Allo! My name is Kevin and this my Build Thread.
This is going to be my 1st official Project car. Yay me!
It's a 1986 Mitsubishi Starion ESi-R.
WTF is that you say?
"The Mitsubishi Starion is a two-door, turbocharged four-cylinder rear-wheel drive four-seat sports car that was in production from 1982 to 1990. It was also marketed in North America as the Conquest under the Chrysler, Dodge, and Plymouth names " Gotta love Wikipedia.
Just like the KA24E, the Starion's G54B is also a truck engine. The Starion came with a 2.6L SOHC 4 banger. The same engine found on the Mighty Max, Dodge Ram 50 and early Caravan models minus the turbo. From factory, it came with an LSD, ABS, independent suspension on all four and a bunch of other mumbo jumbo like "Turbo" written all over it.
Now initially, when I went to Seattle for the summer, I was looking for a Datsun 240z or a 1st Gen Celica, but most of them were rusted beyond my repair skills to restore, or out of my price range. Same goes for the 510 wagons/2 doors. I also searched for notch back Foxbody Mustangs, but just like Calgary, the notch backs prices are inflated like crazy. Also, all the MK3 Supra's I wanted were non-turbo, automatic and those gaudy red interior. I searched for E30's, S13 coupes, FCs, and Corolla's but they all had the stupid drift tax on their price.
Now, the 1st time I ever saw a Starion was on Cannon Ball Run 2. It was driven by Richard Kiel along with Jackie Chan as a Mitsubishi Engineer. The car in the movie was pretty much Japan's version of James Bond's Aston Martin. Seeing how I never saw the car in person before, I decided to search it up on Craigslist to see if there's any for sale. 1 result came up. Upon viewing the add, I fell in love right away. Unlike the Cannon Ball Run 2 Starion, this was the newer, WIDEBODY model. The wide fenders, factory wheels, interior and the pop up headlights, I MUST HAVE IT.
I emailed the guy and to my dismay, someone was already coming to pick up. Now that hurt. Went to sleep early that day and was awoken the next day by a phone call... The guys who were going to pick it up couldn't make it, so I grab my stuff and drove to Olympia, WA with my Dad and Cousin.
The owner told me that he bought it from some lady and that it had a blown gasket. His plan was to transfer all the parts to his other Starion, but was swamped with his other projects so he decided to sell it. (He had Volvo 240 wagon turbo, an old Dodge A100 Truck, and some old VW car in the garage.) I ended up buying the car for a steal. Oh, and the car WAS purple, but the clear coat kinda faded so It's like a matte finish dark purple now.
Being parked for almost 2 years, we decided to rent a car dolly to tow it back to my Cousin's place. Went to the nearest U-Haul and tried to rent a Tow Dolly, but apparently, the Ford Explorer: the SUV we brought, was notorious for rolling over in the past, so U-Haul pretty much told us to scram. They did though, tell us another rental place down the street so we decided to go there. Pulled up the place and the 1st I saw was an Orange Datsun 240z parked on the other side of the street with a FOR SALE sign.
It was For Sale for $2000 and some guy from the rental place told me that it's been there for a while now. Oh, the guy I talked to drives a 1st gen Celica liftback. WOW. Freakin' Olympia... Anyways, towed the car back to my Cousin's place and parked it. Bought a battery for the car and on the 1st click, it started. Had major compressor surge and A LOT OF WHITE SMOKE coming from the exhaust, so we decided to park it while we worked on my cousin's KA24DE swap on his S13.
Long story short, this is the start of my 1st ever, official project car!
Holy wall of text Batman!
Now finally, I would like to introduce ya'll to my car.