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3/2006-10/2006
Wow new record for amount of time between updates on the
website, sorry about that to anyone that's still reading this, a few of you
email me regularly and I appreciate you keeping up. I sold the house in Phoenix
and moved back to Texas which I am very happy about, after a 3 month stay with
relatives we bought another house so car work can now resume. Since the last
entry I have sold the wrong mufflers on ebay and picked up the right ones
picked up some exhaust pieces and hung the mufflers and tailpipes, I am still
working on the rest of the exhaust as I type this. I acquired some flex joints
to be added just off of the turbos and welded those to the reducer flanges but
they came out a tad too long so I'll be re routing them another way (pics to
come).
I've had a change of heart in my brake upgrades (thankfully this
time before I spent very much money) I now plan on staying with the 4 lug setup
and plan to just upgrade the rear to disc brakes. I have already acquired the
SVO master cylinder and booster as well as a proportioning valve that I'll have
to modify but that shouldn't be tough at all. This will allow me to increase
the braking power (the 9 inch drum setup is terribly inadequate) and keep the
10 hole wheels that provide the sleeper look with what I think is a fine
looking wheel (save your boos and hisses) I'll have to round up a new/used
brake pedal since the geometry of the manual brake pedal differs from that of a
power brake pedal.
I started the car up with the turbos installed for the first
time after it sat in my parent's garage for months while I was house shopping,
to my surprise it fired up pretty easily and the whine of the open exhaust
turbos sure sounded nice. I found that my Derale fan controller had an open
circuit at the fuse so I had to add a different type of fuse holder before the
fan would come on. It ran well after its long hiatus and I would have ran it
longer if not for the fan not working at the time.
Now that I'm pretty settled again on the living arrangement I can
get more done on the car and the updates on this website! Keep an eye out for
pics of the latest progress, I'll get them up soon.
1/2007
Work is still progressing and now that the holidays are out of
the way there should be less distractions. On a real high note my car was
selected as an editor's choice reader's ride on Fordmuscle.com I was very surprised, I was checking out the
new issue and clicked on the link for reader's rides and thought to myself
"that would be really neat to get picked for something like this"
just as I scrolled down and saw pictures of my car and the write up! So I am
very motivated now to make some progress. Since the spot on FM my site has
started to see increased traffic so I pried my wallet open and paid the $4 it
takes to increase bandwidth transfer so it won't go offline.
Now back to car progress, I did indeed get the fuel pump
remounted in its new bracket and plumbed so it should be ready to be leak
tested. It is now closer to the fuel cell and has the fuel filter threaded
straight into the inlet for a cleaner look.
I have also made some strides on the exhaust, the
passenger side now runs from the turbo around the engine and down under the car
now (all just tacked together to make sure it will work). The driver side
looked like it would be easier but the steering shaft had other ideas so I'm
still looking at how to get around that without it looking to bad. My ideas of
how to route the exhaust has had some changes and alterations along the way but
it looks like it is going to match up to the GT tailpipes eventually without
much headache.
2/2007-4/2007
Not much done here lately the weather hasn't been cooperating
but a few small things have been getting done. While installing the
exhaust I had a clearance issue with the rear brake line and bracket, the
tailpipe was rubbing against it. I had some stainless steel 3AN line so I just
had to get a few backordered fittings in order to route it around the pipe,
this made it a slam dunk. I purchased some 5.0 Mustang muffler brackets to make
installing the mufflers a little easier and the bracket for the rear brake line
occupied the same area so I ground on the brake bracket so it would fit inside
the muffler bracket and I was able to make it all fit.
Currently I have taken the rear axle out of
the car because it has been traded to the 89' GT. The Zephyr's axle had 3.55
gears and they are not optimum for the power band of the twin turbo V8, now
that the 89' GT is no longer boosted it can use the extra torque multiplication
that the 3.55s offer. In the meantime before the GT's old 8.8 finds its way
into the Zephyr it's going to get beefed up at Peyton Performance with welded axle tubes, 31spline axles, an Auburn ECTED, a differential cover/girdle, and rear disc brakes. The 89' GT
axle swap was completed today so the next order of business is to take the
other 8.8 down to Peyton.
