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Topic: Now we have 4 cars floating around. (Read 7712 times) previous topic - next topic

Now we have 4 cars floating around.

Reply #30 –
Nice find!

Love those cars.
We bought one about 2 years ago that looks exactly like yours (except blue interior).
It was so full of rust holes around the rear window we had to junk it.
The engine and tranny went into my son's 81 Fairmont Futura.
I wish we could have kept the car. It only had 70k miles!
Got it from an elderly couple for 500 bux.

Now we have 4 cars floating around.

Reply #31 –
I got a replacement Trip Minder at the junk yard today. It was out of a 92 Mark VII Bill Blass. The Trip Minder had a factory warranty sticker with a March 1999 Ford warranty sticker over it. My guess is that the Trip Minder I found was a factory replacement for a failed unit. It's nice to finally have my Temperature display in English units :hick:. When the Trip Minders fail they default to Celcius, which the one in the car did.
88 Thunderbird LX: 306, Edelbrock Performer heads, Comp 266HR cam, Edelbrock Performer RPM intake, bunch of other stuff.

Now we have 4 cars floating around.

Reply #32 –
Very nice find! And for that price, wow! I've always lusted after the LSC's myself, very nice cars.There's a guy around here that has 2 of them that he races, they're fast! I don't know what all he's done but they really move out.

Now we have 4 cars floating around.

Reply #33 –
Quote from: 1Bad88tbird;410425
Very nice find! And for that price, wow! I've always lusted after the LSC's myself, very nice cars.There's a guy around here that has 2 of them that he races, they're fast! I don't know what all he's done but they really move out.

He must have done something to them. I used to think my Thunderbird was heavy at 3700+lbs with a driver. The Mark is about 200lbs heavier. It's a nice car though. I've just got a bunch of work to it to make it as nice as the Thunderbird.
88 Thunderbird LX: 306, Edelbrock Performer heads, Comp 266HR cam, Edelbrock Performer RPM intake, bunch of other stuff.

Now we have 4 cars floating around.

Reply #34 –
I don't know what he's done but they're defenately modified. I'm sure you'll get it done. Heck just the clean up made a difference.

Now we have 4 cars floating around.

Reply #35 –
I got some more fun stuff for the Mark at the junk yard Monday (the day before we got 10" of snow :hick:). GT40 intake with internal EGR and a spare set of HO valve covers. A little over $100 out the door at the local Pick-And-Pull. I'll chuck the 65mm TB from the Thunderbird on (it now has a 70mm TB) and hopefully get about 20 extra HP out of the Mark. I wish I would have held onto the GT40Ps from the Thunderbird a bit longer. I sold them literally two weeks before I bought the Mark. They would have come in handy. I could have grabbed the GT40s off of the Explorer I got the intake from but at $120 for a pair of junk yard heads plus the 300+ it's going to cost for springs and a valve job it wasn't worth it.
88 Thunderbird LX: 306, Edelbrock Performer heads, Comp 266HR cam, Edelbrock Performer RPM intake, bunch of other stuff.

Now we have 4 cars floating around.

Reply #36 –
Turns out cylinder heads are $40 a piece for iron heads without cams (GT40 or GT40P fall into that category). So it would be $80 for a set of GT40s at the yard. I wonder if I could get away with machining and springs for $300 total. Hmm.

Stupid me should have kept those GT40Ps I had. They were sitting in my garage for 6 months before I sold them. I would have had a use for them two weeks after I sold them :hick:.
88 Thunderbird LX: 306, Edelbrock Performer heads, Comp 266HR cam, Edelbrock Performer RPM intake, bunch of other stuff.

Now we have 4 cars floating around.

Reply #37 –
$40 each!!!???? That's stupid cheap. Granted the values really seem to have gone down, not long ago I picked up an entire Explorer motor, sans accessory drive, for $275.
1987 20th Anniversary Cougar, 302 "5.0" GT-40 heads (F3ZE '93 Cobra) and TMoss Ported H.O. intake, H.O. camshaft
2.5" Duals, no cats, Flowmaster 40s, Richmond 3.73s w/ Trac-Lok, maxed out Baumann shift kit, 3000 RPM Dirty Dog non-lock TC
Aside from the Mustang crinkle headers, still looks like it's only 150 HP...
1988 Black XR7 Trick Flow top end, Tremec 3550
1988 Black XR7 Procharger P600B intercooled, Edelbrock Performer non-RPM heads, GT40 intake AOD, 13 PSI @5000 RPM. 93 octane

Now we have 4 cars floating around.

Reply #38 –
Stupid cheap till you factor in springs, seals, retainers, and keepers. Then a valve job and clean up. Before you know it I've got $500 stock GT40s :hick:.

I told myself I wouldn't mod the Mark. Yeah it looks like I can't leave anything with a 302 alone for long.......
88 Thunderbird LX: 306, Edelbrock Performer heads, Comp 266HR cam, Edelbrock Performer RPM intake, bunch of other stuff.

Now we have 4 cars floating around.

