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I am retiring this part of my old website. At some point, this page will likely disappear. Future updates will happen here.
A week or two after the convention, the car suddenly got a bad vibration when making right turns. It seemed like the left axle tripod was bottoming-out. I had recentered the engine when I had the old stock axle in there and never put it back, but I wasn't sure what caused it to suddenly appear one day. It turned out that the aftermarket trans mount I installed had partially collapsed, which was enough to take out the last bit of slack in the axle. Anyway, I put the poly trans mount back in (the engine vibrations were no better with the rubber mount anyway), fixed the front mount bracket so I could slip washers in there to space the poly away from the bracket, and recentered the engine. Everything is fine now and the washers did seem to help a bit with the vibs.
I also cleaned-up the crab rims from the CSX, hit the lips with a scotch-brite abrasive wheel, and polished them a bit before installing them on the Daytona. The Dunlop SP8000s from JT are worn down to the markers now, so I'm running the Kuhmo 712s from the CSX. They have flat spots from the freeway spin-out, but they do have plenty of tread. The Dunlops were awesome tires, but you can't get them in 225/50 R15 anymore. I'm saving the last of them for the CSX when it is done.
Lastly, I made shims for the brake pads on all four calipers to try to shut them up. They still squeak, but are better overall. I think the notches that are worn into the brackets from the pad plates may be to blame. Would have to weld them up somehow, but I have bigger fish to fry.
The first time I drove the car after coming home from the convention, the door handle broke on the drivers side. Joe from the club was nice enough to pick one up from an 85 Daytona in the junkyard and ship it to me. The rod had to be bent to match the old one, but it swapped over just fine otherwise. While the door was apart, I installed the '87 power mirrors. Man, the '91 wiring diagrams are horrible. Not one single interesting circuit on the power mirror page was right and as such my splice job from way back when did not work. I spent many hours trying to sort that out, but now I finally have working power mirrors!
Another awesome time at SDAC has come and gone. The performance driving school was a blast as always. The Daytona did great overall, but the stress did highlight some issues. The intercooler definitely needs to be kicked-out at the bottom to allow some air to get around it. The loss in cooling capacity was very obvious after a few laps, though it will happen on the street in traffic with the A/C on as well. I'm thinking of buying a new fan as well. The other issue was oil pressure. I know the pump has issues and when the oil temps got high, I was seeing only about 30psi of pressure at 5000rpm. Not good, so I think it's time for a new pump.
I made 14 passes at the drag strip. Times weren't what I had hoped (was shooting for 13s), but I didn't break the car. I couldn't get the car to hook nor could I get it to make more than 18-19psi of boost...even with the wastegate unplugged. I also trashed 3rd gear by the end and it seems that it will need a new syncro. Did a bit of tuning, but most of the effort was spent trying to learn how to launch the car. Best time was 14.269sec @ 98.87mph.
| React | 60' | 1/8 ET | 1/8 MPH | 1/4 ET | 1/4 MPH | Comments |
| 0.659 | 2.757 | 11.049 | 70.65 | 16.261 | 94.11 | First run. Completely borked the launch and then missed 3rd. |
| 0.277 | 2.669 | 9.949 | 77.33 | 14.896 | 95.98 | Swapped to BB60.14 cal. Slightly better launch. Hot-lapped. |
| 0.634 | 2.654 | 9.923 | 76.15 | 14.894 | 96.78 | Hot-lapped. |
| 0.253 | 2.717 | 10.060 | 74.62 | 15.094 | 95.95 | Crappy launch. Hot-lapped. |
| 0.590 | 2.544 | 9.968 | 75.76 | 14.904 | 94.35 | Hot-lapped. |
| 0.494 | 2.620 | 9.899 | 75.60 | 14.803 | 102.99 | Added boost to the cal. |
| 0.510 | 2.498 | 9.792 | 75.12 | 14.732 | 99.98 | Switched to grainger and dropped tire pressure to 35psi. Ended up with 15psi of boost. |
| 0.514 | 2.364 | 9.380 | 76.51 | 14.275 | 100.08 | Cranked up boost to 17psi. |
| 0.339 | 2.437 | 9.674 | 75.63 | 14.598 | 100.19 | 18-19psi of boost. Best MPH. |
| 0.145 | 3.092 | 10.719 | 74.40 | 15.686 | 99.53 | Bumped trans out of 1st during launch. |
| 0.261 | 2.265 | 9.276 | 73.87 | 14.269 | 98.87 | Finally a decent launch. Best ET. |
| 0.260 | 2.525 | 9.917 | 72.34 | 14.968 | 98.04 | 3rd grinding bad. |
| 0.371 | 2.698 | 13.899 | 47.47 | 22.392 | 54.02 | Turtle race (lost). |
| 0.159 | 2.410 | 9.792 | 76.13 | 14.802 | 95.75 | 3rd is done. |
So I'm going to SDAC-18 and have been doing a mad-dash to get the car ready. The axle boot was the wrong one and tore itself up on the trans case. I put an old stocker in there from the Shadow while I worked on other things. Later I got the correct boots from JT and completely went though the axles. Only the short axle has the tripod welded to it and it looks like they did it while the bearings were on. They must have slipped and tagged one of them with the welder. The tulip race is chewed-up pretty good there. The outer joints have a lot of hammer blows on them and long axle's has a lot of play and binds much beyond the center. I put them back together anyway and they seem to be holding up so far. I don't expect to get a whole lot of miles out of them.
Trying to address the somewhat-weak oil pressure issues, I pulled the pan and removed the pickup. My thought was that it may have been leaking at the o-ring since I had to bend the tube a bit when putting the motor together. I took the pump apart as well to check the clearances. It had a lot of scoring in it for some reason, but the clearances were all well within spec. I also plastiguaged the rods bearings, which looked great and were nice and tight.
I'm going to be running the road course, so I put new pads and rotors in the front and bled the brakes. Also replaced the front swaybar bushings with new ones from Johnny. The radiator was throughly flushed, since I had some oil in there.
The ends on the CS Racer panhard bar were shot, so I modified a stocker to make it adjustable. One end was cut off and a grade 10.9 M16 bolt welded to it. Some of the bar was removed and an M16 coupler nut was welded to that end and the whole bar was boxed-in. It warped a bit after all the welding, so I lowered on car on it to bend it straight again. It was installed with new poly bushings from Johnny Spiva.
