My 88 Super Coupe
I just recently finished (for now anyway) the creation of my 88 Thunderbird Super Coupe. Several years ago I had a really nice 86 Mustang GT. I did an H/C/I upgrade on it and the car really liked to boogie. Shortly after the motor upgrade but before I could upgrade the brakes and suspension I was driving it too hard one night I swerved to avoid a deer, hit a wall, and ended up going down the road on the roof. Fortunately I was (and always do) wearing my seatbelt. My wife did not want me to get another Mustang, so I convinced her a Fox Body Thunderbird was a good choice to swap in the motor from the Mustang.
I found an 88 T/C that had a really nice body and interior and the swap commenced.
I always wanted a power adder car and when I did the H/C/I, I built the motor accordingly: ARP head studs, o-ringed heads and head gaskets, a blower grind cam, etc.
I drove the 5.0 T/C in N/A form for about 5 years looking into differant superchargers and turbos. I know turbos can make some serious power, but I decided a blower would be easier and probably less costly for me. I also feel a blower is more eye-appealing (no flaming please) than a turbo.
I finally put up the scratch for a Vortech V-2. The install went rather easily. I scheduled an appointment at the speed shop I do business with for a dyno tune. Finally the moment of truth!!!
About 3 hours after dropping off my car, the shop owner calls me to tell me that something went wrong and the car started to belch white smoke part way into the second pull, so he shut it down and pushed the car outside.
I trailered the car home and started tearing into it. After getting the heads off I found that I blew out both head gaskets. Fortunately, the heads and deck were OK. In goes the new gaskets, torque the heads, put everything back together, run the car through a heat cycle, tear the motor down part way and re-torque the heads per Fel-Pro's instructions. Re-schedule the dyno tune and success!!!
400 Horse and 384 lb/ft at the rear wheels!!!!!!
Check out the anti-freeze in the cylinders:
New head gaskets:
Here's Fred Flinstone (my wife said that's what I looked like standing in the engine bay) torqueing the heads:
A couple of pictures after the install:
I created a solid model CAD file and had a friend machine some new door badges for my creation (SUPER COUPE vs TURBO COUPE):
Here's a side shot with the new door badges installed:
And I replaced the TurboCoupe badge on the trunk lid with a "302 HIGH PERFORMANCE" badge:
After all said and done, the speed shop owner feels that the original head gaskets probably were compressed over the five years of N/A driving and the heads should have been re-torqued before adding boost.
Just thought I'd show off what I've been doing lately.
Rick
Topic: My 88 Super Coupe (Read 4043 times)
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