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THE
PHOENIX PROJECT
03/02/2005 Not much of an update to the project itself, but the name has changed. Quite some time ago when I was considering the possibility of a rebody on the totaled 84 SVO™, Pat in L.A. gave me 'Phoenix' as an idea for the project name based on the movie premise in Flight of the Phoenix. I went to Amazon and bought the movie... A great film for it's time. I've got the remake in front of me right now and am just about to pop it in the DVD player. Anyway, I digress. The rebody was voted out and I bought the 86 2A and 2R from Chattanooga. As it turned out, more parts ended up on the 2R than I expected. This fall it also got the cloth interior hatch lid and will eventually get the front license plate holder. Though the drive train from the 84 remains stored and may be used for an up coming project, I think it's safe to say the 2R does impart the mythology behind the Phoenix Bird. Though my car did not actually burn, out of it's destruction is born a second lease on life for the 86 2R. When all is said and done, it will also be Phoenix Red - a color very close to the original Jalipeno. Looking at the rust repair I did on the lower half of the drivers door, pictured above, you can see just how close the two colors are. I've had the car on the road on and off for the past few months. It drives and handles nice enough considering how long it sat. A few problems, some of witch I may or may not have addressed below are the rear end, axle bearings or possible diff problems and the tendency for the car to fall on it's face at 4K. The best way to describe it, is jitters. Similar to what you'd get at a rev-limiter. The first time it happened I found one plug had popped the electrode porcelain. I changed out the plugs with some 32C's and I lost a cylinder coming home from work. Upon inspection, I found yet another plug with the electrode porcelain broken. It was actually sliding back and forth on the electrode and this was shorting to the inside of the plug. At least the other one was only shipped and misfiring instead of not firing at all. Even after changing the plugs I'm still dropping off hard at 4K. With all the bad weather we've been having, I've had no chance to dig into the issue. It could be something as simple as a bad set of wires, but until I get to it, it remains a mystery. 01/25/2005 As with the Rusty Resto project, things have changed. This is a low mile one owner car despite the poor appearance and neglect. It's in surprisingly good shape for being abandoned in a field for 10 years. If it were not for the southern origin, it would have been rusty scrap metal long ago. So this car now takes on the roll of stock modified. I'm going to leave the T3/T04E and 255 LPH HF fuel pump in the car and put everything else back to stock. With tuning it should run close to 300 BHP. Enough to have fun on the street and track in the low 13 second range. I'm going to leave details out of the outlines until the mods, repairs or replacements actually happen. Less rewriting for me if something changes. As I said in the Rusty Writeup, the reason we are switching gears is due to the extent of sheet metal replacement on the 84. That car will be the company mascot and my race car. In my eyes it just could never really be considered a good example of a restored to stock SVO™ without a complete rebody - and that would be cheating. 11/13/2004 More progress was made on Restomod86 last week. The carpet is clean and the old seats from my 84 take up residence in place of the shredded leather. This car was originally cloth and will get it's original interior back some time in the near future. The center console repair went without a hitch, I cannot express enough the value of activating spray when it comes to using crazy/super glue. Awesome stuff. Next on the list is the rear diff. On the way back from working on the rusty resto project it felt like the thing was ready to puke it guts out of the pumpkin and send both axles flying. Unfortunately this means the car is parked till the parts show up and I get the time to tear into it. 11/07/2004 As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the 2R is being prepped for the road this winter. Why winter? Well, I feel the fox 3 is better car for driving in bad weather than the fox 4. My 6 just seems very unwieldy, specially in the rain. In the snow, it doesn't go anywhere due to P245/45 ZR17s. On really bad snow days I use my wifes bug anyway. That little thing is a snow plow and the turbo on/off behavior is a little more friendly because I haven't messed with it... yet. On to the 2R. The car is rough, but nothing compared to the Rusty Resto. Below is a list of what I did last weekend and this weekend. ...but first - with yet another 5 day gap in possession due to the shop making some blundering mistakes. Here is a quick list of what I found wrong. Tuneup a long time ago (Not requested) - Cap, rotor, pugs, wires were not Motorcraft. Computer left on floor. Door wire harness shoved into outer fender. Insulation removed and on floor. Intake system put back together without cleaning; sending dirt and oil through my new turbo. Pics in the gallery. Tranny leak - did not catch bad rear seal leak when changing clutch. Throwout bearing noise & clutch not set up properly; feels slightly engaged with peddle out in neutral. Oil leaks - valve cover bolts were loose. Used wrong gasket for block/pan - this was partly my fault as I did not know the pan was for an 87/88TC. My block is a 4pc and the pan is a 1pc. Antifreeze smell under boost - possible leak - failed to tighten thermostat hose clamp Failed to