Joshevo22
05-07-2020, 06:48 PM
Where to begin!! I guess a little intro would suffice on myself and my business partner! We own a small powder coating shop a little north of Pittsburgh PA. We both grew up with racing and into the automotive industry / cars. From building our company and reputation, we have built a ton of connections over the years through and also by working on / building our other cars that we race / used to race. This is not our first Copart car haha... I have bought / flipped / kept probably around 15-20 cars now on Copart and my wife and i as well as my business partner and i all drive either rebuilt cars. It's kind of a cool way to afford vehicles that might be out of your reach otherwise, as you can buy them with some cash, fix them at your leisure, drive them for a year or two and usually bare minimum break even! Sell the car once you are wanting something new, and you have that full amount and then some that you saved up to put into your new car!
Anyways, enough about us or what we do! We have no intentions of selling this car after its done, the orange Ta1.0 was about as spotless of a used low mileage H/C viper you could buy, which we actually bought off this VOA forum and loved the car. Ended up selling the car as of recently to help fund this blue car and invest most of the money at this time in hopes to better aid us and our business in the future.
First and foremost! We called Aaron at Nth the day after we won the car to get insight on what we might be getting ourselves into haha.. I didn't want to call ahead of time, as i didnt want anyone to give me third party input, whoever it may of been to persuade my decision making on buying the car, if that makes sense! Anyways, Aaron from day 1 has been insanely helpful with the car. He's answered literally every question we have had, and we have full intentions of taking the car back to him once we get all the stock electronics, the frame, and everything ready on our part for him to refresh the motor, reinstall the motor / trans and hopefully get it back up and running! His personality has always been super friendly and respectful, which speaks worlds to us at least on his company and reputation. Two younger kids who buy a random wrecked car off an auction, he could just of easily said get lost, or I'm not interested in helping you. But! He is the polar opposite. So if anyone has any doubts on him as a person, and or his build quality, and or the reputation of his company. Let this show you his true intent and true demeanor as a person. As in this world today, its pretty rare to see and to meet and build a relationship.
I'll try and touch base on everything we have encountered with the car from day one, and what has went smooth and what hasn't. I will try and update this post every time we make progress! However, this does not happen overnight and i have no doubts that this car wont be finished up until next year. So if you are super impatient, I apologize hahah!
I WILL NOT BE posting any pictures of underneath the car, of Nth's turbo kit and or their designed parts. No Aaron did not force me to do this, No we didnt make a deal for this, however i have gotten a TON of messages asking to see how he does his kits, how this is ran, that is ran, etc etc and Being a business owner ourselves, we fully respect how he supports his family, and all of the RND / testing / work he puts into these builds is solely how he does it. He built his reputation / company off these builds and just know its pretty mind blowing to see in person what actually goes into one of these builds. Its not just a slap together turbo kit / be done type of ordeal. There is a TON of time / work that makes these cars perform how they do, how well they do, and how stock looking it appears to most after its ton with the insane quality that he puts out of his shop...
Ok now.. Getting to what most people want to hear and I'm sure are curious about!
We won the car for 3-4 weeks straight once it was up for bid, however the insurance company wanted a pretty absurd amount for the car which we weren't willing to pay. However! I woke up on December 6th and see that i won the car finally after weeks and was super excited but also super nervous... I called Aaron that day to start asking him details on the car and what he thought happened / what was salvageable. The rumor was the car was driven into a lake and was submerged pretty far in. From the pictures you'll see below, the car was definitely submerged pretty far in water. The water lines are so inconsistent that we don't have any tell tale signs or photos of the wreck to know exactly how far it was.... If anyone has some please PM us as I'm super curious! Aaron mentioned that he didn't think much of anything was salvageable on the vehicle and definitely got a little discouraged when i heard that but it was what it was at that point! The car was already on its way here to PA...