I DA'ed and rattle-canned the roof and mounted the side door mouldings. Painted those as well as some missing paint on the nose. Also painted the exposed bumper support since the grill is missing there. Did lots of touch-ups and also tried to deal with the worst of the rust on the hood. Didn't have enough time to finish sanding and rubbing-out the patches, but it looks better than it did before.
Last night/this morning I finally fixed a few pressing issues. One was the boot on the driver's inner CV joint had chewed through itself a while ago and I've been meaning to put a new one one there for some time. I discovered that the Driveshaft Shop Level 3 axles have the tripods welded to the shafts, so they have to be taken apart from the outer CV end. Also, the inner joints have some kind of fiber reinforced plastic cap that seems to be there to keep the tripod in the tulip housing. The problem is the boot seals to the cap and the cap seals to the tulip with a rubber seal. On the other axle, grease is coming out between the cap and the tulip, so I am going to have to deal with that at some point..
The big project was replacing the shift fork pads on the 1-2 and 3-4 forks. I've been limping 3rd gear along for over a year now, as I cheezed it pretty bad on a hard shift one day but it was still usable. A week or so ago I did the same to 2nd gear, rendering it useless. I hoped it was just the pads and so I bought some new ones. Thankfully, that's all it was. The trans looked clean inside, though the sprags for 3rd and especially for 2nd gear are pretty chewed up. It shifts great now, so I am not going to worry about it.
Finally, both of the outer tie rod ends are so sloppy that they have about 1/2" of play now. They are only a few years old, so no more Moog suspension parts for me. I got the more expensive ones from NAPA (Spicer I think). Same brand as the new ball joints that replaced the failed Moog joints and are holding up well.
Still my daily driver. Been collecting some odds and ends that should hopefully help the spool department: A Turbos Unleashed cast log header and Turbonetics T03/T04E hybrid single ball bearing turbo with a "Super 50" compressor and a Stage II exhaust turbine in a .63 A/R housing attached to a Turbos Unleashed 3" swing valve (whew). The header, housing, and swing valve are all ceramic thermal coated to keep temps down and gas velocities high. The turbo flange on the header is larger than it should be, so I will likely need to port the housing flange somewhat.
The Super 70 and ported exhaust manifold that is in there now will end up in the CSX once I get a new cylinder head for it. Trouble is the CSX needs to be running before I put this setup in there....
Drove the car all winter and spring without any major issues. The most annoying thing that happened was when the adjustable cam sprocket came loose and the car wouldn't start late at night in the parking lot at work. I was able to snug it up with some vice grips and get home. I've got a stock sprocket on there now.
I recently replaced the stock headlamps with a Hella H4 "Free Form" conversion kit and built a relay module so that the lights got power directly from the battery. I measured an over 3.5V drop through the stock headlight circuit. The housings are DOT approved and I am using the standard 65/55W bulbs. The light pattern is much better than a standard sealed-beam lamp and they run nice and bright with the extra voltage. If you are thinking about a HID conversion for better visbility (and not because you think they are pretty), do the H4 conversion and relay mod instead. The on-coming drivers will thank you (I hate HIDs).
The stupid cheesy plastic draincock on the brand new radiator broke on the way to work. Stuffed a rag in the hole and limped back home. What a crappy design. Anyway, I did a few other odds and ends while I was at it, including the installation of the correct throttle cable. I also got the interior all cleaned up nice and managed to take some pics of the inside and the outside (it's a little dirty on the outside, but oh well).
I'm really happy with how the guage pod and mounts turned out.
Drove it around a bit over the weekend. Took it to work today and romped on it a bit. The Super 70 is a bit more laggy, but it's not anywhere near as bad as I thought it might be. Also, the intake temps are just a few degrees above ambient...this intercooler is the bomb. It's pretty peppy even when the turbo is lagging and man this sucker moves when the boost hits. It will be interesting to see how it works once I start cranking it up. Right now it's on the stock cal with the fuel pressure turned way down. It won't go low enough in vacuum, so it makes it a little lean further up the scale since the autotrim gets a little out of whack. It's like 10.5:1 at WOT, but if I leave part throttle it HAULS.
Finished hooking up all the guages, mounting the guage pods, getting the exterior all lined up, and getting it on all fours. Had to shorten the hood vent tray to clear the intake manifold. Also did a little fixup on the fenders, since the 87 put the belt moulding above the belt line, while the 86 has it just below the line. Did a little creative tie-wrapping to get the early throttle body cable to work on the blow-through throttle body.
It's alive!!! Frankentona lives again! Got the motor all hooked up tonight, pressurized the fuel system, and checked for leaks. Stared at it for a minute to make sure I didn't forget anything really important and cranked it over. It fired right up on the first try. I was a little surprised, given the major harness surgery it underwent in the engine bay. It was smoking pretty good from all the oil and grease on the exhaust/turbo, but it didn't really show up in the picture. Before test firing it but after putting oil in it, I primed the system with a drill on the intermediate shaft and made sure the turbo was getting oil.
All that's left is to put the fenders and nose back on, cut down the hood vent tray, and straighten up a few things in the interior. The goal was to have it running by Halloween, but I may even have it on the road by then! Just in time too, as the CSX is starting to smoke a bit more....
It's been a rough couple of weeks at work (70-80 hours), but I managed to get some garage time in. The exhaust installation is complete. It came out pretty good, but I had the usual surprises. The FWD Performance kits really like the passenger side. The exhaust on both the Daytona and CSX had about 1/2" too much length between the two 90 degree bends, which pushes the cat up against the heat shield from the back. I had to remove that amount from both, but I had to cut that pipe anyway to swing the back half up a bit. It's clamped for now, but I will weld it once I'm happy with how the exhaust has settled in its hangers. Add to that the 3" down pipe, which doesn't have enough length before the last curve and the cat ends up rubbing the heat shield. Some heat shield massaging was needed to clear it. The missing down pipe heat shield required that I wrap the down pipe in header wrap and shield the shifter cables a bit. The offset oval muffler simplified the cutting/fitting behind the muffler, since I could use the offset to drop the tail pipe. That part worked out well.