source rear noise - did not even remove rear wheels to see if brakes were part of the cause (brakes/rotors and calipers that they installed from the crashed 84) Did remove ebrake cable bolts from calipers and never told me - didn't give me the bolts Though they had the car for 5 days to do about 2 days worth of work, they found a way to not have time to install subframes (30 minute job because I removed the interior) and the new ebrake cables. Now I know I'm not their only customer, but I told him I wanted the car back ASAP! Why back shelf the customer you are trying to save by correcting errors. What was the point of insisting I let them fix these problems in the first place if they were just going to fubar it all over again? Note on the shop oversights: The car was at Joe's Certified Auto for almost a year. Despite concessions made by Joe to keep the car there (it was getting lots of parts from the 84 which was being parted there thanks to Joe as well) and the over all good rates I was getting on the work they did, the poor workmanship, sad attention to detail and blatant incompetence is something I'm not willing to put up with more than twice. They had a chance to fix the problems, but what should have taken a few days took an entire week and one main problem - rear end noise - I was told was due to the tail pipe rubbing the tire and knocking the frame was NOT the main problem with noise back there. It rumbles, rattles and makes a warped rotation sound when moving the car in tight circles or backing out of a parking spot; impossible to miss, yet they insist there is nothing going on now that the exhaust is fixed. It just amazes me how they could miss something so obvious Twice! At first I summed it up to bad mechanics, but Joe is running the show. If he can't fix things properly after a problem is brought up, then there is a bigger problem going on here with his choice of employees. Needless to say, they've seen me and my money for the last time. We have all the tools and most of the equipment to do everything ourselves now, so money previously spent on labor can now go into buying SVO™ restoration parts and product development. Ok, Rant is finished. Lets take a look at where the 2R stands after these last two weekends Interior Door panel installed Door handle and hardware The passenger door has an aftermarket lock actuator in it, but not the harness. I've got the harness I need along with the switch and will add it all in today time permitting. Put computer back and replaced kick panel light switch hold down nut - (found at junk yard) Dome light cover - spare parts bin wide molding right rear - was in the car and is now missing. gear shift cover plate with tabs - (not found yet) ash tray bracket and tray, lighter - (forgot to grab it, next time) console storage door hardware including spring latch and plastic repair - This is a project in unto itself. I'm going to tackle it today, making new plastic sections for the retaining clips of the console storage door. I found the door latch clip in the JY need to replace passenger side seat belt buckle (plastic is cracked and sharp) Body Hinge pins/bushings replaced on drivers door. Rust repaired/paint drivers door. This was yesterdays unplanned all day project. The door is toast, but Eric suggested I take care of it because it could be months before we get to the body work on this car; may as well prevent it from deteriorating completely before we get to work on this car. Sub frame connectors - got them and will install when I get a chance Replaced drivers fender (2 weeks ago) Replaced windshield (2 weeks ago) replaced hatch - totally rotted one for a slightly less rotted one. passenger fender needs a little work near the bottom where the rocker panel clips in. Repair or replace the rocker panel. Engine The engine is stock from the block to the head - mods are. T3/T04E 57/63 Rods Header 3" down pipe to 3" Magnaflow cat/muffler - 2.5" over the axle - single pipe/dual tip. TC Intercooler "65"mm ford throttle body and adapter kit Ported and powder coated Turbo Coupe Upper and Lower intake with fanolic spacer Powder coated fuel rail Accufab FPR @ 40 Gillis boost valve Forced4 Bypass kit Racer walsh underdrive pulley Racer walsh adjustable cam sprocket Afco single core aluminum radiator slimline fan Future mods Racer walsh big valve iron head A237 CAM NPR front mound intercooler Pro3i adjustable upper and lower control arms Polly bushings 8.8 Rear end with airbags What to look at immediately Power steering rack - just a checkup Squeaky rear E-brake cables - driver side is broken. I've got two cables and will get to this when I can. So that's it. I'm off to update the Rusty Resto project. Despite my non-participation this weekend due to RestoMod, Eric got the old roof off and began work on the skeleton. Be sure to check it out. October 27th 2004 Yesterday I had a chance to tackle the interior of the car. During the install of the new hatch over the weekend; upon pulling the left quarter interior panel out far enough to remove the wire harness, I smelled death. The mouse nest in the spare tire was a clue, but my worst fear was they scattered into the panels and died. As luck would have it, they moved at one point to under the rear seat, but were subsequently crushed some time in the last month. I'll know by the end of the week if I got them all (3); as the panels are coming off. They had no time to do near the damage that the silver car suffered so at least there's that. So the seats are out. They will be re-covered and go back to the car they came with from the factory - the 2A. The new owner is restoring that car to factory specs. I'm not