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Thread: Spirit R/T Fixing My Mistakes

  1. #1
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    Spirit R/T Fixing My Mistakes

    So last year in February I bought a 1991 Dodge Spirit R/T for $1350, having no idea what I was getting myself into being 16 and growing up around turbo dodges my whole life I had the bug of wanting one myself. So this car had been apart since 2004 and went through 3 owners broken and missing parts. So I guess the story is the turbo blew up so the person remove the turbo, manifold and head off the car for it all to get rebuilt. The turbo and manifold ended up getting lost in the mail, but the head was freshly rebuilt. When I went through all the parts the car was missing cam gears, 8 lifters, cam sensor and some other small things, so I pulled the short block out of the car to go through it all. The block was unusable unless I bought some oversized pistons from when the turbo blew up the shrapnel went into the engine, but I remembered there was a brand new non common block sitting in my barn and I figured why not I'll just use that block. So I bought some low mileage stock T3 pistons, Cheap bearings, Cheap rings all off of eBay because I didn't know any better they're all the same right lol. So I managed to get the non common block to work, had no issues with it being weak, even when I went big turbo it held up fine. So a few months back I was changing spark plugs and noticed there was coolant in the spark plug tube, well the head was cracked so I pulled the head off the car. While I had the head off the car I decided to pull the rest of the motor out of the car to check out the condition of the lower end. We'll just say that I'm building another motor and I've learned a lot since the first motor I built at 16 lol.

    She's not perfect, but she's mine.


    New Engine:
    1991 2.5 TI Common Block Freshly Deck and Honed
    30K Mile TIII Pistons With New Sealed Power Rings
    Freshly Rebuilt and Welded Lotus Head
    TIII Forged Crank Turned 10/10
    Undersized Clevite 77 Main and Rod Bearings
    NOS T2 Rods With ARP Wav-Lok Rod Bolts
    NOS Intermediate Shaft
    Melling M118 Oil Pump
    Cometic .075 MLS Head Gasket
    Cometic Intake and Exhaust Gaskets
    ARP Main Studs
    ARP Head Studs
    ARP Flywheel Bolts
    ARP Clutch To Flywheel Bolts
    Stainless Intake Bolt Kit
    Stainless Valve Cover Bolt Kit
    Stainless Oil Pan Bolt Kit
    Chevy 4.3 Valve Cover Gaskets
    New Exhaust Studs
    Balance Shafts Delete
    WRX Idler Mod
    Gates T206
    Knock Off GT3076R(Temporary)
    Emusa 38MM External Wastegate(Temporary)
    Spec Stage 3+ Clutch
    RC 750CC Injectors
    etc





    Last edited by ace6598; 10-13-2016 at 08:29 PM.

  2. #2
    Rhymes with tortoise. Turbo Mopar Staff cordes's Avatar
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    Re: Spirit R/T Fixing My Mistakes

    That's pretty cool. I love the fact that we have some youth in the hobby still.

  3. #3
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    Re: Spirit R/T Fixing My Mistakes

    Quote Originally Posted by cordes View Post
    That's pretty cool. I love the fact that we have some youth in the hobby still.
    Yeah I'll agree not many around my age that are into these cars, which is really sad there is so much potential that is overlooked.

  4. #4
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    Re: Spirit R/T Fixing My Mistakes

    WHAT??? A SPIRIT R/T? Shouldn't you be more interested in a Civic with a fart pipe and 5 inch wide tires stretched onto 10 inch wide rims? Or shouldn't you have a WRX or STI that your mommy bought for you? Just ribbing you, boss. You are cooler then Fonzie for building/saving an R/T. I use one as a daily driver and love it. It's fast and comfortable. Best of luck to you in building your beast.

