11 replies to this topic

[rightom8]

G'day guys! Long time user of the forum but first time poster 

Thought it might be worth starting a build log for my 95 SSG
I currently also own a Galant VR4 that I have had for a while now, but it has started to become a bit of a garage queen.. so it was time to find something else to do up as a bit of a daily/project. I conned my sister into buying a N/A auto HSG for her first car and fell in love (with the shape, not the N/A 4g63 ) So I found the closest/cheapest RVR I could find:

 

Complete with an engine that had not been started in years with everything disconnected and sitting in the back.. 

It did however, still have everything I needed to be able to put it all back together plus some little brand new bits such as HKS adjustable cam gears and a shiny TD04 manifold (that I later ditched) so I got to work!

Long story short:
I ended up getting it all back together to find some of the valves were stuck and I couldn't get the car started - No compression whatsoever in Cyl 3 and 4 So the head came off and was reconditioned by PLR in Brendale. I put it all back together with new OEM timing stuff and got it all moving to find that everything else I hadn't yet touched was failing. Pretty sure every rubber part that was on this car was the same part from 200,000ks ago  But I started to get real keen on the idea of a little sleeper. Something I didn't have to worry about dinging or getting scratched that I could still have a bit of fun with and confuse some people.. which is where it all came undone a bit haha

I'm gonna get a bit of a list together with some pics to follow shortly 

 

[rightom8]

So while the engine was out again, the bay got a "quick" clean and spray (I came back and fixed this a bit more after it came out again )
The new head was a bit like lipstick on a pig at this stage haha.

 

After it was all re-assembled it was looking like this:

[rightom8]

And then this was where everything else started to fall apart a bit.
The car actually came with a box of brand new bearings and syncros for the gearbox as the seller suspected there was something going on with it as the clutch eventually failed, causing it to sit for years. The clutch issue ended up being due to the push rod attached to the pedal being previously snapped and welded back on  so I grabbed a new OEM part to fix that up.

The car drove but made A LOT of noises.. The most distressing one being some crazy gearbox rattles. So the box of bearings and the gearbox + transfer went down to Hart transmissions in Brendale who pulled it all apart and found the destroyed bearings to be causing all noise. Lucky I had a box full of bits   So that was all sorted   

I ended up replacing:

• Tie rod ends
• Lower ball joints
• Front wheel bearings
• Sway bar end links
• All engine mounts
• Driveshaft carrier mount
• Front and rear shocks & bump stops
• Boots and grease for the front CV shafts
• Intermediate shaft bearing
• and probably a bunch of other stuff..

 

The rear brakes were also kinda stuck and weren't really doing anything. That, plus the already dead pads and rusty rotors were not doing me any favours, so that all got pulled apart/cleaned and replaced:

[rightom8]

From this point, the engine seemed to be suffering from a decent amount of blow by, which I attempted to lessen by getting some big breathers added in the rocker cover. We eventually found one ore more of the rings were just not sealing (I forget which cylinders this was in) but the compression was low enough for me to decide it was all coming out again   I'll let these other pictures explain what happened next:

 

So I went a bit crazy with the paint and had the bottom end rebuilt with:

• ARP Main studs
• ARP head studs
• CP Pistons
• Spool rods
• Balance shaft delete (OEM Stub shaft type)
• ACL bearings throughout
• Cometic MLS head gasket

And then topped it off with a EvoLink G4+ ECU. This ended up being a bit trickier than just plugging it in as I had to swap back to the older style CAS which was easy enough (Wish I had researched that before I put the engine back in haha). All was good from here and the RVR was finally dailyable and felt real nice to drive around. Too nice..

[rightom8]

So then things got a bit silly and I wanted to go faster. I then ordered some Kelford 272 low lift cams and a GTPumps TD05-16g with their billet compressor wheel and manifold to match.
While I was waiting for all this stuff to come in, I started doing some supporting mods to get ready for all these goodies coming in and prepare to try and fit a front mount intercooler:

• Bought a second hand fuel tank, completely cleaned/flushed and added a Walbro 255 pump (This happened way back just after the head was refreshed)
• Set up a TAARKS fuel pressure regulator
• Grabbed some Raceworks 1000cc injectors
• Removed my condenser fan (that wouldn't turn on with this ecu?) and replaced the engine fan with 2 slimline thermos + shroud
• Battery to the boot

The exhuast was still stock the whole way through, so I took the RVR down to Elite Exhausts in Brendale and asked if they were able to make an entire system from the o2 housing back, while also making sure the tip came out in the same position as the old pipe for that stealthy look, allowing me to keep the tow bar too  aaaaaaaand they definitely made it work. Here is a link to their Facebook post.

 

 

Edited by rightom8, 11 November 2018 - 10:21 AM.

[rightom8]

Seeing as the guys at Elite did an awesome job on the exhaust, I was really keen to get my front mount situation sorted. Before I could do that though, the Cams + Turbo had arrived 

 

 

That all went in without much of a problem and I was able to get it all running on the stock injectors for the moment while I took the RVR back to Elite to see if we could shove an intercooler in behind all that bullbar. 
And of course being the magicians that they are, they got it all in there  Here's the link.

 

 

They also made up a nice intake to pretty much finish off all the piping  The noise it made from here was ridiculous haha

[rightom8]

After this, it was time for a tune to see what this was really capable of. I went over to Diversion Garage to see Matt who was recommended to me by pretty much everyone 

I swapped in the 1000cc injectors here and handed the car over. We ended up making 172kwatw on 17psi which seemed a little bit low, but found the car was very lazy down low in the rev range and almost felt like it was kicking down a gear when you were over 3.5k RPM. This is currently suspected to be the cams as I didn't do any checking against the cam card that came with them when installing and considering I have a stock crank, aftermarket crank pulley, aftermarket cam gears and aftermarket cams, there is a good chance I need to dial these all in to get the missing power/torque. The GTPumps turbo can definitely handle up around the 24psi mark but the Aeroflow intercooler that was fitted could not keep the charge temps down enough to prevent knock when going any further.

Apart from that, the car now feels awesome to drive although that bit laggy down low but makes all the cool noises and feels awesome up top. 

The intercooler I have since replaced with a more efficient bar and plate type core which according to logs, should definitely do a better job at keeping those temps down. I also plumbed up the rear window washer jet line to a couple of intercooler sprayers hidden in the reo bar which should help out further. As for the cams, I am not worrying too much about them at the moment as I'll need to suss out some dial gauges and degree wheels etc to really check that everything is where it should be. Compression is a solid 165psi across all four when warm and the leak down is flawless.

 

So i'm leaving the RVR where it is performance wise for the time being as I've got a couple of other little issues to chase, such as my aircon not kicking on/off correctly with this ECU and one of my front CVs making little clunky noises when I turn left (I suspect I'll need new ones if the re-grease and new wheel/shaft bearings hasn't solved it) BUT she's leak free and dailyable once again 

Also gotta say thanks to Taz for supplying most of my missing bits that I have needed across the course of this haha

 

Edited by rightom8, 11 November 2018 - 10:53 AM.

[jack be nimble]

Looks like a fun little runnabout. Nice job there m8

[evo1RS]

Love it.

 

I tried to convince my missus she wants an RVR like this but she wouldn't have a bar of it    Keep up the good work.

[White Knight]

Awesome work mate. Should confuse a few I reckon....

[BenRVR]

This is goals man well done!

[TBOWGN]

That's epic Nick!  Love your work.  Amazing detail under the hood