Although it's been the Christmas season, and everybody has been busy enjoying Christmas, and partying it up on New Years, one of our very own members, 89Mirageman, took a little time to tell us how his 4g61t.org and CSM experience has helped him enjoy the world of cars a little bit better. From my firsthand experience with Chris, he's an awesome dude, who is extremely thorough and really knows how to get the job done. With that being said, I'll let Chris take it away, and let him tell about how he fell into the CSM world.
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Although my ride is in serious need of a new paint job and it's still powered by the tiny 4G15 I'd still like to try for ROTM. After hearing about Lilevo I did a search on yahoo and his car domain site came up. After hours of reading through the swap archive and watching his videos of him smoking everything that would give him a race I was hooked. Soon after that I found 4G61T.com and the rest is history. Now I had to find a C/S/M somewhere. I was heading to the local junkyard one day and on the way there I noticed a fence with a handful of cars in it. Low and behold there was not one but two Dodge Colts. An 89 5 speed and a 91 4 speed. I was only interested in the 89 because it already had the hydraulic clutch but the man that owned them gave me a deal that I could not refuse on both of them. After getting both of them to my house I resold the 91 model to get some of my money back. The car had been sitting in that little field for the last 5 years so the tires were dry rotted and the interior was shot from the hot North Carolina summers.
So I was thinking of pulling the engine but the car only had 110k on it so I checked the compression and it was even across the board. I thought to myself lets see if this thing will start. Filled it up with fresh gas and stuck a battery in it and turned it over. It would turn over but it wasn't even attempting to crank. Seems it was not getting fuel for some reason. I then dropped the tank and it was full of rust so I got on ebay and ordered an aftermarket tank and a 190lph fuel pump for a FWD eclipse. Got it all back together and it started right up and purred like a kitten. Once it was running it got a full tune-up and a new timing belt and water pump.
Now that it was running perfectly and getting me back and forth to autobody/paint classes at a semi-local tech I was happy. I was putting 60 miles per day on it and averaging 35+ mpg. For some reason now I wasn't in such a hurry to swap the 4G63 in anymore. Figured I'd wait for the right deal on a DSM. Then there it was, I was getting some tires and wheels mounted for the Colt and one of the guys said hey you interested in a Laser. They all knew that I had owned like 10 DSM's in the past and I always took them up there for new tires or alignments when needed. Anyway I said yes where is it? We walked around back and there she was, a 94 Plymouth Laser RS turbo with a FWD 5 speed transmission. The timing belt had slipped and smacked the valves against the pistons. He told me $600 and it was mine. After thinking on it for a day or so I went back to see him with $450 in hand and he accepted.
So now I had my engine, wiring harness, FWD tranny and a perfectly good eprom ECU all for $450. I couldn't have gotten any luckier. I am now in the process of rebuilding the 1g 7 bolt engine out of the Laser. I figured I'd go ahead and do a stock rebuild while it was out. While taking my time on that I've made countless trips back to that same junkyard for all of my Elantra engine mounts and some other odds and ends. I have also taken all of the mods off of my 92 turbo talon and replaced them with stock parts from the Laser parts car. I also have my Evo III 16g, 3" GM mas, MAF-T setup and RC550cc injectors ready for the Colt's 4G63. I have all of my parts for the swap now including new turbo axles from Carquest and an AWD DSM intermediate shaft. A new semester has started now and I'm currently driving the Colt but it will be painted shortly by yours truly. I've already started on the bodywork as it has plenty of little dings on it. I also shaved the stock antenna hole. Once it has a new paint job and the painting semester is over the 4G15 will be pulled and the transformation will begin.
I have learned so much about these cars along with my experience that I already had from my DSM's in the past. Everyone on 4G61T.com has been very helpful and I appreciate it very much. I do not know of a nicer group of people. Everyone has been more than willing to answer my questions and there are plenty of awesome cars on there for me to gather ideas from.
Well, there you have it. I'll leave you all with a few pictures of a soon-to-be sleeper machine.
The car when he first picked it up.
The donor 1994 Laser RS...FWD
The rebuilt Laser motor, ready to go into the Colt.
The fatty 15's. Primax 767's.
The full body shot.
Overall, this looks like a very well put together project, and I believe I speak for us all when I say, "I can't wait to see that thing on the street."
-akdriverjd
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