Thought i might as well right up a build of my EA so here it is. This thread should be useful for those with limited financial resources yet still want a nice street car.

I'm pretty much a uni student who works only a day or two a week, 20 years old, so yeh.. I'll begin.

First when undertaking a budget conscious build I guess the best advice is to start of with something that has already been modified. You'll always end up saving money that way since mods don't hold their value.

I bought an EA for $1700 which had a few of the boxes i needed ticked. FTRs took care of the rims, it was already lowered on Selby springs, the windows were tinted, it has a cat back without a muffler, and thats about it. Engine was in good nick so I bargained that for $1700 he'd have to put on some better tires and patch up the two little bits of rust, and I'd buy it. 5 speed and MPI were a must.

Bought it, took it back up to Sydney, and I guess the cheapo modding began.






Firstly I had a sound system lying around so that would go in. Very simple to wire it up and it sounds great. Unfortunately I didn't make a doco on it but there are plenty on the net you can lok up on how to do it. Spacers were made to fit 6" splits in which are really just a piece of wood covered in vinyl with a hole cut for the speakers and bolted onto the door trims. Cheapo sound system rocks bang for buck and I recommend you to NEVER go to places like strathfield, but rather get the gear off ebay or the forums.





The next mod i did - if you can call it that - was debadging the 3.9 badges on the side of the car. Blowdrier, fishing line, and olive oil is all you need.



(i'll get a pic for after the debadging).

Then I got an EB GT boot off the forums for $20 and whacked that in, looks much better than the standard rubber contraption (pic soon).

I wanted to improve airflow and a good thing came up on the forums. It was an EL airbox (much bigger) with the EL intake fiberglassed up and an XH snorkel hole cut out. I jumped at the opportunity and bought it - $25 plus $15 postage.




Then I bought a pod. This will fit in the bigger airbox. The brand is simota which outflows K and N. $60.



Now i needed a 45 degree 3" tube to fit it but didn't want to pay $80 for the silicone joins they use for cooler piping. At a mates house I stumbled across just what I was looking for and it came out of a early 90s civic. free. fits just perfectly. I'll get a pic tomorrow.

I then stumbled across some lukey extractors, snapped them up for $140 and they had a new oxy sensor in em. Still havn't fitted them since most places want $200 for it. I'll try get a backyard job somewhere otherwise I might have to fork out the money. Pic soon.

Then I bought a wade 1004 cam off the forums. $120ish. Then a better one came up for sale. Sold the 1004 to get my money back and bought a camtech stage 1 cam with lifters. $140 and doesn't require reshimming. Installed this thursday for $105 by Joe at Crescent Motorports. Picking up the camtech tomorow, here was the 1004:



So thats how she is at the moment. Well not really, today i pushed her a little too hard and burst the radiator pipe. Fix it tomorrow in the light.

Being a cheap kinda car to get around with on uni wages, I don't foresee myself doing too much more performance mods. I want a new steering wheel and gearknob and then thats the interior pretty much done.

Other things that I've got planned are thermofan conversion which should be done soon ($50 fans, $50 wiring). XH snorkel ($30). Custom CAI which I already have the 3" flexible pipe ($20), just need to cut a hole in the airbox and feed it under the bumper. And i'm pretty much done.

Fuel economy is s**t at the moment so i'll be changing spark plugs and leads asap. Supercheap sells the NGKs for $4 each which is nice. Iridiums are $20 each so i don't think i'll be going them.

Keep you updated.

oh and rego just came up... far out it hurts. $605 is the lowest CTP greenslip i can get - under 21 with a few hiccups on the driving record. Then i think its 275 for rego. So pretty much a grand all up, already got the pink slip for $30.

Also sorry about the ginormous pics i dunno how to make em smaller. More coming tomorrow though.

lookin good mate thanks for the PRICISE dollars too
whats with the 4L engine and 3.9L badges

im hearin ya bout the extractors. are they Lukey Motavators? with the 3-bolt flange and theyre about 4 inches longer than the factory exhaust manifold?

yep they must be lukey motivators then cos it fits your description.

4l engine well thats just the rocker cover. the guy who owned it before had a race torana with a falcon 6 inside and an ea and eb, swapped in my rocker cover and gave me the dodge cover off the other eb (or ed i dunno).

anyway i checked the car in the light and it turns out the radiator went bang and spat out some metal, so i gotta get a new one of those. and the clutch fan had a chunk of .... clutch fan?? .... taken out so i guess those thermos will be going in sooner than later. $70 for the new radiator.

Hi Mystery

Looking good so far. Keep the pictures coming.

And change your location - please?

BenJ

whats wrong with his location?

location as in it said melbourne but i'm from sydney.

put in a new radiator and she goes nicely.

think i might have had a loose engine mount and the engine lifted the clutch fan into the radiator and bang.

pod is all fitted but no snorkel since ford wants 70 for an xh one.. see if i can make something cheap. at the moment its sucking in some nice hot air.

i'll get some pics sooner or later.

have you thought bout an el intake wit the bbm manifold, i no they are goin for about $60 in perth

and are a decent mod om wat i have heard

Nice work man. Like the old car thread.

yeh but the bbm is a b**ch to wire up and i'm sure i'd do something wrong in the process... love to do it though.

Can't wait until thursday when the new cam goes in.. i'll let you know the results.

must fix up my engine mount i'm pretty sure one of them is gone.... wont be too good when the engine lifts up and into the radiator AGAIN when im, 'testing' the power of the cam

but really after the cam goes in and the extractors i'm pretty much done..

drive her around for a year or so while i'm saving for a jap turbo. not a skyline or silvia, something different like a chaser or ceffy. or even buy an r31 s**t and add some rb25det goodness :):)

let me know how u make the extractors fit.

the only way i can think of by keeping the stock cat is to cut off the top pipe to suit the length of the extractors, and then weld on a 3 bolt flange to bolt up to the extractors.
sounds easy but infact its pretty difficult if youre a beginner like me lol

yep the way i see it, the lukeys come out further than the stock ones.

what you need to do is to cut the pipe from the stock exhaust manifold to the cat, and then weld on that 3 bolt flange, then bolt it all up.

sounds easy actually just a chop, weld, n bolt, which is why i was p****d off about having to fork out 200. A mate is asking one of his mates that has a welder if he can do a backyard job for $50 so we'll see what happens.

Cam in tomorrow, then $800 in ctp/rego

Might come up to the livo meet this friday.. for once i have a full tank of petty ($100 worth F**k).

I'm at uni now, I WILL get some more pics this arvo.

Btw thanks all for the good comments.

Looking nice mystery. Keep us updated on how things progress.

Cheers
RD

pics as promised:

busted radiator:




lukeys yet to go in:




camtech stage 1 cam (IN TOMORROW:)):




pod set up:






next on my plate is the thermofan conversion and then the xh snorkel to go in since the pod is sucking up hot air. I also have some flexible tubing 3" diameter to act as a CAI but its too big to run through to the bottom of the car without chopping out the metal.