I'm not really happy with the Walker stainless band clamps. They are nicely made and have captive nuts (which will be interesting once they are nice and rusty), but they don't seal really well due to the way they pull up on the band where it is welded to itself. The cheaper clamps that are on the CSX (Jegs/J.C. Whitney) seal better and I like how they "take-up" the band slack in the dished grooves.
Stupid skin infection came back again...grrr. Really slows me down, but I did get the bobble strut mount from Johnny welded to a backplate and welded to the K-frame. Man, I suck at stick welding. At least with the MIG, the tool helps mask my poor skills. Anyway the mount that Johnny sells is very solid. However, it is being welded to stamped sheetmetal on the K-frame and the contact patch is only about one square inch. As such, a transitional plate is needed to spread the load over a wider area on the K-frame to prevent cracking. I made mine out of a couple of scraps of 1.5" angle iron that was cut, bent, hammered, etc until it matched the profile of the K-frame.
I also got the exhaust cut and fitted. Had to make the same basic changes to the back half as I did on the CSX. Also, getting the nut on the driver's side down pipe bolt is problematic when using the TU 3" swingvalve with the .63 A/R exhaust housing. More on that when it is done.
Got the clutch and did the swap. Also got the intercooler perminently installed after painting the core support. The TU ceramic/organic clutch (left) is headed to the CSX. The Kevlar clutch (right) is installed, along with its sparkly blue painted Sachs pressure plate.
A nasty skin infection has kept me out of the garage for a couple of weeks, but I did manage to paint all of the welded areas on the core support and the new intercooler-related bracketry. I also welded lips onto the intercooler pipes by carefully tacking 1/16" stainless steel rings make from rod stock onto the edges. My initial plan was to roll beads into them with a Harbor Freight bead roller that I got on sale. Well the rollers were too large to fit into the tubes, so that didn't work. I was going to try to have different rollers made, but it wasn't worth the effort.
The issue I was having at the track with the clutch in the CSX was a good reality check that this LUK T3 clutch isn't going to hold. I had purchased a TU "Dual Performance" ceramic/organic clutch for this powertrain, however I found that I accidentally ordered the early small spline version (the small shaft has 18 splines, while the large shaft has 17 splines). I had a new T3 disc kicking around, so I just tossed that in instead. I've ordered a TU Kevlar clutch (appears to be a Clutchnet clutch disc) that should hold well. It has a little less holding power than the ceramic puck discs, but I should get much better mileage out of it. The 6-puck that I had in the CSX before was shot after about 30k. It sucks to have to drop the trans again, but it's a lot easier now than it will be when it is all buttoned-up and covered in the inevitable grease.
So a while back I picked-up a Relentless Performance "Triple-Core" intercooler (three stock cores welded together in parallel). The photo on the left shows (from the top down) the Spearco "1080" that is sold by a few of the vendors, the RP Triple-Core, and the early Dodge Conquest intercooler that I used in my Shadow for several years. I finally got it and all the plumbing fitted. It just fits behind the early Daytona fascia after some trimming to the plastic structure. I wanted the plumbing to fit without having to move the radiator or the battery. The intercooler pipes are all 2.25" T304 stainless steel (one U-bend, one U/J-bend, and a 45 degree bend). The silicone couplers are from Silicone Intakes, which is by far the cheapest I have found. I chose 2.25" pipes because the intercooler and airbox had 2.25" connections and that was the largest that would squeeze between the battery and the radiator. The only change I had to make was I switched to a P-body coolant overflow tank to give me the gap next to the radiator fill neck.
Actually have quite a bit done, just haven't updated in a while. The interior is in...just have a few odds and ends to hook up (like the guages) that need to wait until the end. The picture shows the interior after the dash was up and the center console was finally mounted, but before the carpet/seats went in. The power train is in, as is the core support. The front part of the core is tacked to the sheetmetal on the cowl, but I'm going to wait until I have the intercooler plumbing all figured out before I finish it up and paint it. The RP triple core intercooler is mounted and I have designed the layout of the tubing. It's a really tight fit, but I'm pretty happy with it. I didn't even have to move the radiator. The early G-bodies have a lot of room behind the nose, but some carving of the plastic was required.
Completed a major rewiring under the hood. It's now a hybrid 1987/1989 system that can run either the 1987 Turbo II LM/PM or the 1988/1989 Turbo II SMEC setup. It was a lot of frickin work, but I wanted something that I could use as a test bed to play around with SMEC stuff. I compiled a chart that I used to do the actual splicing that lists all the circuits and how they need to correspond between the two. Luckily the SMECs are functionally close to the LM/PM setup, so it only got hairy in a few places. All connections were soldered inline without cutting any of the original wires.
Got a little work done. The ATC is all installed and seems to work OK. The CSX broke again, so more detours.
Got some custom brackets welded to the front of the frame rails so that the new beams inside the core support have something to bolt to. Yes, bolt...no dinky welds on the edges of tin foil sheet metal. I can't believe these things stay on for as long as they do. I noticed some cracking on the CSX near the spot welds, just like on my old Shadow. I painted it all with POR-15. The frame rails are inside being prepped for paint as well. While I was painting, I painted the inside of the floorpans with POR-15. What's that? I already did that? Yep, it's true. For reasons I don't fully understand, the paint on the inside of the pans (only) bubbled up and delaminated from the new metal. I followed the directions and did all the right metal prep, but the surface of the new metal was very smooth which seemed to have effected the bonding strength of the paint. I also did the first coat of that paint with an older can of flat black and did the second coat with newer gloss black. Perhaps that was a factor. I hit the metal with a 40-grit sanding wheel on the angle grinder. I suspect that it won't happen again.
I also built up the adapter harnesses that I need to install the ATC system. I have the heater/AC out and the ATC parts are all installed on it. I completely failed to notice the respirator for the passenger cabin air temp sensor in the donor that I got the ATC from. Apparently it's behind the instrument cluster somewhere. I managed to identify the thermistor type of the sensor based on some diagnostic data I found in the 1987 and 1991 FSMs. A small computer fan, a little RatShack project case, and some tubing later, we have one respirator.
Hacked off the old core support and the 20lbs of random steel that had been welded to the frame rails for it. Wore out 2 cut-off disks and one grinding wheel for the angle grinder to do it. Brad just so happened to hack the whole nose off of an '88 J-body a while back, which I picked up from him a few weeks back. The spot-weld drill bit from Eastwood was really handy in separating the two halves. I'm going to add some reinforcements to this thing on the inside so that it can take some abuse.