  5. #5
    Supporting Member Turbo Mopar Contributor 2.216VTurbo's Avatar
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    Re: Spirit R/T Fixing My Mistakes

    I too dig the youthfull enthusiasm. We have a 17 year old in the Cali club that bought an 86 S car that needs basically everything. It's been a while since we had a 'Mellenial' show an interest in 30 year old Mopars so I'm gonna do what I can to help. A Couple weekends ago I held a porting 101 'class' in my driveway we ported his cylinder head

    Nice parts list you have going and great pics of the stash. I know SPEC is a quality clutch, have other TIII guys used that model without interference of the crank sensor? In other words, is it specific to the TIII's?

    AJ (no More Alan) 84 Rampage RT TIII/568 Quaife 87 GLHS dealer optioned Red 16V Masi/568/Quaife
    90 Masi 16V White/Ginger/Black
    89 TC Masi 16V Red/Ginger/Black
    86 GLHS #110 RoadRace Built 89 CSX-VNT Recaro Car
    89 Turbo Mini 'Woody' 85 GLHT 'RedBox'
    2014 Explorer DD'r 3.5Twin Turbo Ecoboost AWD and 500HP
    My profile page has over 20,000 views, I'm somebody LOL

  6. #6
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    Re: Spirit R/T Fixing My Mistakes

    Quote Originally Posted by 2.216VTurbo View Post
    I too dig the youthfull enthusiasm. We have a 17 year old in the Cali club that bought an 86 S car that needs basically everything. It's been a while since we had a 'Mellenial' show an interest in 30 year old Mopars so I'm gonna do what I can to help. A Couple weekends ago I held a porting 101 'class' in my driveway we ported his cylinder head

    Nice parts list you have going and great pics of the stash. I know SPEC is a quality clutch, have other TIII guys used that model without interference of the crank sensor? In other words, is it specific to the TIII's?
    Thanks I saved up for a long time to get all these parts and I'm really looking forward to starting on the engine next week soon as the machine shop gets me the block back. I know of one person running the Spec Stage 3+ and It's on a fully built TIII that's estimated to be over 600whp, hasn't had any issues with it. From what he's told me is the clutch feels lighter than a 4 Puck TU Stage 4 and holds up better being the Spec 3+ is a full faced friction disk.

  7. #7
    turbo addict
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    Re: Spirit R/T Fixing My Mistakes

    What job do you have to get all the money? I need that!

  8. #8
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    Re: Spirit R/T Fixing My Mistakes

    Quote Originally Posted by tryingbe View Post
    What job do you have to get all the money? I need that!
    Honestly I build gaming computers and I'm pretty much the mechanic that keeps all my friends cars running so they pay me pretty well. But I do work at my cousins repair shop occasionally when they need help.

    Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

  9. #9
    Supporting Member Turbo Mopar Contributor 2.216VTurbo's Avatar
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    Re: Spirit R/T Fixing My Mistakes

    Primary job=good deal. Secondary job for extra scratch=Winning Myself I'm self employed as an independent contractor but I work for 5 different companies

    AJ (no More Alan) 84 Rampage RT TIII/568 Quaife 87 GLHS dealer optioned Red 16V Masi/568/Quaife
    90 Masi 16V White/Ginger/Black
    89 TC Masi 16V Red/Ginger/Black
    86 GLHS #110 RoadRace Built 89 CSX-VNT Recaro Car
    89 Turbo Mini 'Woody' 85 GLHT 'RedBox'
    2014 Explorer DD'r 3.5Twin Turbo Ecoboost AWD and 500HP
    My profile page has over 20,000 views, I'm somebody LOL

  10. #10
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    Re: Spirit R/T Fixing My Mistakes

    Quote Originally Posted by 2.216VTurbo View Post
    Primary job=good deal. Secondary job for extra scratch=Winning Myself I'm self employed as an independent contractor but I work for 5 different companies
    Oh no kidding that's actually pretty cool I'm going to college soon being I just graduated high school, so I'll end up getting an "Actual Job" while I'm going to school and keep the others as side work for when I have free time.

    Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk
    Last edited by ace6598; 10-15-2016 at 02:47 AM.

