The Tangerine Machine Build Thread

[fry]

I had a more organized, well written build thread on here but it's hard to be that detailed. This will be less formal, but I have a feeling I'll keep up with it a lot more. I bought my tangerine dream on November 30, 2010. It was ghetto'd out with the paint literally falling off. Brought it home, cleaned it up, drove the piss out of it for a year. I started auto tech in 2011 and actually started fixing the car. I started by lowering it on BBK springs and Maximum Motorsports caster camber plates. Didn't change the shocks/struts cause I wanted to half ass it. Changed out the wheels from the chrome 18in GT4s to some 17" machined with chrome lip deep dish 03/04 cobra wheels with Nitto N555 255/40/17 on the front and 315/35/17 on the rear. About this time I rear ended an old lady in a tank. Tore up the front end but no real bad damage. I swapped out the front bumper, both front fenders and hood off a parts car. I'm not a body person by any means so the gaps are off but I've never done before, so it was all trial and error.

I went back to driving the piss out of it till the transmission started taring up. By this point it was burning through a quart of oil every 1,000 miles. Took it back off the road. By this time I'm working full time and not able to work on my car myself, so I leave it at school and let the students there do the work. Swapped out the trans with a working one along with a Hurst short throw. Got rid of the motor. Got a different block, all Manley internals, PI heads, TFS cams, PI intake, lots of good things. Got new BBK shorty headers, newish h-pipe and stock tail pipes since nobody liked the dumps. lol Drove the car about a week before taking back off the road. Front brakes were messed up so swapped the rotors/calipers with ones off the cobra parts car. It was smoking/burning oil, cutting off every time I would stop, and the brake booster went bad. The valve seals have to be replaced (think the students messed up some of them), needs a tune and the rack and pinion was pretty much destroyed from the lines not being run right and so they tore up one side.

No big deal. Now I'm back in class, I got laid off at work, and my car is back in the shop lol. I'm redoing the valve seals after class and I'm gonna let the guys in suspension class replace the rack and pinion and the shocks and struts. I'm in HVAC class. Since I've had the car the A/C hasn't worked so we're gonna fix that while I'm in the class. After we get everything done with it this time I'm gonna let it be for a while and just work on the interior this year. I spent way more than I'd care to mention on the motor last year, so this year I'm just going to focus on getting the inside done to were I actually want to drive the car. Next year I'll make getting it painted my plan.

When I first got it.

Lowered and cleaned up

After I wrecked it.

What it looks like now. lol

 

[whiplash473]

nice story..youll get it there.....cobra wheels look best on it out of the bunch

 

[fry]

I'll post pictures of the engine bay when I get the motor back together because the motor is definitely the best part of the whole car. It's pretty much amazing!

This is pretty much what the interior looks like now. I put the pedals in and the new floormats. The door panels are gone now though cause they were all broke up, I'm trying to repair them but I think I'm gonna end up buying a set of used ones. I replaced the gauge cluster with white face gauges out of the cobra parts car. I would like to basically replace everything but the actual dash, that's the only thing not broken.

Right now I'm working on swapping out the center console with one out of an 03 cobra. The fit is basically the same, but there are some things that have to be modified. The wiring harness has to be swapped, I just took the harness out of the cobra one and tossed it to the side. Took the harness out of my old console and untaped it. There are wires that run to the cigarette lighter where the ash tray is, the new console doesn't have this so I cut these wires out and threw them away. I cleaned all the old soda off and plan to retape everything today. When you take the harness out, the wires are taped around plastic pieces. I'm gonna retape the harness around the plastic pieces to make sure it looks stock, even though nobody will be looking under my console lol. The new edges have their foglight switches somewhere other than the console, or at least this one did, so I popped out the change holder and plan to run my foglight switch to this spot. The other thing left to do is dye it black since it's charcoal now. It's not much of a difference, its just like a faded black, but it's enough to notice. I don't trust myself to do this part so I'm gonna do the prep work and get someone else to dye it black. I've got a lot of other ideas for the interior, but for right now the console is the biggest project I'm doing with it lol.

 

[fry]

nice story..youll get it there.....cobra wheels look best on it out of the bunch

Thanks! I love my wheels too!

 

[Pete@FTR]

I like the cobra wheels too, thats a really sick color on the car (once you get it all painted up haha).

 

[Musturd]

Hey Liz glad to see you back. Sucks about the valve seals with the new motor. Hope you get it all worked out soon the added power must be nice for ya. The nice thing is ur car has black interior . You'll have her good to go again soon .

 

[whiplash473]

black leather interior ftw

 

[the.greg]

Nice progression, seems like its been through a lot!

 

[fry]

Thanks yall! I haven't been on here, or the internet, really in a while cause I haven't had the time but I'm gonna try to stay more active now. I love the black leather interior, but it makes it damn near impossible to find parts for it! And when you do, they're usually in bad condition and the person wants a million dollars. That's why it's taken me this long to do anything with the interior. The seats are the worst part of the whole car, I can't sit in them for more than 30 minutes without having bad back pain but seeing as that's gonna be the most expensive part, it'll probably be last lol. haha I want really these seats: http://www.latemodelrestoration.com/item/CS-20301PR/Corbeau-Gts-2-Black-Cloth-Seat-Sold-As-Pair

 

[whiplash473]

my seats are nice and comfy but ive been thinking about getting those same corbeaus cuz the leather is shot on mine..i like those tho cuz they still gotta stock-ish look

 

[Musturd]

Well glad you plan to stick around more . Also happy to see after your recent luck with the car you haven't lost hope.... I might as well get this outta the way sometimes I missed you Liz and those sometimes happend to be the whole time you were gone.

 

[Orange 94]

Can't wait to see it all back together! I obviously love the colour I think those seats you are looking at would be a good choice, they'd go with the car pretty good.

 

[fry]

my seats are nice and comfy but ive been thinking about getting those same corbeaus cuz the leather is shot on mine..i like those tho cuz they still gotta stock-ish look

That was my exact reasoning!! haha I like the cloth too cause the leather is cold in the winter and hot as hell in the summer!

 

[fry]

Well glad you plan to stick around more . Also happy to see after your recent luck with the car you haven't lost hope.... I might as well get this outta the way sometimes I missed you Liz and those sometimes happend to be the whole time you were gone.

I missed you too Turd!! I'm glad I'm back haha. I miss seeing your beautiful fox!! haha

 

[Musturd]

Lmao priceless. I'm finishing my other car now about time to much neglect

 

[Walking Tall]

Nice car! Very cool color.

 

[Steve-Oh]

Oh, Hey Fry! Everything is looking good.

 

[96TANGERINEGT]

Yea , welcome back. Liz.

The cobra wheels look good on there , and u put a cobra bumper on too didn't ya ?
What hood did u use , cobra as well ?

 

[ttocs]

good too see you back, hope you can hang around longer this time. Love the color. What is wrong with the seats I was perfectly happy with my stock seats until Justin sold his.

 

[fry]

Thanks yall!

Yea , welcome back. Liz.

The cobra wheels look good on there , and u put a cobra bumper on too didn't ya ?
What hood did u use , cobra as well ?

Yeah the last picture shows the new cobra bumper and hood. I used all the stock cobra stuff but I hate the hood (no offense anyone I just think it looks bad on my car), I want to sell it and get a cobra r hood!