www.imoc.co.uk

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So, i thought it would be interesting to start a project thread and contribute something to the forums as i have learned so much from all the great work on here.

I bought my two in july 2008, i rushed into the purchase of it and got screwed, the ringland on piston 3 wasblown, the car was driving great when i tested it and was by far the fastest thing i had been in let alone driven so i jumped into buying it, its a 1994 rev 3 turbo, with 78,000 miles, pretty much standard except for kosei wheels 7*15 front and 8*15 rear, unknown lowering springs with a nice drop, apexi induction kit , greddy boost gauge, and some rusty aftermarket exhaust, it had a damaged front bumper and no nct (irish mot).




I picked up the car and drove the 2 hours home, the next day i ordered a full replica border body kit from replikit, ordered a mongoose exhaust from a local supplier and a blitz super sound BOV from rouge.

I loved the car from the first time i sat in the "cockpit" and boosted whenever safe but i was also aware of my driving limits and the reputation for snap oversteer. parts arrived a few days later and i got the exhaust fitted at the same place i ordered it from, mongoose is a great exhaust, not too loud but it has a super deep tone upto 3500 rpm and is very well made, my BOV arrived a day or two later and thats when the problems started.....

I fitted the BOV myself and loved the sound but it was spraying oil onto the engine and i had been noticing dark smoke and some hesitation when boosting hard, One compression test later and i was facing a fooked engine, i had my mechanic pull the engine out and strip the head to reveal the blown ringland, i weighed my options between a rebuild and a second hand engine, the used engine option won out for financial reasons so i picked up a nice rev4 engine from gts-chris with 50,000 miles and had it fitted.

My two was off the road for about 6-8 weeks and as you can imagine i was gutted, you can imagine my excitment when i got the call from my mechanic saying it was ready, i picked it up and headed home, first time i tried to boost i knew i was in trouble, at anything higher than 5 psi the car would miss horribly but if i accelerated slowly so boost didnt build it would rev to redline, so to cut a long story short after months of frustration and trying different things it turned out to be some gasket between the fuel rail lifting under boost and spraying metered fuel and air into the engine bay, got that sorted and changed the sensor in the intake just after the filter (not sure is it air temp?) and she was running great.

due to the damaged front bumper a blown shock and the wierd aftermarket horn not working a couldnt nct the car and therefore could not tax it so i decided to take the plunge and start fitting the kit myself while i "saved" for new shocks/springs or coilovers and a paint job.

here are pics taked over the last few weeks i sequence, work has beed going slow due to family matters taking up lots of my time.



test fit ( with skirts cut to fit)



spats glued, fiberglassed and smoothed into bumper



primer guide coat to check my progress, not bad.


the border kit i recieved from replikit was so bad i couldnt believe it, the skirts had to be cut and made longer, the end caps were completely the wrong shape and didnt match the lines of the car and the part of the skirt that goes into the door jamb was wavy, too thick and didnt sit right, i cut up the ends of the skirt and about half of the top and reshaped them using fiberglass.


dented quarter panel i repaired (some guy backed into me a week after i got the car )



extending and reinforcing skirts




skirts bonded on and start of the glassing


so this is a normal amount of work for a "perfect fitment" bodykit ???


i love the look of shaved mouldings and blended kits and the lack of money to get a genuine kit prompted me to blend the kit into the car and shave the side mouldings, now i know many people will condemn this but i will drive the car for about 3 months before getting it sprayed to check for cracks, it should be fine.







so thats the driver side and rear bumper with their first guide coat, it still needs a lot of work, now to do the passenger side.

anyway, this will be fairly slow moving with the body work but i have some other nice ideas which include a huge custom (pressurised) chargecooler, custom rear diffusor and a fiberglass sub box in place of the centre storage box all done by me.

let me know what ye all think, steve.