metaruss

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.