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View Full Version : My car's slooow progress!



Directconnection
10-06-2006, 08:14 PM
Due to the time constrainst of having a family life and getting home late doesn't give me much time to work on the car (or find the initiative:) ) This spring, the car was a running and driving VNT competition package Shadow that was tired as you can tell by all the oil and grime coated on the k-frame and firewall. I thought it was going to be easy...just drop in the new motor and rebuild the stock front end. But things change and while your up to your shoulders in crap, you figure: "why not sawp over to '89 Shelby brakes" Then that leades to different prop valve, then different master. Then 16" wheels. SS braided lines...then poly and the Shelby 1-1/4" swaybar. Then you drop that notion and go with r/t brakes and cast control arms, and.....the list goes on. Anyways.... here's the before and after.

Directconnection
10-06-2006, 08:32 PM
other before and afters... or should I say as of now:

Pat
10-06-2006, 10:10 PM
Looks good! What engine is going in there?

Aries_Turbo
10-06-2006, 11:59 PM
honda
























































Just kidding! ;)

Directconnection
10-07-2006, 10:49 AM
an 8v 2.5. G-head and the standard hybrid 50trim/S3 .63a/r E cover.

Next thing I am doing is new brake lines in the rear, then I hang up all the suspension and make it a roller again. When springtime comes, the engine and tranny will go in. (568)

My other car next to it will get a T-III.... but that is faaar from now at the rate I am going, so you won't have any P-body/T-III competition to worry about:eyebrows:


Forgot to ask you Pat. I passed on my 3rd VNT Shadow 5 years ago so a friend could buy it. Well, we did alot of work to the car except for assembly. The friend sold the car for pennies on the dollar which I passed up again because of too many...and talked another friend into buying it. Yesterday it ran for the 1st time. Initially they took off the ported swirl head and went with a g-head. I warned them about the poor throttle repsonse and top end because I mostly remember your posts on the subject of this when you had the T-I Spirit a while back. Can you elaborate on how the proper cal worked for you before and after? I want them to see what I was talking about if they read this. Not sure if they are still using the G or not...

supercrackerbox
10-07-2006, 04:22 PM
That looks awesome. Amazing what a lot of cleaning and paint will do.

Directconnection
10-07-2006, 08:51 PM
Believe it or not.... I didn't paint the engine bay! While I will admit the camera lies a tad:eyebrows: Some of the super shiny reflectives you see are actually the whitish/grey primer underneath showing through where the paint was scratched.

Anyways... thanks for the comments.

If you want to know what I used to get the paint to a nice luster again, it's a product made by 3m called "Imperial Hand Glaze" Pour it into a clean rag and hand rub it. Takes off alot of oxidization with little work. Not meant to be used with a buffer. It comes in a tall plastic semi-transparent bottle and the liquid looks like the Mocha shakes you get at Arby's, but doesn't taste the same I will warn ya...hehe.

Pat
10-07-2006, 10:31 PM
an 8v 2.5. G-head and the standard hybrid 50trim/S3 .63a/r E cover.

Next thing I am doing is new brake lines in the rear, then I hang up all the suspension and make it a roller again. When springtime comes, the engine and tranny will go in. (568)

My other car next to it will get a T-III.... but that is faaar from now at the rate I am going, so you won't have any P-body/T-III competition to worry about:eyebrows:


Forgot to ask you Pat. I passed on my 3rd VNT Shadow 5 years ago so a friend could buy it. Well, we did alot of work to the car except for assembly. The friend sold the car for pennies on the dollar which I passed up again because of too many...and talked another friend into buying it. Yesterday it ran for the 1st time. Initially they took off the ported swirl head and went with a g-head. I warned them about the poor throttle repsonse and top end because I mostly remember your posts on the subject of this when you had the T-I Spirit a while back. Can you elaborate on how the proper cal worked for you before and after? I want them to see what I was talking about if they read this. Not sure if they are still using the G or not...

I'll find the post where I went into it a bit, but I ran a 2.2/g head auto in a Spirit ES for a while. On a T-II cal, it was a bit soggy down low and just needed more timing. Once into boost, it ran OK, but in a heavy automatic, it needed more out of boost power for driveability sake. Paul Vellicky did a g head cal for me and the difference was like night and day. It was much peppier down low/out of boost then it was before. From a standing stop, if I just punched the gas, it would squeal the tires till about 15-20 mph when the boost would really hit and the car would just go. If I powerbraked it up a bit, it would blow them away on command. With Pauls cal, the car went 13.5 @ 99ish mph on slicks launching very easy on pump gas. I was thrilled, especially since everyone says you shouldn't run a 2.2/g head/auto in a heavy car.. :eyebrows:

I also ran a 2.2/g head in my GLHS when I had that, but that car always ran a stock or MP cal. In the light, 5 speed car, the lack of power down low didn't make much difference in driveability.

Pat
10-07-2006, 10:31 PM
By the way, skip the 8v stuff and get one of those T-III's in there! You'll love it.