5/2007
I finally got the axle dropped off at Peyton's I ended up making a
few changes once the dollar signs started to add up so I axed the ECTED, I hated too but it was clearly the biggest factor in trimming
the budget, I ended up going with a full spool but the upside is this allowed
me to go with 33 spline axles instead of the 31s I'd be married to had I used
the Auburn. Everything else made it through the trimming, I hope to have the
assembly back by the end of May if I'm lucky so progress can resume. (its tough
to try and do anything else while the rear is up on jack stands) I did manage
however to add some Lakewood 50/50 drag shocks in the back while it was up there, now I have
Lakewoods all the way around which should help weight transfer
enormously.
6-8/2007
OK sorry about the delay on updates, I got the 8.8 back from
Peyton's and it looks great, it is now installed in the car, while I was at it
I replaced the bushings in the housing and added my adjustable upper control
arms as well. Once this was done I have purchased and installed the brake lines
and fittings, the brakes are now plumbed entirely with the exception of the
Wilwood proportioning valve that is necessary since I went with rear disc
brakes, that will be added very soon. I have installed the correct master
cylinder and brake booster as well as swapped over to a power brake pedal from
the manual one the car had (the geometry is different between the two). I have
also purchased an Autometer fuel pressure gauge and I will be finishing that
install up shortly as well as adding my Innovate air fuel ratio gauge along
with it. I recently acquired (for free) a front and rear sway bar from a 2003
Mustang GT I have added the rear bar and have the front one nearby for street
duty when the times comes.
I originally had clearance issues using the ten hole wheels on
the rear brakes and I may still get the wheels machined in order to run them
but in the meantime I purchased a set of 16 inch 88' Thunderbird turbo coupe
wheels which look nice on the car, clear the brakes, and fill up the wheel
wells quite adequately. Using the t-bird wheels the front tires were rubbing
the coil over setup (if it isn't one thing its another!) to solve this I added
some camber adjustment bolts to the struts and moved the wheel out away from
the strut, I will later be able to adjust camber using my D&D caster/camber
plates so this is not going to be a problem.
9-10/2007
Wilwood proportioning valve is now installed so the brake system
now has all of its hydraulic parts, I have not hooked up the e-brake yet
because I am unsure what I need to get it done. I have not had any luck getting
a parts list of even a good picture of a Lincoln Versailles e-brake setup so if
anyone has this info I'd appreciate seeing it. I also added the 03' Mustang GT
rear sway bar which surprisingly took a small amount of grinding to make it
fit. I did add my camber bolts to the front struts in order to gain tire
clearance as mentioned earlier and it seemed to almost work but I'm sure I'll
end up having to run skinnier tires on the front for optimum clearance.
I've still been hard at work on the exhaust but not as much as I
should have been but at least things are still moving forward. I'll get some
pictures of the downpipes posted since they've been tacked together for a while
now and I had to remove them in order to give them the final weld. The fuel
pressure gauge install isn't completed yet but then again I haven't been to
hard at it to this point.
I forgot to mention I have purchased a pair of weld racing
wheels (draglites) off of eBay for the slicks to be mounted on eventually and
it was a nightmare getting them shipped to me but they finally arrived and then
I ordered lug nuts for them in order to test fit them around the brakes and
that shipment got lost and had to be resent! I'm starting to wonder if I was
meant to have them?
10/2007-6/2008
No updates on this website in quite a while but I've been
getting things done and posted a few pics over on Fordmuscle.com in the
"makin' progress" section of their forums. Let me see if I can get
things up to date here, the car is now at my place of employment enjoying the
convenience of a lift and I have now spent three straight weekends working on
it averaging about 8 hours per day on it.
I ended up replacing the south side lower control arms for
some UPR units since they will be a little more forgiving in ride quality and
torque box structure.
I had some leaks from the rear brake lines and reran new lines
with some different fittings hoping to solve that problem.
I have added Cody's old Taylor battery box after working
out a trade as well as the 0 gauge welding cable and I am still rigging up the
master cutoff switch, I think it will turn out great if all goes as planned.
I rerouted my shifter cable and connected it to the side of the
transmission which meant I had to hack away part of my trans shield voiding the
SFI rating, oh well it will expire due to time before I get the thing down the
track anyway it seems!
I have added window felts, beltlines, and runs, dyed the door
panels to make things look and sound better.
I added a 3 row Ford motorsport radiator with automatic
transmission cooler and I plan on running some nice cooling lines to it asap.
I just recently rerouted my fuel lines and ran them
through the frame in order to gain more room for the exhaust to hang.
I have acquired a UPR bump steer kit which will go on
soon, then I will align the car at work once it is running again.
The axle is now painted and I added the rear brace kit
from LPW racing, it matches and works with the rear differential cover.
