When I got it home, all it did was sit. I moved it from one shop to the next one, where it sat again. Well, I'd had enough of it sitting around and decided to get it drivable. Both door lock actuators had froze up and I had to bend the damn handles to get into the car while nearly breaking the key off in the lock to get it to open. I rolled the windows down and we pushed it into the shop. It needed a clutch badly, and since I'd decided to turbo it, I looked around for a good clutch for it. I found an old ad on Corral, it was about a year and half old, and I PM'd the guy and asked if he still had it by chance. He did so I bought it from him and he tossed in the flywheel too. It's a spec stage 3, and it's stiff as can be, but has held so far with about 25k miles on it.
I also put a Turbo Coupe rear end assembly my buddy Mark had in his junkyard. I put that in and then put in the Ebrake cables and modified the brake handle to work with the discs.
I got the old ones off, and yes, the car is that rusty. Good news is this is a late 93 so it has the 94 up style Ebrake mount, easy to get cables for.
New ones installed:
Clutch was a bear to get out, everything was rusted tight, this is me getting to one of the bellhousing bolts that face forward.
Then, I got it apart and everything cleaned up, and started going back together with it.
Got the flywheel turned, had to use the one from the turbocoupe stage 3 I bought. It worked well.
Got it all back together and stuffed the stock trans back in it.
So I drove the car for a long time like this, making small improvements as I went. I put on front and rear V8 sway bars, put V8 front spindles and brakes, changed master cylinder to a late model unit with an inline adjustable proportioning valve. I also had bought something really unusual back in 95 at a swap meet. I bought a set of struts and shocks from Tokico that Ford used to sell through motorsport. They are electronic cockpit adjustable struts and shocks similar to what turbocoupes had factory. I had forgotten all about them until we were moving out of my old house and I found them sitting new in the box on a shelf in the basement. I installed those and they are fantastic, really cool to feel the difference between the soft, medium and harsh settings.
Here are some pics I took of the car about 4 or 5 years ago. I've had it since 05.
That gawdawful spoiler....
My wife kept calling the car 'pink' since sitting for many years had faded the paint really badly. When I got it the passenger 1/4 window was broken out and had to be replaced, along with both the power lock actuators.
I had put a set of flowmasters on the car and had this catless Y pipe made which didn't make any more power and sounded way too loud in the car. I put the car on the dyno and it made ninety-some rwhp, which wasn't bad, but wasn't what I was expecting either. I got a quarterhorse for it and started messing with the tune, but didn't put it back on the dyno until I got the turbo on.
When I bought the car it was a factory A/C delete car, which at the time I thought was really cool. But one day my daughter and I were going somewhere together, and it was like 100 degrees out and when we got where we were going, we were both drenched from the heat. I decided to put A/C on it and went to the pull and pay where they had a 4 cyl Mustang with all the a/c stuff on it. I put everything on my car, pulled the dash and swapped heater boxes, swapped out the heater controls, etc, and charged the a/c. All was good until I realized my junkyard compressor was junk. Off to ebay and I found a rebuilt one for a fantastic price and installed it, and it's still working today.
Last edited by NXcoupe; 06-16-2016 at 08:38 AM.
Dave and I were on our way back from lunch and we were discussing how cool it would be to race in UMTR when he said I should run the coupe in UMTR. We were in the coupe and I decided to demonstrate how hard it was to shift it fast with that stiff clutch and the goofy 4 cyl clutch linkage setup. I grabbed third and it exploded. Great. So I got with my friend Rick Terry and he was kind enough to get two of my V8 input shafts ground down on the pilot bearing tip so they would slide into the 4 cyl pilot bearing. I built a V8 T5 with a 3.35 first gear in it that is still in the car today. It takes the power without a glitch.
Well, I got really tired of the way the car looked and driiving it around sounding like crap(to me), so Bill Metcalf said he'd be happy to paint the car for me. I took it to him and a few weeks later I got it back looking quite a bit better, my wife no longer calls it 'pink'.
Gone is the goofy spoiler.. And in with new shiny headlights.
What mods do I need for "X" hp?