  11. #11
    Moderator Turbo Mopar Staff Force Fed Mopar's Avatar
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    Re: Spirit R/T Fixing My Mistakes

    Living at home probably helps greatly in the free money dept Nice to see you building an RT, most of the kids around me think it's cool that I build these cars, but they still want Civics, Mustangs and GM's.
    Rob M.
    '89 Turbo GTC

    2.5 TIII stroker, 568 w/ OBX and 3.77 FD

  12. #12
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    Re: Spirit R/T Fixing My Mistakes

    Quote Originally Posted by Force Fed Mopar View Post
    Living at home probably helps greatly in the free money dept Nice to see you building an RT, most of the kids around me think it's cool that I build these cars, but they still want Civics, Mustangs and GM's.
    Oh it does help with the free money I have, but I'm a turbo dodge nut it's in my blood and been around them my whole life. Kids today are afraid of being different from what I've noticed they all get the same generic cars to mod imo.

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  13. #13
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    Re: Spirit R/T Fixing My Mistakes

    Just a heads up about the spec pressure plate, when you mount it to the flywheel check to make sure it's not covering up the timing marks in the flywheel. We put one on my brothers spirit, and when we fired the car it would barely fire like the cam timing was off. After scratching our heads for about a week, we yanked the tranny back out and sure enough the pressure plate was shielding the timing marks. He had to call spec directly to get them to send him a different pressure plate.

  14. #14
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    Re: Spirit R/T Fixing My Mistakes

    Quote Originally Posted by csx274 View Post
    Just a heads up about the spec pressure plate, when you mount it to the flywheel check to make sure it's not covering up the timing marks in the flywheel. We put one on my brothers spirit, and when we fired the car it would barely fire like the cam timing was off. After scratching our heads for about a week, we yanked the tranny back out and sure enough the pressure plate was shielding the timing marks. He had to call spec directly to get them to send him a different pressure plate.
    I compared it with my old centerforce clutch it's a TIII pressure plate, but thanks for the heads up.

    Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

  15. #15
    Moderator Turbo Mopar Staff Force Fed Mopar's Avatar
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    Re: Spirit R/T Fixing My Mistakes

    Quote Originally Posted by ace6598 View Post
    Oh it does help with the free money I have, but I'm a turbo dodge nut it's in my blood and been around them my whole life. Kids today are afraid of being different from what I've noticed they all get the same generic cars to mod imo.

    Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk
    And do all the same mods too lol.
    Rob M.
    '89 Turbo GTC

    2.5 TIII stroker, 568 w/ OBX and 3.77 FD

  16. #16
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    Re: Spirit R/T Fixing My Mistakes

    Quote Originally Posted by Force Fed Mopar View Post
    And do all the same mods too lol.
    Yeah that's exactly what it is no variety.

    Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

  17. #17
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    Re: Spirit R/T Fixing My Mistakes

    Still need to finish painting the cam gears, also I paint stripped the intake manifold yesterday to paint silver.


    Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

  18. #18
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    Re: Spirit R/T Fixing My Mistakes

    Looking good, man!

  19. #19
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    Re: Spirit R/T Fixing My Mistakes

    Pushed the car outside today and power washed the engine bay. Hopefully getting block, crank and rods back from machine shop either tomorrow or Wednesday.

    Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

  20. #20
    Supporting Member Turbo Mopar Contributor 2.216VTurbo's Avatar
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    Re: Spirit R/T Fixing My Mistakes

    A shop with room in it for more cars sure is a beautiful site I wish...

    AJ (no More Alan) 84 Rampage RT TIII/568 Quaife 87 GLHS dealer optioned Red 16V Masi/568/Quaife
    90 Masi 16V White/Ginger/Black
    89 TC Masi 16V Red/Ginger/Black
    86 GLHS #110 RoadRace Built 89 CSX-VNT Recaro Car
    89 Turbo Mini 'Woody' 85 GLHT 'RedBox'
    2014 Explorer DD'r 3.5Twin Turbo Ecoboost AWD and 500HP
    My profile page has over 20,000 views, I'm somebody LOL

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