2slo95fiveOhs 1994 GT rebuild...UPDATE 5-2! Forged shortblock, fuel upgrades!

[2slo95fiveoh]

Ha. Thanks.. At least I know I have 2 votes for ROTM, whichever month it is.. maybe July.. idk. That is my birth month, so that'd be cool, but the car kinda has to get done first. haha.

 

[2slo95fiveoh]

UPDATE!
well, school is starting to wind down for the semester, but I wanted to take advantage of the nice weather we had today so I got a little done on the car.
Although I don't have pictures, I did put the car on 2x4s under the front tires and look around for what could have been rubbing on left turns.. It looks like the brake lines on the pasenger side could have been making contact with the tire, so i bent those well out of the way. I also noticed the zipties that held the positive battery cable up towards the kmember had broken, and the protective covering had been touching the ground (glad I caught that one quickly), so I took some stainless zipties and fastened it back up. On the drivers side, the cruise control unit is a little too close for comfort. With the wheels straight the tire is touching the rubber 'boot' for the cruise control, so I will probably pull the LF tire and see if I can't figure another mounting location for it (I need to replace the cruise control cable anyway).
Picture of both my rides, just 'cause (The 03 Corolla is the daily driver... with 235k on the clock!):


As I mentioned previously the hood didn't seem to fit right.. After some careful lowering of the hood, it looked like it was ever-so-slightly contacting the passeger side fender, but not laying on top of it or anything. So I loosened the fender bolts and adjusted its fitment, and the hood fitment improved a little:

But with the hood latch removed, there was still a difference side to side:
Drivers side (fits well):

Passenger side (A little too high):


Well while I had my hood latch off I started looking at it and realized that the aligning pins that go into the latch 'mount' bolted to the radiator support are removable!
Before:

After 2 hits with a hammer:

 

[2slo95fiveoh]

Then after re-installing the hood latch, and a few trial fitments, the hood seems to fit a lot nicer (not perfect, but much improved):




But I noticed that it still sits up a little higher.. But after comparing the side-to-side fitment of the side marker lights and where their rubber 'seal' contacts the fender, as well as the absense of fender fitment 'spacers' like these:


I believe that the rest of the fender-to-hood fitment on the passenger side can be fixed with those fitment spacers in between the fender and the body.
At least I got it to where the hood will comfortably latch, which is one big leap towards making this car see the road!
I have also come to the conclusion that the MMD hood strut kit will not work with my Cervinis hood.. I will probably call American Muscle within the next few days and see if I can exchange it for the Redline tuning kit (that requires drilling of the hood and fender ).. I'm tired of using a 2x4 as a hood prop.. haha.

 

[Mrstangerbanger]

This is one of my favorite builds on this forums for sure .. Great car man !! Cars should make amazing power also ??

 

[Mrstangerbanger]

Your car should make well over 460rwhp with 10psi no problemo .. Have any date set for dyno time ? I didnt read through the last 5 pages if you already said something lol ..

 

[Mrstangerbanger]

UPDATE!
-So I got a little extra time to work on the car. I built a small bracket out of sheet metal to move the coolant resevoir slightly more towards the center of the car to avoid contact with the headlight adjusting 'stud'.
-I forgot to take pictures (not that it looks any different) while I was doing it, but I swapped the 3.33" blower pulley in favor of a 3.12" pulley. When it comes time to get the car tuned and I'm not seeing the 12 pounds of boost I would like, then I will swap to my other pulley, a 2.95".
-The extent of diagnosing my headlights and foglights not turning on was flipping the plug-into-ballast socket around. I'm glad it was something simple, unfortunately I had to pull the front bumper, lights, and bumper support to do so. But it's all back together now.
You can get a rough idea of the color of the bulbs (foglights are 6000k, headlights are 800k):

With the bumper on:

I really like the way the front end looks, both in daylight and at night with those HIDs.. It will be bright, thats for sure!

-Then I moved onto the shifter area. I added transmission fluid (Royal Purple Syncromax) to the transmission from the shifter location, then bolted the shifter base on:

Attached the insulating boot:

Shifter handle:

And finally the shift boot and shift knob. Man has it been a while since I've seen that:

I finished wiring up my line lock (I still need to tidy up some of those wires, etc):

Then tried it out to make sure the switch is powering up the solonoid.. Yup, light comes on, and solonoid 'clicks' when turned on, so that's good news:

-Then I moved on to the charcoal canister. Through a small amount of investigation I believe the 'mystery hose' leading to the canister originally came from the smog system, but since that isn't used anymore I just capped that port off. I forgot to take a picture of it installed but heres the comparison between new and old:

After that I started messing with my serpentine belt fitment, and one more trip back to the parts store should get me the proper length belt. This week, while time will be somewhat limited, my plan is to diagnose my 20 amp alternator fuse short-to-ground, buy/prep/paint my passenger side hood hinge, then possibly fiddle with my on-going battle with the aftermarket hood strut kit.
Questions/comments always welcome.

