Turbo Mopar's Car of the Month - September 2008
Greg's 1985 Dodge Omni GLH Turbo Clone!
A serious restification out of a regular Horizon that couldn't be nicer! This started out as an 85 Plymouth Horizon, brown in color! It was originally Jen's brothers daily beater car, until he blew it up at 68,000 original miles. it sat in a field at a friends garage for about a year, and Greg then decided, wouldnt it be cool to do a turbo motor swap on this thing? At the time, it was Fall of 2002, and we were just starting our Senior Year in High School... We had to do a senior project in order to graduate, so he thought, how cool would this be to be my senior project? At the time, Greg was interested in pursuing a career in body work, and interned at a local body shop that he knew really well.. his focus then changed to motor work after he began his project... and decided his future would be as a mechanic instead, with body work as a hobby/second interest. Greg worked on his project almost every Saturday and travelled about 45 mins each way to work on it for several hours each weekend... He then changed his mind, and decided he wanted to do a total makeover and turn it into a GLH Turbo Clone car.. he always had an eye for the GLH cars as a kid.. his parents were regulars down at the local Dodge dealership since the 70s, and once Greg was born, he'd go in with them.. when he started walking and talking, he'd walk around the show room and parking lot and check out the cars. He remembered back to seeing a GLH in the shop or showroom and ever since had a passion for one of these cars... as well as in Preschool, when he was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up - he wanted to be a "rock and roll man with an Omni"... His project then turned out to be a bigger project then we originally planned.. he decided it wouldnt be his senior project after all... (turned out he painted a rear spoiler for his current 2000 Dodge Neon - now Jen's daily driver...) This became his hobby and side project for several weekends over the course of a few years.. we gutted the entire car from top to bottom, nothing was left except the shell to the car. We spent many weekends at Baughman's junkyard and got a complete blue interior, etc. He went down to the body shop and did most of the prep work on the car with the body shop owner who then painted his car. He got his motor and most of his parts, turbo, intercooler from Forward Motion and made several evening trips to meet the owner half way to pick up parts as he needed them. He'd also frequent the dealership.
In Fall of 2005, we were almost 2 years out of high school, and still working on the car. He decided Carlisle would be the deadline for 2006 and registered a few months before hand and indeed it was. We worked endless nights, weekends to get it exactly how he wanted it before going. He lost a good friend/co-worker to Cancer the week before Carlisle, and lost hope that completion would be in site. He was watching over him that week.. we stayed up almost all night the night before Carlisle and ended up taking home first place at Carlisle in 2006 the first time he took it out!
He took several other awards following.. in May 2007 he took home
3rd place at Mason Dixon Mid-Atlantic Mopar Meet, 2nd place at Carlisle in
2007, 440-Magnum Network's Car of the Month - December 2007 (http://www.440magnum-network.com/ema...lh-clone.shtml), 2nd place at Mason-Dixon Mid Atlantic Mopar Meet in May 2008, and then again First place at Carlisle in 2008. Unfortunately, the car has yet to be at an SDAC event, but had been out to Ohio to the Mopar Nats in 2007.
Greg is now a service tech with his one specialty in Motor work and rebuilds, at the dealership where it all began. With a lot of help from family and friends, he was able to make his dream come true to have his GLH and his career. And since, we have been working on building a second one.. Jen's original N/A GLH to convert over to Turbo 2 Intercooled.. We've learned now that all good things come with time, and patience.
Greg took the car to Cecil County Dragway for Mopar day in Fall of 2007 as his very first time down the strip. He ran 14.762 at 81.72 mph w/.101 reaction time! His best reaction time that day was .009, best run was 13.67 at 99.85 mph. his highest mph that day was 100.66. w/street tires and only running low pressure. (maybe 8lbs of boost). He hopes to do some more drag racing in the near future.
Some features on Greg's car include - Super 60 wiring harness, Stage 3 Forward Motion Turbo, Spearco Intercooler, relocated battery to the trunk, SLH Brake Conversion, Koni Shocks, Eibach Coilovers, Grant Steering Wheel, reverse manual valve body w/Hurst shifter, and a Direct Connection hoodscoop (functional). He also has a custom racing gauge panel that he made that he hopes to install in the near future.
We'd like to send thanks all the vendors, co-workers, friends, and family who have been apart of this project in any way over the past few years... and especially to RebelRob for introducing us to this website which allowed us to meet Troy (TurboJerk) and be apart of such a great gang - SV-SDAC (SV-TD),and many others we've met along the way.
See more pictures of the car here: http://www.turbo-mopar.com/forums/sh...9&postcount=10