One year. I bought this thing in August of 2013.
In the past year this build has been more like a war. Each day, each mod, each improvement has been a battle. As in all wars, the battle is the smaller part of the whole mess, and as the saying goes, you win some, you lose some.
Saturday, the battle objective was to get the car on the ground, and rolling on it's tires for the first time. Before that could happen, I had to change the tail pipe that I had built just last week. The original design had the tail pipe going over the rearend between the upper control arm, and the center section of the rear. Despite the fact that I had that tail pipe against the tunnel roof, the upper control arm hit the tail pipe when the car was lowered to ride height.
Me: 0
Car: 1
So I had to completely rebuild it, and re route it over the rear on the outside of the upper control arm. But I got that done, and it cleared perfectly.
Me: 1
Car: 0
I had still some painting to do in, and around the gas tank, and I wanted to redo the fuel line in braided SS as opposed to the braided cloth wrapped hose that I had done previously. Got that done w/ no casualties.
I moved to the front end.
I've been holding on fully assembling the front
suspension because I knew that I was gonna have bump steer issues as low as I intended to run this car at ride height. My thinking being that I'd just assemble the strut w/o the spring, take a stab at my anticipated ride height, and go through the pain in the ass process to correct the tie rod end geometry to match the arc of the lower control arm, and the put the whole thing together for real. .
But I didn't want to go through that procedure just yet, as I really have no clue how low the front end will actually be. I figured the only way I was gonna truly be able to make that determination was to actually assemble it, and let the car settle on it's springs.
So I opened the oldest boxes I've had in the garage, and got out the rotors, calipers and pads, and put that junk together. No sooner did I get that done it was obvious that there was a major interference issue.
Fairmont
lower control arms are too short to use a coil over conversion kit as the picture clearly shows. I believe that when compared to a Mustang, they are even shorter than that, and significantly shorter than a 93 arm.
For Saturday, that was the deal breaker. The
suspension wouldn't compress as the strut was interlocked w/ part of the k member. That left me at the end of the day, w/ the car still in the air, despite the fact that the entire front
suspension was now tightly bolted together, and the tires were on.
Again,
Car: 1
Me: 0
Today, after consulting some friends on how to best modify the k member to allow the necessary clearance, it was collectively determined that I would cut out a chunk of the k member w/ a sawzall, and add back a small piece of plate to restore any lost integrity, but that required I completely take the stuff back off that I just put on yesterday.
But whatya gonna do?
You put a new blade on the sawzall, and cut that bitsh.
Then cut, and fit a piece of plate, protect the surrounding area from weld splatter, and weld it back together.
Once that was behind me, I put the tires on the car, and put it on the ground ( also the first time they've actually touched the pavement),and rolled the whole thing outside.
The pic is deceptive, the cooler is centered, the radiator is offset.
it's down there.
Just a little FYI, this is actually a SW desert edition Fairmont, and evidently the original owner ordered the car w/ the optional "door delete" feature.
The hole behind the door is where the air inlets are for the rear mounted intercooler heat exchangers (aka little radiators)
This rear carnage shot was my attempt to show off the 315's under the car. The Mustang taillights will go in the trash, as they don't really fit the car, and besides, I have a custom plan for the rear of the car to that end. On the left, you can see the single 3" muffler. What to do w/ the tail pipe is another dilemma.
On one hand, I think I'll just add a 3.5-4" fart pipe looking muffler tip, and be done, on the other hand, I earlier sketched a trapezoid looking center positioned outlet to share a similarity to the front grille for the coolers that I may build instead.
I'll ask for opinions on that from you guys.
The car is low ( obviously) The only thing that is at risk at this ride height is the oil filter. Ironically, one of the most fragile items on the car is hanging about 5" off the road.
Again, The plan from the sketch was to add a splitter mounted to the bottom of the cooler shroud, and bolstered by 3/8-1/2" thick pylons that would be mounted to the bumper. That splitter would serve as "cow catcher" of sorts in the event something was on the interstate that would otherwise deal a death blow to that filter. You can look at the side shots, and see just how periously low that dude is hanging. In reality, not that big a deal, I can use a short filter, and gain over an inch, or I can use one of those 90 degree adapters to turn the filter horizontal.
I kinda like this ride height, and it appears that I have about 1.5-2" of compression left before I'm at full bump, however, I can obviously raise the thing if need be. But I'm gonna let it sit for a few days before I attempt any bumpsteer adjustments, But believe me,.....I have it. In spades.
This is after dropping the tie rod end 1.25". From the pic, (and if I keep this ride height) it looks like I'll need another 1/2-3/4" at least to get the tie rod anywhere close to parallel w/ the lower control arm.
But all that is piddly little junk. Today the car loses. I win!