I dont think you will need a 3.12 or smaller pulley with your set up .. My car made over 10psi at only 4800rpm with close to same setup and almost 13psi with 3.33 pulley at 6 grand .. Also unless you install meth you cant run anything smaller then 3.33 because your IAT temps will be to high and the tuner will have to pull a lot of timing .. Buy a quarter horse and all send my tune and it should work perfect ..

 

[2slo95fiveoh]

^Thanks.
Yeah 460rwhp is a ballpark for what I would like to see, but I would sacrifice dyno #s for great driveability.. My last setup (Trickflow H/C/I basically) only put down 290rwhp, but I could start it up any time, drive any distance, shut it off, restart it and it would idle perfect, no hesitations, no dying, it was really nice.
I hope to have the car tuned around the first of June. A local guy who knows his stuff when it comes to OBD-1 Fords is moving to a new location, yada yada, and won't be up and running until 'June-ish' he says.
I still haven't gotten with him to discuss details with my setup, what to change etc.. I will have to mention the IAT vs boost issue. I had considered running meth though.. perhaps I will start that research process.

 

[Mrstangerbanger]

^Thanks.
Yeah 460rwhp is a ballpark for what I would like to see, but I would sacrifice dyno #s for great driveability.. My last setup (Trickflow H/C/I basically) only put down 290rwhp, but I could start it up any time, drive any distance, shut it off, restart it and it would idle perfect, no hesitations, no dying, it was really nice.
I hope to have the car tuned around the first of June. A local guy who knows his stuff when it comes to OBD-1 Fords is moving to a new location, yada yada, and won't be up and running until 'June-ish' he says.
I still haven't gotten with him to discuss details with my setup, what to change etc.. I will have to mention the IAT vs boost issue. I had considered running meth though.. perhaps I will start that research process.

Yea I would go with willie at dirty dirty racing and buy quarter horse and wide band . He got my car dialed through email and I can drive my car anywhere in California 100 degree heat with a/c on and start perfect every time .. runs amazing better then stock and I get 24mpg on the hwy lol ..

sent from Dlayz from Samsung Galaxy Note 2 rooted and overclocked

 

[2slo95fiveoh]

UPDATE!

I had a little extra free time this afternoon to work on the car, so I took advantage of it.
I started off by riveting my trunk lock cylinder in:


Then, although there's really no pictures to take, but I got my keyless remote programed to the car.. I have never owned a vehicle with keyless entry, so this is a pretty big milestone for me. haha.

One of the hood hinge-to-body bolts snapped off the last time I was messing with the fitment, so while I forgot to take pictures, I ended up drilling the remaining bolt out, and tapping for a slightly larger size. Everything went pretty smooth, and the whole process was done in less than an hour.
Then I was finally able to put my wiper cowl back on after over 2 years:

And wiper blades:


I need to locate the screws that hold the wiper cowl to the 'underhood cowl', but other than that it is all buttoned up..

A buddy of mine suggested that I put LED bulbs in my liscense plate sockets, and realizing that I ordered a few extras from when I did the LED swap for my instrument cluster (both instrument cluster and liscense plate bulbs are 194 type bulb socket), I put those in, and I like the way it looks:


Other than those things I didn't get much else done on the car. I probably wont have any more updates for another week or so while I tackle finals with school, but any questions/comments are always more than welcome.

 

[2slo95fiveoh]

UPDATE!
Well I needed a break from studying, so I decided to look into my passenger side tailpipe fitment. Then upon further inspection, I realized that the tailpipes were all kinds of nasty: paint overspray, tar, misc grime, etc... So I did some light sanding/polishing of them. This is all by hand, and the finest grit sandpaper I could find was 1000 (as opposed to 2000 like I normally use when polishing)..
In the first two pics the tailpipe is off the hanger, so no worries. ha.
Before:


After:


Both sides done (passenger side fitment is still a little off.. damn)


It certainly brightens up the look in the rear of the car. I will probably save the remaining tweaks for when I get it to work and on a lift. I suspect the remainder of my fitment issues are in the exhaust hanger on the muffler.. but I'll have to investigate that.
I also was poking around under the hood while it was running today and noticed a small amount of oil coming from the front passenger valve cover stud.. I have somehow misplaced my 8mm 12 point socket to see if it needs to be tightened down, but that was kind of a let down either way.
It also looks like the thermostat seal is leaking coolant. I am praying that the bolts aren't all the way tight, because pulling the thermostat housing off with the vortech relocation is a mother f*cker...
School wraps up later this week so I will have more days/evenings to put into this thing and get it on the road!

 

[Ferocious]

My tailpipes are also pretty off. I believe mine are due to a shitty fitting midpipe though.

The pipes cleaned up real good though. Nice work.

 

[2slo95fiveoh]

My tailpipes are also pretty off. I believe mine are due to a shitty fitting midpipe though.

The pipes cleaned up real good though. Nice work.

Thanks.
Yeah I was 'pushing' the tailpipe to where I wanted it while looking at the catback moving.. to me it looked like the most resistance was coming from the muffler-mounted exhaust hanger, but I won't know for sure until the car is on a lift and I can mess with it. Clearing the tire on that side was my biggest concern, so that problem is at least fixed.

 

[2slo95fiveoh]

UPDATE!!

