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 Back in a Formula Again 
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Looking forward to cruising again. There are a couple more 3rd Gens my way. We might soon outnumber the mustang club :twisted:


Fri Apr 27, 2018 1:07 pm
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Gee wrote:
Looking forward to cruising again. There are a couple more 3rd Gens my way. We might soon outnumber the mustang club :twisted:


Once your hotrod is mobile again, if there are adequate numbers perhaps a weekly cruise in for coffee night should be arranged!


Sun Apr 29, 2018 7:38 am
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Well the inevitable reality of driving an almost 30 year old car happened last Wednesday. On my way home from work I let off the gas to coast up to a traffic light only to have the car die on me..........I coasted off to the side of the road where it refused to restart. Being only about 2-3 kms from home, I made a phone call to get picked up & headed off to get my truck & a tow strap to bring her the rest of the way home. No point trying to diagnose & fix it on the side of a fairly busy road with no tools!

Once I got it home & in the garage on the hoist, I was a little annoyed, so I just left it till yesterday to set about diagnosing the problem (things never go well for me working on cars when I'm in a bad mood!!).

I quickly determined I had 0 fuel pressure, so after spending half an hour or so checking wiring etc to make sure it wasn't a connection or wiring issue, I came to the unfortunate conclusion the fuel pump was dead.

So I spent several hours yesterday afternoon dropping the tank out of the car to extract the dead pump from the tank......it wasn't any more enjoyable this time than it was the first time I did it!

Image20180506_164554 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Once the pump was out, just to confirm my diagnosis I wired the pump up directly to the battery........it was dead. Just for giggles I gave it a few good whacks on my bench vise & it did actually come back to life again, but I guess I'll be off to the parts store today for a replacement.


Mon May 07, 2018 8:54 am
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Headed out this morning to hopefully find a replacement pump.

Now before I go any further, I want to say that I truly do prefer to spend my money locally, but good Lord they are making it difficult! Before I left the house this morning I checked on RockAuto and found that I could have a standard replacement pump & strainer shipped to my door for $40 CDN. In my mind I reasoned that if I could find one locally for say $60-$70 + tax and have it today, that would be worth it to me. Well after visiting my local NAPA & PartSource & being quoted $120 with tax, I came home and ordered from RockAuto. If this were my daily driver & I NEEDED that part ASAP I'd have begrudgingly paid it & got the job done, however having my car sit on the hoist for a few days waiting for parts is of no concern to me at all.........and certainly not a reason to pay TRIPLE for a part. It infuriates me that its cheaper to have a part shipped in from the US, than it is to drive to the parts store on the corner to buy the same part.......but, end of rant.

Now that I'm resigned to the car being on my hoist for a few days with the exhaust system off, it gives me a good opportunity to address something that's always bugged me. My Jegs catback has always performed well & sounded great, but the plain aluminized tail pipes just looked, well, plain!

Image20180507_134354 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

They didn't polish up as well as I'd hoped they would without spending days on them, but they look much better than they did!


Mon May 07, 2018 3:24 pm
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
New pump arrived Friday...had it in Friday night. She fired right back up, but I only had time for a 5 minute test drive to ensure all was working well again.

Got out early this morning & went out for a good hour. I'm now suspicious this car may have had a fuel delivery issue all this time. Start ups are immediate now rather than the couple seconds of cranking it took before. Never was the car so responsive to stabbing at the throttle as it is now. There was always a very mild surging at the very lightest of throttle that only I would notice driving it (passengers never did) that has now disappeared.

So while it was an annoying pain in the butt to do, the resulting improvement in driveability has totally made it worth it. :D

Once I get the 91 octane burned off that is in the car now & get it filled back up with the 94 octane it likes, I think it may be prudent to stick my wideband back in the car to see if anything has happened at WOT before I go indulging in full throttle blasts.


Sun May 13, 2018 6:44 pm
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Put the wideband and laptop in the car after work today to ensure everything is as it should be & have discovered that the new pump has solved another oddity I was trying to resolve unsuccessfully last year.

At some point last year while datalogging the car I noticed an unusual pattern in the O2 sensor's pattern while at WOT. Normally at WOT the O2 sensor will have a nice smooth trace........this is what I was observing.

ImageCapture 2017 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

After getting home from gathering data, I reviewed it all and discovered the pump seems to have resolved this issue.

Imagecapture 2018 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Car has never run better......very pleased!


Tue May 15, 2018 6:46 pm
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
As I described in this thread, viewtopic.php?f=41&t=15889, its become apparent that this mill needs to come out.

Originally I thought maybe I'll just cruise around easy on it this summer and swap it this coming winter. I spent a week or so doing that and came to the realization that I really wasn't enjoying the car like I normally would...….I didn't really venture very far with it fearing the death knock would start suddenly, I avoided going anywhere that might potentially involve getting stuck in traffic as oil pressure REALLY drops when the car gets hot, I couldn't indulge in any childish fun...…...so I made the decision yesterday to just roll my sleeves up and get the motor swap done so that I could go back to enjoying it.

Made al lot of progress yesterday. Probably another hour of work will have it ready to come out.
ImageDD9F7F32-ABE8-40DE-B1B4-62CD78F410CB by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr


So it'll likely be out of commission for a couple weeks while I complete the job, but she should be better than ever when I'm done!


Tue Jun 19, 2018 7:11 am
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Well that went quicker and smoother than I anticipated.

ImageUnder hood by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

After doing some clean up/degreasing I was quite pleased to find what good condition the car is in the few places I hadn't seen to this point with the motor in the way

Hopefully time will allow me to start tear down of the old rusted lump of all the parts that are getting transferred to the new motor today, or at least this weekend. I'd really like to get the pan off to see what exactly gave up in there!