We received the car on December 9th, and it definitely looked a bit rough but also better than i was anticipating. A lot of the body parts where in good condition, and i know worst case we could part the car out and not lose much if any money not knowing anything on the drive-train or electronics status. We started tearing the car apart immediately once we got it back.
-All the electronics for the most part are shot. So far we have bought literally every new electronic switch, module, cluster, radio, amp, etc etc etc! The last of the stock electronics we are able to pick up next week "May 14th" The wiring harness is really the only stock piece on the car that we are not changing. We purchased an dissolving solution that eats away corrosion that is used on airplanes and so far has worked wonderful! The cluster / radio / lighting in the car / certain functions of the taillights have all worked as shown in pictures below. We are waiting on the stock ecu to come in from Aaron to re-code the whole electronics side so everything is unlocked and working correctly with the car.
-The motec, many many many people thought the motec would be trashed, even us as we took the cover off it and was corroded. We had Cody Phillips send it to Motec's branch in NC "Hes dealt with water damaged Motec's before and a couple good friends knew him quite well from being in the supra industry". They reported that the ecu had slight corrosion, however all the tests they put it through, it passed and the tune / coding was all intact on it. They recommended we send it to their main hub in Australia for extensive bench tests, which we ended up doing and they found some repairs that were needed to be fixed! They shipped Nth Moto the ecu as of recently and Aaron is re-uploading the coding / tune on the car for us!
-The car has some slight frame damage up-front. Both bottom rails are pushed up in-front of the control arms and the car will be going to a frame shop once we pull the motor, and get in the remaining body panels, lights, x-brace etc! The gaps on the rest of the car all line up, even the front bumper to hood. The only thing slightly concerning is the hood to door gap was slightly off. But the frame shop will address that when the time comes.
-The DSS 9" was full of water, however upon disassemble at a friends shop, it was all intact and everything looked perfect. He resealed the housing for us and all that's needed is reinstall / fluid. The axles were shipped directly to DSS and they needed a slight service as well, but just from wear and tear, not from the accident. Carbon Drivesahft is intact.
-The sequential transmission that was just installed a month prior to the wreck is the ONLY thing that wasnt full of water, and was near spotless along with spotless fluid!! Super happy when we drained it and found that out!!
-The Nth moto Quad Carbon clutch is still an unknown. We were instructed how to resurrect the disks, so i guess we will see once the car gets up and running and back on the dyno if it will hold the power it should! Worst case we buy another clutch while Aaron is going over the car and making sure its good and have him install it at that point.
-The motor is another unknown! One cylinder was clear full of water, One cylinder was spotless and you can still see the cross hatching, the remaining 8 cylinders had damp pistons and can see slight rust spots on the cylinder walls. we pulled the pan / valve covers and the crank / valvetrain were spotless. We are assuming at bare minimum the cylinders will need honed. Pistons might need replaced, a sleeve or two might need replaced, cam / bearings are 100% getting replaced, etc! Will know more once we setup with Aaron to drop it off.
-The turbo kit is pretty much all intact, the bov's need repalced as they are corroded on the bottom, and the turbos need rebuilt. They spin freely though and have 0 shaft play in and out and side to side which is quite amazing!
-Injectors, 3 were stuck shut, one was stuck open. A buddy of mine has an injector cleaner at his house and he was able to free all of them up. Put the injectors on a cleaner for several hours, and flow test them after wards which all flowed perfectly!
-Body damage is not too bad! I still believe that we are going to have the whole car repainted, as that's really the only correct way to do it, however the front bumper and passenger side skirt were the two only unusable body panels on the car which we are picking up our replacements next week! The paint will be the very last step to the process though! We want the car running and driving first.
-CCW wheels, one rear wheel is unfixable, one front is unfixable.... Found an insane deal on two matching rears with r888r's and bought them! however... We called ccw to order the one last front wheel we needed to finish the set off and they dont offer the front sizing anymore... So.. Instead of buying two front wheels, we ordered some awesome wheels from Aaron for the car! Cant wait until they come in.