I also fabbed the brackets and installed some bolts/studs in the tunnel to adapt the '91 center console to the car. I finally have my head around the different types of late-style G-body center consoles and I finally have the parts I need to do what I want, thanks to Paul Fosen.
There are two completely different center consoles and underlying bracketry available. There is the "cockpit" sytle, where the console is several inches higher than the normal one. The extra height is split between the top plastic part and the side "fuzzies". The ash tray then completely blocks off the lower two bays in the center instrument panel. All you get is the radio and the heater/AC controls, which means the bezel around these is missing the bottom half. It also requires a different e-brake arm and the bracket under the console raises the shifter partly, but not completely up. The leather boot around the shifter is huge as a result.
The "normal" style lowers the center console by several inches, revealing the lower two bays. The bottom bay, used for the factory CD player, may be blocked off by the plastic in front of the ash tray. It may also be filled with a little fuzzy storage bay when there is no CD player. I've seen both. The instrument panel bezel is then extended to surround these two bays and meet the center console. If you ever do anything like this, grab all of the center console parts and anything that goes near it. If you factor in manual-vs-automatic, there are four possible setups for these things. The cockpit style console may have been obsoleted after 1991, as I have never seen one in a '92 or later.
Just shot the clearcoat on the doors. Spent the past month filling dents and primering the doors and the new hood. Shot the color on the doors last night and now they are cleared. The clear refused to lay flat unless I loaded it on there good. There is a fine line between accomplishing that and ending up with runs and sags. Got a couple of runs and lots of orange peel. What a pain. I had this same problem with clear before. I think I need to use a different clear coat system.
I don't have time to do the hood due to the cold weather approaching, but the old hood is still on the car and if I can get the fenders off of JT's black '87, then I can at least drive it.
Remeber the pics of that nice turbo? How about these? On the left is the "S60" turbo mentioned earlier. On the right is the new "Super 70" turbo from Turbos Unleashed with their 3" swing valve bolted to a .63 A/R exhaust housing (compare it to the .48 on the S60). Not sure how the lag is going to be, but I got my hands on an FM ported 2 piece intake and a Spearco, which will hopefully help out.
Didn't come close to making it for SDAC. Oh well.
The Daytona's been under the knife again. The fenders and doors are off. Sanded the doors and the new hood from Dave. Totally stripped the weird peeling/flaking paint off of the fenders, only to find a gallon of bondo on the passenger side. I'm not even going to bother with it. The driver's side is in good condition, though. I hate body work.
Heard a strange scraping sound as I pulled into the driveway. It was part of the rusted, twisted hulk that was my radiator core support. Time to drive the CSX for a while.
The radiator core support is coming apart again...almost have the CSX done.
Swapped back to the original tires and put the Blizzaks in storage. They were excellent tires in the sloppy weather, though we had a fairly mild winter this year. Dry traction and handling is horrible, but I was expecting that given the very soft compound and tall treads. Gonna start on the CSX so I can start tearing into this thing.
Strange thing happened. I tried to go to work one snowy morning, but I couldn't get the beast started. It popped a few times, but then nothing. It was snowing out, which made it a pain to diagnose, but I had fuel and spark. Finally I checked the timing and found that the cam was fine but the ignition had jumped about 50 degrees. I cranked the distributer around to get the rotor pointing at #1 again and it fired right up. The timing belt was done anyway, so I went ahead and replaced it. Also fixed a bunch of little vacuum leaks. Runs better than ever. Will have the Blizzaks shortly....
The stupid radiator core support broke and the engine mount smashed the crap out of the radiator. Whatever moron at whatever body shop fixed this thing did a really crappy job. They replaced some of the metal, but didn't bother to actually weld any of it together. Instead they put a couple of pop rivits in, used the wrong bolts on the ends, and let the rest of it float around (which is why the hood looks a little unsteady at speed). The core support itself was not even straightened out. Instead they welded some angle iron and a piece of a bed frame to it and hoped for the best. The remaining sheet metal fatigued, cracked, and ripped apart. I pushed everything back where it is supposed to be, more or less, and welded it together. It should hold for a while. Ideally I should cut that whole mess out and weld in a new one, but I can probably do some creative sheet metal bending and make it work too.
My intent was to build-up this motor over the summer, but I simply didn't have time. I also wanted to fix the fender and paint the hood, but again no time (house stuff). I spent most of my free time trying to get the CSX ready for the convention. So, the Daytona basically sat in the garage all summer while I drove the CSX.
Before putting the CSX away and getting the Daytona back on the road, I did manage to fix a few things. I went to a local fabric store and purchased new headliner material and finally fixed that stupid thing. While I had it out, I installed the '87 overhead console and associated wiring. While doing that, I also prepared the wiring to accept the early 12-button navigator in the '91 slot. This required splicing in about 12" of wire into the harness so it would reach. Also fixed a few other electrical gremlins. The compass in the overhead console has a problem retaining it's calibration and the thermometer was way out of whack. I managed to calibrate the thermometer, but I was not able to get the little microcontroller in there to keep its memory. I'm not sure what causes it to lose its brains, but it is fairly intermittent. My primary motivation to install it was the compass (I don't have the best sense of direction), but it will have to wait.
Found a friend for that head. New Turbos Unleashed S60 unit with an adjustible large can wastegate, stock .48 A/R exhaust housing, clipped turbine, and a 3" TU swingvalve.
Hail to the king, baby. Come get some sweet sweet Steve Menegon ported head action. Oh yeah.
I pulled the A568 out of the CSX so I can bolt it to this powertrain. I found an A523 with 3.50:1 drive ratio in another corner of the garage. Where did that come from? Then I tripped over this box marked "Quaife"....
I am slowly collecting parts to build up the new power train for this thing. Who knows, maybe I'll have it done for SDAC. Hahahaha...yeah right. Via a series of junkyard trips and parts cars, I finally have all the interior bits for a complete '91 interior. The center console was a bit of a challenge, as it changed between '90 and '91. I wanted a manual shifter and trying to find the right center console pieces in the right color was tricky since I am partial to the '91+ style. I am still confused about how the whole center console works with the navigator and CD player slots. I am not going to install a factory CD player, but it would be nice to understand this. I don't see how one could get at them with the console up so high. The service manuals didn't really have any diagrams that were terribly helpful. I have my hands on a parts car that has everything else I need and more...bwahaha.
