'84 capri LS1

i went through and got all the pictures of what the car has been through. it was a barn find and went through 4 owners, 2 of which did a lot of the work. Looks like I'll be the one to stick with it though!

Here are all the pictures I found:
http://picasaweb.google.com/the.souloist/84MercuryCapriBuild#

when i bought it:






Specs: (new stuff in italics)

Motor
LS1 Block .010 bore
Stock Crank
Lunati Pro Mod I beam rods
Mahle Pistons
CNC ported 241 Casting heads
Compression 10.5:1
LS6 Intake
Small Cam (Not sure on the size)
Dynatech headers-1 7/8" w/ 3" collectors
AJE tubular K-member
Flow Master Mufflers
K&N Filter

Transmission
Roller Turbo 400 with manual reverse valve body, Trans brake built by Mike Riding (MI) (recently freshened)
Converter (fresh) 4800 stall on spray, 3000 on motor by Mike Riding (MI)
AJE TH400/T56 crossmember

Rear End
8.8 rear end with 3.73 gear
Strange axles
C clip eliminators
Strange spool
Fresh rebuilt posi

Suspension
Wolfe Racecraft Double adjustable uppers
Wolfe Racecraft Single adjustable lowers
Welded frame ties (will remove and replace)
Maximum Motorsports Caster and Camber Plates
Maximum Motorsports Std. offset Tubular A-Arms
Maximum Motorsports Extreme Duty lower control arms
Griggs Coilovers coil over 350# springs
Koni Yellow SA struts and rear shocks.
Racecraft SN95 2" Dropped Spindles
Flaming River Manual Steering Rack/Shaft

Brakes:
Aluminum twin piston PBR front calipers with Wagner Semi-metallic brake pads.
11” vented front brake rotors

To install:
Cast iron single piston rear calipers with Wagner Ceramic brake pads.
10.5” solid rear brake rotors
Maximum Motorsports Rear Stainless steel braided brake lines
Wilwood brake proportioning valve
93 Cobra Brake booster and Master Cylinder
Front and rear 5-lug conversion

Interior:
Red Ferrari GTO Sparco Carbon Fiber bucket seats
Ford Motorsport 3 spoke Racing wheel

Wheels:
SVT Cobra 5 spoke wheels 17x9
Goodyear F1 275/40-17

Misc.
New red paint job
Twin 255l in tank pumps, rear mount filter and rear mount return style regulator
Battery relocated in the hatch in Morosso Battery Box

To install:
Maximum Motorsports Bumpsteer Kit
Maximum Motorsports XL Subframe Connectors
Maximum Motorsports Panhard bar
Maximum Motorsports Torque Arm
Maximum Motorsports Brake Pedal
Eaton Brute Force 31-Spline Clutch Type Posi Unit
Tom's Kick Ass 31-Spline Axles with 5-lug hub
Trick Flow Rear End Girdle
3.5" H-pipe exhaust with Hooker mufflers
Black/Grey Interior

Plans:
Gauges
Clean up the interior a bit, Grey/black interior, rear seat delete
Maybe some cheap stereo stuff.
Change over to a MM K-member
T56 transmission
Rust encapsulator the underbody
Capri RS airdam
McLaren Spoiler (if i can ever find one)
Headlight covers
Black moldings
Tint

The car it was previously in (fox notchback) dynoed 440 hp on motor and 540 hp on spray and ran 9.90's at one point. The car was on that awful PINKS show. So, the motor should be pretty beefy. The project car is definitely a project. I was hoping to just swap the steering rack, fix the headers, and get it tuned and drive it around for awhile... and mod as I go. but as all projects go...

the steering rack is seized onto the k-member. no amount of leverage was going to get it off. so i replaced the k-member and the steering rack with a manual rack.

anyway, i've already got a bunch of parts. some guy built up a road race mustang but had to part out and sell it for some emergency. so naturally i got a bunch of stuff for pennies, and i guess it pushed me over to build a balanced, fast, handling car vs. following it's history as a drag car. that means i'll have to pull the transmission, sell it, and swap a t56 in.. and do a lot of suspension work.