ImageSide by side by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

The new motor is certainly going to have a lot more visual appeal than the old one!!


Fri Jun 22, 2018 5:42 am
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Tore down the old engine yesterday morning. All went uneventful, but in the back of my mind I was keeping an eye for the cause of the sudden loss of oil pressure with each component I removed. Naturally it wasn't until I removed the very last component that I found the problem.

Imagereceived_10160763818070556 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Looks like something went through the oil pump.

So I feel much better about my decision to pull the motor now. It wasn't just something stupid that I was overlooking. There was a legitimate problem, & I feel like my decision to pull the motor when I did likely prevented this motor from having a catastrophic ending.

While I haven't pulled the rotating assembly out, I did pull the main bearing caps, and rod caps (looking for the oil pressure issue) and can see this motor was getting pretty tired. Bearings look to be wore out, there is very little piston ring tension left (which explains this engines appetite to consume oil), but other than that it looks to be a GREAT candidate for a rebuild. Cylinder wear looks to be very minimal (I say all of this without having measured anything yet!)


So now that I'm satisfied that I've identified what happened I'll tuck this engine away and focus on getting the new mill assembled and in the car........I'll get back to this one later.


The other thing that has been in my mind now, is that if this mill performed as well as it did, as worn out as it is, I'm super stoked to find out how this new one will run!!


Sat Jun 23, 2018 7:45 am
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Made some good progress today!


ImageLong block by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr


I've got a few detail I can work away at for the time being, but I'm kind of at a stand still waiting for the new cam I've selected for this motor to arrive!


Sun Jun 24, 2018 9:31 pm
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
While I'm waiting on my new cam, I've been attending to all the little small details.

I decided to mock everything up on the new motor to ensure everything fits as it should & I don't have any surprises when I place the motor in the car. While doing this I discovered why I've had such a miserable time with oil leaks at the back of the intake manifold......much easier to see with the engine not in the car!

ImageManifold on block by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr


Directly behind the oil galley plug the manifold only overhangs the china wall of the block by MAYBE 1/16 of an inch!! If you didn't lay down your bead of RTV just right before placing the manifold on, you're virtually guaranteed a leak here. Now that I know where I have to run my bead of RTV I don't expect to have any issues with leaks here this time. Previously I ran my RTV down the center of the china wall and the results were predictable. Glad I got to the bottom of that issue!!


I'm also pleased to see that my headers now clear my starter!! Not by much mind you.....I'd bet there is less than an 1/8" in there, but they clear nonetheless!

ImageHeaders cklearing starter by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr


That is without my new Remflex header gasket installed either. I'm done with header leaks so I popped for some premium Remflex header gaskets......these bad boys are 1/8" thick! (which should space the header further out from the starter yet)! If these things leak I'll give up working on cars and take up basket weaving! A friend of mine had similar issues with his Hooker headers leaking no matter what type of gasket he used. At the time I ordered my gaskets, I ordered him a set too. He has had his installed all summer and is super happy to report his headers are finally leak free...….I'm hoping for the same results!


Wed Jun 27, 2018 3:10 pm
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Having nothing in particular to do yesterday morning I went out to the garage and put my degree wheel and dial indicator on the Lunati cam in the old motor just to see if what Lunati spec'd it at matched what I measured.

Given that cam swap was done in the car, degreeing a cam or taking cam measurements is a complete pain to do in the car, so I had just installed the cam dot to dot and called it good...….and it was or so I thought. I was a little surprised the car now wanted 94 octane fuel, but didn't really give much thought to it.

After a half hour, pretty much every spec was bang on from Lunati with the exception of 1. Intake centerline. This cam is supposed to have an intake centerline of 108 degrees and a lobe seperation of 112 degrees. A 108 degree intake centerline would have given me a dynamic compression ratio in the 8.1x range......perfect! The 106 degree intake centerline it was actually installed at wound up giving me a dynamic compression ratio in the 8.3x range......that's getting on the high side for iron heads and explains the requirement of 94 octane.


Once I was done taking measurements, I came in to the house and plugged all the valve event timing into my simulation software and played around a bit. Had I played around with the intake centerline the cam was installed at, there was literally 21 hp left on the table! Lesson learned.

My new Lunati Voodoo cam should be here Friday......first thing I will be doing is taking full measurements of it, deciding what intake centerline I want it installed at & ensuring that is what it actually winds up being installed at. Luckily the timing set I'm using is adjustable +/- 6 deg in 1 deg increments, so I have no excuse to not get it right!


Tue Jul 03, 2018 7:04 am
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
So here is a situation most of us have been in.

What do you do when your almost 30 year old & brittle formed vacuum lines break on you? You can't just go to GM and get a new one anymore.

Image20180703_191433 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

You fabricate your own! I measured the old vacuum line at 5/32"......I suspected a 3/16" line would make a nice snug fit in the couplers so I stopped by the local parts store on the way home tonight & picked up a 4 ft long length of brake line.


With a little time and patience, me and my tube bender came up with a nice solution to my vacuum hose issue!
Image20180703_193449 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Image20180703_195319 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Not only will these lines never go brittle and break on me again, but given that I'm fabricating the new lines I can route them as I please in a less intrusive, more cosmetically appealing way than the originals were.

Image20180703_195619 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Image20180703_200130 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr


Tue Jul 03, 2018 9:22 pm
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
This thread is still solid gold. Sadly theres no one left to see it. Cant wait to see the rest

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Wed Jul 04, 2018 7:11 pm
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Corp Z wrote:
This thread is still solid gold. Sadly theres no one left to see it. Cant wait to see the rest



I suspect that there are still a lot of lurkers as the views of this thread are currently in excess of 55,000.


Wed Jul 04, 2018 9:08 pm
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