I found this thing sitting back in the corner of the garage. Something about being a 2.2L common block with a forged T2 crank, T2 rods, JE forged pistons, big oil pump, etc. I dunno, maybe it's good for something....
Well, the car made it through the rest of the winter and spring. The mileage is about right and the idle has been getting better and better all by itself. I beat on the car quite a bit, so that may be helping it a bit. Could be the warmer weather too. I fiddled with the trans kickdown cable figured out how to do the proper adjustment procedure. It helped a little, but it's still upshift-happy. Oh well.
Well, the common problem theory is out. The fuel guage had a cold solder joint, the tach had a bad tach module (the '86 module works in the '91 cluster, BTW), and the temp guage had a bad sender. I had the meter connected across various grounding points relative to the battery and everything seems to be OK. I also wedged a piece of plywood under the passenger side engine mount, which may have reduced the front-end shake even more. I will probably swap the mount (it looks bad) and shim it up perminently to see if that helps.
I've fiddled around some more, but can't seem to get the last of the gremlins worked out. The tach still likes to go wonky for no reason and the fuel and temp gauges read lower than they should. All of this screams grounding problems, but I have been over them again and again. Either both the fuel and temp senders are hosed and the tach board needs a going-over, or there is a single problem at the core of it all. So far I haven't been able to figure it out. Aside from the exhaust clamps slipping and a few new squeaks added to the collection, the car seems to be working OK. It is actually starting to run better, though the fuel mileage seems low (hard to say the the speed/distance sensor is intermittent).
Well, it took far longer than I could have possibly imagined, but the Daytona is back on the road. Updating all that wiring and getting the new interior installed turned into a complicated ordeal. I installed the doors that I got with the '91 interior, but they didn't have power-anything, so I had to transfer the door lock motors and window tracks (plus the harnesses). Everything was really dirty, so I spent a lot of time cleaning things up and sorting through the boxes of '91 interior parts to try to figure out what goes where (I have never taken one apart before). Unfortunately, a lot of pieces were broken or missing...the guy that removed them must have used a hammer. There were plenty of other things that were broken that needed fixing, such as the steering column and various leaks in the trunk. I also installed the front-end portion of the '89 Daytona Shelby brake and suspension components. This proved to be fatal:
I got it back on the road last week and took it straight to the alignment shop. I noticed that one of the wheel studs on the right side was bent, but I figured it would be OK on 4 studs until I get a chance to replace it. Unfortunately, I didn't realize the two of the other wheel studs on the passenger side were fractured. On the way to the alignment shop, the combination of the excessive toe-in and missing/broken studs caused the remaining studs to sheer off. I was only travelling about 20 MPH at the time, but it was enough to bend the hell out of the front fender. Needless to say, I was pissed. I got towed to the Bill Meisner's Precision Alignment and we replaced the entire hub assembly and pulled-out the fender so that the door would open. He also did do the alignment.
The car seems to handle fairly well and he was able to get the front end pretty straight. There is a problem with uneven caster in the front, which makes the car want to drift slightly to the right. It is possible to add caster by slotting the upper strut bolts and sliding the mount back a bit. Bill can also compensate for the drift by tweaking the backend. I plan to install the solid rear axle assembly from the '89 Daytona Shelby this summer. I will try to add some caster on the left side as well and then take the car back to him for a full 4-wheel alignment job. For now, the car handles better than it ever did before, but it still runs kind of crappy. Went over most of the wiring, cleaned and/or replaced the ground points and straps, and the ignition system has been swapped out. It still has a miss at idle and hesitates between 0 and 5 psi of boost. Now that I have the Cyberdyne on, I see that it goes way lean in that area, but comes on nice and rich above 5 psi. There seems to be a problem with at least one of the fuel injectors, so that will be the next thing to check. I don't want to replace them, as I plan to pitch this motor in a few months.
The floorpans and all associated nonsense are finally, officially completed. All the welds and seams have been caulked from underneith using polyurethane roofing caulk. It takes a long time to cure (especially in this weather), but it sticks to anything and resists solvents better than silicone (which turns to jello when exposed to gasoline). I don't care for the water based acrylic caulk, as it doesn't stick as well and...wel it is water-based. I also coated the fenders with the stuff as a replacement for the rubberized coating that I stripped off.
I have been working with the wiring to update to '87 electronics and the '91 interior. I have the complete harnesses from the '91, but they are so different from the '86 that it makes no sense to try to put them into an '86 body. The big differences are that they flipped the gender of the bulkhead connector (the male side with the bolt is inside instead of outside) and the body connectors are next to the rear seats instead of under the dashboard. It appeared to be much easier to adapt the '86 dash harness to the '91 dashboard. The '86 wiring has a seperate dash harness and body harness (behind the dash), which I see in most of the early body styles. The '91 combines the dash harness with the body harness so that you have one, huge body harness with a bunch of tails going into the dashboard. I found a way to neatly route the '86 dash harness in the '91 dashboard and solder the appropriate connectors from the '91 harness into the '86 harness. I chose NOT to cut any of the '86 connectors off in the unlikely event that I want to go back to the '86 interior. The instrument cluster and message center are easy, but the headlights and windshield wipers/washer is more complex. The '91 electronics uses a HUGE bank of relays to control everything, The switches on the dash are tiny and cannot control these accessories directly. Therefore, a small relay module is needed to adapt the '86 exterior lighting and windshield wiper/washer circuits to the '91 switchboard. In the near term, I hope that I can just keep my old steering column and let the old headlight switch dangle until I have this figured out.
The floorpans are painted. I got stalled over the weekend because I ran out of paint. I had ordered more the previous week, but it was delayed until yesterday due to the holiday. I also painted the area under the rear passenger seat, which was fairly rusty around the rear seat belts and in the bowls. It looks like it rusted from the inside and I'm not sure where the water came from. The rear quarter panel windows are the most likely candidate. I still have to replace the center section of the passenger side front seat crossmember, which had to be removed to replace the rusted metal underneith. Once that is done, I can finally reassemble.
