73 Sahara take it or leave it Build Restoration

[07GTIMYFAST]

Hi all, I have had my 73' sahara for about 10 years now and have always wanted to build/restore the car and just now have the means to do it. I bought the car when I was 14 and drove it through highschool then parked it when I started college, recently I dropped a spare motor/trans in it and drove it ot SOWO in helen ga. I locked the spare transmission in 3rd gear doing a mountain run up there and parked it for about 7 months.

First let me say, this was my first car and I have no plans of ever selling it so I am going to build it the way I WANT, I'm sure I will get flamed by some people with what I am doing with the car but I could really care less. It is after all my car.

That being said I began this weekend by starting to strip the car to the shell and everyone likes pictures:

[07GTIMYFAST]

Plans for the car:

shave the engine bay, all wires run in frame rails etc

shave side molding

shave chrome trim ring (hood/trunk/doors)

shaved side marker lights

possibly shorten or remove bumpers

all body work (obviously)

engine:

bored/decked

forged rods

~8.1:1 custom size forged pistons

mechanical advance distributer (or digital programmable unsure right now)

SS valves

dual valve springs

HD rockers

rocker locks

cam=unknown right now

zx9r motorcycle carbs

GT3071 or 3076 ball bearing turbo and supporting parts

boost reference FPR

larger radiator

suspension:

air ride suspension

all custom fabbed

everything media blasted and powder coated

new bushings, bearings,ball joints etc

LSD

Plan right now is to paint the car pearl white with black all custom leather interior and a silver or black stipe where the chrome trim was.

Plenty more but too much to list right now.

[07GTIMYFAST]

picture from SOWO

this color will be the paint color, hard to see the pearl in the picture but you get the idea

[williamggruff]

Stock schmock. That's some strong machining kung fu. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

Regarding the air ride setup, is this just for the lulz, or does it provide performance benefits as well? Your motor enhancements will give you some serious zoom zoom potential, so I'm curious as to whether and how the air ride will help you keep the car on the road when the turbo kicks in.

[eurotrash]

Which bike carbs are those? -OH> got it.

[07GTIMYFAST]

Stock schmock. That's some strong machining kung fu. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

Regarding the air ride setup, is this just for the lulz, or does it provide performance benefits as well? Your motor enhancements will give you some serious zoom zoom potential, so I'm curious as to whether and how the air ride will help you keep the car on the road when the turbo kicks in.

Thank you.

Well the air ride is just something I wanted to do to this car for along time, IMO these cars look amazing "slammed" of course it won't be performance driven while it is that low but thats the thing about air, hit a switch and it will put me about 2-3" lower than stock with full handleing capabilities. technology has come along way with air suspension and performance shock combo's they can handle just as good as a good set of coilovers it setup right.

the car was already on air in those sowo pictures, but it was a rush system put together for the show, this time since I am building the whole car I am completly designing the system for myself. The car will actually be about 1.5" lower in the rear and 2" lower in the front than in those pictures. It will be pretty close to setting the subframe bolts on the ground, then aired up will be about 5" higher than that.

end speech/

[07GTIMYFAST]

Which bike carbs are those? -OH> got it.

haha yea they are zx9r carbs, it only made sense to get those because I have a 2001 zx9-r aswell so I was already familiar with them and I can swap carbs between my car and my motorcycle (with alittle jetting adjustment of course)

[TJF]

Why stick with carbs if you are turboing the car? Why not go with some sort of EFI setup?

[07GTIMYFAST]

Why stick with carbs if you are turboing the car? Why not go with some sort of EFI setup?

I thought about going that route and even have a spare megasquirt ECU I planned on using on this car. But I have several reasons for not going EFI.

1. I have experience tuning megasquirt and don't mind it but I wanted to go another route

2. I really like the look of bike carbs on a 4cylinder (not a bunch of wires etc. just simple cable and fuel line)

3. I want something simple that will run, if the ecu gets fried or something, carbs are so simple you can use a foot pump to pump fuel to them if you have to haha

4. There are plenty of turbocharged zx9-r bikes and info on adjustments to the carbs, they seem to be good up to 25 psi.

Not to say EFI would not open up more tuning capabilites But I think carbs will be effective for what I want from the car

[eurotrash]

The Yamaha R1 carbs I have for this same purpose have a throttle position sensor..Not sure what it would do for tuning, but I thought it was interesting.

[07GTIMYFAST]

It could be used for timing control if you decided to do something like megajolt or similar, or retrofitted to control a fuel pressure regulator, my zx9r carbs have a tps aswell but I plan on just taking it off as I have no need for it

[HarryPR]

Looks like this will be a cool one once it's done. Purists may get a coronary, but I say go for it!

[07GTIMYFAST]

my first crack at thin metal work/shaving this weekend, cut some 20 ga. sheet metal plugs and TIG welded them in then ground any high spots down, stripped to bare metal and cleaned then shot a coat of self etching primer.

heat sink

yes I know my garage is a mess

[07GTIMYFAST]

stipping paint sucks, I need a soda blaster.

But anyhow I have got some work done building my powder coating oven, using my old fridge and my old oven I'm close to having a oven capable of doing large parts like multiple wheels and subframes etc. next project is building a media blasting cabinet for all the smaller parts and a portable blaster for the larger.

[hendi72]

hey...nice body!!! you realize how lucky you are to have such a rust free specimen to start with? i hope you keep us informed on your progress!! and...by the way...if you ever decide to go bumper-less...i'd like to have first dibs on them if you want to sell!!!! k? email mrhendr at comcast dot net. here's a couple of pics of my baby...

mark in miami

1972 m2 bmw 'florida' color (current car)

1970 2002 inka (sold)

1972 2002 guards red (porsche red) (sold)

1973 2002 lapiz blue (totaled by a friend)

1975 2002 corvette white (sold)

1971 1602 sahara (totaled..not my fault)

1972 bavaria manual shift (sold...big mistake)

1993 e36 325i 222K miles (son's car and still runs like a sewing machine)

1995 e34 525i m50 engine (excellent condition..daughter's car)

1984 633csi (wife's daily driver...excellent condition)

too many more to mention...all restored by me.