-Suspension on the car is all really intact, one strut is blown however we are picking up a replacement TA Strut next week!
I think that is everything for now. We are picking up a TON of parts next week, basically everything we need to finish the car besides motor related / paint related. So hopefully will try and keep updating as we go!
Thanks for tuning in! Feel free to ask any questions you have or something i may have missed! We'll be happy to answer!
Josh / Billy
Anyways, enough about us or what we do! We have no intentions of selling this car after its done, the orange Ta1.0 was about as spotless of a used low mileage H/C viper you could buy, which we actually bought off this VOA forum and loved the car. Ended up selling the car as of recently to help fund this blue car and invest most of the money at this time in hopes to better aid us and our business in the future.
First and foremost! We called Aaron at Nth the day after we won the car to get insight on what we might be getting ourselves into haha.. I didn't want to call ahead of time, as i didnt want anyone to give me third party input, whoever it may of been to persuade my decision making on buying the car, if that makes sense! Anyways, Aaron from day 1 has been insanely helpful with the car. He's answered literally every question we have had, and we have full intentions of taking the car back to him once we get all the stock electronics, the frame, and everything ready on our part for him to refresh the motor, reinstall the motor / trans and hopefully get it back up and running! His personality has always been super friendly and respectful, which speaks worlds to us at least on his company and reputation. Two younger kids who buy a random wrecked car off an auction, he could just of easily said get lost, or I'm not interested in helping you. But! He is the polar opposite. So if anyone has any doubts on him as a person, and or his build quality, and or the reputation of his company. Let this show you his true intent and true demeanor as a person. As in this world today, its pretty rare to see and to meet and build a relationship.
I'll try and touch base on everything we have encountered with the car from day one, and what has went smooth and what hasn't. I will try and update this post every time we make progress! However, this does not happen overnight and i have no doubts that this car wont be finished up until next year. So if you are super impatient, I apologize hahah!
I WILL NOT BE posting any pictures of underneath the car, of Nth's turbo kit and or their designed parts. No Aaron did not force me to do this, No we didnt make a deal for this, however i have gotten a TON of messages asking to see how he does his kits, how this is ran, that is ran, etc etc and Being a business owner ourselves, we fully respect how he supports his family, and all of the RND / testing / work he puts into these builds is solely how he does it. He built his reputation / company off these builds and just know its pretty mind blowing to see in person what actually goes into one of these builds. Its not just a slap together turbo kit / be done type of ordeal. There is a TON of time / work that makes these cars perform how they do, how well they do, and how stock looking it appears to most after its ton with the insane quality that he puts out of his shop...
Ok now.. Getting to what most people want to hear and I'm sure are curious about!
We won the car for 3-4 weeks straight once it was up for bid, however the insurance company wanted a pretty absurd amount for the car which we weren't willing to pay. However! I woke up on December 6th and see that i won the car finally after weeks and was super excited but also super nervous... I called Aaron that day to start asking him details on the car and what he thought happened / what was salvageable. The rumor was the car was driven into a lake and was submerged pretty far in. From the pictures you'll see below, the car was definitely submerged pretty far in water. The water lines are so inconsistent that we don't have any tell tale signs or photos of the wreck to know exactly how far it was.... If anyone has some please PM us as I'm super curious! Aaron mentioned that he didn't think much of anything was salvageable on the vehicle and definitely got a little discouraged when i heard that but it was what it was at that point! The car was already on its way here to PA...
We received the car on December 9th, and it definitely looked a bit rough but also better than i was anticipating. A lot of the body parts where in good condition, and i know worst case we could part the car out and not lose much if any money not knowing anything on the drive-train or electronics status. We started tearing the car apart immediately once we got it back.
