Introducing "Project Thunder Phoenix" May 15, 2009, 11:00:04 PM How ironic the car is a Norwegian bird of lore....and I am referring to another type of bird of lore, but as the Phoenix goes it is a bird that is reborn from it's own ashes.Some may be aware of my T-Bird......and it's epic decent to a garage corner piece. I raced it through the 2000-2004 seasons all along the Gulf Coast and was once again sent on an overseas tour, that time to Hawaii.Luckily, I sent the car to Hawaii and raced it from Sept 2005 to March 2006. Unluckily, the Drag Strip closed in March 2006 and the car sat at the US Navy Auto Hobby Shop in Ewa Beach, HI for 2 years there after. I put it in storage and tried to forget my friend.The Hobby Shop closed its doors for good in late 2007, so I decided to pull it out of storage and move it to another location. Once I picked it up, it was noticed that a wily mongoose had made it's home in the 70,000 mile interior of my fair 5.0 Sport. The interior was completely trashed. Whatever was not chewed up, clawed up, gnawed up smelled like the inside of a dumpster behind a city zoo. I decided at that exact moment, the car had definitely taken it's fair share of a$$ kickings and was to become a "Race Only", Drag Car. After all it had been totaled twice, through 2 hurricanes, towed across the US twice... driven once, shipped across the Pacific twice, 6 overseas deployments, 3 motors, 2 rearends, 3 AODs.....run 15's, 14's, 13's, 12's and into the 11's while having full street trim and road manners, it was time for something else to serve as my daily driver. The mongoose had eaten the entire wiring harness under the dash which prompted me to replace it with a painless wiring harness just to get it running. The interior was gutted and washed out so I could get inside without vomiting. Once taking these orders to Australia, I shipped the car to my original home in Cornfield, Illinois and parked it for at least 2 years.While here in Australia I beat myself about the head attempting to figure out what to do with the car. So here I am....letting everyone on the board know what I am going to do.My plan is to see if I can get the car into the 10's with an iron GT-40P headed standard bore 302 on pump gas. This will be done with NO power adders, using most of the parts that I already have on the car. The curb weight will have to come down to 2800 lbs with me inside and have a bit of 60's Super Stock drag racing flair. I will document the entire rise from the ashes with pictures and write ups. It will take a few years to get completed, but hell.....I've got nothing but time.In June I will be coming home on leave and will replace the gas tank with a 5 gallon fuel cell, the converter with a 4500 RPM stall and get it professionally tuned. Hopefully this is enough to get it running in the mid 11's on the 6 year old motor. It has seen a bizillion passes on the gas all the way into the low 11's. I will add some fiberglass parts from Hairy Glass to get the weight down, a full QA1 tubular front suspension with a flaming river manual rack, new wheels and tires to accommodate the suspension and drive line changes in the distant future. I'll attempt to get the basics covered in time while on leave and get some times for the poor bird at Coles County Dragway USA when I'm home on leave. Please let me know if you guys think that this is a decent challenge and would care to see what happens.See you at the races!!!!Dallas Quote Selected
Introducing "Project Thunder Phoenix" Reply #1 – May 16, 2009, 09:42:01 AM Do it man! I'm sure by now your car has missed you bunches! Its time to enjoy taking it down to the track and beating it silly. So are you on our side of the world? Are you sticking with the AOD or going a different route. EFI or carb? Just curious. Quote Selected
Introducing "Project Thunder Phoenix" Reply #2 – May 16, 2009, 05:55:59 PM I am in Australia now but will be home soon. The car is still EFI and that is why I need a professional tune. Just need to get the computer right for the combo and all will be good. The AOD is long gone. I kept tearing them up and twisting input shafts off in the torque converters. The cost of a one piece input shaft ADO and corresponding converter was the only way out to have a bulletproof tranny until I noticed the racing C4 was half the price. I went that route. Quote Selected
Introducing "Project Thunder Phoenix" Reply #3 – May 16, 2009, 06:09:42 PM I'm excited to see you begin! Since you aren't home yet, maybe you could bring me a Falcon XR6 back :D. Quote Selected
Introducing "Project Thunder Phoenix" Reply #4 – May 17, 2009, 12:50:07 AM I would like to see how fast you can get the gt-40's. Have you modified them at all? What cam are you running? I think I remember you using alot of nitrous on your car back in the sleezy board days. Maybe I have you confused for someone else. Quote Selected