partial to leather anyway, so I'll be happy returning this car to cloth. October 25th 2004 Reading back over the history of this project you can no doubt see a real fracture in the time line I was hoping this project would follow. Nothing ever goes the way we plan when you are at the mercy of other peoples schedules and the rules of apartment living. With the sale of the Medium Canyon Red car and finally getting this beast home, I can begin to work away at it in my leisure. By the end of the winter, it should be ready for the track. First on the list was getting the car to Erics, changing the water pump and putting in a new thermostat, replacing a completely rotted hatch, the damaged left fender and cleaning all the old parts and garbage out of the interior, replacing the windshield and fixing the slight bit of surface rust in the crease at the a pilers... I'm tired just writing about it, but it's all done. From 9am Saturday to 4am Sunday we dug into this thing to get it out of the way. We've had more than enough delays on the Rusty Resto Project and can't afford to let this car monopolize what little spare time we have. So enough rambling. I put up a second page of pics, not much different than the first, other than the fact there are close up shots of the bad parts of the car. I'll get the pics of the work we did last weekend up once I take the 'afters' - I was just too tired to keep up with the camera toward the end. August 15th 2004 A little history. - Written by Wade Regier First and foremost, the status of the car right now; it's in need of a rad support and one is being fabbed out of stainless tubing. It should be done some time this coming week. Once that is taken care of, the cooling system can be put back together and I can drive the car out of there. The to-do list will give you a good idea what has been done so far. If you have read below, I did decided on an AFCO rad and large NPR intercooler. I've also since purchased a Turbonetics T3/TO4E and will put the Racer Walsh built ported big valve head I had made for my 84 on this car. The engine only has 68K on it, so I'm leaving the bottom end alone. Though the car will be a daily driver / strip / show car, it won't be running 10s, so the stock short block should be fine. Take a look around and enjoy! Check back now and then for updates. This car was originally purchased along with my 2A Daily Driver. Most of the information below, beginning April 24th, is from my personal web page. As you will see, I was a little uncertain where I wanted to go with the car, swaying back and forth from stock restoration to drag queen... no pun intended. The acquisition of Tiny Avenger Motorsports in March and the subsequent formation of Forced4 Motorsports in April seriously reduced the time investment I could make on this project. Product sourcing and development for the store was only part of my new time monopoly; the silver 1E acquired in March would become center stage for the promotion of our future Restoration Department. Fast forward to today. Time in itself is one of the reasons this page is finally getting some attention. I really wanted to update the site, and getting this section done is opportunistic. The 1E Restoration is well under way. Parts for the 2R are on hand and the 2A is going to it's new owner in a week or less. More room means we can move the car from my Mechanics to our temporary shop - Eric's House - to tie up some loose ends before it gets put into daily driver duty. Now that the boring stuff is out of the way, you can scan the past to get an idea on where the project has been and how it got to where it's going. The image gallery is up and you can get to it via the link on the right, above the to-do list. April
24 2004
It's
gettin good! I love spring, regardless of the fact it's coming in a bit
slow, at least it here.
RestoMod86
Lives! The car was started for the first time today. Once it cleared
itself out the idle smoothed off and she purred like a kitten. However,
when the car got up to temperature a weak spot at the bottom passenger
side of the rad gave way.
With
the new rad comes a reason to slip in a front mount intercooler and a
single core aluminum rad. I'm going to do some hunting to track down
some options.
I've
got a vid of the startup, here.
I said first time started in the vid, but
it’s actually the third start. Had to be dramatic! *lol*
Here's another
of the exhaust.
The
car should be ready for the body shop in a week or two depending on how
long it takes me to get the NPR IC and Rad sourced.
03/06/2004
Getting
closer to good weather a really good thing for my Psyche. It was a
little rainy this weekend, but quite warm. I took a few pictures of the
car to illustrate just how much resto is actually needed, both inside
and out. Say goodbye to the old and hello to the older... the 84 door
fits it's new home well.
Once
the car
is running and I've got some new tires on it, it’s off to one
of two
body shops for paint. Both come highly recommended, so it will all come
down to price and flexibility. While the car is in the body shop the
seats will come out and go off to the upholstery shop for the
E&G
Classics kit install. If I’m lucky enough, the body shop
owner will let
me work with them, allowing me to strip out the seats and interior. I
may get them to dust it inside with paint for over all protection
rather than just painting the jams alone. If it comes down to it,
I’ll
clean out the entire car before it moves off my mechs lot, including
the removal of all window trim, spats, sails etc. I really want this
done right; paint filled seams are not acceptable. I’m just a
normal
shmo though, so budget is the word.
