First a bit of background: My bread and butter for the past 6 years has been first generation w-body cars, and before I go into this project a little bit of background. I bought my old White 93 z34 Lumina back in late 2003 (and hence my screen name) That car could have a thread all of its own, but since this isn't about that car but does play heavily on its history I'll give a brief rundown of it. I got it in late 2003 and proceeded to drive the bejesous out of it for about 100k miles, in that time I wrecked it a few times, totaling it and rebuilding it once. then manual trans swapped it when the 4t60e asploded. then finally the engine spun a bearing at 193,000 miles. and having a fair amount of rust and still being bent up from my one wreck I decided enough was enough. and the search started for a replacement. I sat on it for about 4-5 months when a black 92' z34 came up for sale on the w-body.com forums. the kid had only had it for 9 months, dumped over $1000 into repairs on it (the shop raped him sideways) then the 4t60e decided to blow up on him at a scant 85k miles. Cutting his losses I picked it up since It was fairly local to me and in good condition.


not bad at all, and miles better then my old car.

first thing was first, a part out of my old white z





Good bye, little buddy :( you took me so many places.

without missing a beat, as soon as the white car was towed away I went and picked up the new one from storage, interesting drive with it only having first and second gears.. good thing it was a short drive.






last time it would be complete for a good while...

now down to business, first step dashboard/interior removal






I had to laugh at this, apparently someone somewhere did not believe in axillary transmission coolers and bypassed it, oh well its all going in the trash anyhow.


now engine/trans removal









While everything was apart it was time to do many small things to prepare for the manual transmission




sandblasting and repainting the subframe was a very rewarding venture to me



drilling the holes for the shift cables, its nice that every lumina regardless of transmission was marked for where the shift cables go, just get a 44mm hole saw and perfect holes


shift cables in. I did not get many pictures of it, but the silver plate that is obscured by the firewall blanket and has the heater core lines going through it is the firewall plate, that has to be changed to accommodate the clutch master.



small project of adding some sound deadening to the car, it honestly seems to make a difference, and was free to do.


ripped out some of the "quality" repairs that the last shop did to the car. there were honestly 5-6 unions in 8 feet of brake tubing. I ended up redoing all that work. friggen hacks.




clutch pedal hung, and carpet/dash back in.


freshly cut flywheel


for a brand new clutch, its a spec stage 2



engine and transmission mated, I don't think I mentioned it but the transmission is a Getrag 284


just about ready to go in the hole, also installed my poly sway bar bushings, and turbo grand prix, short ratio, high effort rack.




yay! back in.

now that the engine was back in, there was pelnty of other work to be done.
I did the so-called big brake upgrade all around, and put stainless steel lines on all 4 wheels





then I moved rearward, the rear suspension was shot, I knew that going into it, the rear leaf spring was cracking and it sagged something awful, I changed that out for a good used higher springrate one from a turbo grand prix.
found and repaired the noise the PO told me that he could never track down


a $13 bracket from the dealer was the answer

the "big" rear brake upgrade


I FINALLY got my long discontinued Koni sports back from Koni after waiting 2 months for them to rebuild them, they did a great job, but if you ever need them worked on be prepared to have some downtime, good thing I sent them out long in advance. Front suspension has KYB GR2/Excell G struts, rear has the Konis


one of the last steps was charging up the ac system again.

and more or less finished!



and a shot with its buddy, the turbo grand prix, which belongs to a good friend of mine.

since then I've had the windows tinted and put a different set of wheels on it

taken at a rest area on I70 coming back from the w-body meet

hope you enjoyed!

Wow, now that looks like a lot of work. Very well done, a project you should be proud of.

What an amazing post. Absolutely fascinating. That was big project for you to take on. How does she run?

What'* next?

It runs and drives beautiful, I put about 5,000 miles on it this year. its about time for it to go into winter hibernation now.

next project is going to be one of a few things, my turbo grand prix, my camaro. or come spring my friends turbo grand prix that I showed in one of the pictures, he blew it up at the dragstrip at the last w-body meet. but hey it ran a 14.7, not bad for a little 3.1.

Feel free to post up your projects. I really enjoyed this one.

Fantastic job! Great write up. Thanks for sharing with us. You should be very proud of this accomplishment.

that car is prety sick, i like everything except the maroon interrior lol

awesome post the car looks sweet great job with all the pictures

Great Job, Fantastic writeup/photos. I like Red. Red is faster. It'* simple physics.

what type of trans did yo use?