Introducing "Project Thunder Phoenix" Reply #5 – May 17, 2009, 01:31:33 AM That was me....I used to flog the car like a 2 dollar w.....It has a set of GT-40P's with a little port work, nothing serious. Just cleaned up and gasket matched. The cam is an E303 cam...which is way outta date by todays standards, but I use a 1.7:1 roller rocker from comp, so it has a little more duration and lift than the actual E cam numbers.I have taken it down into the 10's on a 250 shot (125 off the line and 125 at the 60 foot mark) but the car was not really made for that. The motor was wound to the tune of 7200 RPM through the traps. It needed alot more gear and tire for that kind of abuse. It still has stock rods and pistons but there is quite a bit of machine work to the block and heads to get the compression at a 10:1 ratio with the cam. The car is nothing flash and either is the motor. It's really nothing someone could not duplicate for 2000 dollars. It was like that cause it was a weekend bracket car and if the motor gave up....I wanted to replace it for cheap. Plus I liked telling people it was just a 302 from an Explorer......LOL!!!By The Way....I just turned down a perfect looking 2006 Falcon XR6 Turbo for 17K AUD...what a steal but I only have 1 1/2 years left here....I don't need something that costs that much. Quote Selected
Introducing "Project Thunder Phoenix" Reply #6 – May 17, 2009, 06:57:37 AM God I want one of those Falcons! They are so awesome. Back on topic, I too was thinking an Explorer motor is in my car's future. A good cam should wake that motor up quite a bit. Now I have been told the 99-01 Explorer heads have smaller chambers than the 95-98 Explorers do (Anyone know if this is true?). Quote Selected
Introducing "Project Thunder Phoenix" Reply #7 – May 17, 2009, 12:02:59 PM I like the project, my bird with me in it weighs in at 3100lbs and it is all steel and stock front suspension. Once I get the roll bar in I will remome some wieght from the doors. I would like to change the hood as the stock one is heavy. I'm running 13 flats and a couple more changes and it should be hitting low 11s. My biggest hold back is a stock set of heads and small exhaust.Roger Quote Selected
Introducing "Project Thunder Phoenix" Reply #8 – May 17, 2009, 05:39:04 PM I have heard unless people have a custom tune, they generally get more power out of the stock H.O. cam then the E cam. I have heard it is mostly because of the rpm powerbands. Generally, the motor will not spin enough to take full advantage of the E cam as well. I think you should look into a custom cam. Listen to some quotes from a thread on sbftech.com.details would help for sure as MM said, however the standard answer to the "which cam" question still applies. 99% of the people on any forum are not qualified to select a cam for you. It is a super important piece, consider it the brain of your motor. Making them work with XYZ combination of parts is a job for a custom cam grinder. An e-cam is a weak core off the shelf cam of somewhat dated technology. I have one in my mustang as well just so you know. It does not make a lot of vacumn so getting the car to idle properly is abit tougher but doable.No you SHOULD not use a B or E cam with stock springs AT ANY TIME. I recommend the Ford Racing A50 springs with those two cams for stock heads (as they are a single spring with damper). The problem with the 542 lift is that to properly control a cam that size you need a stiff spring. A spring that stiff will eventually tear up the less than adequate core the cam is ground on and the less than adequate lifter one uses at the same time (stock).Springs are cheap - dont forget locks and retainers when buying your cheap springs, the stockers will not work!i have had the b,e,x,comp cam and you will be so disapointed...... would torque down low be that important in a 347 with a cam designed for a 302? ... agree with Rich 200%.... the budget card will cause you end up choking what you have invested on with sacrifices until now...... the "most bang for the buck" approach goes against your initial investment. IOW.... correct approach before the events most of us have gone through (for which I'm ) + the budget card play now = the "worst bang for the buck"...... you will never get at least 60% out of what you currently have set. Have I used your current approach previously?..... guess.... and I have paid the real price. You have the foundation for a 3-stories concrete building....... why build a 3-bedroom wood shack on top of it? I have a stock bottom ended 302 that I moved from a B cam to a JAY custom CI cam(H/C/I car) and i just fired this guy up on sunday and WHOA!!!!!! I will never buy a shelf cam again!!! Here is a major issue and Rich is right. You have a 302 intake and a 302 pair of heads going on a 15% larger engine. This will make TQ but the RPM is going to be killed. Those heads and that intake on a 347 IRREGARDLESS of the camshaft is going to be out of wind by 5000 RPM.The next thing is the cranking compression. What octane fuel? A x-cam or z-cam or whatever the shag cams are, are designed for 302's with stock compression. So not only do you have an engine that is 15% bigger, you do not have stock compression ratio either. Plus the ONLY time R:S ratio comes into play is now. You decrease R:S ratio and cranking goes up.You do not understand the cheap quality of the motorsport cams. The QUALITY is horrible. So you degree one lobe and