Had a strange one this week. Got my 83 out of winter storage from my buddies barn last weekend and when I was putting the car cover away in the trunk the dam deck lid wouldn't stay open.
Ever since Ive owned the car I could hit the trunk button and it would pop open on its own and stayed open. After car sat from Oct to March untouched it wouldn't. I actually had to move one of the torsion rods up a notch to get it to stay open again.
Anyone else ever run into this? Just seemed strange
Took my car to track one last time for this season tryin to finally meet my goals for this year.
Multiple races this year I got the car into the 12.0hs at 115-116 in full True Street trim. That was one goal I had for the year to set the car up to be competitive in NMRA/NMCA True Street 12.00 class. My own driving skills and blower belt issues are the only things that kept me out of the money but still happy to be competing.
I still drive the car to work almost everyday which is 100 miles round trip and I love the out of it!
But I really wanted that 11 sec pass! So I loaded up and headed to Milan Dragway for one last try.
My biggest thing holding me back this year has been very high intake temps from blower and my Microsquirt pulling timing out starting at 180* temps. I was seeing 200+ degree temps on every pass. So I turned off the MAT Timing Correction and put a bottle of octane booster in fuel. First pass off the trailer I went 11.97 at 114mph!
I made some tire pressure and shock adjustments along with pulling some fuel out since it was runnin rich in the 10.7-11.1 afr range. I ended up meeting my goals pretty solid!
Did one for my Ranger a couple years ago and glad I did since its wrecked now. Going to do these for everything I build whether its my own or customer jobs.
Spent the weekend down at Norwalk and ran the Bird in True Street class on sat and did brackets on Sunday. Had a great weekend and the car was awesome! My previous best on slicks was a 12.40 @ 110 so I had to switch to a MT ET Street R tire to keep legal for True Street class and boy do I like these tires. I launched the car at only 3500 and she ate it up even with a hint of clutch slip. I had my new Snow meth kit on but something still isnt right with it cuz it went pig rich and only ran a 12.75 @ 105 in the morning time trials.
I turned the Snow kit off and let it rip anyway. Car responded by dipping right into the 12.teens at 114mph on mid 1.60 60ft times. I added a touch more fuel and 1* of timing up top and was rewarded with my best pass so far.
Next pass the clutch slipped bad on the 3-4 shift and it slowed to a 12.15 @ 113 and I got beat so my race was done. Left with a huge smile anyway!
I cant believe how this car is coming around. Never would have thought a 98% stock Explorer motor with only 3.55 gears and a single exhaust would be trapping 115mph at 3600lbs!
If I can get this meth kit to work right I see no problem running in the 11s solid with a car I can jump in and drive over 400 miles a week to work in. My goal is so close I can smell it!
Waiting to get vids off my GF phone to post up too.
Took the bird up for a track rental yesterday and had a great day. Other than some heat issues and belts slipping the car ran great. This is my daily driver and its set up for long,fast expressway drives, not the track by any means! On the scales the car without me was 3288lbs and Im 300lbs. Car has a stock 97 Explorer gt40p motor with small cam, single 3" exhaust,vortech S trim making 8psi, runs on MS and only has 3.55 gears.
First pass off the trailer was on the 17s to check some data and get a feel if I got rid of a vibration. Walked it off easy with a 2.08 60' 13.13@107 short shifting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhojBiOcvJE
I tried a few more runs on the 17s but it just got slower since I couldnt go full throttle in first gear without blowin the tires off. I thru on my little 26x8 ET Drags after that.
I raced my buddies 12 Mustang with a Roush blower and it was closer than I thought for a car rated at 600hp! I pulled a 1.65 12.50@110 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6RJLYn4K5g
On my 83 Im having some fuel system issues and I want to get rid of the low pressure in tank pump. My tank is new and so is the small pump. I see no way to fit a Stealth 340 on the 83 sending unit but I see that one could be made to fit the angled 88 unit. Will these two units interchange in my 83 tank?
Took my car over to Accelerated Performance in Toledo Oh yesterday to do some tuning on their Dynojet to get car ready for its first trip to drag strip this year.
It has a rebuilt 97 Explorer GT40P motor with all stock internals.The heads got a valve spring upgrade but are otherwise untouched, has stock intakes and throttlebody. I put in a TFS stage 1 cam,bolted on some BBK 1-3/4 long tube headers and slapped on a Vortech S trim blower with stock 8lb pulleys as the only engine mods. I am using 38lb injectors and it all runs on a plug n play Microsquirt from EFI Source. Something worth noting is I built the car with a 2.5" Y-pipe going into a SINGLE 3" exhaust from Stinger Performance designed for 2.3t Turbocoupes.