All combos are assumed to be utilizing the best "stock" setup which includes 35lb injectors, large vam, 87-88 ECU, stock or ranger roller cam (unless stated otherwise), and most importantly, a good tune.
Remember these are estimated "maxed out" power quotes. It does not mean you'll make this much power automatically with this combo. It simply means when everything is perfect, dialed in, and maxed out, it should make around the power quoted.
-Stock engine, stock intercooler, no significant mods, 15-20psi will produce roughly 170-215rwhp.
-Above setup plus cone filter, 3" exhaust, 15-20psi will produce roughly 200-235rwhp.
-Above setup plus front mount intercooler, more boost, elevated fuel pressure, 255 lph fuel pump, ~22-23 psi will produce roughly 250-275rwhp.
-Above setup plus ported or gutted intakes, mildly ported head, ~22-23 psi will produce roughly 265-300rwhp.
-Above setup plus professionally ported head flowing 215+cfm on the intake, extremely high fuel pressure, ~22-23 psi will produce roughly 275-315rwhp with very high base fuel pressure (or run larger injectors, turbo, and a tuneable ECU like our PiMP and it could be 300-345rwhp).
Below requires upgraded injectors, piggyback ECU tuner or PiMP ECU, and conversion to speed density to ditch the VAM along with race fuel, E85, or methanol injection.
-Stock engine, turbo header, professionally ported head flowing 215+cfm, cone filter, 3" exhaust, 255 lph fuel pump, ported/gutted intake, large aftermarket cam, large turbo producting ~25-30 psi will produce roughly 350-450rwhp (stock rods won't last long at over 400rwhp unless the tune is perfect so plan accordingly).
Below requires many unmentioned items plus a standalone EFI system such as our PiMP ECU.
-Above mods plus Upgraded Rods/Pistons, 225+cfm iron head or Esslinger Aluminum D port head, ~30 psi will produce roughly 400-500rwhp.
-Above mods plus Esslinger SVO head, Stage III or larger Bo-Port cam, ~25-30 psi will produce roughly 450-600rwhp.
-Above mods plus Esslinger ARCA or XT head, Stage IV or larger Bo-Port cam, 2.65L+ stroker engine, ~30-35 psi will produce roughly 700-1100rwhp.
I found this on the Stinger site. Nice little how to. Actually it's kinda helpful for my build too.
Joe
Yeah, that is good info. I spoke to Shawn, I believe his name was, that owns stinger and he said that was old info tho, and with today's chip tuning abilities stock electronics and convetional maf are the way to go and will net big power. So far he's correct. My C1A1 computer and blow through maf are working perfectly. I'd like to see your setup. Any idea how much timing your factory computer is tossing at it at wot?
Looks nice Mike.
So I got really tired of how it sounded and I was ordering a bunch of stuff from my warehouse and decided to order in a Dynomax 2.5" cat back with stainless tips. Well, it comes in and I open the box and it's all regular steel pipe, no polished tips. That'd look like shit, so I sent it back and got back on the internet and figured out the part number I needed to order. I got the right one in, and put it on. I think Dynomax has gone way down hill over the years as I owned one of their cat backs in the 90's and it was shiny and perfect. These tips leave a lot to be desired imho. But the car sounds exactly how I wanted it to.
Now on to the turbo installation. First thing was to start putting the intercooler in. I used a razor knife to carve the bumper cover to fit around the intercooler, and that worked the best out of any method I've tried before. First thing was to remove the front chin spoiler.
Then I made cuts the width of the intercooler so I could slide it up into the cover without removing the cover. I'm lazy that way working on my own stuff.
Last edited by NXcoupe; 06-25-2016 at 11:01 AM.
I'm not sure what the base timing is at wot but 4 degrees advance has been added. I'll be probably at Edgewater next week or maybe I'll bring it to a cruise this year. I'm right now pretty limited on my setup. I probably have to get more head work to make more power. Seems the Ford 2.3 is the same way.
Joe
Joe, yep its def limited by the camshaft lift and duration coupled with the head flow and crappy combustion chamber. A rod broke in mine the other day just cruising along. I think it was from earlier on when i first got it going and had timing and boost control issues I will go over in this build thread eventually. I'm gonna toss another stocker 2.3 in and experiment with that while i build another one.
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