can only find kyb strut inserts. Tokico made some aftermarket struts too but if you find a set make sure the rears are good because tokico no longer rebuilds the rears. Some people modify mr2 suspension and retrofit it to ours.
Front airdams are hard to come by and will be found broken on most cars. Theirs a guy name nikofab who does a lot of reproduction for us on these cars. Awesome guy btw and losses money most of the time but he does it for the love. Interior issues are mostly going to be the steering wheel coupler which a guarantee lol.
Here's som Links: http://www.starquestclub.com http://www.26liter.us/forum/ http://www.nikofab.com And you'll be here a lot http://www.enginemachineservice.com/conquest.html
Have fun and don't feel bad if you find yourself wanting to swap the engine ayer 6 or 7 months. It's all been done, 1jz, 2jz, ls1, sbc, sbf, mopar 360, 4g63t, 1uzfe (me), buick 3.8 ^_^, 5.7 Chrysler v8. I think the 302 5.0 fired is the easiest. But the 1uz and 1/2jz seem very natural in the car. And of course the 4g63t is home in it too.
yupididit wrote: I have a black 87' Conquest with stock wheels, stock black volouer seats, 1uzfe swap, and 350z 6sp trans.
Very cool! What is required to get the 1UFZE to mate up to the Nissan transmission?
I have an adapter plate, custom 1uzfe flywheel, modified (extended) the tob, and a 350z clutch kit. The adapter doesn't clear the exhaust flanges. Ive seen people use a kit where u mill the 350z bellhousing down 3/8th and use a modified 3sgte flywheel and adapter plate with a 350z clutch kit. If you google 1uz z33 swap you'll see a few different ways people do it. Collinsadapters sells a kit but some of his stuff is one off. Before that, I was going to run a trans from a ka24 240sx.
The 350z trans is about 40" long so you'll have to cut down the shifter assembly bracket to shorten it to fit most swaps. There's a few places that do that. One in socal and one in fl. Our if you can weld do that ish yourself.
That blows. I hate it when sellers do crap like that.
Pro-Tip: The better deal the car is, the more of a slacker asshat the seller can be and still get his money. So generally when something is a smoking deal you should expect the seller to be an asshat because noone LIKES talking to 16 different people with 16 different sob stories and packs of lies and stupid schedules. It's craigslist. It turns people into horrible douchebags, both buyers and sellers. I guess im just used to it. I still love Craigslist.
In reply to Vigo:
I still love CL too! I can't blame the seller one bit, I just would have appreciated a text msg since he knew I was headed to his house at that exact time. But I can't blame him for taking more money from the first guy that showed up (he said the Tenn guy brought $4200...whether or not that's true, I don't know). I've accepted it...moving on now.
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