Below are some shots of my 85 Dodge Omni GLH project when I first purchased it.  

So why a 1985 Dodge Omni GLH? A lot of people don't know the sleeper potential of a ride like this. It's a freakin Omni!

I owned a 1989 standard Omni and used it as a field car. On an illegal road trip between my house and a friend’s house I had the opportunity to test out the awesome handling, comfortability and drivability of a sweet masterpiece by Chrysler. Honestly, I enjoyed beating the crap out of the car. It took the abuse and didn't want to die. Unfortunately, the car had a short life at the track mainly due to extensive rust.

With gas prices rising and the fact that these 80’s cars are pretty reliable and cheap to repair I decided to find one to legally drive. Then a buddy of mine told me about a turbo version of these cars. The rare 85-86 turbo GLH versions.

The GLH stands for “Goes Like Hell” and features heavy duty suspension with larger brakes, aluminum 15" 5-lug wheels, ground effects with fog lights, 5-speed transmission, blacked out trim, and optional turbo. Thank you Mr. Shelby.

My first test drive was in Rochester, NY with a stock 85 GLH turbo. The guy was real nice and let me take the car out for a test drive by myself. I never had so much fun! I remember stopping and quickly taking off at several stop lights swerving in and out of traffic and having people looking over at me with expressions of what the hell is that? An Omni? The turbo really seemed to wake up the little 2.2L. At the time I thought the guy was asking too much for the car so I turned it down. Then I found this one.

I picked up this GLH while I was on an Engineering Co-op near Baltimore, MD. There's no rust, the body is very straight but paint is fading and it has a clean but partially incomplete red interior. The car originally came with a rare 110HP High-Output 2.2L power plant! However, somewhere along its lifetime it was decided the car needed a little more power. A 2.2L intercooled turbo engine and heavy duty transmission were swapped in from an 87 Dodge Daytona Shelby Z which is rated around 175HP stock. Not a bad choice for a little 2200lb car. It’s a great swap, but installed half as*ed so it needs major help. I'll try to keep this page updated as much as possible through the restoration or work to get the car back on the road.

Shocks are shot, front suspension is shot, fuel system is nasty, interior is messy and there's not much left of the exhaust. Lots of fun work ahead!

The wiring under the hood and dash is an absolute nightmare. The engine bay is full of random wires. Somewhere in the whole mess there is an 85 engine and headlight harness and an 87 turbo engine wire harness. It appears that the 87 harness was laid on top of the 85 harness with plenty of splices and unknown random wires. This will all be removed and replaced with a complete 88 Turbo harness. Under the dash it's the same story. There are two fuse panels and a custom ignition set-up. There are two ignition switches on the column, one from the 87 and the original 85. The rod from the key cylinder to the switch was cut in half and the rods from both switches are welded together and then welded to the rod from the lock cylinder...... This will all be replaced with more 88 Daytona parts.

Goal:
Restore car to a street/strip/daily driver application. Get all parts/items fitted before paint and under coating can be applied.

Include:
-Restore/Upgrade entire suspension (done)
-Restore/Upgrade entire fuel system (done)
-Restore/Upgrade Brakes (done SLH 2)
-Rebuild/Upgrade Engine and Transmission (Can't wait, low milage trans swapped in 8/08)
-Restore Interior (done)
-Completely re-wire the entire car (done)
-Coat entire under body with POR-15 and re-paint entire car (after the engine and transmission rebuild)

Luckily, I have a friend with a nice 88 Shelby Z that I can strip for parts, including turbo wire harness and any drive-train pieces!

Update: 6/3/2006

Took a trip to the yard and stripped the Shelby Z of all of its wiring, rear discs, front sway bar, trip navigator computer, oil pan, shifter, and other miscellaneous items.
Work has started. I finished stripping all of the wiring out underneath the hood. This is just the engine bay wiring. As you can see it's a mess.

Update: 6/28/2006

Here's what's going on so far. I'm just about finished hooking everything up under the hood. I was able to fire it up yesterday and man.....it runs soooo much better!!! The 88 harness was a simple install under the hood. A minimal amount of changes were made under the hood including the swap of the original wiper motor to the Z's motor and a slight modification to the headlight wiring. Only items left under the hood are a new speed/distance sensor which is on its way from FWD performance and the search continues for the washer and coolant recovery tanks which were missing when I purchased the car ??? Under the dash is going well, the 88 Daytona had tons of options so in case I want to run power windows and other accessories it won't be a problem. I had to modify the brake light switch bracket from the GLH to fit the 88 Daytona switch. Not hard, works great! The GLH steering column wiring plugged right into the 88 harnesses. Blower control wires have to be extended to be able to reach the drivers side control unit on the GLH. Still need to convert the 88 instrument panel plugs to fit the 85 instrument cluster. Other than those things just the door jam switch wiring to be figured out and the small accessory bulbs and she's done.

A shot of the interior during stripping/installing of wiring.

Update: 7/22/2006

Alrighty, I’ll start off with some pictures.

New grill installed and fog light covers found buried underneath spare parts in the trunk. Well more tasks under the hood completed. Cooling system is almost completed, new temp gauge sensors, thermostat installed which was missing. Also added a temporary cold air intake. Next, I will be going under the car to replace the oil pan, water pump, install the Shelby Z's sway bar, install the rear discs and finally hook the distance sensor up. Oh, I bought used coolant and washer bottles which are on the way.