I am seriously considering upgrading the interior to the 1991+ style. I have a line on a mostly-complete black interior from a '91, plus a pair of doors. Supposedly, the new interior will mount to the old body. The exceptions are the door panels and the center console (and the wiring, of course). Since I would get the new doors, that is not a problem. Some fabrication will probably be needed for the center console, though. The other part I'm not sure about is the steering column. I'd like to keep the one I have, so hopefully that will work. I have not run across anyone who has really done this before, so it should be interesting. In the interest of time, I may have to delay this until the spring though or perhaps do a partial conversion. It would be a shame to put all the old stuff back in just to rip it all out again, but I am pushing my luck with the weather as it is.
Well, all the pans are in, the holes are patched, and the surfaces prepped for final paint. The surface is rusty from the acidic etching solution used for POR-15 ("Metal Ready"). If the weather holds, I will finally paint the thing this weekend. I will be very happy when this is done so that I can start putting the car back together. There is a fair amount of mechanical stuff to do along the way, but I don't have to worry so much about the temperature with that. I just want to have it back on the road before the first serious snowfall so that the CSX can be put back into the garage.
On that note, I have collected a nice array of parts for it. I have the rear axle assembly, front springs, knuckles and calipers, master cylinder, and proportioning valve from a 1989 Daytona Shelby. The should handle awesome once everything is aboard, though I doubt I will have time for that this year. I have stainless steel braided brake lines, Koni struts and shocks, and polyurethane control arm bushings as well. I hope to have the struts, shocks, and bushings in this year yet, since I have it all apart anyway. I'd be a shame not to upgrade the brakes too, but I am missing various bolts and bits and I don't want to get stalled. I guess we'll just see how it goes.
Got the driver's side welded in. I didn't do quite as nice a job forming this sheet. I sort of got it close, tacked it in and beat the crap out of it with a large sledge hammer to form the front of it to the weird shape of the floor pan around there. I also did not try to reproduce the channels like I did on the passenger side. I did kink a couple of diagonal dents with a cold chisel and hammer on the right portion to keep the panel from wobbling.
Progress has been slow but steady on the floorpans. The passenger side is welded back in. I ended up getting a MIG welder, as it is the only way to do sheet metal (short of TIG). It definately makes the job much easier and better-looking than trying to do it with a stick welder (less cleanup). I did get one of those stitch welders off of eBay for $20. For stick welding small stuff, it really does help. The rod doesn't stick to the piece and you don't have to worry so much about burn-though. Before welding the plates in, I painted the frame rail and the bottom of the plates with POR-15 Chassiscote Semigloss Black. I have had good luck with POR-15 in the past, but this will be the real test. Obviously, I had to take a wire wheel to the places that I welded the plates to the frame because the paint was burned away. I will go back and touch those up. Also, I won't be using the semigloss stuff again. The finish is very random with using a brush to apply it. Spraying it probably works better.
The driver's side is out and the paint stripped. I was disappointed to find the rear K-frame mount on that side is bent as well. This one is bent down instead of up. Even so, I was unable to straighten it. I may give it one more shot with brute force (dropping the car on a jack stand) before welding, though. That's the only way I've ever been able to straighten heavy gauge frame rail steel in the past. Also, the driver's side fender is rusted out pretty bad at the top where it meets the firewall. This area is prone to rust on these cars if it has ever been in an accident. The body caulk cracks and then water, salt and debris gets packed into the seam by the wheels. The passenger side is rusty too, but still solid. If you see any cracks in the body caulk from the fenders, make sure the inside doesn't look like this:
Well, the car has pretty much been sitting all summer. I spent most of it working on the house and yard, but I do now have 60A service to the garage. I also have a compressor and a stick welder. I just hope I get the paint on the car before the weather turns cold. I have a heater, but I don't dare use it while painting.
I started getting serious with the floorpans a few weeks ago, but then work sent me out of the country for two weeks. I now have all the rotted sheetmetal out of the passenger side (ended up being most of it). The damage from the previous owner's incident with the pothole is quite extensive. Much of the floorpan and firewall on that side is buckled and cracked, which is what caused it to rot out. The frame rail was pushed up and outwards, but remained completely rust-free. Apparently, the impact to the front of the K-frame, caused the K-frame to "pivot" on its front mount and mash the rear mount up and back. Quite franky, the car isn't worth fixing, but it is too late for that now. I managed to push the frame rail back down and over somewhat. The position of the rear K-frame mount still isn't right, but I think it is closer to where it should be. I bent some really huge 2" angle iron and plate steel trying to straighten the thing out. I will compensate by shimming down the K-frame on that mount and hogging-out the stud hole to give me more freedom. Hopefully it will be enough. The right-front K-frame mount is squashed and only partially connected to the frame rail, but it is accessible enough to fix. Right now, I am stripping the paint off of the remainder of the floorpan and rail so that I can paint everything with POR-15. The last thing I want is to have all this work rust-out on me. If the car still shakes under acceleration after all this, I will be really pissed.
I got the rear brakes put back together, finally. I originally took them apart to try to fix a squealing problem back there. I believe it was due to a broken spring on one of the brake shoes. I also wanted to bleed the brake system and flush it out with new fluid. Even though the brakes and lines are suprisingly unrusty, the bleeder on the left side snapped off. After breaking an extractor trying to get it out, I just replaced the cylinders on both sides (less than $10 each :). Of course, the flare nuts were frozen to the brake lines (which weren't even rusty), but I was able to spin the cylinder off the nut. On the right side, the grease around outer bearing was contaminated with water and grit and the spindle nut was even rusty. The dust cap seems OK, so I just flushed out all the grease with gasoline and repacked the bearings. The races looked fine, so I didn't bother replacing anything. Some new brake hardware and grease seals later, it was all back together.
I always like to get into everything on a new (ha!) car to get a handle on where things are. The shoes themselves seemed new and I know the front pads are new, so I should be good in the brake department. Another thing that I thought was odd was that the emergency brake cables are NOT frozen! The car is an automatic, so I doubt they were ever used. For whatever reason, these cables are plastic-coated. All of the '87 Daytonas and Shadows I've seen were just steel and would rust within a year or two, while my '88 had the coating. This car gets weirder and weirder.