-All the electronics for the most part are shot. So far we have bought literally every new electronic switch, module, cluster, radio, amp, etc etc etc! The last of the stock electronics we are able to pick up next week "May 14th" The wiring harness is really the only stock piece on the car that we are not changing. We purchased an dissolving solution that eats away corrosion that is used on airplanes and so far has worked wonderful! The cluster / radio / lighting in the car / certain functions of the taillights have all worked as shown in pictures below. We are waiting on the stock ecu to come in from Aaron to re-code the whole electronics side so everything is unlocked and working correctly with the car.
-The motec, many many many people thought the motec would be trashed, even us as we took the cover off it and was corroded. We had Cody Phillips send it to Motec's branch in NC "Hes dealt with water damaged Motec's before and a couple good friends knew him quite well from being in the supra industry". They reported that the ecu had slight corrosion, however all the tests they put it through, it passed and the tune / coding was all intact on it. They recommended we send it to their main hub in Australia for extensive bench tests, which we ended up doing and they found some repairs that were needed to be fixed! They shipped Nth Moto the ecu as of recently and Aaron is re-uploading the coding / tune on the car for us!
-The car has some slight frame damage up-front. Both bottom rails are pushed up in-front of the control arms and the car will be going to a frame shop once we pull the motor, and get in the remaining body panels, lights, x-brace etc! The gaps on the rest of the car all line up, even the front bumper to hood. The only thing slightly concerning is the hood to door gap was slightly off. But the frame shop will address that when the time comes.
-The DSS 9" was full of water, however upon disassemble at a friends shop, it was all intact and everything looked perfect. He resealed the housing for us and all that's needed is reinstall / fluid. The axles were shipped directly to DSS and they needed a slight service as well, but just from wear and tear, not from the accident. Carbon Drivesahft is intact.
-The sequential transmission that was just installed a month prior to the wreck is the ONLY thing that wasnt full of water, and was near spotless along with spotless fluid!! Super happy when we drained it and found that out!!
-The Nth moto Quad Carbon clutch is still an unknown. We were instructed how to resurrect the disks, so i guess we will see once the car gets up and running and back on the dyno if it will hold the power it should! Worst case we buy another clutch while Aaron is going over the car and making sure its good and have him install it at that point.
-The motor is another unknown! One cylinder was clear full of water, One cylinder was spotless and you can still see the cross hatching, the remaining 8 cylinders had damp pistons and can see slight rust spots on the cylinder walls. we pulled the pan / valve covers and the crank / valvetrain were spotless. We are assuming at bare minimum the cylinders will need honed. Pistons might need replaced, a sleeve or two might need replaced, cam / bearings are 100% getting replaced, etc! Will know more once we setup with Aaron to drop it off.
-The turbo kit is pretty much all intact, the bov's need repalced as they are corroded on the bottom, and the turbos need rebuilt. They spin freely though and have 0 shaft play in and out and side to side which is quite amazing!
-Injectors, 3 were stuck shut, one was stuck open. A buddy of mine has an injector cleaner at his house and he was able to free all of them up. Put the injectors on a cleaner for several hours, and flow test them after wards which all flowed perfectly!
-Body damage is not too bad! I still believe that we are going to have the whole car repainted, as that's really the only correct way to do it, however the front bumper and passenger side skirt were the two only unusable body panels on the car which we are picking up our replacements next week! The paint will be the very last step to the process though! We want the car running and driving first.
-CCW wheels, one rear wheel is unfixable, one front is unfixable.... Found an insane deal on two matching rears with r888r's and bought them! however... We called ccw to order the one last front wheel we needed to finish the set off and they dont offer the front sizing anymore... So.. Instead of buying two front wheels, we ordered some awesome wheels from Aaron for the car! Cant wait until they come in.
-Suspension on the car is all really intact, one strut is blown however we are picking up a replacement TA Strut next week!
I think that is everything for now. We are picking up a TON of parts next week, basically everything we need to finish the car besides motor related / paint related. So hopefully will try and keep updating as we go!
Thanks for tuning in! Feel free to ask any questions you have or something i may have missed! We'll be happy to answer!
Josh / Billy