Betty white budget build

Stevenmverrill

5 Year Member
Oct 24, 2017
126
49
48
Hi intwebs,

I'm back writing up the the latest toy i got put together. 89-91 lx red, sunroof, hatch, 5.0 5sd

Please, allow me to fill in some blanks on the 'car fax'.

I was 17 growing up in an awesome blue collar community just finished throwing a sbf in my fc rx7 turbo 2. Across the street neighbor is a complete gear head him and all the Neighborhood boomers had been checking on me, lending tool, hand, and advice along the way. The trans in my car still belonged to Mike Across the street. The previous owner of Betty white. Conversation went something like 'oh I got a spair trans for my car just use it for now and when you get a chance or come across a good deal pick another one up.. it helped because I needed it to make sure the angle was good and I wouldn't need to mess with the diff. What fit right and the diff was within a degree so I buit the trans mount and had driveshaft parts and measurements to get that made.

Short time later my car is up and running, Mike stops by so we head to the main road for a maiden voyage.

Mike leads makes the right and lights em up, some time in to smokey second gear he got bad, couldn't Real it in, and didn't check it down.

So, he does the mustang trick is backwards jumps the curb with the fresh cobra r's passenger side first up on to the Median strip.

As great luck would have it all the remaining energy was abruptly stopped by the passenger door and rocker going in to a tree.

I circled back around to check on him and told him just have it towed back to the Neighborhood so we could asses.

With nothing to lose I convinced him I'll get it fixed enough to worst case be presentable for a body shop.

U pick u pull had a nice passenger door, and the cuple bent suspension links. But I think he got a summer kit I ended up putting on.

Got it all switched over and painted fine from 5ft.

Think everyone helped a little to bend the hatch back around enough so it would latch and be within 1/2" or so~ lol.

Mike continued to street car the street car 365 for another decade or so. At some point the motor that's in it now was a full on Professional machine shop build. Rotating Assembly is good parts and balanced, heads cam, ext but it's low compression 49 state smog legal of its time. This is the build coming off of him splitting the hot 347 crank in 1/2 lol. I think they unspokenly agreed to build something a little more tame that can handle prolonged street thrashing.

So, Betty white (now2020) catches a case of the blue tooth sub frame so bad Mike is done with it. He offers it myself and a common race car friend if we want it for free.

We agreed and decided it's only good for a race car. It a good car! (Exception: car it's self). With an Acquisition cost of free we took the bait.

Timed almost perfect. I had just finished building what I thought was my forever house. The good news I build myself a custom house.. of course the garage is 24x32 can you believe my wife let me use 66% of the basment for garage. The bad, I was supposed to build myself an out build before buying race cars and toys.

Part of selling my wif on the big garage is it "won't be like a work garage like before. The house garage is more for parking and hosting.

Next thing you know in the space next to my wife's car on absolutely perfect concrete is a cherry picker pulling a motor out of my car (No clue how I'm still alive).

The build strategy was simple. Make it light as possible and never give up. Make it legal to 1099.

The co owner and I spent Saturdays ripping stuff off the car and putting on the new parts.

The car is under 2500lbs with me in it and distribution is significantly better then stock.

Anyway will fill in more gaps later.
 

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Track day yesterday.
1.54 1.52 1.52 1.59 1.49 1.49
Nt 11.7 11.5 11.6 11.5 11.5

116mph power was down but for the air probably about right.

Since last outing new shocks, springs, control arm drop Brackets, anti rolbar, bias ply fronts tires and caster camber plates. This feels like a brand new car. Very predictable.

I have home scales and read moving up to 30lbs with the bar is good for cars under 600 hp.

It was about 35lbs to get the rear 50/50 and I couldn't resist the urge to zero it out 5050 rear. Put a cuple shims in front left spring, and cranked on the anti robar to fifty fifty.

2 passed did pick up tires and the car went left a little. So took a turn of preload out of the bar ends and that did the trick.

Car feels great and wants more. So good start to the year.
View: https://youtu.be/O584ofFYOVM
 
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