I think I have decided what paints I am going to use. In the interest of not having to worry about rusting under the primer, I will take the body down to metal, spray with POR-15 clear, POR-15 tie-coat primer, and PPG color and clear coats. The underbody and fenders will get the POR-15 underbody treatment in semigloss black. That should intomb the metal for all eternity. I also need to think about how I am going to weld in the plates to patch up the underbody and straighten-out the front end. At the moment, the driver's side door is partially stripped and the rear end is in the air so that I can investigate the squeaky brakes and bleed the lines. As usual, the bleeders snapped off when I tried to remove them, so hopefully I will be able to extract them. If not, new cylinders are only $15.
Haven't done much work to the car lately, but I have stopped driving it. I went to take care of some rust that was forming just above the bumper strip on the passenger-side door. What I uncovered was that the strip was attached to the door with silicone rubber and under it was all rust. In a few places it did rust through, but since it is under the strip, I'm not concerned. It appears that the door had been hit at some point, as there are holes drilled in random places, probably from a dent pull-out tool. Whoever straightened the metal did a good job, but they didn't bother painting it! So, it looks like I am going to have to DA the whole door and repaint it. The paint is cracking in several places anyway, probably due to rust forming. I see the same thing happening on the passenger-side front fender as well as the hood, but nowhere else. Hopefully I'll have a compressor soon, so I will be able to do a proper painting job. This will be the practice I need to repaint the Shelby.
I found the damn electrical load that was draining the battery. The battery wouldn't last sitting for more than about 2 days. I measured about a 300mA drain, which is a lot! I isolated it to the power seat/power door lock circuit, which made so sense since I have no power seats and the power door lock motors draw many amps when they are on. A quick glance at the wiring diagrams revealed the horn circuit also being fed from this circuit. The horn doesn't work and I never looked as to why. It appears that the steering column wiring for the horn switch is shorted and it was disabled at the horn itself. Unfortunately, this left the horn relay on at all times and, apparently, and relay coil draws about 280mA. Anyway, I yanked the relay and now everything is fine. I still see about 22mA of drain, 4 of those are for the Dawes Devices A/F guage, which was tied right to the battery. The rest must be the radio and clock, I guess.
I re-replaced the left-front wheel bearing. It went rather easily, considering what a pain it can be. The assembly came out with a sledge and went in easily with a pair of C-clamps. The only major problem I ran into was that the new rotors had rusted to the new (failed) hub assembly. Ended up having to use a hydraulic puller and a sledge to get it off. I think it rusted around the center of the hub, so I dabbed a little anti-seize on there.
For an encore, I went to tighten a hose clamp on the heater bypass valve when it went "click". Damn, and I was doing so well. It was a Mopar unit and it was as if the plastic has broken-down. Instead of being brittle, it had the consistency of hardened rubber hose. It just crumbled in my fingers. I had the spare from the Shadow, but since it had the new-style intake (bypass valve under the battery tray), the valve inlet points the wrong way. I managed to find a nylon elbow that I could use for now. I bought a new one at Auto-Stoned for $12. It was the all-plastic one, like the one from my Shadow. It lasted for over 7 years, so I won't complain.
Had a little scare with the Daytona's engine...thought I blew it. When I pulled the fuel pressure regulator, the vacuum line appeared to be disconnected. That may explain why it was running rich, but it shouldn't run at all at 10psi of boost. Anyway, that coupled with some apparent oil coming out of the dipstick and the fact that is was missing at idle, I thought I cracked a ringland. Well, I snugged up the dipstick and after installing the new adjustable FPR, it seemed to run fine. I did a compression check and it was the same as before: about 130psi on all four. The plugged looked perfect. I guess I'm OK, but it still starts missing on one cylinder if it is left idling for a while. That Dawes Devices A/F gauge has rather dim green LEDs, so it's hard to see them in the day and I don't know if I am rich or so lean that I'm off the scale. I might just install my old Cyberdyne so I can see what is going on.
Since it is an early-style T1 intake, I had to use a universal adjustable fuel pressure regulator from FWD Performance. I managed to install it in the same location as the stock unit by grinding-out part of the bracket to clear the return line fittings. I also had to bend the short pipe for the return line on the fuel rail slightly to clear the unit. The regulator has 3 fittings: two -4 AN fittings on the bottom (outlet in the center and inlet to the side) and a 1/8" NPT pipe fitting on the side for a pressure gauge. I was lazy and just used two brass 1/4" flare fittings for the inlet and outlet. I placed an o-ring at the base of the flare fitting threads, which sealed the fitting to the regulator housing. I also used Teflon tape on the threads so the threads were not so loose. I then wedged a piece of aluminum between the two fittings so they would not turn when I installed the rest of the brass pipe fittings. I enlarged the hole in the stock bracket slightly and used the 1/4" NPT street elbow to mount the regulator to the bracket (between the elbow and flare fitting). A 1/4" NPT to 3/8" hose adapter was mounted to the elbow (inlet) and a 1/4" NPT to 1/4" hose adapter to the center flare fitting (outlet). In order to the fuel gauge fitting to face upwards, the elbow is rotated such that it is pointing somewhat towards the valve cover, similar to the stock regulator. It's a little tight between the two hose fittings, but it works and looks decent.
Haven't done much due to time constraints. The gas mileage is really poor, maybe due to the stock FPR being unable to dump off the extra fuel from the Walbro 192 fuel pump. Time to put the adjustable unit in, I guess. I also bought new GM "WeatherPack" connectors for the coolant and air charge temp sensors. They both have broken tabs and the coolant sensor code keeps getting set. I will also be stripping the interior from a fellow club member's '86 Laser with the same interior color. The Daytona's interior has many broken parts, so hopefully I'll be able to get one good interior from the two.
Fixed a few odds and ends on the days I had off from work. The big thing was the driver's side door. It has a new latch, new pins and bushings, and I repaired the door jam wiring. The window still gets cocked funny on the way up, which causes it to hang up. The rubber is in really bad shape, so I'm sure that is not helping. It's nice to have a fully-working door, though. Removing the lower door pin is a real PITA. After trying several approaches, I had to Dremel part of the bottom tip off so that I could get a C-clamp in there and press it out. There is no way to punch it out with those damn Turbo Z ground effects in the way. I supported the door with rope strung over the garage ceiling rafters, looped through two holes in the door frame.
