BLKMGK

If you're upgrading to urethane you won't have to use the old sleeves. A sawzall blade slipped in there cuts the sleeves easily Whatcha' going to do for brakes? Going 5 lug or what? Found a motor or are you going to go from scratch? The fun is just beginning, trust me Keep us posted!

I used anold socket extension to drive mine out. One had one out I used it as a ram for the other side. Yup, had to replace both pins! Hint - before putting the new ones in use a wire bottle brush inside the arms. Remove all the old rust in there, maybe do a little sanding. Get it nice an clean and shiny. Get it so the new pins slide in with little resistance. Then lube the livin' daylights out of the new pin! I used anti sieze and some nice synthetic grease on mine. wen I was done there was NO big deal sliding the pin in an I hope that my next "encounter" with those pins isn't as difficult as a result. Hrm, had to buy the locking pins too and I went ahead and bought to nuts for the ends as well. In for a penny, in for a pound

Lookslike it's time to find a new host. It seems they actually whacked the images on your SIE and not just redirect the pics headed this way - cute. Hope you had backups of them! They send you anything telling you what they did? I'd edit the above messages and keep them from getting the satisfaction of the advertising..... Would like to have seen the gauge pics! Gauges have sort of become a etish of mine lately (lol)

Heh, hope mine isn't a bear. Assembling the clutch was no big deal and no balancer plate but I'm still worried. My shifter must have a stick three feet long - those Camaro guys drive pickups or something?! The thread for th eknob is as big as my thumb too - sheesh! If I shorten this stick overcoming the reverse lockout is going to be painfull - it takes two hands now! Has anyone tried removing the spring and whatnot in it? I'd like SOME resistance but this is crazy! hich doodad is it? I've yet to figure out which doohicky is really the lockout - it it the one at the very top by the shifter? If so getting to it would be a bear (sigh). We'll see, I'll leave the stick long for now as I'm not sure how tough stainless will be to weld. Anyone found a decent shift knob for these beasts?!

And possibly worse in some others too Pete. Supposedly the Z rated tires are made from a harder rubber compound that doesn't grip as well. This is what I've been told mind you not verified by racing so it might be hooey but it would seem to make sense. Generally I don't go for Z rated stuff and stick to V rated. Migh thave ended up with Z on the Z (nyuk nyuk) this time as that is indeed what's available for a 17inch wheel. Given a choice - I like a low sidewall but not so low I'll ding a rim in a pothole. 45 is about as thin as I'd want to go, thinner is just asking for it!

Davy how loud is that Borla? I almost ordered an UltraFlo and pondered the Summit stainless muffler too but held back. I don't know if I need offset inlets or what Heelp! I'm afraid I'll hit the muffler shop and end up with whatever he's got on the shelf and not like it! I'll order the Flo-Y pipe tonight probably. I'm not going anywhere till Jeg's gets me my water pump pulley anyway....

Heh, I'm dying for him to start it up and let us know if it's too loud! I may beat him to it at this rate. Got my plug wires and will be tailoring them soon but still no water pump pulley... Ya' might look into oval piping BTW. Lot's of racers use it and I think Spintech sells it too. Hrm, wonder if mirrors from a sportbike of some sort would work?

Hrm, I dunno... I know he's got exhaust problems and clutch problems. I guess I'd consider clutch first and let the exhaust fall where it may if he slides the motor back. It's a 4speed too so perhaps an OD trans, motmor move, and exhaust would be done all at once to avoid having to do the driveshaft twice. He's also got a mechanical fuel pump that will have to go. Adding that all together that's a pile of work! I won't argue that he'll probably like the car better with an OD and set back motor but he just got the car - let him drive it some first Seriously, moving the motor back - especially since you've gto iron heads - will make a big difference. Weight distribution will change for the better so braking and handling will improve. I'd fiddle with the little stuff, drive it to have fun, but be saving up to have the motor set back. Maybe have someone make the mounts for you to save money and come Winter start pulling it apart.

Well, we've debated this before and I've heard from more than one source - 2X2.5 is supposed to be about equal to a single 3 inch pipe. I could be wrong but I know for sure that 2.5 X 2 in this case is NOT equal to 5inches single. Hrm, will have to do a search because I could swear someone whipped some math out on this problem last time! Considering the Camrobirds run 3inch pipe and see plenty o' power I'm thinking a 3inch will be fine for me. Setting up two pipes is just looking like too much hassle this time around. Sweet - UPS guy just showed up with toys

There are probably several aftermarket companies making those mirrors as replacement pieces for various Chevies. A friend of mine had a Nomad and went through several of them - they never seem to last long. Same thing on his Chevelle (sigh). If you like that style and want a high tech look pickup a copy of Street Rodder and check out the ads. There are a couple of places making very nice billet mirrors in styles akin to that one. If you've not already got holes in your doors you can even consider mounting them up higher along the windshield frame etc. (shrug). Me, I'm still looking for a decent mirror.

