We Call Her Nessie

[Gideon35T]

With >250k miles on the Zombie wagon she's really starting to show her age. So, several months back I began looking for a replacement. After some time on good-ole craigslist I happened across a 1995 855 Turbo. One year newer and 80k+ fewer miles on it. The car was badly in need of front struts and was leaking exhaust from somewhere around the turbo. $700 later the car was at my door looking better than I had expected.

It being a large green monster, the previous owner had named it "Nessie". Sarah and I rather liked the name and decided to keep it.

Now, I was driving my Autocross Infiniti at the time and still had the S60 as my backup. Therefor, the Zombie Wagon has been Sarah's daily for about the past year or so. Nessie would be the replacement for her aging undead (yet hard to kill) vehicle.

With the purchase of the new house/property and our adventure in going off grid poor Nessie has been sitting by her lonesome between stacks of cord wood and an ever growing pile of horse stuff (literally). Finally, the Zombie Wagon is starting to fail so Sarah agreed to bankroll the repair of Nessie.

She ordered up the standard stage 0 items first and then picked up oem replacement front struts and exhaust manifold gaskets.

(Speaking of which, RockAuto sent us an extra pair of struts and exhaust gasket so if you need them pm me an offer).

Now, you may be wondering why we'd be going with mostly oem replacement everything. Well, we use the wagons like little ranch trucks and can't really get by hauling a whole lot if we slam the car ... Even though it would look soooo much better ... Anyways ...

I did convince Sarah that the car would handle better with less sidewall so we should switch from the steelies to a set of 16's or 17's. Greg (gmsgltr) posted a set of Perfos for sale with tires so we're snatching them up as soon as Sarah can make a paypal and pay the man (Sorry for the delay Greg).

We'll likely be swapping over the intake and mbc setup from the Zombie Wagon once Nessie is on the road but that's about as modded as she's be.

So, today I started working on the car. After a few hours in 105f weather I managed to pull the turbo. A quick inspection of the stock 15g revealed that two of the intake side blades are a little goofed on the corners. Fearing that it wouldn't be properly balanced once it was being fed full exhaust pressure I dug up an old Spanky rebuilt 16t and decided I'd drop that in. Tonight, I'll be swapping everything from the 15g to the 16t. (If anyone is looking for a turbo to rebuild or convert to Lucky's new 11 blade setup shoot me a pm)

Once the turbo was out I quickly confirmed my exhaust manifold gasket suspicion when I found that the studs/nuts were FINGER TIGHT, lol.

I also noticed that the upper engine stabilizer mount was ... somewhere not on the car. Ordering that this evening, haha.

So, getting the old girl back on the road and in proper working condition is coming along nicely. I'm eager to have a wagon with; working ac, working stereo, working windows, and a working power drivers seat ... rofl, It will also be nice not to hear lifter tick that's so bad it sounds like rod knock!

I'll update with pictures as we get her all put together. She wont be a modded monster but she's be a nice looking and reliable daily for Sarah. I'll try to keep her as clean looking as possible. One more hot wagon for my even hotter girl ;-).

Oh, and on a final note ... Sarah and I came to an agreement ... I could do a catback exhaust if I paint the hood with chalkboard paint, haha. I also have a TurboXS bov around here somewhere. Bov valve on a nearly stock wagon? Why not? It still smokes ricers, lol.

(PS, if someone can link me to the oil drain line gasket and o ring that would be awesome)