Whew, haven't updated in a while! but im finding myself in the garage again lately and i thought i would share some progress.

For those who don't know, I have a (we think) Homologated 1983 242 turbo that I sourced from red deer maybe 5 or 6 years ago. After sitting for most of that time ive finally got a plan in motion.

I ended up having a wrecked 1991 Toyota soarer (rhd Lexus sc300) land in my lap for $500 bucks. 2.5 L twin turbo 6 with a bottom end that can handle about 600hp. COOL! we are off to the races, after selling the autotragic transmission for $350 my $1200 motor turned into a $150 dollar motor. Even better! I sourced a r154 trans and appropriate bellhousing and a bunch of other goodies to make moar power with, but all that stuff comes later.

I need to get the base drive line outfitted to the car before i can get into the fun stuff.

First order of business was locating a rear end that will put up with my abuse (which i plan to be). For costs sake and durability I went with a ford 8.8 from a v8 exploder. Why? it can handle alot of power, has lots of rebuild options, comes with a stock LSD, and once you shorten the drivers axle tube it fits brilliantly in a 240. It also has a much more common bolt pattern at 5x114.3, unlocking a much much wider range of wheels without having to use stupid spacers. Here is my wheel choice, 17x10 in the rear, 17 x 8.5 up front (these are the 10s up front with spacers, i originally planned 10s all around but i dont think its happening)



So the first order of buisness is to shorten the drivers side axle tube to match the passengers, you simply use two passenger axles at this point. it centres the diff.

There are lots of missing photos so i cant fully explain how i did it, but i have some pictures of the tig welds placing the brackets on the tube. ill answer any questions if you have them. they aren't my welds unfortunately, although i have been practising my tig

Apologies for any sideways or upside down photos, imgur wont let you rotate them and i cant access my gallery here.







Just this evening i completed a rebuild on the differential, This includes replacement of all bearings, seals and re shimming the carrier. You can see my contact pattern here which i placed a little towards the toe of the gear to handle my abuse. Also had to play with the ring gear backlash a bit to get it to my liking (0.008") at the minimum specification from ford. I cant seal her up yet though as one of the axles is severely pitted on the bearing surface and i must source another one from the junkyard.




Next steps are to complete the suspension bits, ive got some shortened front struts using the r-sport inverted inserts and 375lb springs, and 300lb springs for the rear with bilstien hd shocks from a k2500 suburban. i managed to mount my adjuster sleeve in a piece of exhaust pipe welded to the trailing arm, and is held using a 6 inch bolt and the mushroom washer from a pan hard bar. the upper mount is made from a piece of c channel and a piece of exhaust pipe with a tapered plumbing rubber gasket as an anti rattle.







Thats it for now. ill take more progress as i complete stuff.

Looking good...Did that axle housing stay straight with all that weld? Be careful with the stops and starts, I noted that some are short. Why didn't you box up the front of that trailing arm before you painted it?

Alex, good to see you posting again. Looking forward to what looks like a really cool build.

Craig, the axle stayed straight. I did pull out the true steel when it was done and I was happy with it, i didnt pull out the feeler strips though the lower trailing arms are actually boxed along the bottom with some 16ga, I could have gone overboard and did the top too i suppose, but my thinking is if they become a problem I'll be building something with an adjustment for fine tuning pinion angle and alignment. I did score some adjustable panhard / torque rods from pick n pull last month so hopefully I can get it dialed in with that.

Again those welds were done by a welder friend, if i start going through axle and carrier bearings and have strange tire wear issues ill just take another stab at it. For the 130 bucks the axle assembly costs at pnp its pretty cheap.

Right on Alex! Great to have you back, and can't wait to see what comes of this. Love the wheels too!

This thing is getting done. I've spent too many hours dreaming of it. It's within reach now, funds allow. Id expect to have it running in a year or so.

Cool - as long as it stayed straight then you're golden. I was just commenting as that's how we used to straighten housings back in the day. Weld on the opposing side - as it shrinks, you get it straight. The top of the trailing arm is (IIRC) flimsy - stick a screwdriver in the front bushing and reef on it. It will move. Maybe not a problem given how the part works, but it's easy to fix with adjustable parts later as you've stated.

Great build, by the way.

Ive been wondering about this car....good to finally see some action!