guess what? The second lobe is 6* off. Ask Joel on this board, he did an e-cam because YEARS ago he did not believe me either.Now he is a believer.You cannot arbitrarily say "I am going to advance the cam 4*". What is that? You are assuming the cam is right. Its designed to be ground 5* advanced already. I'll make you a bet. Buy a cam. Send it to me and I'll measure the cam. If it is what it is supposed to be, I'll pay you 500.00 cash money. But, if it isn't, you pay me 100.00 for every degree the intake as well as the exhaust is off.Next budget. If a guy is on a budget, that means to spend your money WISELY. Once right is cheaper than wrong twice.Good.Fast.Cheap.You can only have two.Good & Fast ain't cheap.Fast & cheap ain't good.Cheap & good ain't fast.Again, I am NOT trying to get you to buy from me. I am trying to help.Mid to low 12's with a stock camshaft is a walk in the park. Stick a stock HO cam in it, save your money, then do it right. If you just want that rump rump camshaft sound, then you are on your ownNot trying to talk you out of the e cam completely, but I personally think you would be alot better off with a custom cam. When i visit sbftech, all I hear is "My car couldn't spin the tires on wet grass with a e cam, not it runs like a raped ape and I get rubber on drag radials in 3rd gear". I'm sure you could go faster with an e cam, but I think you would be alot better off with a custom cam. Quote Selected
Introducing "Project Thunder Phoenix" Reply #9 – May 18, 2009, 02:48:28 AM Quote from: Haystack;272841I have heard unless people have a custom tune, they generally get more power out of the stock H.O. cam then the E cam. I have heard it is mostly because of the rpm powerbands. Generally, the motor will not spin enough to take full advantage of the E cam as well. I think you should look into a custom cam. Listen to some quotes from a thread on sbftech.com.details would help for sure as MM said, however the standard answer to the "which cam" question still applies. 99% of the people on any forum are not qualified to select a cam for you. It is a super important piece, consider it the brain of your motor. Making them work with XYZ combination of parts is a job for a custom cam grinder. An e-cam is a weak core off the shelf cam of somewhat dated technology. I have one in my mustang as well just so you know. It does not make a lot of vacumn so getting the car to idle properly is abit tougher but doable.No you SHOULD not use a B or E cam with stock springs AT ANY TIME. I recommend the Ford Racing A50 springs with those two cams for stock heads (as they are a single spring with damper). The problem with the 542 lift is that to properly control a cam that size you need a stiff spring. A spring that stiff will eventually tear up the less than adequate core the cam is ground on and the less than adequate lifter one uses at the same time (stock).Springs are cheap - dont forget locks and retainers when buying your cheap springs, the stockers will not work!i have had the b,e,x,comp cam and you will be so disapointed...... would torque down low be that important in a 347 with a cam designed for a 302? ... agree with Rich 200%.... the budget card will cause you end up choking what you have invested on with sacrifices until now...... the "most bang for the buck" approach goes against your initial investment. IOW.... correct approach before the events most of us have gone through (for which I'm ) + the budget card play now = the "worst bang for the buck"...... you will never get at least 60% out of what you currently have set. Have I used your current approach previously?..... guess.... and I have paid the real price. You have the foundation for a 3-stories concrete building....... why build a 3-bedroom wood shack on top of it? I have a stock bottom ended 302 that I moved from a B cam to a JAY custom CI cam(H/C/I car) and i just fired this guy up on sunday and WHOA!!!!!! I will never buy a shelf cam again!!! Here is a major issue and Rich is right. You have a 302 intake and a 302 pair of heads going on a 15% larger engine. This will make TQ but the RPM is going to be killed. Those heads and that intake on a 347 IRREGARDLESS of the camshaft is going to be out of wind by 5000 RPM.The next thing is the cranking compression. What octane fuel? A x-cam or z-cam or whatever the shag cams are, are designed for 302's with stock compression. So not only do you have an engine that is 15% bigger, you do not have stock compression ratio either. Plus the ONLY time R:S ratio comes into play is now. You decrease R:S ratio and cranking goes up.You do not understand the cheap quality of the motorsport cams. The QUALITY is horrible. So you degree one lobe and guess what? The second lobe is 6* off. Ask Joel on this board, he did an e-cam because YEARS ago he did not believe me either.Now he is a believer.You cannot arbitrarily say "I am going to advance the cam 4*". What is that? You are assuming the cam is right. Its designed to be ground 5* advanced already. I'll make you a bet. Buy a cam. Send it to me and I'll measure the cam. If it is what it is supposed to be, I'll pay you 500.00 cash money. But, if it isn't, you