I worked on getting the a/c installed in the car today..

I started off by flushing out the existing condenser, evaporator, and lines..
This is the fluid that was coming out.. Maybe next time I have the a/c system open for 2 years I will cap everything off.


Yeah.. That doesn't need to be in there..


I even masked off and spray painted my existing lines to clean them up a bit. They turned out nice:


All was going well until I had to bend the condenser/discharge line.. Apparantly the condenser doesn't like to take much 'gentle persuasion', and it cracked at the base:

I ordered one from the local parts store, so I will pick that up tomorrow.. l'll have to be more careful with the new one I suppose..

Then I moved onto the cruise control. Apparantly at some point in time part of the cruise control cable that mounts to the throttle bracket broke off..
(replacement with old one)


Sitting next to each other:

So after taking a good sized chunk out of my finger (damn vacuum line stubborness), I got the replacement cruise control module installed:


picture of a cable with the actual mount:


The only thing left for the cruise control is to find a vacuum 'T' that I can branch off of the brake booster line, and I will be all set!
Hopefully I will complete the a/c stuff tomorrow..

 

[Musturd]

Nice work dude

 

[2slo95fiveoh]

UPDATE!!

Well, I FINALLY got my a/c all installed..
My new condenser (This line bent way easier than the old one:


I noticed that the a/c line that runs from the condenser to the reciever drier was going to be really close, if not touching, the passenger side exhaust.. Since I don't have the money for jet-hot coating, I settled for heat wrapping the line.
Started with heat wrap shield:

Then a protective heat sleeve:


Then I added a/c oil to the condenser, drier, and compressor, attached everything together, and ta da!:


I think that it doesn't look too much more cluttered that before. One thing I decided to do was instead of bending the a/c discharge line coming off the compressor (per vortechs instructions), I decided to bend the condensor line away, which I think looks better than having the discharge line kinked up in a 90 degree turn..

Also, a while back I purchased EBC yellow-stuff brake pads for the front. Well I finally bit the bullet and bought the complimenting EBC brake rotors too.. I went with the 3GD series, which comes in a cool black-zinc finish, and slotted and dimpled. I took the old stuff off, and would have bolted this new stuff on, except for the yellow-stuff brake pads are (coincidentally?) all yellow, and it sticks out like a sore thumb with a red caliper, black rotor, and chrome wheel.. So I am painting the backside of the outboard brake pad on both sides.. I had some black brake caliper paint laying around, so they got a few coats of that, and I am alloying that to dry before I assemble them.
Picture of the rotor:


While I am going to be out of town this weekend, next week I will get cranking on getting this car buttoned up. The list is pretty short at this point, so I hope for no more suprises and backtracks..

 

[2slo95fiveoh]

UPDATE!!

Well today was exciting. I got to cross a few major things off the list..

I finally got my front brakes installed. As I mentioned previously I painted the outer brake pad so it wouldn't stand out so much.
Before:

After:

There is still a slight amount of yellow showing through on the bottom, but looking at the car from the side it's not too noticable, so I won't worry about it for now. Those are EBC yellow-stuff pads and EBC slotted and dimpled rotors for those who want to know.

After fiddeling with the trunk fitment, wiring, etc, I was finally ready for the last fatmat install:


Then I moved onto my rear wheel spacers. I could have sworn I took a picture of them before I installed them, but apparently not. I got 3/8" spacers from maximum motorsports and just like everything I've gotten from them, the quality is top notch.
Rear wheel spacing before:

After (angle makes it look more drastic than it is):

Ass shot:


Then..... I went and drove the car! yup.. First time out of my couldesak and it drove great! First I went down to the gas station a couple blocks from me to fill up the tank with some 91 octane:


A shot of the brakes after the coating wore off the pad-contact area:


Then I drove the car approximately 2-3 miles. It rode great, seemed to handle well, and I didn't notice any strange sounds/vibrations etc.. The blower sound is suprisingly noticeable at cruising speeds, at idle it is faintly present. I made a couple 3/4 throttle pulls will it and watched the air/fuel ratio on the wideband and it definately added fuel, but would get to around 11.0 to 1 ratio, which I think is slightly leaner than ideal, so I will have the tuner sort that out in a couple weeks.. Very exciting day!

 

[Musturd]

That awesome dude car turned out awesome and has a killer stance ... Great work dude .

 

[2slo95fiveoh]

UPDATE!

I drove the car to work to align it (camber and caster were suprisingly fairly good considering the installation of the c/c plates).
Sitting at work:


On the alignment rack (nice view):


My new emblems finally came in, so I installed those, as well as the sideskirts..

In the garage:

At work (cloudy):


Then I cleaned it up and took some pictures when the sun came out. Ignore the swirl marks near the emblem, those have since been corrected.



Within the next couple days I hope to get ahold of my tuner and set up a date, as well as set up a time to get the windows tinted and a CD player installed. As of now, all I really have left is a lot of little things (misc screws, hardware, grommets etc), so hopefully they won't consume too much time.

 

[BruhBrahBrad]

Wow, that color looks great in the sun.

 

[white95]

Id vote for you in July's ROTM