1. | Home | 11. | April 25th |
2. | Motor Installation | 12. | May 2nd |
3. | Painting the Interior | 13. | June 2nd |
4. | Rewiring the Gauges | 14. | July 10th |
5. | Test Drive! | 15. | Aug 5th (almost done!) |
6. | Intercooler Fabrication | 16. | October 2nd |
7. | June 18th | 17. | November 4th |
8. | June 23rd | 18. | January 1st |
9. | January 26th | 19. | |
10. | February 6th | 20. | Junk Page |
Well, after getting some stuff organized, I went to the junkyard and
low and behold, there was an 88 Mustang 4 cylinder convertable there! They
must have just put it out on the yard because it still had it's tail lights
on it! That's right! I finally got some LX style Lights! I was so happy
with the lights that I decided to pick the car clean! I delicately removed
every wiring harness off of it and saved every bolt. I got the dash and
gauges also. I also got a tilt steering colom. When I say I got every wire
on the car, I mean , I GOT EVERY WIRE ON THE CAR! LOL
And the beauty of it all is I only paid $38.00 for everything! I owe
that junkyard attendant a beer. LOL
I painted the new dash and Man! It came out perfect! The entire harness
went in so easy it brought a tear to my eye. It was all still shaped and
contoured from it's previous locations.
Needless to say, My gauges work!!! I have a gas gauge finally!
Did I mention that it works? hehe
Take a look at my interior below. It really looks sweet. In this photo,
I didn't put on all the trim pieces, but you get the picture.
The speaker grilles aren't painted yet; that's why they look a little
rough.
On the same interior note, While I had all the carpet out, I removed ALL of the factory sound padding. Yes it was a pain in the butt! My fingers were bloody stumps after I got done with that job. I did however manage to collect and weigh all of the padding. I took 23.5 lbs out of Four Banger, just in sound padding.
Just to update you on why I did my wiring again, The reason I did it was I found a company that sells the infamous 1988 Ford Thunderbird LA3 computer and Vane sensor. So I figured, what the heck! I would have to repin either one and doing it this way, with the new harness, I would have working gauges again. I took some pics of the difference in the Vane sensors, so here ya go.
Just a little difference. LOL
If you need me to explain the difference:
The difference is in the width of the doors that allows air into the
turbo. The newer vane requires that you use an 88 Tbird computer which
it was designed for. It is not recomended that you just put a large vane
on your stock computer unless you have previous experience with taking
these things apart and applying new tensions to the vane door spring.
Here is what I purchaced. A new/remanufactured computer for an 88 Tbird,
2.3 turbo, and stick shift.
This computer and vane utilize the "Brown Top" injectors which I have
come to find out are 35 pound per hour, low impedance injectors. The ones
I already have in my car. Most SVO's and Tbirds came with 'em so there
easy to find.
The next pic is of my turbo that I have been doing some "secret" mods
on, so don't tell anyone! The only thing I can tell you is, It's still
stock trim. Front compressor housing = .60 A/R and the turbine housing
is .48
As you can see here that I've ported the inlet to the compressor blade
and polished it till my thumb fell off. I have done work to the inlet elbow
also. If you know how to make things flow, all you have to do is look at
it and you'll see exactly what you have to do.
Wow! You can actually tell that it's made of aluminum now that I've
cleaned it. LOL
A quick wash in some gasoline and a scrub brush and POW! It's shiney.
Doesn't matter anyways, I'm putting either wrap or a blanket on it to help
shield it from the radiant heat from the header.
The next picture is just a recap on how I ran my aircleaner. I have
had a lot of Emails about how I did it, so here it is.
Notice the new vane on there? I can say that it revs A LOT quicker!
I can actually hear the turbo spool up in neutral now! You can hear it
come on hard at 3000 rpm in neutral. It never did that before with the
small vane. :)
The following is the test fit of my new triple intercooler that I'm
working on. There will be two more cores on there so it will be sticking
out a little further, but you get the idea. I actually got the first core
to fit in there better than my previous setup so it looks like it will
only be 2 inches closer to the engine than it was before. I'm still in
the process of straightening all the little fins on those cores. What a
pain. They are comming out better than I expected though. I will be having
them welded this week so I'm really excited.
If you have already checked my junk page, you would have seen this thing.
This is a posi unit out of an 88 Tbird. Yes, I will finally have posi
in Four Banger! I guess it won't get slower from this mod. LOL
What 'cha think?