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Jonny P's 242 GT Turbo project

JonnyP

Bored Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2004
Location
ON. Canada
Car: 1980 242 GT
Owned since: 2001 (I think)
Condition when acquired: scraptacular
Project Completion date: Hopefully Before I'm to old to drive it

This has been a long Project so far and will continue to be until its complete. I Started about 5 years ago with a car that was pretty much gonna end up at the scrap yard. It didn't run, needed lots of body work, suspension, and brakes.
I didn't know a whole lot about cars mechanically at the time, or have my license, and as a result some of this restoration was done backwards. But you live and learn, and it should all work out in the end.

So I will start at the beginning First thing was to get It running. This came about with moderate success thanks to good old K- jet. It had many different ghetto exhaust riggings through out that year, and I can remember one time riggin it just right to have the right amount leaks and holes in the right places to make what I thought was the best sound a stock b21f could ever make. Of course it was so rigged that it blew out 5 min. later when I backed it out of the garage and it bottomed out on the pavement haha. Eventually it came around and was drivable. I G- tech'ed The tired old b21f which pumped out an assfault busting 80 hp at the rear wheels.

About a year later we did the body work, which turned out quite nice. I collected as many pictures of gt's as I could to get a good Idea of what the stripes looked like, and painted them on under the clearcoat. They look pretty much the same except we made the black stripe larger as it came to the back and we went straight across the trunk apposed to following the center indent like the hood. This was simply because I could not find a picture of the trunk of a gt. But I personally think it looks better this way.

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Here's some pics of it all together in 2003 I believe

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Even with only a measly 80 hp at the wheels (or one wheel, at a time) I still managed to persuaded it to do this.

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which turned out to be a very nice picture.

So after getting my license and putting the car on the road I drove it for about 3 months and decided I desperately needed to put on a turbo. I collected the parts and sought out to +T the GT. With alot of help from Erik (ghettobrick) and a small amount from phill (ajax5678). We tried to convert it in a weekend and managed with some success. I remember the first time testing it around the block of the shop. The alternator was toast as a result of somehow getting a huge amount of coolant on it during the swap. I gave it a good second gear pull and watched as the boost gauge was rising just as my adrenalin was in unison. then I let off the gas and the ductape blew out on the rigged cbv and it quickly died. But that didn't matter, for I had just stepped into the world of forced induction and my life would never be the same.

The fuel system was a simplified version of the k-jet lambda which worked ok for the time

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[4 more pictures???]

So then 3 or 4 months later I decided to switch to Lh 2.2 fuel injection. With a little planning I pulled the fuel system from a donor car proceeded to install it on my car. assembly went fairly well except for the old vacuum advance distributor that didn't want to leave the engine it had called home for the past 20+ years. Eventually after beating it with several hammers (each one bigger then the last), and breaking its neck, it finally came out with a little coaxing from heavy duty cherry picker. At first it didn't run right and after a week of troubleshooting and diagnosing it turned out to be bad injectors.

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With the new turbo set up, doing this was much easier

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I G-tech'ed the car and it was putting out 160 hp at the wheels. Not bad considering I doubled the horsepower within 6 months of driving it.

Well now the winter season had come along and I took the car off the road. I thought since it was off the road it would be a good idea to pull the engine and paint the engine bay. After all I now had a B230FT that I was gonna put in. This was huge turning point on the project. Little did I know about the thoughts I would have in the future and how long they would prolong the project.

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I tried cleaning off the undercoating with a pressure washer but that didn't work to well. Unfortunately the only way to get it off is to use a scraper with propane torch heat it up and then clean the excess with thinner. This is a very slow and messy process. After cleaning the engine bay, I thought why not clean a little underneath the car. this is one of those silly thoughts that’s reason why I have not driven this car in 3 years.

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<img src=http://www.we-todd-did-racing.com/wetoddimage.wtdr/wMTMyMzQ4MTZzNDEzZGZkMzF5NTQx.jpg>

We painted the engine bay and at the about the same time I was painting the new engine. It was rebuild 2 years before I got it. I put in an A-cam and ported a 90+ exhaust manifold for it.

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Then we thought well we've come this far why not clean up the suspension as well. So up went the car down went the suspension and the completion date was pushed a little further.

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About a year later, once all the undercoating was gone we decided to go even further and do some seam welding.

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Then some more seam welding (the hard way of course). This time all around the doors, plus side and rear windows.

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About the same time I had finished assembly on the engine and ran it on the stand since it was clearly going to be a long time before it would go in. Here's a short video of it. I was surprised when it made boost just by revving it on the stand with no load on the engine. There was no cbv plumbed in so it surged the turbo. because of the poor sound quality on the video the turbo surge sounds more like a serious internal problem.

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/STNAif_yrWY"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/STNAif_yrWY" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="600" height="350"></embed></object>

now fast forward to late summer of this year, I decided It was time to take the project even further and make a rotisserie. this was done using a boat trailer and fabing up the rotating parts at the ends that bolted to the trailer. This worked out great. It takes two people to flip it and we just rest the side of the car on a rear seat cusion from a 240 (of course haha).
Now with it on its side I did alot of sand blasting and we ended up replacing a good portion of the driver side floor because of rust. Canadian winters are pretty hard on cars and at one time this in its life this was someone’s winter beater. We replaced the floor section with the floor from another 240 then continued with more seam welding under the car and the frame of the roof.

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Here are some of the suspension bits painted up. the front and rear control arms are boxed and all bushing were replaced with polyuerthane ones.

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Well fast forward to today. Now all the body work under the car is done and its off the trailer
I will get more pictures of it soon as well as try and round up more from before and maybe expand the story a bit more.
 
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Here's some pics of the trailer rotisserie setup

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this is the front section primed and ready for paint. We sprayed on a layer of european texture gravel guard in all four wheel wells for extra protection.

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Here's some action shots of me and Erik (gettobrick) painting

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And the finished product

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Now it's off the trailer

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finally it's time to start putting parts on

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<img src=http://www.we-todd-did-racing.com/files/969620_7uvzi/IMG_0043.jpg>
 
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that really is quite awesome, its going to be just like showroom, except better :)

kudos on some nice work
 
Very nice. Can't wait to see it back together and on the road again! May I ask how much did it cost you up until now? I was wondering since I'm about to start on a very long journey with my '81 244DL that's in pretty sorry shape. haha. Just wanted to know what I was getting myself into.

Thanks
 
I think "it" just moved.....

Seriously nice work man. If I only had tools, time & skills.....
Eagerly waiting pics of the finished product. Any chance of making it to SE 6.0?
 
Thanks for the comments guys

progress has slowed a bit but I have painted the floor inside (brush on tremclad) looks pretty nice even though the carpets gonna cover it. I put on the front sub frame and control arms front and rear.

I'll post pics next week

but for now here's a pic of the renforcing plates

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and yes there will be modifications too several different aspecs of the car ( engine, suspention, styling)
 
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