Shouldn't the stock mount hold up if it's wired down though? So long as it can't pull far enough to tear the rubber I'd think it would survive. Maybe not the best for performance but I'd think it would be more streetable. I'm hoping my solid mount doesn't drive me from the car

A single 3inch flows as much as two pipes at 2.5 inches. We've gone over this before and it comes down to friction in the pipes making the difference. Anyone at a muffler shop that tells you that two 2.5inch pipes flows like a single 5inch pipe is an idiot - run away! Sia Davy - you've got a muffler up towards the front and one towards the back? I'm getting close to "muffler day" and think I'm going to end up with an exhaust like yours. I want something shiny in back but am pretty sure it would be too loud. I wasn't sure there was enough room up front to do this Is the Flowmaster Y pipe worth getting? Anyone using it?

Agreed! If you replace it with a stock unit follow the JTR suggestion for wiring it with cable. That shoudl keep it from breaking again. I'm switching to a solid mount myself but others have said it's harsh so that migth not be an option for you...

When you say "original" what exactly do you mean? Original as in there's a hydraulic master and slave or what? What trans do you have? Generally what most have done it buy a Tilton master (size opinions vary somewhat) and an OEM slave form GM depending on the transmission. Hooking them up is -3 or -4 braided line and fittings. If you're getting grinding and it's hard to shift you may want to upgrade - it's not hard IMO. Lastly, buy the JTR book on V8 swapping. Your car may already be done but you could learn alot and the wiring section could come in VERY handy for you. A worthwhile $27 someodd dollars or so www.jagsthatrun.com

I suppose my first question would be - what's our ultimate goal? Are you going to be racing this car? Street driving? Drag racing? There is a pile of brake options for this car being discussed here ranging from full on racng calipers and rotors from Mike/SCCA down to simply beefing up the stock stuff to even using Supra components. Obviously price can go from mild to wild too! Decide what you want to do with the car first and what sort of braking demands you'll have then choose a path to follow. In my case I'm going to run a pretty decent V8. I also like to have more brake than I need for those times when I just might need it. I'm going with 12+ inch rotors up front w/5lug hubs and disks in the back that will be about 11inches using billet calipers. Mike's having to custom make some of this stuff for me since I'm a PITA and want an E-brake too You may decide that's too expensive and go the Toyota truck route - be aware there's two ways to go with that too. I favor the vented rotor Toy swap but my car came with the solid rotor Toy swap and actually seemed to brake fairly well (shrug). Tell us what your ultimate goal is and your approximate budget and we can all beter help. You may or may not end up needing a bigger booster and master - I'm going to try my new setup with the stock 240 stuff and upgrade as needed. I expect I'll end up having to upgrade something at least P.S. Mike, you're back! You've got mail - how goes it buddy?

I'm pretty sure that I've determined that the top pin on this motor is ground. If I hook it anywhere else and get the motor going (one pin will always short straight through too if I move it from the top) it spins backwards so I think I've got ground right at least. If anyone calls this fan "slow" I'll laugh at them. Even with just a bit over 12 volts at the fan it really blows alot! I have to weight down papers I have on the cowl to keep them from flapping around. If I can get a higher speed out of it I'll be VERY happy. Just wanted to kind of verify my thinking with how this puppy worked. I thought MAYBE having juice to two windings would give high speed after nothing else worked but then again maybe not. Hot to two poles at once just didn't seem righ tand Pete you had warned me about that before - hence my hassle with the solenoids. Luckily I noticed that these solenoids had a pin that was switched OFF when the relay kicked in. I ran that as the SUPPLY to the relay that will be running the thermo switch. Now when the first relay kicks on manually it also turns OFF juice to the second thermo switched relay One thing does occur to me though... it's possible this motor is from a Cobra that had had the heat fix done to it. I think it was 96 or 97 that Ford had BIG problems with cooling Cobras in hotter climates. The motor is simply so big heat can't get through he bay and escape out. Even some of the Ford videos that were released showing desert driving had snippets in them where people spotted elavated engine temps. Eventually Ford relented and had a recall for this problem - I'm wondering if perhaps part of that "fix" was to install motors that were high speed all of the time regardless of temp? As for my comment about them burning out. That was due simply to having a friend fry his. He had run it for at least a year so it obviously wasn't a quick thing. That truck (Lightning) was a daily driver so it certainly saw plenty of fan use in traffic. (shrug) Going on his experience I simply wanted to run low as "normal" and high when I manually clicked on the switch... I believe a delayed "off" for when the car is parked would be a nice option. Not a big deal right now but I'll try to look into it. I'm also really wanting one of those delayed dome light modules Street rod places have them but they're not super cheap Any idea how hard it would be to retrofit an OEM piece? I have no idea how the OEM's have implemented that feature but I think it's really cool

