The road to Phoenix (Updated 5.15.09 - Massive Brake work)

[-=Charley]

HAHAHA! now this is the juicy part! congratulations!

[Todd21]

Harrison I'll be expecting you at the V@V this year in the silver car. I think we all will. Thanks for your dedication to the blog on your project. I know I have followed several of your examples and tried not to follow others (wire wheel incident) haha.....

Todd

[H_Krix]

I've been kind of delinquent in updating my blog... been too excited recently about actually getting the car out of the garage!

Phoenix left the garage for the first time in 2 and a half years on 2.21.09, and moved under her own power for the first time over 5. There are a lot of kinks to be worked out, and I need to go around the car and make certain that EVERYTHING is tightened/torqued/filled/bled/etc. I've got the MSII idling nicely, but initial throttle response has a bit of lag in it. It was only a first/second gear stroll down the street and back but WHO CARES?! I drove my car today!!!!

This is coming after tearing the intake manifold and starter out to fix my flipped fuel lines and starter connections...

Tearing that out was a bit annoying, but my modular intake manifold worked perfectly for removal and refitting! The krinkle red on that thing is very prone to staining, so I'm going to have to be careful taking it off too much.

Since my MSII unit is mounted in my center console, I ran a line from there to the back of my glovebox for tuning. I also added a USB port there for my iPod connect to my Pioneer head unit. There will also be 2 lines in here eventually for my Innovate WB02

Doorpanels turned out BEAUTIFULLY! Got some vapor barrier from Blunt, and using a heat gun made this job so much easier. All the panels are in, and I tossed the rear seat back in just to see how things looked. niiiiiice.

Need some new armrests... these look like crap next to the new panels.

[Todd21]

CONGRATULATIONS HARRISON!

You're car looks fantastic!!!! Now get it to the V@V so we all can get a good look.

Todd

[mossyboy6]

Beautiful!

Wow, love the sound of that IE exhaust!

[bluedevils]

Nice! Are those Beams rear seat belts? Looks nice.

[Meintii]

Hey Harrison... Shoot me an email when you get a chance please!!!

[indisguise]

Very rarely do I like an 02 with missing belt line trim, but yours is fantastic...quite simply "bloody amazing".

Great work and thanks for sharing the process.

PS is your exhaust rattling on the transmission tunnel...sounds that way

Lance

[ol'_rusty]

The car looks great!

Did you retain the stock rocker trim (adjacent to the jack supports)? I can't tell by the photos. Would you mind posting a close up of that area?

Thanks.

[craaaazzy]

wow, i just spent over an hour reading your blog...how time flies. great job on the car, very detailed. i just bought an 02 myself but don't have the time or $ to do what you've done.

i'm shooting you a quick email, keep an eye out for it if you don't mind. thanks.

fred

[H_Krix]

Did you retain the stock rocker trim (adjacent to the jack supports)? I can't tell by the photos. Would you mind posting a close up of that area?

I can post a close-up, but its not very exciting. Just standard rocker trim painted black. It gives the look of something else though, and I think it keeps the lines of the car smoother. I do have a set of brand-new chrome trim if i ever change my mind though.

Update (with no pictures because I suck and left my camera at my garage)

Sunroof: is in! And it needs to come back out! dammit. Turns out when the guys at the bodyshop took apart my car (DON'T make my mistake - do it yourself...) they didn't dis-assemble the sunroof properly, and just yanked out the headliner insert instead of removing the aluminum rails first. This bent the flipping hell out of the sunroof frame, which I thought would snap back into place once the roof panel was in place. I was wrong. A new panel was sourced from a fellow FAQ-er and is awaiting recovering.

Throttle Cable: Man, I hated this. I had a sort of kloogey system rigged up, but on my first short drive it became evident that I didn't have a throttle pedal really... it was more of a switch. About 10 degrees of motion on the pedal was nearly 30 degrees of motion on the TB, which was waaaaaay too twitchy. I bought a new Lokar cable form summit and spent like 8 freaking hours this weekend figuring out the best way to mount it. Some of my aluminum brackets are truly a thing to behold... These definitely need pictures, so look here for them soon. "Comical" doesn't begin to explain it, but they work, and work well.

Exhaust: Back from jet-hot coating. It looks sexy. Havent fired it up since then (was working on the throttle cable) but I'm hoping for good things.

Once I wrap up these little things, I'm back on the road again and off to the wonderful world of tuning.

Pictures coming, I swear. Stay tuned...

[Guest]

I am a new member of this site getting ready to start my own restoration of my 1975. I have been reading all the project blogs looking for inspiration and trying to figure out the best course of action for my project.

That was when I stumbled across your blog and realized that you are my doppelganger.

I purchased my 02 when I was 13 from my grandmother. My father and I restored the car in time for me to get my license. I drove it in Hi school and a bit into college. I put 100,000 miles on the car drove it all up and down the east coast when I was a touring band. Around the end of my softmore year the car started to show its age and it has been sitting at my parents awaiting a third life.

I graduated about a year ago with a degree in Industrial Design and a concentration in graphic design and now have some time to work on the car.

My car was black in hi school and I am going to be paining It a silver a bit darker than yours.

DO we need to fight to the death or something?

[H_Krix]

DO we need to fight to the death or something?

hmmm... for you to be my evil twin (or am I your evil twin?) one of us has to have a goatee...

[carrosene]

DO we need to fight to the death or something?

hmmm... for you to be my evil twin (or am I your evil twin?) one of us has to have a goatee...

Hahaha. For some reason Knight Rider popped into my head for this comment.

[H_Krix]

Finished this up today:

The paint on it does the same thing as the paint in my car - changes color slightly under different lighting conditions. Dropping it in tomorrow. Almost went with the "turbo" red bezel, but I think it would have clashed with the orange needles.