Got the fuel tank to stop leaking, finally. The lock ring was definitely not tightened all the way, but I decided to drop the tank anyway and fix it right. The gasket was still in good condition, but I flared the sealing surface out a bit to make it squeeze the gasket harder, just in case. Also fixed the alignment tabs so the sender was oriented properly. I still need to do something about the connectors, as the gauge never shows full and I never get more than 10 gallons in when empty. There is also a grounding problem back there, I think, which may have something to do with it.
Fixing various odds and ends: fuel gauge sender, rear view mirror, hatch struts, more wiring, etc. Still leaking gas from the sender gasket, but it's probably because the lock ring isn't fully tightened. Once the tank is near empty again, I'll drop it and try to snug it up. I also decided to do a compression test after I noticed that it sounded like it was missing consistently at idle. Results were 127-130-127-135. That's a little higher than I would expect, particularly for a high mileage motor that consumes oil, but I feel better about the bottom end in this thing. I have a feeling that this turbo may be on the way out...the oil is going somewhere besides on the ground. The plugs also looked good, though they were quite eroded. I replaced them with a set of Autolite 64s I had, which should hopefully quell the occasional pinging I hear at part throttle/high boost. The vacuum lines were a mess, so I addressed those. We'll see how it is, but the MAP sensor line was very loose, possibly causing lean-out (who knows). I put the WCV (Grainger valve) from my Shadow in it, so we'll see how that effects lag. This motor idles funny and seems to hesitate when accelerating from a full stop, so I'm not sure what is going on. Once I get all the fittings I need for my adjustable FPR, I'll be able to put the 804 injectors in and monkey with the fuel to get the mixture right. There is definitely something screwy with the mixture on this thing, but it may be due to electronics. It runs rich when it doesn't need to and lean in boost on certain occasions. I'd like to convert it to '87 electronics in order to unify it with my CSX. Need to find an '87 T1 LM for that....
I cleaned the armrest when I put the door back together and it no longer matched the rest of the dirty interior. So, I took some time to clean the dashboard, center console, steering wheel, etc. Looks much better now. I also fixed the power mirror wiring and properly attached the center console to the dashboard. There are a lot of broken pieces in there, so hopefully I'll get them from Bill's Lazer.
Drove it to work today. I stopped for gas on the way and was greeted with more gas leaking from the tank. Now it appears to be coming from the fuel sender unit (which isn't working), so I get to drop the tank again. I'll let it run/leak down before I mess with it though. I fixed the radio-related wiring, so I at least have some tunage now. I also put the stock intake setup back on so I don't have to listen to the throttle body noises. I tried adjusting the door handles (they are hard to open), but they seem to be adjusted as far as they will go. Guess I'll have to take the door apart. I'm trying to find replacement striker bolts, with no luck yet.
I got the fuel pump installed tonight. I was expecting a battle to get the fuel tank strap nuts loose (I even bought an 8mm x 1.25 die to clean up the threads), but they came off with ease. The pump has been replaced before; in fact it was even a Walbro unit (stock), which made the conversion to the high capacity unit a bit easier. The inside of the tank is rather rusty (but is solid), and I found an extra pump intake sock floating around in there. Also, the inner tray that is used to siphon fuel out of a nearly empty tank had popped off of its mount (probably at the hands of the previous installer). It took a lot of fiddling, but I was able to pop it back on. I have a feeling there was nothing really wrong with the old pump, but the tank is in good shape now. Also, the fuel filler neck grommet was leaking partially because it was ripped up by whoever took it out last.
This car is weird. Besides the front end issues and all that, the under body is strangely free of rust except for the places it rusted completely through. Two of these places are the front-outside corners of the floorpan. This is typical because the front wheels sling rocks and stuff at them. The other rusted out area is the spare tire well in the trunk, but there is obvious evidence that someone backed the car into something: there are scratch marks elsewhere back there and the rear trailing arm was bent up real bad (I swapped it with the Shadow). It really does seem like it came from down south. Unfortunately, the CarFax report only goes back to 1991, so I don't know where the car was originally bought. The underbody was coated at some point with that rubberized stuff, but it doesn't look factory. Either the rear shocks are original or they were put on after the underbody coating was applied, because they are covered in the stuff! In any case, it may have helped protect the underbody.
Well after some additional stripping of my Shadow ES, I've begun to take a close look at the issues with this car. The front end is really screwed up. I can see the buckled metal in the frame around the area of the front-right K-frame mount and the mount itself seems to be displaced. It's pushing the front-right corner of the K-frame down by about an inch, giving it a weird twist. I can also see that the right wheel is offset to the rear by about 1/2 inch, compared to the left wheel. Assuming the K-frame wasn't bent when it was installed in this crooked setup, I should be able to fix it by cutting the displaced mount off the car frame, fixturing the K-frame in the correct position and orientation, and welding it back on. I may also have to weld a plate over the area of the frame that is buckled to give it some additional strength. I will then recenter the engine, which should hopefully cure the front end shake problem.
I already have a lot of new parts for the car ready to go. I plan to replace the fuel pump and the fuel filler neck grommet (source of my leak) this evening, which should make the car more-or-less drivable. The pump is the Walbro/Holley 190 L/hr unit from FWD Performance, which flows 47% more fuel over the stock unit. The grommet was provided to me by the previous owner...he just never had a chance to install it. Still need to transfer the title, as my useless local DMV "doesn't do that". Next I'll try to tackle the front-end issues, if I can get a hold of a MIG welder.
Made it! The car is home. There really weren't any problems making it back (that shake it has at low speed is still scary), though having to stop for gas 3 times was annoying. The fuel tank leaks if it's above 3/4 full and the fuel pump is at risk of dying if the tank is less than 1/4 full. That leaves about 7 gallons of fuel to work with. Add to that the crumby mileage you get when you combine a 3-speed automatic transmission with a short drive ratio and a set of small 205/50R15 tires, and you find yourself stopping for gas quite often. The Dawes Devices A/F ratio meter also started working and I noticed the engine would stay rich for long periods of time while I was cruising (not in boost). That probably didn't help either.
As I got closer to home, I started playing with the car a little more. I've owned a 2.2L Turbo I with an automatic before, but this one makes surprising power. Granted, the boost is bled to about 10psi, but that's only 3psi over stock. I have some crazy plans to start playing with this early T1 setup, so we'll see how much power I can make before I blow up the trans. :-)
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