Build Thread Want To Blow 5 Years And $50k On A Foxbody? Step By Step Instructions Inside!

Wait, I wanna play:

Me: I need to roll it out, pump the fuel out of the tank and put new fuel in it.
Her: rolleyes
Me: Sure would be great to pickup control arms and shocks this year.
Her: rolleyes
Me: Godamn it's nice outside. Need to get the Mustang put back together and go ride!
Her: Honey do list starts here/


































/honey do list ends/
rolleyes
This is pretty much how it goes with my wife too. lol
 
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Ahh....the struggle of the non-functioning Mustang owner.

This is all real life though.

My wife has stopped asking questions. Probably in my best interest because I doubt she would like the answers. I was out in the garage a few weeks back, and she came out and asked what I was doing and I just stared at her w/ greasy gloves and black soot all over my arms not saying a word. She responded with "Whatever, just let me know when this thing can take us to dinner."
 
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Took the wife by to see the car at the body shop, showed her the painted fenders, hood etc, showed her the coyote in the engine bay and get, that looks nice

She sees the SC wheels I got and says.... Those wheels look great, now I know why you did it..... girls :shrug:

Then later I hear her telling my daughter how cool everything looks and she cant wait to go for a ride and I feel like I'm the guy in the chair

:hail2:
 
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Progress has been painfully slow, but it's almost ready to fire up. Hopefully in the next day or two. I really want it drivable for this coming weekend.

uploadfromtaptalk1431288411278.jpg
 
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My engine builder also said that 90 seems low. I went off the original spec sheet from my previous engine builder, because the 1/2" studs stayed the same. Seems like ARP wants 110 ft-lbs though.

Very small amounts leaked out. Just enough to run down the block and put a few drops on the floor. This is over the course of a week. I didn't notice anything in the oil. I also stuck a tie wrap down cylinders 1 and 4 and didn't get any signs of coolant.

Think it's safe to torque the heads down to 110 lbs and hope for the best?
And for this you just taught me why my builder used the silicone on the ends of my head gaskets cuz I was shaking my head . But he was the man with the plan so I wasn't about to question him


Sent from my iPhone using my fingers while my auto correct makes me seem illiterate
 
So she started up tonight. Not right away, and not perfectly smooth, but she started nonetheless. The cold idle tune wasn't finished the last time I was at All Out, so I had to keep my foot on the throttle to keep it running. I also wanted to do that to keep the a/f from going too rich. There was so much crap burning off the headers, that it was hard to tell if the breather was smoking or not, but my other half was watching the tailpipes and she said that she just noticed some gray smoke when I burped the throttle. No white smoke other than the very first time it fired up. Nothing wreaked of fuel, unlike last time when I couldn't even stand in the garage for more than a few minutes without getting dizzy. I believe the rings and cylinder walls are safe now.

It's breaking up real bad above 2500 rpm. I probably have the timing off a bit. I also think the #5 plug wire wasn't all the way on because that plug was cleaner than a few of the others that I checked. The boot was also not sitting as far down as it should be. Those damn plug boot heat covers make putting the plugs on all the way a real task.

The water pump seal is leaking like crazy. It's not the water pump to timing cover gasket, but the actual rubber seal between the pump motor and pump housing. I took it apart when I painted the pump and put in a new seal. Something is off though. I'll pull it apart when I take apart the hotside. I'll probably run a thin bead of rtv around the seal to put an end to that mess.

The good news is that the oil is clean and so is the coolant. I also haven't seen any signs of coolant running down the block. I'll let her cool off and then I'll tackle taking things apart tomorrow so I can torque those heads down to spec.

@84Ttop, let Kris know I'll be bothering him with an e-mail soon to help me clean the tune up a little!
 
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I know when using the MLS gaskets you have to remove 1 of the rivets because it ends up on a flat part where the deck of the block and the head mate and it keeps them from completely sealing.

Cometic addressed that some time ago with their gaskets. All the rivets are outside of the deck surface. I'm not sure why they even let that be an issue in the first place. Sounds like a design flaw to me.
 
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We milled a little relief in the end of my cylinder head to clear the rivets fwiw.

Glad to hear that the car is running again Scott! We might need to go over the syncing of the distributor to get the timing where it needs to be. I'll be talking to Kris next day or so and I'll give him the heads up
 
Yea, I figured I would have to mess with the sync settings. The car wouldn't start at first and then I moved the distributor clockwise just a tick and it fired up quite quickly after that. I'm sure the engine timing and ecu timing are disagreeing a little bit at the moment.