That's all I can think of right now but like I said I am back to
working on the car with a vengence and I'll be posting up more and more updates
and pictures.
7/2008-9/2008
Still plugging away at the thing and I've made some real
progress I'll go through it list style like the last update.
I ran new transmission lines using some Aeroquip pro flex hose
which is a fabric covered high pressure hose that was very easy to work with
and looks great.
The charge piping is done and installed/painted!! I also have
installed the bypass valves, one of which I was able to use the factory Supra
hoses and it lined up perfectly.
The exhaust system is done!! I managed to hang the mufflers and
tailpipes on my own and make and install the down pipes, but after tacking the
X pipe together I enlisted some help to fit it in, I also added ball and socket
connectors to the X for easy removal if I ever need to access the transmission.
I installed the boost gauge and hooked it up directly to the
intake manifold.
I completed my master cutoff switch setup and ran it through one
of the license plate bolt holes so it can be removed when needed, it works OK
but not as good as I had hoped.
The UPR bump steer kit has been installed and I took the time to
adjust the steering rack for an even two full turns lock to lock to the left
and to the right so everything is centered and ready to be aligned.
I recently bled the brakes and re-tested for leaks and I am down
to only one leak so hopefully I can get that handled then I may be ready to
fire this thing up.
10/2008
OK things are still rolling along, I've been at it a lot lately
and have made good progress.
I seem to have gotten the brake fluid leaks fixed so that's
finally out of the way, now I just need to get the e-brake hooked up but that
wont prevent a test drive.
I had to diagnose and fix a charging problem that the cutoff switch
had caused but I got that handled and the battery now sees over 14 volts. That
mark VIII electric fan can waste a battery in no time with no alternator
charging, I still feel I could put the car in neutral and turn the fan on in
order to back the car up!
The car has been started and has done pretty well considering
how long it sat without doing so, I added some fuel cleaner to it when I
splashed in five gallons of 93 octane pump and it helped break up any
contaminants it seems fine now after a few runs. The car is just as quiet as I
had hoped it would be, I was a little nervous about that since I chose my
mufflers based on cfm rating but I couldn't be happier with the way it sounds.
I finally got to install the Innovate wideband 02 sensor I've been looking forward to that for a long time, it works
great and I can already see it will be a huge help in tuning.
I found some small fuel leaks and have since repaired them but
there are still a couple of oil leaks that will have to wait a while.
It isn't all good news this time after firing the car and
warming it up the transmission still doesn't move the car anymore, I'm hoping
its just a stuck regulator valve but with my luck the pump went bad and its most
likely already lunched the converter and spread the disease to the rest of the
trans. I need to check the fluid flow to confirm this but I'll bet the trans
will be coming back out before long. At least the car is alive again and this
problem is a sign of progress whether good or bad.
11-12/2008
Well as expected the transmission problem was not something I
could have fixed with it in the car so I had to pull it out again. As it turns
out it wasn't anything I had done when building it but rather a couple of
mismatched parts caused the problem. Since I'm running a late model 5.0 engine
it uses a 164 tooth flexplate which requires a big bellhousing equipped C4
transmission but the torque converter I had used was for a small bellhousing so
the converter hub to the trans pump wasn't quite long enough to stay engaged.
I also wanted to go ahead and get a working speedometer in the
car since the trans was out and couldn't do much more anyway to it so I snagged
a new speedo head off eBay and got it installed and I also purchased a new
speedo gear, my cable seems to be OK for now.
After installing the speedometer I was trying to test the
instrument lights and realized that my master cutoff switch has stopped working
so I'll need to grab another one of those before I can go any further but I now
have the transmission reinstalled and the new speedometer head installed and
just need to add fluid and fire it up then I'll align it and get ready for a
test drive.
1/2009
Well its a new year and I firmly believe this is THE year for
the TT Zephyr! Today I managed to finally get around to adding the transmission
fluid and tested the trans, it worked! :) I have now tested all gears and
confirmed their operation, this was especially noteworthy as this was my first automatic
build, and with the exception of the parts mismatch mentioned earlier I had no
problems. On a side note my speedometer work has also paid off as I now have a
working speedo, time will tell how accurate it is.
As far as the master disconnect switch goes I did purchase a
replacement, it was a Summit knockoff of a flaming river big switch with lever. I ordered it knowing that the lever that
came with it would not be long enough but I figured I'd find a way to make it
work. What I didn't foresee was just how easy it would be to make work. I was
already using a threaded rod in my own lever design and this lever used a
female threaded rod and the two just happen to fit together perfectly! All I
had to do was trim the original lever so the handle wouldn't stick out of the
back of the car too terribly far and voila! Done.