Reply #39 –
I'd bolt 'em the hell on with the valve components already on my car lol!!. Actually the red car I'm pretty sure I have twice recycled the *original* S.O. 5.0 springs it originally had when I put the H.O. top end in. Valve job...I guess I'd do that if I ported the heads. I'd suggest it to my friend's GF for her heads but she doesn't have much to spend on her mustang right now. All I know is with the H.O. setup and an explorer upper/lower intake, the red car has seen mannnnnny steady 6250 rpm limiter sessions while peeling out (at the hands of someone else most of those times, but that's another story) and it's been great. I have read in more than one place that allegedly the P heads only, have springs that are not stiff enough for a mustang H.O. cam. Not sure on non P heads. Naturally an F3ZE or similar from a 93-95 Cobra/Lightning I'd  sure hope would have good springs :hick:

I'm definitely not trying to take merit away from proper checking and prepping of components...like you said it adds up quick so if I was going to spend that much money, I'd get nicer heads or buy ones that have all that work done and port work to boot. If I'm going down the cheap route, that means CHEAP, so if it blows up or runs like garbage.......oops :hick:
1987 20th Anniversary Cougar, 302 "5.0" GT-40 heads (F3ZE '93 Cobra) and TMoss Ported H.O. intake, H.O. camshaft
2.5" Duals, no cats, Flowmaster 40s, Richmond 3.73s w/ Trac-Lok, maxed out Baumann shift kit, 3000 RPM Dirty Dog non-lock TC
Aside from the Mustang crinkle headers, still looks like it's only 150 HP...
1988 Black XR7 Trick Flow top end, Tremec 3550
1988 Black XR7 Procharger P600B intercooled, Edelbrock Performer non-RPM heads, GT40 intake AOD, 13 PSI @5000 RPM. 93 octane

Now we have 4 cars floating around.

Reply #40 –
Really I should probably just skip the iron GT40s and go straight to aluminum heads. I know how it will run based on how the Thunderbird was, which means after a year or two I'll want MORAH POWAH1!1!1!

If I still had those GT40Ps I'd probably think they were enough, being that free always wins  ;).
88 Thunderbird LX: 306, Edelbrock Performer heads, Comp 266HR cam, Edelbrock Performer RPM intake, bunch of other stuff.

Now we have 4 cars floating around.

Reply #41 –
I looked through the thread again, I keep forgetting that those tiny holes in the fenders and what's seen in the engine bay is all you have for rust, and that this is NOT something to drive into the ground in the winter. Still can't believe that for the price and for your area. You might as well save up and do the best heads you can, as you just said. Another nice cruiser, so you want it to.....cruise :D
1987 20th Anniversary Cougar, 302 "5.0" GT-40 heads (F3ZE '93 Cobra) and TMoss Ported H.O. intake, H.O. camshaft
2.5" Duals, no cats, Flowmaster 40s, Richmond 3.73s w/ Trac-Lok, maxed out Baumann shift kit, 3000 RPM Dirty Dog non-lock TC
Aside from the Mustang crinkle headers, still looks like it's only 150 HP...
1988 Black XR7 Trick Flow top end, Tremec 3550
1988 Black XR7 Procharger P600B intercooled, Edelbrock Performer non-RPM heads, GT40 intake AOD, 13 PSI @5000 RPM. 93 octane

Now we have 4 cars floating around.

Reply #42 –
Yeah the Mark is pretty solid. The passenger fender needs to be replaced as it also has a hole at the bottom near the rocker. The rockers and doors are solid. The door bottoms are as good as the ones on my Thunderbird. It's surprising that they are as solid as they are. Under hood rust is confined to the A/C lines, brackets, and bolts so it's easy to get rid of. The only structural rust I could find was some scale on the outside of the shock towers (in the fender area) I poked the bejeses out of it with a screwdriver before I bought the car and it's solid so it's just surface scale. The paint looks ok in the photos and from 25 feet away but it's trashed. It was resprayed at some point and the person did a py job. It's faded over time so the metal flake is splochy in spots. It needs to be done again. Plans for the summer are to patch up the passenger fender (fiberglass FTW1!1!) till I get a replacement and the car painted. I'm also going to clean the scale on the shock towers and coat it in Eastwood rust converter, primer, and paint.

The list of summer work includes:

1. Remove rust from fender/shock tower and paint.
2. Fix driver's window (it's stuck in the up position as the motor is burned out :hick:).
3. Replace pads and rotors as they are kinda on their last legs.
4. Clean under hood and detail it. Probably not up to Thunderbird standards yet ;).
5.  Tune up, plugs, wires, filters.
6.  Replace coolant, hoses, thermostat, and water pump. The coolant in the radiator is still kinda green, the coolant in the overflow is brown and nasty, probably because no one ever changes it. The Thunderbird was like that too when I got it. The overflow is hard to remove and drain so it gets skipped by mechanics.
7. Refinish wheels and replace tires.

That should take most of the summer. For next winter I'm trying to find a GM A body (Century/Ciera) wagon or a sedan with a 3.3 V6. I kinda want a wagon to haul stuff home from Homedepot/Menards/car parts from the junk yard :hick:. I had a 93 Century sedan with a 3.3 in college and liked it. It was a pretty quick little car. I used to beat the  out of Civics with it :rollin:.
88 Thunderbird LX: 306, Edelbrock Performer heads, Comp 266HR cam, Edelbrock Performer RPM intake, bunch of other stuff.

Now we have 4 cars floating around.

Reply #43 –
Today I swapped on the 88-89 wheels and tires I bought, washed, compounded, polished, and waxed the exterior, polished the headlights and detailed the interior. A couple of weeks ago I repainted the door moldings and the lower charcoal area. I'm $300 extra into an $800 car. Doesn't look bad eh?










Unfortunately after all that polishing work the paint still looks like . It's hazy as hell under the clear coat. Oh well it's old.
88 Thunderbird LX: 306, Edelbrock Performer heads, Comp 266HR cam, Edelbrock Performer RPM intake, bunch of other stuff.

Now we have 4 cars floating around.

Reply #44 –
don't look to bad man ....nice !