First pull off the street the car only made 322hp/347tq with my own tune but we only seen about 5psi up to about 5000rpm then belt slip dropped it down to 3psi. It obviously peaked at 5000 just before the belt started slipping. The power on the graph dropped off a cliff after 5k. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK9ZlOrciio
We made some adjustments to fuel and timing and threw on my 10lb pulley to see what would happen after about 4 other pulls. This only caused worse belt slip and we only seen 6psi at 5000 then fell off hard after that. It made 344/344 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p76lptC58hU
I took the 10lb pulley off and beadblasted it to give it some teeth which helped for the last few pulls but it still slipped after 5200. Like this we seen 9psi up to 5200 then it slipped to 6psi for rest of the pull. Like this it peaked at 5200 and made 370/393 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92yYQOFKp9M
At this point we called it a day after 10 pulls. Pretty happy with results and I learned some good info. At final power levels my injectors are only at 80% duty cycle so there is still plenty of fuel left to break the 400hp mark. We seen air temps of 200* on every pull and heat correction was pulling total timing down to 16*. I need to move the sensor out of the lower intake and put in discharge tube of the blower for a true{non heat soaked} reading. Then I need to move the air filter out of the engine bay and put inside the fender for cooler air. These mods should help lower the inlet temps and help us dial back in some timing. Then there is the belt slip....Im going to beadblast the lower pulley and bought an adjustable belt tensioner to try next. Tuner thinks if we could get a solid 10psi for the whole pull up to 6000-6200 with lower air temps it should make an easy 420-440 depending on how much timing we can add back in.
Soooo.... Before I can jump into my own next project which is the Pun Intended 85 XR7 Cougar for my old lady I need to fulfill my obligations to finish this car for my buddy and breath some new life into it.
My buddy picked up this 83 TC from down south and had it shipped to him up in Canada as a roller. Some may remember this car being for sale over on FEP and the story that made some people unhappy. Kid took a beautiful all original TC and stripped it of its motor and harness for a dune buggy project then just pushed the rest of the car out in his yard. My buddy scored the car for pennies and threw together a mess of parts for it. Now its up to me to bring it back to life!
As it sits it has a motor I built last year for another project that fell through {the 85 Cougar}. Shortblock came out of my low 11sec Ranger,Rods Header,PT5558,Steve Scholdes ported head and intakes. Its bolted to the original T5 and it has a fully built 8.8 now.
My job is to wire in Stingers new PNP MS ecm and harness, plumb and bolt top end of motor together,build the exhaust, move the battery,install NOS kit,Dial in front suspension and finish up all the little bits to get it track ready in the next 30 days or so.
Im 98% done with my 83 Tbird and Im already jumping into the next project. My GF of almost 4 yrs has been saying she is ready to get a new car and we spent a couple weekends out looking at rides for her but I guess Im just to picky because everything she found I shot down as overpriced,total garbage or I just didn't like. Just joking with her I told her she should just let me build her a new car and to my surprise she was open to the idea! Well lucky for me I didn't have to look hard or far to find the perfect car. Last year a buddy brought me his beautiful car to strip and convert into a nasty sleeper. Plans changed after I stripped the car of all its drivetrain,suspension,wiring and he decided to go a different direction. This left me with a beautiful empty shell of a car sitting in my backyard while he decided what to do with it. Well we talked and struck a deal and now this will become my GF new daily ride. Its a 85 XR7 that is MINT. The interior looks like the day it was build. No rust anywhere,power everything and straight as an arrow. This is a pic from before he brought it to my place.
So this is where the project name comes from. My 47 yr old cougar driving a 32 yr old Cougar...see what I did there? lol
Here is the car as it sits today.
So its a real XR7 2.3t auto car but now all of that is gone now so I put the call out to all my buddies that I was in need a complete drivetrain and harness. Not what I planned but the best offer I got turned out to be the best I think. I bought a 90 LSC 5.0,aod,harness and ecm with 80k on them for $275. So it wont be going back to a turbo car but I think this is my best bet to keep her happy so I don't have to deal with all the teething pains of driving a 2.3t car daily.....and trust me nobody knows more about that than myself!
So stay tuned for a sweet resurrection of a cool little ride!
I was wondering if anyone has seen a 83-86 Cougar with the grill modified in some way. Im not a fan of the stock chrome grills and I think Im going to be taking on my own XR7 project next and want to do something different with its look.
On my TC I got rid of its chrome grill and painted the surround body color then blacked out the center. I love this look and wondered how a Cougar would look with same treatment.
Are all 83-86 grills the same?
What about using a Tbird header panel and grill to make a hybrid Tugar Coupe? lol
Ok so Im having a weird alignment problem on my 83 TC. I have taken the car in twice for the alignment and its still not right.
Car is lowered using stock 95 Cobra coils at all corners,UPR k member,rebuilt original 83 A arms,87 Mustang spindles and Maximum Motorsports CC plates. I followed the directions on install but something dont look right.
SHop said they cant get anymore camber out of the passenger side because the plates are maxed out with the strut top tilted in as far as the plates will allow. With just your eye ball you can see they are still positive. The driver side is set the exact opposite. He said he had to set the passenger side as best he could then made the drivers side match. That put the driver side plate maxed out the other direction.
Ill get pix in a few , but has anyone had this issue?
So my freshly built 83 TC is on the road and turned out great. Getting the last few bugs worked out now and my biggest one is I have no heat.
My motor has plenty of hot coolant flowing through the heater hoses. My MicroSquirt shows 190* engine temps. The heater core was said to be brand new before I got the car. All of my HVAC controls seem to work as they should but I need to pull the glovebox back out and try to see if the door in the box for the fresh air at the cowl is stuck open.
Anybody know what or where to look for the fresh air door ?
