I had been putting off pulling the tranny to change out the Flexplate (starter would not engage - again). Two of my brothers came in to town and were enthusiastic about getting the car going again. The 'new blood' was what I needed to get back in the mood to work on it. Anyway, as one of the first tasks when pulling the tranny is to pull the starter. I figured I would confirm my suspicions about the rounded off flexplate teeth by having my brother turn the crank slowly while I inspected the damage. Surprisingly, there was no wear on the teeth. :confused: I could tell by the witness marks on both the starter and the FP that the starter needed to be rotated inward towards the FP to get more teeth engagement. I went ahead and got a new starter ('92 Mustang) and 'slotted' the upper bolt hole so that I could rotate the starter inward. Low and behold, it worked! It cranked right up without a hitch and doesn't make the grinding noise I've previously heard even when it would crank up. Now that the car was running again, we were fired up to get it to the track ASAP. I was told there was a Ford event at the Houston Raceway Park that night so we were going to make it come heck or high water. I found the only performance parts store open on Friday (Competition Sales) that had a 5 point harness. It's not the cam-lock style that I wanted but it was NHRA legal - good enough to pass tech. We installed that pretty quickly (things go SO much faster when there are two or three pair of hands). The hood needed to be attached also so I just bought 4 hood pins and installed them - cut the holes and pinned 'er down. I also had the new carpet so I put that in also (had to re-install seats anyway). Well, we found out that the only race in town we heard about was a roundy-round event (they have both an oval and a drag strip at Houston Raceway Park). Just as well. There are a few other things I wanted to do the car before hitting the track anyway; add shock tower / Monte Carlo brace, have an alignment done, and more importantly, do a dyno tune (with & w/o nitrous, although the nitrous hookup can wait). I jsut had to make a cruise around the neighborhod in it anyway. It sounds great and feels like it'll be pretty quick anway. The bottom line is that, with the help of 'new blood', the enthusiasm returned and we made significant leaps towards getting the car to the track for its maiden run. Shouldn't be long and I'll be able to post my times in the data base! Apr 16 2006 "Them Book Boys Again" (as we were known by the local Sherrifs during our teenage daze) (the morning after. me on far right) Apr 16 2006
definitely a rowdy looking bunch. j/k glad to hear you got the starter fixed without having to pull the tranny and flexplate. i'm still trying to get my old back recovered from pulling 2 trannys in the past month or so. not my favorite thing to do.
That's great Rick...the car looks super...good grief man...get that thing to the track...this thread stays on page 1 until we see a time slip.... Whaddya say folks...Rick needs some motivation :bananaman
Thanks for the motivation, guys. Getting it to the track seems SO close now - but I've thought that before. I'm trying to schedule a few more tasks before I go down the track 'safely'. See ya at Roundup Drag Races!
I had to do the same thing to my tranny.....to get the starter a little closer *by the way.....no shoes necessary in KY, but you will just ruin good socks
I wonder what is up with that. I suppose it's the tolerance they allow on the location of the starter bolts relative to the center of the bellhousing (and BH to Block mounting holes). Kewl! So my Bunny Slippers will be okay too I suppose.
cool deal! car looks good... and i remember that video too.. car sounds Nasty mean! i can't wait to hear what the car does! i see the fogger in the intake there... i see your ready btw you ever see these? http://www.nitrousexpress.com/Pages/LS1NXL.htm i know they are for an LS1 but since you have efi it would be quite cool to see what it does in your car after you tune it!... i think NOS has the same thing. i say your next step should be a paxton! you got the room!
Thanks, Derrick and LOL @ "Paxton". That $ound$ $weet, but unf0rtunately, I need to pull back the rein$ on the $pending of go-fa$t part$..... for now at least. That Nitrous Express kit looks interesting too. I'll use my old "Mixed Breed" system for now. Besides, I don't want to throw too much nitrous at it and the little wet kit I have currently on it now should be adequate to throw a 125 shot at it. I want to have about a 50-75 h.p. safety factor before splitting the stock block. The bottom end parts can take it (forged crank, pistons, girdle, etc.) but I just don't feel like building a new engine for the next year or so. My intention is to dyno tune it. The N/A numbers will dictate how much Nitrous to throw at it (no more than 125 I'm hoping). I'll post up the dyno results when I get 'em.
Bunny slippers are fine.....I cannot promise there would be no "hackleling" about them or even worse....might be mistaken for the Carlisle "stripper" and then who knows what might happen
I'll ignore those insensitive remarks from the bullies and get to right to your q, D. I have no idea on what to expect. If I get 1.15hp/c.i. (~400 h.p.) I'll be satisfied, so anything above that will be icing. If the numbers are too bad, I'll just use bigger Nitrous jets to accomodate for the lack of h.p.'s. "Throttle In A Bottle" is my motto!