Other OEMs, most notably GM, made their V8 diesel blocks stronger. I wouldn't be surprised if that block has more beef to it too. Diesel's (sp?) generally run pretty high compression to auto-ignite thus the added strength. Honestly this sounds like a good candidate for a gasturbo motor. I'm surprised NISMO blew it off! Can you put a stick behind it? How far are you going ot take it and when will you be slapping turbos on it? Sounds like a neat project!

Hrm, so where does one go to find out good rotary info? It osunds liek either owuld be an interesting mag since most of the mags here are mostly ricer crap bolt on wing articles...

Have a primer, and have run it a good bit to make sure that the lines and whatnot are full of oil for the big day Doesn't build more than about 25PSI with my big drill but that's okay (lol). Will try to find TDC and get that distributor in. Still don't have my last piece of fuel line or spark plug wires so no bark yet - MAYBE this coming weekend but if not I'm gone for a week afterwards(sigh). I won't sweat the starter thing just yet. It's a GM rebuild so I guess it's possibly screwy but for aorund $200 you'd think they'd have done it right The compression bit makes sense too - whew, thanks! Out to the garage to make vroom vroom sounds now

Hrm, since that's a ZXT I believe you may already have CVs which is what most of us upgrade to. IF that's the case I think you'll want to watch the driveline angles and make sure it doesn't squat so far the tires hit the wheelwell - that's apparently the quickest way to trash a shaft! Wheelhop is also supposed ot be VERY bad for these cars so be careful in the bleachbox etc. Did I miss anything guys? Oh yeah - have you strapped down the front mount on the R200 diff? If not you'll want to fortify that thing!

Hrm, if U-joints can be used (stock type?) then the VC adapter Scottie got for us awhile back ought to work I think I'd liek to find myself one of those rears just to have on the shelf!

Duh, good point on the oil pump! Glad I've only done it for a second or two and have pre-oiled it. Time ot figure out TDC and stick that sucker in I guess! Still don't know why the starter seems wonky.

I'm impressed, that's a work of art! Put that sucker together and please let us know how it runs, I'm dying to know how much of an advantage twins are on an L6! Wow that's nice. Ceramic next perhaps?

Okay, you can tell I'm, making progress now - the car cranks! I had to swap the position of the "jumper" that I used when I put on the remote solenoid. Today's weirdness - after cranking for a few moments the starter appears to disengage the flywheel but continue cranking. When I let off th ekey the noise is less than pleasant. If I only crank for a few seconds and let off the key before anything odd happens it sounds "fine". This is an OEM starter on a late model block, Centerforce T56 flywheel. No shims and I honestly wouldn't know how to install shims either - I've NEVER had this happen before (sigh). Secopnd side question - I cranked it with no distributor installed. Only for a few seconds mind you and not more than a few times. I'm pretty sure the distributor should be in there to properly seal the oil passages - yes? I noted that when I let off the starter that I could hear compression leaking off - as expected. Except that I seem to hear it coming from the distributor hole?! Umm, that seems weird - why would I hear and feel some compression coming from the crankcase like that? Am I being paranoid? Engine was built by a professional reputable race shop so I have NO reason to question their work - just seems odd. Ideas? As always, thanks!

TP sensor tells computer what the throttle is doing and it responds evenly across the cylinders - I don't think that's it. I had a pyrometer in my Mustang for awhile and noticed that one side always ran cooler, did some swapping of wires and checking and figured it out - dribbling fuel injector! This was one cylinder on a bank of four and because of that the O2 changed the mixture on that side to compensate for the condition. I'm not sure the above applies to you except that I KNOW a bad injector will change the temps. In my case the car seemed to run fine but the injector was likely dribbling. I'll put my money on a bad injector or maybe an injector driver in the ECU?