pay me 100.00 for every degree the intake as well as the exhaust is off.Next budget. If a guy is on a budget, that means to spend your money WISELY. Once right is cheaper than wrong twice.Good.Fast.Cheap.You can only have two.Good & Fast ain't cheap.Fast & cheap ain't good.Cheap & good ain't fast.Again, I am NOT trying to get you to buy from me. I am trying to help.Mid to low 12's with a stock camshaft is a walk in the park. Stick a stock HO cam in it, save your money, then do it right. If you just want that rump rump camshaft sound, then you are on your ownNot trying to talk you out of the e cam completely, but I personally think you would be alot better off with a custom cam. When i visit sbftech, all I hear is "My car couldn't spin the tires on wet grass with a e cam, not it runs like a raped ape and I get rubber on drag radials in 3rd gear". I'm sure you could go faster with an e cam, but I think you would be alot better off with a custom cam.Yo, Haystack....was this in reply to this post??? I don't get how this applies to this post. The only thing I can think of is this must belong to a different post.........I already have an E cam and the motor is a 302 and will stay that way. I had wanted to do a 331 before....but I have decided to stay with the most economical approach and use what I already have. As for the custom cam......I agree that if you want all you can get from a combination a custom cam is the way to go but, The cam is already in there and will stay. I'm just trying to use what I have and run in the 10's. That's all. I hope the post was not misleading or something. As for spring and valve train.....the stock stuff is LONG gone and it buzzes up pretty high in the RPM range cause I have it installed 2* retarded. That's all made up with the converter though and I have nothing to worry about. I was wondering if you guys felt it was a worth while mission to try and get a 302 powered Fox Bird in the 10's. Quote Selected
Introducing "Project Thunder Phoenix" Reply #10 – May 18, 2009, 08:52:19 PM To make 10s with no power adders is a steep task. I ran mid 13s with an old 289 with a torker intake, C4 3500 stall, 8.8 3.73 on MT streets. 11.5 to compression shifting above 7500rpm. My big down fall is the gearing as I cross the line at under 5000rpm.Roger Quote Selected
Introducing "Project Thunder Phoenix" Reply #11 – May 19, 2009, 02:53:40 AM Well I ordered a fuel cell and intake manifold for the car yesterday.I decided to go the racing route and bought a Professional Products EFI single plane intake manifold and an Edelbrock elbow. I'll pull the Cobra piece off as it would cause lean cylinders in 2 of the cylinders. I had been using two 30 lb/hr injectors in those cylinders, but it made the car a bear to tune.I will be ordering a Precision Industries Stallion converter tomorrow for my C4. By looking at my Desktop Dyno 4200 RPM is the perfect stall. Badbird... does your 84 like this much converter? I just wanted to know. Quote Selected
Introducing "Project Thunder Phoenix" Reply #12 – May 19, 2009, 09:45:48 AM I have no problems with the 3500 stall. I drive the car to work in the summer and do a little cruising. The last time I had the car on the highway, I had a 2500 stall. I have been toying with the idea of stepping up to a 4500 stall but would only run that torque converter for a couple weeks each side of our big drag weekend.I'm trying to decide which upgrade to do next. Heads would give me the power to get my car into the low 12s but cost the most. Gears or bigger stall would help the 60ft and rpm crossing the line but affect drivability. I need bigger exhaust but safety says it is time to do the c-clip eliminators and the wife wants the roll bar installed.Roger Quote Selected
Introducing "Project Thunder Phoenix" Reply #13 – May 20, 2009, 02:30:53 AM If everything else costs quite a bit of money, you can go around all that by using the converter you have. A good running used 347 stroker short block would be the cheapest bang for the buck with the RPMs you are turning. If you keep the RPMs low the engine will last a long time. Plus it will work with your headers, gears, converter, intake, cam............You have a way to go before sweating the C-clip elims or a roll bar. I was running 11's with spray on stock axles....not to say that's smart but it can be done. A roll bar is not required until 11.99 or 11.50, I can't quite remember. Quote Selected
Introducing "Project Thunder Phoenix" Reply #14 – May 20, 2009, 09:43:10 AM The c-clips are going as I am running MT streets which are basically slicks. The ET for a roll bar is 11.49. My 331 bottom end was going 11.30@130mph in a heavier car before a rearend bar broke and turned the car sideways at 3/4s down the track sending the car about 12 ft in the air rolling. I'm guessing Bill was doing about 100 to 110mph at the time. We turn a local airport in to a drag track so it is a long way to the turn off road. I usaul run my car up to 130mph before slowing down. Roll bar will also make the car stiffer and with heads and gears the car will be close to the 11.49.Roger Quote Selected
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