Almost by luck, I stumbled across RCR's 13" brake kit for the 88 fronts, you can find it here.
Bought the camaro calipers (2002 z28), and 3 sets of rotors trying to find the perfect match, but I ended on the 2004 Mustang Cobra rotors, just had to redrill them to our 5x105 bolt pattern Bolts are not tight in this pic, that's why the caliper is way out there
Finally mounted up properly They are actually exactly the same color, just the lighting is different.
Barely clears the stick-on wheel weights! 12.85" rotor with calipers and a 17 wheel.
Current project at the moment, something kinda rare, and definitely different, especially from modern cars. My first body-work experience, but they are coming along, these are 3 month old teaser shots.
Stick around, things should be getting noisy soon!
Got my new cradle cleaned up, new bushings pushed into extra suspension pieces, and bolted everything together today. Got some cleaning/wire brushing/painting to do in the engine bay, but then I will be putting the cradle back in.
Out with the old rusty parts and bushings
New to me cradle and parts, cleaned and painted with new bushings
Got the valve covers for the 3800 painted the other day, although I'm not a painter by any stretch of the imagination, I think they came out pretty darn well for a bunch of rattle cans with 3-4 coats of clear gloss.
Black vertical sides with silver metallic top
Throwing in some blue, unfortunately its Ford Blue but still a good color
Doing some work to the back of the car, needed to find the torque specs for the rear end of the car (front torque specs to the bottom of page 1)
Torque the following as indicated. 1. Front cradle bolts 67lbs-ft (90N.m) 2. Rear cradle nut 76lbs-ft (103N.m) 3. Engine mount assembly 38lbs-ft (54N.m) 4. Rear mount assembly 36lbs-ft (48N.m) 5. Front mount assembly 36lbs-ft (48N.m) 6. Rear lateral control arm at knuckle 37lbs-ft (50N.m) + 90degrees 7. Rear lateral control arm at cradle 41lbs-ft (55N.m) + 105degrees 8. Fixed adjusting link at knuckle 37lbs-ft (50N.m) + 90degrees 9. Fixed adjusting link at cradle 41lbs-ft (55N.m) + 105degrees 10. Trailing arm to cradle 37lbs-ft (51N.m) + 80degrees 11. Trailing arm to knuckle 44lbs-ft (60N.m) + 90degrees 12. Stabilizer bar bracket mounting bolts 18lbs-ft (25N.m) 13. Exhaust pipe bolts at manifold 18lbs-ft (25N.m)
Cool stuff. I see in some pics a cradle out and in others en engine or tranny coming in or out from the top?
Yea, that is due to a number of reasons, mainly not knowing when I was going to get the putting in the new motor, and partially wanting to see if I could do somethings myself without a lift.
The 2.8 blew a rod on the way to my house the day I bought it, so it obviously had to come out. So one day I decided to 'just do it." I think my dad and I had it out in less than 4 hours, and that was the first time either of us had removed a motor. Just a lot of disconnecting stuff, cutting stuff, and kept taking parts off as we got it as high as we could and it still didn't clear. We almost even aired down the tires for a little extra clearance.
Then, I was able to find an extra cradle about an hour away, so I picked that up, cleaned and painted it, and swapped over all the parts I needed to keep her rolling (strut, knuckle, all trailing arms with new bushings, etc.) and left the tranny out to clean and paint it.
Like I said, I didn't have a lift, so when it came to put the tranny back in I didn't feel like dropping the cradle again, only to put it back in half hour later with the weight of the transmission on it (it was difficult enough with just the suspension components). My dad recommended that I wait for the motor swap to put the tranny back in, but I didn't feel like having it sit around and collecting dust, so I come-alonged it to the garage beam and pushed the car underneath and I was just lowering the tranny back in when he got home from work. He didn't approve, but you could tell he was impressed.
I have my own house now, but most everything is done. I'll try and have an update on the motor this weekend.
I dropped the car off at Jason's on April 15. We're still shooting to be at Carlisle this year, June 23-25, but we shall see. Found some issues with the wiring harness I bought years ago that he has had to tackle, I'll update on that soon.
As with what appears to be an ever increasing rate of occurrence as we get older, life gets in the way, but it finally came time to start putting the 3800 back together.
After the motor was assembled it was mated to the trans and bolted to the cradle
And once everything was put in the car,
she started on the very first turn of the key! I was more than impressed and happy and ecstatic
on one of the first heat cycles the rubber hose popped off of the coolant tube. Apparently I forget to put the clamps on it. It took me way too long to figure out that one
Although I blocked off the holes that flowed coolant to the stock throttle body, apparently I didn't do it well enough and I was getting coolant in the intake and leaking out of the throttle body. A little RTV fixed that
The brand new alternator I bought for this swap stopped working, so I had to swap that out. Less than a week later the brand new starter crapped out, so that had to be replaced.
This picture serves to remind me how the wires go in case I ever have to do that again and I forget.
[This message has been edited by DKcustoms (edited 02-09-2019).]
That brings us to today, or as far as things came along before the winter set in.
She spent some time at the local GM Dealer for her first alignment, she turned lots of heads and brought lots of questions. People love Fieros even if they don't know what they are
Then I got my vanity plate. Don't worry about the faded paint, that will be taken care of
And of course my sequential led taillights courtesy of embrace racing, double_c4 on here, but I don't think he makes them still
She's coming along, the supercharger whine is addictive, and I can't wait to take my car to some shows this summer
Embrace Racing is still around but not as active I believe. I emailed him not to long ago and he got back with me.
Car is coming along. You going to the Carlisle event this summer? My son and I am planning on making it from New Mexico if we can. I have family out there which is a win/win for me!
BTW, you should also change out the license plate lights to LED's to go better with the tails.
[This message has been edited by Spadesluck (edited 02-10-2019).]
