Build Thread 1990 Lx 5.0 Restomod Build

  • Sponsors (?)


After you get it all back together and drive it please report back with a butt dyno ASAP!! Looking clean!

Oh I will. Guaran-freaking-teed. Unfortunately I'm adding multiple power adders at once which is almost sacrilegious.

Shorty headers, ported lower intake, 70mm MAF, 65mm throttle body with matched EGR spacer. Will be hard to tell how much each modification helped, but I'm hoping the combination of all the mods will be pretty nice.
 
With all those mods going in pretty much at the same time I think you're going to have a smile from ear to ear the first time you goose it down the street! You probably just bolted on a minimum of 20+ hp so you should see be a big difference in sound and acceleration.
 
So, perhaps a slight change of plans. The throttle body came off OK, along with gobs and gobs of sludge from the coolant line but the EGR spacer will not budge. At all. I'm fearful of breaking off the studs from the intake as I've heard happening so I've put it back together for the time being. I measured the throttle body and EGR spacer diameter and all are 62mm:shrug:.

For an extra 3mm I didn't want to cause myself more problems than is worth it. So, I might just install the MAF and leave it at that.

Now I just have to sell the Explorer throttle body...
 
You can use a double nut method tighten them against one another and that will make the stud like a bolt and you can take the stud out then there will be no problem with getting her out
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Hood insulation liner installed from yesterday's junkyard trip. Not perfect, but for $5.99 you can't beat it.

0_0_860c8e3ba28771be30f0bd579ef79675_1


MAF modified for slip connections and getting a fresh coat of paint

0_0_74f6cf4f759a28c4df73e561b2b1d64a_1
 
You can use a double nut method tighten them against one another and that will make the stud like a bolt and you can take the stud out then there will be no problem with getting her out

I thought about this and then read several instances of people snapping the stud off flush with the intake. The more I thought about it, the more I questioned if it was really worth it.
 
Put lube on it jeez don't be scared if it breaks drill it out and re thread and thread a bushing in it

I knew my reponse would illicit this kind of response. :cool: I've got several friends that are like that; back when we were all younger they were pulling and re-building their engines, boosting them, then blowing them up a couple months later. Rinse and repeat. I don't know why but I'm not built like that. I hate breaking s*** and having to fix it, especially when I don't always have the right tools to do it.

More power to those kinds of people though; I wish I was more like that.
 
Finally have had some time at home without having to travel for work. I got the intake surfaces cleaned as best I could and got the lower intake installed last Friday. I used the trick of installing (4) bolts with the heads cut off to help guide the lower intake into place so the gaskets didn't move. Worked great!

0_0_84939cd4ea841f4fcb0b1cbb153c9908_1


0_0_4572dbe4426413593dd4989635d96015_1


0_0_4b287a4295d155bf518550251460953d_1


I got the upper installed yesterday, but didn't think to prime the fuel system before I bolted everything up and found out I had an injector leaking at the fuel rail. Looking at it some more I see that it's bent, up and towards the passenger's side slightly. This was causing the injector for #1 not to seat all the way in the fuel rail since everything wasn't lined up. So....I took the upper back off and spent this morning convincing the passenger side fuel rail to bend back to it's original form, or close, and get the injector to seat properly. I went ahead and replaced the upper o-rings on the passenger side injectors since I kept pulling them in and out of the fuel rail.

0_0_9baab04046d46cca3aa00a64194e8b56_1


All the major components bolted back up; fuel rails (properly now), upper intake manifold, wiring harnesses, connectors/plugs, etc. Still have some miscellaneous items like the distributor boot and 5.0 intake plate, but functionally it works. Car ran for about 5 minutes this afternoon; no leaks except where the hose connects to the heater tube from the EGR spacer. Just need to tighten the clamp a bit more I think.

0_0_5f999d683dc5e2c64488444079846d43_1


Lastly, with the fan removed I swapped on a set of underdrive pulleys for the crank and water pump. The lip of my existing crank pulley was bent so I figured why not get UDP's.

0_0_6e41fa6baa8eee821873ea2d44f6402c_1
 
Finally finished wiring up the new fan this morning, and got the fan itself installed with the shroud. I had a good 1/4"-1/2" clearance between the fan motor and the water pump pulley; that was after the dremmeled out part of the cover that went over the fan motor.

0_0_85d446ce9f7906dd549f7e043b82e672_1


After I got the top of the fan bolted to the radiator the bottom was still loose and could move a little bit. I fabbed up some L-shaped brackets that I could attach to the lower radiator support and then they have a rolled edge that rests against the fan shroud and prevents it from moving. With all that clearance between the WP pulley and fan motor :D I wanted to make sure the fan didn't move.

0_0_19b94474565575aa1d766dfa0b656ac9_1


I tucked the FAL controller underneath the bird's nest of wires by the starter solenoid and coil. The 40A fuse is mounted to the bottom of the battery tray in between the battery and the washer reservoir. Anyone have a coil cover laying around they're not using?:cool:

0_0_eb6cbe309a3abed33a5d50c246402193_1


Fan installed
0_0_12a1fe51f0a749388b72bdd893477dcd_1