As of 02/08/2004
This
project is now underway. Living in an apartment does have it's
disadvantages, I've have no choice but to seek outside help as it would
be impossible for me to do the under body restoration, paint and more
serious mechanical work without drawing unwanted attention from
management. Thanks goes out to Joe Certified Auto for their part in
this project. Speaking of the under body, I've got good
news and bad news
in that area I'll touch on later.
Check out the pics in the gallery to
see what this was all about.
Here
is the short list of what's completed
Note - For those that don't know I was in a near fatal accident in my 84 SVO™ almost a year ago. (sep 6 2003) The 2R has been blessed with a few parts from that remarkable car. Brakes
and calipers from the 84 installed.
Gas
tank from the 84 is installed.
New
sender and 255LPH pump are in.
New
Fuel filter, Powder coated rail
Cleaned
35# injectors
TC
upper and lower intake
63mm
Throttle Body/Tiny Avenger adapter
Underdrive
crank pulley, adjustable cam sprocket
3"
ATR
Down pipe, 3" Magnaflow cat,
3"
Magnaflow Muffler stock 84 location
All
the fluids changed
New
plugs, wires, rotor, cap.
The
car has not been started yet.
12/11/2003
I
neglected to update this page after the cars arrived, so I guess it's
time. I have not even had time to go through the 2R to make a detailed
list of what it needs, but some of the more obvious things are listed
under the to-do section of the Mod table on the right. As you can see,
the plans for this car have done a complete 180. It's actually going to
pick up right where the 84 left off and eventually become a full time
1/4 mile car.
I
may
have missed a few things in the performance mod plan to the right, but
I'll add "it" as I see "it". The T3/T04E 50/48 may or may not become a
reality. I never had a problem with low end torque with the 63AR on the
84 with how it was modded. It will be a trial and error adventure for
sure.
Lined up for spring Long
term plans are a mix of reconditioning and prepping the car for it's
new life as a 1/4 mile and show car. The leather seats in it will go
off to an upholster along with a kit from E&G Classics. Once I
get
them out, I'll assess the condition of the carpet and look at the
various interior pieces to see if anything needs to be fixed,
replaced, re-stained. The dash pad is toast, but I'm looking at a few
different solutions to deal with it. A cage will be fitted at this time
so I don't have to worry about hitting an 11.99 in the 1/4. It's just
less of a pita and a little more economical to deal with all the
interior needs at once than to have to rip it all apart when I get the
engine all happy.
Winter
Mechanical.
The
car is really rough, the pins in the drivers door need to be replaced,
the passenger door is being swapped out with the one from the 84 2A.
The hatch is also being swapped out. The 84's hatch was rusty, but
nothing compares to the POS that's on the 2R now.
The
main thing right now is getting the car running. The gas tank from the
84, along with the 255 LPH pump I had planned to install in it are
first on the list. The car has not run for 10 years, so all
fluids will be drained and replaced and the cooling system will be
flushed and leak tested. I'm hoping the antifreeze has not done a
number to the heater core, but there is little doubt that if it's not
gone yet it will pop soon after I get the car going. I'm going to leave
it alone for now to see just how long it holds up and to direct needed
funds elsewhere on the car. The brakes are shot, so the new disks, pads
and original calipers I had on the 84 will be bolted up.
Once
all that is complete, it's off to the body shop for stripping, minor
rust repair, under body blasting and 3 layers of undercoat and paint.
Some may call me crazy, but I'm going with the stock 2R single step
enamel just like the original paint. My thought is why waste so much
money on paint when I can just get it re-done every 4 years for $500.
Hell, unless I scrape a wall it may not even need it that often.
Old
News
10/04/2003
As
I
said on the main page, I don't have the car yet, but it's bought and
paid for. Here are some pics of her. She's rough and has not run for 10
years with the exception of a short start up this past July by the
current owner. From my perspective, performance on these cars is cheap
and easy, so after I take care of the bare bone basics in getting her
running and driving safely, I'll concentrate on the body, paint and
interior. This car will be more of a daily driver than performance
monster.
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The Car:
1986 Mustang SVO™ 2R The Plan: Restore and Modify the car to 300 Horse Power Rough is an understatement. ha! sounds a little familiar doesn't it. According to Andy, the person I purchased this car from, the previous owner, a Ford employee had slightly damaged the car and stopped driving it. It would then sit for nearly 10 years before he found it. Due to his desire to get into a BMW M3, he sold off both his SVO's, to me of course. When I got the car, it had a rotted oil pan, no gas tank, seized brakes, and had run only once for less than a minute - the day Andy picked up the car. Rust in the fuel system put a quick stop to that. Here is the restoration assessment for the car to date. Each item will change to red when in progress and blue when complete.
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