I moved my 83 Rampage from my storage building to my driveway last night and now I've got the bug to finally swap a turbo drivetrain into it and start driving it come spring. I've had this truck since 2001 and I drove it during the summer of 01, parked it that fall and haven't touched it since other than to move it out of the way 100 times.
I had planned on going nuts and doing a full resto on the truck, but I'm thinking that for the time being, I'll just get the mechanical bits taken care of and get it running so I can enjoy it a little instead of having a trailer queen.
So here's my plan of attack:
Remove the perfect running 89 2.2 TII from the minivan, put a good 2.5 TI that I've got back into the van for the time being. Install the 89 TII into the Rampage and convert it to a manual trans. I've got at least one of every style transmission to choose from, so I guess I'll flip a coin to decide what it gets. The engine has a new clutch on it, so I'll probably stick with a small spline trans either way.
The 83 dash will come out of the truck and one from an 88 Horizon will go in. The engine harness from an 89 Daytona TII will be spliced together with the 88 Horizon TBI harness to make a factory looking electrical system. Will run an 89 TII computer initially, probably with +20's and the boost around 17-18psi, this truck should be a blast to drive with that power.
Of course there a few little things I'll need to do like swap fuel tanks and modify the K-frame, find a pair of axles from a TBI omni etc...
The great thing is I've got 90% of the parts I need for this project, so really it won't cost me anything but time. Hopefully I can get the motiviation to do this over the winter and be driving the truck again come spring.