I called in some reinforcements.
We're done for now. The throttle cable is stuck and we can't un-jam it, so we will get another one. The housing for the thermostat cracked on install, and so did the other one we put on, probably because I was stupid. Everything else is done enough for it to run. All the melted stuff the guy with the hat has, so we will revisit this project in a couple weeks.
It lives.
It's not done yet, but it moves under it's own power again. The fan stays on all the time now and it will never get to operating temperature, maybe. I need to put a temp gun on it and verify that. It definitely hits full boost now and at only 7psi it's a riot, when the 14psi chip goes in I surmise it will roast the tires in 2nd gear fairly easily. It needs to be swapped over from water to coolant. I still don't know what caused the fire but I'm leaning over to electrical, the area where the fire happened was a rats nest.
It got a slew of new parts, new throttle cable, new wiring, new filter, new MAF, new distributor and wires, new timing belt, new drive belts, big brakes carried over from the Panda Express after that car got the 13" Corksport kit, new sensors and a few other things I'm probably forgetting. On top of that it got a new ACT 6-puck clutch prior to buying it. It's a solid car, and best of all, the AC still blows cold.
You'll see more of it here, and possibly some track time in the future, I've been told these handle fairly well when you build up the suspension on them.
Well, that hasn't gone as planned.
Just kidding, pinhole leak on the lower radiator hose. But, this is what came out of it so I'm using something that worked well on another car that had this, Thermocure Radiator Treatment. It gets all the nasty stuff inside and gets rust and all of that off the inside of engines with iron blocks that have been ran on straight water for a while.
If all goes well, I switch it to coolant in a couple days, but between this and finishing the clutch break-in, I'll be driving it a bit the next few days.
Been there, had a SVT Focus catch fire the day I brought it home. Fan melted down. I threw snow at it.
Today we finish up the coolant flush as we found a pinhole leak at the thermostat housing, slapped a new gasket in and its so far holding
In reply to jdogg :
I know it's a Ford and all but damn. I kid, I kid.
Coolant flush is done and all kinds of nasty sludge and whatever this flush stuff grabs came out, but it came out entirely and after the water came out clear we added 50/50 Peak coolant. If you ever have to do a flush on one of these, do it without the thermostat out. When you're ready to flush, pop off the upper coolant hose at the radiator, flush the radiator first with the petcock open. Then once that starts to clear up, stick the garden hose in the coolant hose wih the radiator cap off and eventually the old coolant will bubble up to the surface and the nasty stuff in the engine will come out. After that, I popped it a 180* thermostat and it's been fine all day.
I think I've managed to fully save it from it's previous owner. With no coolant leaks, no oil leaks or burning, no blowby and no power steering it's turning out to be a decent project. Today I swapped the stock ECU for a chipped one that lets me have 14psi instead of 7psi, bumps up the fuel curve and retains all my factory electronic stuff like AC and CEL, which it also still has. It also got two new rear tires today. Upon the removal of the old tires I was able to check the brake pads and they are about done in the rear so that will be on the docket for next time down.
I have to change the wastegate spring to a 14psi one and then it's party time.
So we have the 14psi springs in and its still hitting boost cut, might be an ECU thing
We are done for now. The chipped ECU problem, there's two versions of the 90 GT ECU, though labeled the same, the PCB inside is different. One uses a larger Winbond chip and is harder to chip, and is very rare, the other uses a normal EEPROM and can be programmed. That's being taken care of. The front main seal has a leak, no big deal right now. After seeing how nice the 93 rode on coilovers, I may put a set on this car. It will need new door panels. The passenger door handle is broken inside and I will probably have to fully disassemble the door to fix it.
Holding it at 12psi, this thing is a damn rocket. We will revisit this project when I come back off the road, and you'll see a lot more of it here in a couple weeks.
Glad it's back!
And it has been sold to a new owner in our club.
I decided to let someone else with more time than I have finish what I started. It's gone to a good home and I'll see if I can steer the new owner here, but I'm making room for a new project with 300% more cylinders.
You'll need to log in to post.
