jisleyjr Posted October 12, 2012 Report Share Posted October 12, 2012 I had been hunting for a clean(ish) starquest for some time now and this summer i finally settled on one. It was an 88 Fiji Conquest i had seen on craigslist down in Denver, it was posted up a couple times but no one bought it. Then it was on ebay for a decent price so i was bidding on it. It never hit reserve but after the auction ended he second chanced offered it to me so i accepted. I was going down there for my cousin's wedding so i figured i'd turn that road trip into a week long vacation in colorado springs / greeley area to mountain bike/pick up car/party. I borrowed my brother's duramax and a buddy's tilt trailer headed out from fargo, nd. I had to make a stop in the black hills in south dakota to visit my folks at our property, then the next morning i took off from there. I ended up taking a wrong turn (no cell service) based on my dad's directions and killed about an hour of time zigzagging through the black hills. Finally i found highway 85 and ended south. Between newcastle and lusk there was nothing to look at, just rolling hills. I thought ND and SD were desolate... this area wins. My brother's truck has a 30 gallon reserve tank in the box, so i hadn't needed to buy fuel until lusk, thanks to the extra range, cell service, and gas buddy app on my phone i found cheaper fuel by I25. Normally i don't care that much about price but when you are buying 50+ gallons i'll hunt for a decent price. After that i headed to colo springs to my cousin's house, luckily there was plenty of street parking to park this beast of a rig. Couple days letter we had to head up to greeley, on the way we swung into the airport in denver to pick someone up. I felt like an idiot pulling into the pick up area, low clearance tunnel. Found a spot to wait and a security guard walked up and asked how many people i was planning on picking up, "only one" i replied. After that i found the sellers house and walked around the car to look for any giant problems that he didn't disclose. Checked under the hood, engine was there along with oil. Hopped in and it fired right up. Drove it right onto the tilt trailer, i've never used a tilt trailer before but i am sold on these things, super easy to load/unload. We strapped it down and headed to greeley and found a spot to park it at my other cousin's house. Here are some photos!http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20120717_123902.jpghttp://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20120717_123928.jpghttp://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20120717_123935.jpghttp://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20120717_123943.jpghttp://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20120717_123959.jpg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jisleyjr Posted October 12, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 12, 2012 After the wedding saturday night i got up later then i wanted with a slight hangover and the sudden realization that i have one day to make it back to fargo. Vacation is over... (sad face). This time i'd take a route that went into nebraska then north at north platte into south dakota . I'd never been in this area before so i figured way not. I was a little nervous seeing the outside temp reaching a 108 degrees and having to make some long climbs in the truck, it has an exhaust temp gauge and my brother said not to let it get up into the red zone, it inched into the red zone a few times but nothing bad happened. Finally i was getting back to an area i knew from years ago when my folks lived in mitchell and salem sd. I knew i had about 4 hours left and it was after 7pm. ugh! Rolled into fargo after 11pm just exhausted. I forgot to mention that i drove this whole trip by myself too. I had my phone loaded up with seasons of breaking bad so i am almost caught up on that. The next day after work i went to start the car, battery is dead... so i grabbed a spare battery and dropped it in. cranked it over and it fires up but is running super rough, i barely made it down the street to my house. The car was miss firing and almost dieing the whole way. "Oh great.." i thought. I'll get back to that later. The body on this thing is rust free, which was important to me, but it has a good number of door dings and other dents. Passenger fender is dented good, apparently someone backed into it. I already have a fiji replacement fender that showed up the other day. My black 87 has a straight header panel and clean bumpers. I would like to do the body work myself, but i don't know if i want to dive that far into it. I definitely needed and an airdamn though and i had a black one from my 87, it isn't in perfect shape and it held together with various amounts of jb weld. It took my a bit to find some fiji paint, but i found some at paintscratch.com and ordered the primer and other things from there. Before:http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20120924_195901.jpgPrimed:http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20120925_203746.jpgAfter:http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20120926_074721.jpg Installed: (my passenger side airdamn bracket, the one that hooks to bumper, is shot, so i need to hunt down a good set. I remember a group purchase of some stainless steel ones, wonder what happened to the manufacture)http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20121009_200309.jpghttp://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20121009_200256.jpghttp://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20121009_200242.jpg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jisleyjr Posted October 12, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 12, 2012 (edited) Now the rough running issues: First step was to check the plugs, ac delco were in there, replaced with new ngk. Did a compression test too, 120ish for each hole. I looked through the vacuum lines and some weren't even hooked up so i capped those off and hooked where they should be. There was a 1g bov installed, and it wasn't crushed so it was opening at idle. This also has a maf-t set up too and the dials were all cranked to the rich side. Seemed odd i thought. I had a *DM 3" exhaust system hanging on the wall from the 87 so i installed that along with my aego wide band o2 sensor. While i was swapping the exhaust i fixed the exhaust leak on cylinder 4, missing stud (surprise surprise) but