I believe I know what caused the failure of
the original switch most master disconnects are only rated at maybe 50
continuous amps and my alternator is rated at 130 amps! I had discharged the
battery while doing some testing so there's little doubt the battery wanted all
the amps it could get and I think this is what lunched the switch. The new
switch has me covered as it is rated at 250 continuous amps! I hope to align
the car, do a little more tuning and go for a test drive soon.
2-4/2009
Boy how time flies when you're having fun! The Zephyr's first
test drive occurred a couple of months ago and it did ok but there are a few
small issues to sort out as I knew there would be. If you've been checking out
the video section of the website you've already seen a quick spin around the
neighborhood where I work, I realize its kind of boring but there are tons of
things that need to be accounted for before any "spirited" driving
can take place. I did manage to do a couple of mini burnouts in the
parking lot a picture of which can be seen on the latest picture page. In the
test drive video the car died as it rolled into the parking lot and I had to
fire it up again in order to park it, this turned out to be a misadjusted
accelerator pump but adjusting it didn't fix the problem completely so there's
still some tuning to be done.
As far as tuning goes, lucky for me I have been using my Innovate Motorsports wideband o2 sensor, this is one of the most helpful tools I've
ever used. The version I purchased has the ability to data log up to five
different parameters of information to aid in tuning and I'm just getting started
with this part of it. I recently acquired and installed a TPS (throttle
position sensor) for my Holley carb and a two bar MAP (manifold absolute
pressure) sensor as well. RPM is already designed into the data logging cable
so I have four others to setup. The TPS will show how much throttle I was
giving it at different RPMs and the MAP sensor will data log boost levels.
I'm still currently tying up loose ends in other areas as well,
I have bought a pcv valve for a turbo Supra to use so boost won't be able to
leak past it when on the gas. I've been having trouble keeping the rear main
seal from leaking and I'm hopeful this will aid in that struggle. I also
purchased some new carpet but that will have to wait until I can get all the
wiring finished and get the floorboards cleaned.
5/2009
OK I now have the sensors installed and setup and I data logged
some info today for the first time. the car has now seen a small amount of
boost, the first time was while doing a small throttle controlled burnout I was
watching the boost gauge like a hawk and saw a measly 1 psi before getting out
of it. Today while data logging I hit almost 5 psi and the air fuel ratio was a
safe 11.6:1. As far as seeing the boost earlier today boy I plumbed in
stock supra bypass valves and dumped them inside the air filter housings to try
and keep noise down from them but wow they got really loud when I let off after
hitting just 5 psi in the parking lot!
I got the pcv valve installed with little trouble and also
managed to fix the bog off of idle I had, I ended up going up to a #37
accelerator pump nozzle and used a blue pump cam. I want to go for a test drive
that is really worthwhile and get some miles on the car, I need to get some
insurance on the car so there will be nothing illegal about it while on the
road, I did manage to get antique vehicle tags for it so they are good for 5
years, woohoo.
I haven't gotten around to installing the carpet yet (I've been
running sensor wires) but it much closer to being done, I bought some cheap
foil type insulation to go under it so hopefully it will keep noise down inside
the car. If I have enough left over I plan to find a way to add some to the
underside of the hood to help out with heat dulling my paint on the hood.
I'm having a lot of fun with the Innovate products, I would
recommend them to anyone. In fact I'm thinking about purchasing more of their
products the Auxbox has a built in MAP sensor, its own 5 volt reference voltage,
and accelerometer (VERY cool), and can data log my exhaust temperature from the
type K thermocouple I have in the header. Its very tempting because it has so
much already setup and installed within it this may eliminate some wiring I ran
(which would be nice) I will be considering this in the future.
6/2009-11/2009
Wow, a lot has happened since May folks. I've gotten
divorced, thats how things go sometimes I guess so thats my latest excuse
for not doing much on the car. The good part is I didn't lose it and I even got
it out and had a little fun with it a month ago. I have a new boost level to
report, the data log on the car showed to have hit 12 psi! The excitement was
short lived because on that romp I managed to break the transmission and
lunched the torque converter, but not to worry I now have a custom built
converter made especially for me by Phoenix
Transmission Products. I'd recommend them
to anyone that is in the market for a domestic based performance transmission
at any level.