The interior is progressing slowly. I located a GLHS instrument cluster with the 135mph speedometer on eBay. I installed that sucker and adapted the Z’s harness to plug in to the GLHS instrument cluster. I also found a shifter from an 89 Spirit with a curved shift rod for better ergonomics.

Drove the car around yesterday on the first 2-3 shift I lost boost pressure do to a loose intercooler hose. It currently handles like a shopping cart but it's pretty quick.

Update: 7/27/2006

Cooling system is all set. I finally received the coolant and washer tanks. Just finished installing the rear discs but waiting for e-brake cables to come in from a local parts store. Next week it's oil pan, water pump, and the new KYB shocks.

Before and after shots of the engine bay
Before:

After:

Update: 8/17/2006

Well the shock/struts were completely shot!!! Rear shocks were covered in oil, the left front was so bad there was no rebound or resistance it was practically worthless and the bump stop on that strut was destroyed. No wonder the oil pan was smashed and then patched. Newer (used) oil pan installed, water pump installed, sway bar installed with new poly bushings which = stiff front suspension!. E-brake cables work but need some small modifications to be perfect.

Update: 9/6/2006

Car is home. I'm at school making $0.00. No work on the car yet. Next phase fuel system including tank, sending unit and pump. The undercoating of the entire under body with POR-15 will begin shortly after. Wish I could be working on the Do ge Om i.

Update: 4/15/2007

Decided to log on and do some editing and updates. Car still sits in the barn and I'm still in school. I've begun the process of stripping out the interior for the install of new carpet, finish up the wiring and installation of donor interior items from a rusty 85 Plymouth Horizon I picked up with a real nice red interior. I've been collecting parts including complete GLH decal set, 3" down pipe, KYB gas-a-just rear struts, NOS fog light covers, got a nice tach and boost/vacuum gage for x-mas along with POR-15 kit to treat the under body. Hopefully my summer job will keep me close to home so I can get an S-load of work done. Oh yeah, and focus on one thing at a time :)

Pics of the Doner Horizon!

Update: 6/28/2007

Work has started again with a goal of getting the car on the road before summer is over. Pop's let me clear out a spot in the shop and it's going to be her new home for a little while.

I was able to quickly finish up the p-brake set-up, install the gas-adjust shocks, turn the rear rotors and install new rear pads.

Bought a new tank and straps and coated them in POR-15. In the process of finding a new sending unit. Ordered up the 3 inch exhaust from swing valve to muffler, the bobble strut mount, and weather stripping for the doors and trunk.

Moved up to the front end to finish the rest of the suspension including new wheel bearings, ball joints, passenger cv shaft, lower heavy duty caravan control arms and bushings.

Update: 8/28/2007

Thanks for the votes of the tail lights. I removed old Omni tail lights and installed the horzon lights along with the tail light harness from the doner horizon and installed weather stripping from Jcwhitney.

Here's a pic of the custom fuel pump sending unit thing that I found in the ole tank along with the nastiest gas ever!

Installed new tank, straps and fuel sending unit.

Front suspension done:

Decided to yank the old cylinder head off for a new headgasket and ease of turbo work. Installed lower milage turbo with larger waste gate canister and new exhaust/intake gaskets.

Discovered the motor mounts were shot and inexpensive to replace so new front and passender side mount with the CORRECT size bolts. Nothin like 1/4" bolts holding the engine in place!. 7/16" grade 8's installed.

The bobble strut mount on the rear of the transmission...wtf!!

I had lots of fun cutting of the old lower mount bracket! (sarcastically spoken) Welded in a new heavy duty bracket and installed a new stiffer mount to prevent extensive engine rock during shifts and quick accelerations.

Update: 9/7/2007

Well, I'm back to school/work in Rochester which means little to no work on the project. Before I left I was able to install the full 3" exhaust (turbo to tail pipe) with a Magnaflow Muffler and Cat. It's a nice low tone with no rice buzz!

I finished off the front suspension with new pads, rotors and frame mount sway bushings. Put the car back on the ground and drove her around. She still runs a little ruff from the old gas but it’s clearing up nicely and will improve greatly with some fuel injector cleaner. Currently having some p/s problems and she desperately needs an alignment.

Also got a chance to install a black headliner panel from another parts GLH clone I picked up.

Time to focus on the interior!

Update: 10/28/2007

The A/F guage:

A series of LED's integrated into an L-body gauge bezel that I paid a ridiculous amount for. Yeah it's not the most accurate way to measure A/F but it will do for now. It's a pretty cool/cheap A/F gauge to blind me while I cruise. Thanks to the electronics labs at RIT I was able to test out this system. Actually works pretty good! LED's are a little bright, need to add a potentiometer to dim the blinding lights down.

RICH MIXTURE .9 - 1V

JUST ABOUT RIGHT .4 - .5V

A LITTLE LEAN .25 - .35V

OH SH** HOLE IN THE PISTON! .1 - .2V

See the lights go!

Oh, I have a new black carpet ready for install if I ever get a free weekend!

Update: 02/11/2008

Well there's not a lot going on. I was able to get the old carpet completely stripped out only to discover two half-dollar size rust holes. Sweet! Those will be patch and coated with POR-15. All plastic and carpeting around the trunk area has been cleaned and installed. I added an aftermarket third LED brake light as well.

For x-mas I picked up a TurboXS Type H BOV. (Picture soon)

Also, I picked up an original aftermarket cruise control switch, so the cruise control set-up will be added soon!

So much for having the car done by summer, well it is close! Its wire repairing and interior installing time! As soon as it warms up!

More Info and pictures to come....