the threads were good. So now i am back together with a new exhaust and my wide band and fuel pressure gauge and its a-pillar pod installed (fuel pressure sensor not installed yet). Start the car up and wb gauge holds 14 for a bit then sweeps to 19+, this is when the car wants to die. So i figure i'll hook up the fuel pressure sensor, i had the taps in the toolbox from the last time i installed it on the fuel rail. Once that is done i see my pressure is at around 20. Found a couple spare regulators and installed those, still 20. At this point i noticed the volt gauge in car is below 12v, so i hook up charger, still low pressure. I had a new(er) walbro with a new filters in the tank and a bigger fuel line(ya ya i know the stock size is good enough) on my 87 about 2 hours away. So that weekend i zip down and remove the tank and fuel line along with other good parts, including rims with newer tires (still need to get more parts off it). I also verified the injectors in there were the right size based on the part numbers written on them. (not oem) Spent the week nights installing the tank with pump along with the new fuel line. Bam! normal pressure nowhttp://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20120909_113406.jpg Around this time i figured i'd check/set the timing, It was off (or so i thought) so i set it to what i thought was 10 btdc, but later when i was double checking it was actual set to 0. duh! it was such a dog at this point. once i got it to 10 it was okay to drive. I looked through the distributor at this point and all the springs and weights look to be in working order along with the vac advance. Now the wacked out maft settings have it running different. So i swap in a factory mas, idles way better but once i get into just a bit of boost the wb goes straight to rich and car starts bucking/misfire. So i reset the maft back to zero's on the dials and started working from there. This is when i learned the boost controller is set to a super high amount cause the aftermarket boost climbs well past 15 lbs. Set that back to just 10lbs for now. I barely have 20 miles on the car and dang near blew a headgasket. Okay, now the car feels solid through the rpm range. But it is idling low, like 500, and while cruising wb hangs out in the 16-17 range. So i followed the isc/tps reset steps and get the idle up to 900. Here i noticed the wires on the tps are barely hanging on by a strand and that i can't get .5 volts out of it in the idle position and it is clocked all the way to the right. So now i am waiting for a new tps. Edited October 12, 2012 by jisleyjr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jisleyjr Posted October 12, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 12, 2012 Tires: The guy had all the same size tires on it 215/55/R16, one was bald too. So i figured i'd use my 87's set now. But i plastidip'd them first. These rims are in rough shape, oxidized and clear coat peeling. Before:http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20120820_190557.jpghttp://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20120820_190600.jpg Couple coats:http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20120820_195355.jpghttp://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20120820_193024.jpghttp://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20120821_080848.jpghttp://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20120821_080909.jpg Couple more and done:http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20120821_080902.jpghttp://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20120821_080843.jpg Installed on car:http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20120828_202127.jpghttp://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20120823_183518.jpghttp://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20120828_202109.jpg Surprise:When i rolled under the car for the first time i noticed the funky tranny mount and thanks to you guys we figured it was an auto at one point. Good candidate for an ls1 swap or a 1jz....http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20120731_214532.jpg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TexasQuest Posted October 12, 2012 Report Share Posted October 12, 2012 Sweet find. Welcome to the fiji club. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MotoCam360 Posted October 12, 2012 Report Share Posted October 12, 2012 Sweet find. Welcome to the fiji club. +1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh '88 Posted October 13, 2012 Report Share Posted October 13, 2012 +2 A person could tell it was an auto car from the first picture. It's still got the auto tranny cooler (located below the driver's foglight). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DieHARDmitsu. Posted October 13, 2012 Report Share Posted October 13, 2012 +3 that fiji has great potential!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jisleyjr Posted October 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 Thanks for the warm Fiji welcome. I drove the car into work yesterday:http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/IMG_20121022_164129.jpgThat morning it was a little dark so i turned the parking lights on and i forgot to turn them off... Apparently the buzzer that tells you your lights are on doesn't work, if there even is one. I had to call my dad for a jump start. We had a good laugh over it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mig8788 Posted October 26, 2012 Report Share Posted October 26, 2012 Looks good man. I love the black wheels and they look really good with the fiji blue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TexasQuest Posted October 26, 2012 Report Share Posted October 26, 2012 Man that pic just reminds me how much these cars stick out (in a good way) from the rest of today's cars! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jisleyjr Posted November 7, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 7, 2012 (edited) Man that pic just reminds me how much these cars stick out (in a good way) from the rest of today's cars! i agree. Since this i ended up doing this http://www.starquestclub.