I am quite certain that my carburetor will need to be gone
through as it seems to be gunked up from sitting too long, among other problems
the secondaries were sticking but now that I'm down to one income things will
take a little more time to get done but at least most things are done and can
continue to move forward.
The new converter has been installed but I still need to get
some new bolts as the bolt size and thread pitch have changed. The converter is
a really nice piece and you can tell that it was worth the extra money I paid.
I hope to test it out very soon.
I hooked up the e-brake cables that were originally intended for
the rear brake drum setup, I'll have to test them and see if they work
or how well they work.
11/2009-12/2011
Wow new record time for lack of updates, almost two years, at
least I managed to post my youtube link on the videos section. Well if you're
reading this then you should know that the TTZephyr has been up and running for
a while now, the first pass was in October 2010, it didn't run as good as I had
hoped but it didn't break so I tried to build and stay positive on that. The
videos of the passes are available on www.youtube.com/ttzfer. After that outing in 2010 I packed it in for
that year and made some adjustments/improvements, I upgraded the torque boxes
and added a new rear suspension from wildrides racecars which included all solid bushing upper and lower control arms
as well as solid mounts on the 8.8 axle. This did indeed help as the car
finally started to 60ft like I had hoped it would, current best is a 1.58!
So far the car has gone 11.54@114.16 in the 1/4 mile with the
stock E7TE heads but I have recently taken delivery of some twisted wedge heads
that will hopefully get it in the 10s. I will try to make another picture page
dedicated to the new parts, this web editor I'm using isn't as user friendly as
what I was using which has been a factor in the lack of updates. stay tuned.
Ok another long time without any updates but hey thats how it
goes sometimes, I got the new heads/intake/rockers installed on the car and
fought a few issues initially, it had an exhaust leak because one of the
headers is warped, I managed to get it starightened out long enough to install
it and get it to seal but if it has to come off again it'll need new headers. I
also had to buy new valve covers, trick flows to match the heads I must say
they are nice but that was another $120 I didn't expect to have to shell out
but they clear the rockers where the grinded stockers wouldn't. After all of
that I only managed to test drive the car one time in 2012 due to losing my
space at the shop where I am employed to work on it, that was a huge setback
and took a long time to overcome. When I drove the car in 2012 it seemed lean
under boost and my fan wasn't working without using the manual override, I
didn't have the money to do much with it for a while so it sat the whole year. :(
Fast forward to 2013, I managed to recover from my pitfalls and began getting
the car going and started tuning on it again, I had to rebuild the carb yet
again due to it sitting but it came back to life and I started running it a bit
here and there and had my brother in law follow me on a test drive or two and
this helped a lot. The issues with my cooling fan working was due to a faulty
fan controller but I went with a thermostatic controlled relay from Painless
Performance and that solved it. After that I took the car on a 50+ mile drive
and really enjoyed being back in the saddle again. there is a video of the
short test drive I took with my brother in law in tow and some shenanigans
found here.
Anyway down to business, after getting things working like they should and
tuning and tweeking here and there I finally took the car to the track with the
new parts on it. I went to the Texas Motorplex and ran new bests, the worst run
of the night was an 11.20 which trumps the previous best by over 3.5 tenths.
The best run was an 11.10@120.09 best mph on the night was 120.39. So I managed
to just miss the 10s but did eclipse the 120mph mark which was an accomplishment.
I believe there is still more left in it as I was running pretty rich still
even after leaning things out a bit on the jets but until next time check out
all the new videos of the runs on my youtube channel.
7/2013-4/2014
Past time for another update, this time there is some good news, the car has finally gotten into the 10s! This was done in November of 2013, it went a 10.98, 10.95, and 10.94 all at over 123mph. I was pretty happy and I know there is still a lot left in it if I can keep the block in one piece. This also marks the first time the car ran 6s in the 1/8 mile with runs of 6.98, 6.95, and 6.95 respectively. Once again I leaned the jets out about 3 more sizes and it is still running pig rich with an average of about 9.9-10.1:1 air fuel ratio, it should be totally safe to run it at 11.5:1 so there should be tons left in it. That being the case I have made a big decision to move to EFI. I have already begun accumulating parts to make the swap and will be running a Megasquirt computer. I hope I can tune it well enough to keep it alive and maximize power but I don't anticipate too much trouble. It will be nice to park it in the garage without the whole thing smelling of fuel after running it. Not to mention total control over fuel and spark timing. Check the youtube channel for videos on the 10 second passes that were made at the Texas Motorplex.