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=127428 charging wire mod, volts were a little low on the gauge. I also cleaned up the grounds and battery terminals with a wire brush. Car cranks over a lot better now and volts are higher on the gauge. The weather has been decent here (for Oct/Nov) so i have been driving this into work more often. I realized while idling i was hearing a chatter/ticking, at first i figured it was just an exhaust leak but it turns out i have a mechanical valve train. Using a snake camera i was able to see that i have a NJV head, there is no T stamp by the distributor either. I'll be doing a valve adjustment soon because who knows when it was last checked. I am also starting to realize that i am getting too old for a loud exhaust, *DM 3" with only a magnaflow "muffler" is a bit much when going through the gears. I will probably be adding a resonator where the cat should be and/or putting on an actual muffler. Edited November 7, 2012 by jisleyjr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jisleyjr Posted May 24, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 24, 2013 I see it's been awhile since in updated this thread, so i here are is what i was up to this winter. I had a Magna intake manifold, MS2, EDIS-4, and wiring harness sitting on my shelf so i figured i'd make use of the heated garage and free time.While i was at it i was going to replace the passenger side fender along with the dented doors, some interior pieces, along with swapping in my ST springs and newish MK1 rear struts and i had strut inserts for the front. Early photo of the whole thing on jack stands with hood, bumper, and wheels pulled off:http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130113_141313.jpg Most of the interior pieces were cracked up like this:http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130109_193722.jpg When pulling the bumper support off i realized way my bumper cover was so loose, not a single bolt was holding it in place:http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130113_134102.jpg Dented fender:http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130109_193511.jpg Had to straighten out the metal under the fender, i ground the rust off and coated with primer and then flat black:http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130120_140922.jpg Not a fan of the radio, the aluminum cover, and the shifter boot, so they are getting replaced with the 87'shttp://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130109_193642.jpg Found a shady wiring job, hacked up the factory harness, so i soldered in my 87's harness (can't find a picture of that):http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130205_192528_zps7ec5c50d.jpg It was around this point when i realized i was going to be buying a new house and selling this one, i had a lot of work left to do:http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130227_193045_zps47b64f8f.jpg Engine harness part way out:http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130227_193012_zpsccecab27.jpg Where i ran the power cable through firewall when i relocated battery to hatch:http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130227_193017_zpsdefab523.jpg Running of the new engine harness, along with test fitting some of the *DM pipes that i coated with Plasti Dip: Relocated vacuum pump.http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130325_195011_zps7e1c3b48.jpghttp://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130315_202325_zps121878b7.jpg Intake installed:http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130402_214750_zps97f72054.jpg Wiring mess for EDIShttp://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130326_205119_zps80824177.jpg Conflict of space!http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130403_194343_zps49f27b1a.jpg Test fitting of the intercooler and pipinghttp://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130325_195443_zps907fe47b.jpg Ran into an issue with the bumper support and piping, i cut out a notch in the bumper support.http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130415_214319_zps7ec5ded3.jpg This looks like the last photo of engine bay, this looks like it is missing some connected hoses:http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130407_114747_zps47817bf5.jpg I don't have any photos of installing new struts with ST springs or ST swaybars. Fenders, doors, rocker panel back on: (you can see part of the IAC stepper wiring laid out)http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130414_154008_zps79cba295.jpghttp://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130414_154020_zps12ce0010.jpg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jisleyjr Posted May 24, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 24, 2013 5 minutes after lowering it off jack stands, the 87's front bumper is in good shape so i used it over the original one that looks like it was melted and another bumper i picked up in Minnesota, all the holes for bolting it to the support were ripped off. So i have some painting to do.http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130419_211002_zpse2626ac7.jpg Here is the original front end, actually looks "okay" in photo, but in person it was driving me nuts:http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20121009_200256.jpghttp://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130109_193439.jpg I haven't worked on it any in the last month (i had enough of it during Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr... anyway). Here it is in my new garage, (just installed the Rock Solid flooring couple days before this)http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/jisleyjr/88conquest/th_IMG_20130520_205324_zpsdabe487d.jpg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jisleyjr Posted May 24, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 24, 2013 Things that remain are:Tie rods are shot and rear brakes are toast, wish i would have noticed when it was sitting on jack stands for a couple months.Paint the bumperReinstall the piece between the bumper and header panel, i have a black one from my 87 that is in perfect shape. On the fence about leaving it black or painting it to match.Whole car could use a paint job, the panels i picked up in Minnesota don't quite match and i have a couple dings to fix. Closing on my house last week ate up some of my spending cash, so not sure when i'll repaint it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
importwarrior Posted May 25, 2013 Report Share Posted May 25, 2013 real nice work looks great! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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