Slacker. Afraid someone would steal your spot?

well i took a lot of stuff off the car. basically replacing the entire front end and all the rusty bits that were transplanted onto this car with the drive train. everytime i take one thing off i run into some fitment issue and just ended up replacing almost everything.

i've done all this pretty recently to the front end:

new aje tubular k-member
new maximum motorsports std. offset tubular a-arms
new sn95 5-lug hubs
new racecraft 2" dropped spindles
new pbr 2 piston brakes
new sn95 11" vented rotors
new maximum motorsports camber plates
new flaming river manual steering rack
koni yellow struts
griggs 350# coilover kit

i just need the proper banjo bolt for the brake lines and i can finally put the new wheels on the front and get it off jack stands. not sure if i need new bumpsteer tie rod ends or not... probably do

still some issues though.

i put in an aje tubular k-member and one of the mounts wasn't lining up - so sac modified the mount a bit to make it fit. then i realized the custom tranny cross member didn't give me any clearance for my exhaust.. so i replaced that with an aje th400/t56 transmission crossmember and now that doesn't line up. i might have to get a new passenger mount and hope that everything lines up - i could always modify the tranny x-member to make it fit since it's just off by a little bit - but the motor is a few degrees tilted towards the passenger side due to the custom mount. after that shit gets done i need flanges welded to my headers and my exhaust modified a bit to fit. then i gotta take it to the tuner. i still want to swap a t56 into it though... but at this point i want to get it running to see if it actually runs ok before putting more money into it. (i could probably swap my trans with someone looking to go auto straight up though since mine is pretty built, has a trans brake, manual reverse valvebody, etc.)

then i still i still need to take the rear end apart and do the 5 lug conversion and put a eaton posi diff in.... i was going to find a spare 8.8 and just try to sell my whole rear end, unfortunately i just missed a 8.8 for $75

so i still have a lot of shit to do, but i've actually found some time to do little stuff bit by bit.

pics preeez!!!!!

my dslr was stolen. my g9 is broken (first day i landed in hong kong for my vacation, it decided to not turn on anymore yay!). and i lost my sony card reader for my old ass digicam i should do the canon trade in and get a g11 or something.

oh yeah, zach and i fired it up a few weeks ago in my garage, open header... only for like 2 seconds because it was SO LOUD. i'll upload the clip somewhere when i find my card reader.

anyone want to help me with the exhaust welding (mild steel ) and lining up the mounts?

This is awesome. Nice technical info

Like I said on A2SC... I love this car... Now I feel lonely being the only one with a 2-spoke wheel

derrick I'll help ya weld that shit over break!

dogbreath wrote:

Like I said on A2SC... I love this car... Now I feel lonely being the only one with a 2-spoke wheel

heheh, can always get a new one!

videos of it starting with open headers awhile back. it was going to set off my car alarm and the japanese family that lives above had guests they were sending off outside... so we cut it short haha.

first start

second start

anyone have manual brakes? i should either upgrade my brake booster to a later SN95 one or do a manual brake conversion. installing the larger brake booster will be a PITA (clearance is already tight, so I was thinking of doing the manual brake conversion.

Manual Brake, how does that work?

I ran manual brakes on my SN95 (coincidentally enough). It was okay... took a loooong time to get used to it. At first it seems fine because it doesn't take much more effort to brake normally... if you switch to manual brakes DEFINITELY take some time to practice your panic stops! The amount of extra force needed to 'lock em up' is extraordinary.

oh you had a sn95?? how'd you like it?

you just delete the brake booster, it'd be good to do this anyway if i ran a bigger cam in the ls1 because brake boosters rely on engine vacuum. the kits have a redesigned brake pedal with the proper mechanical leverage ratio so effort isn't that much increased. i would have to get a new master cylinder though (which i need to anyway).... might as well do all the brake shit now

i did find a sn95 brake booster for $45 though, so that'd be much cheaper. i just don't want to take a BFH to my strut towers - some people say you do, some people say you don't.

I had a '99 Cobra. I thought it was a good car, but I was young so I really didn't know what a good car was.

Derrick I personally would not go with manual brakes. what are you amish?! especially with a BBC! if it has a different ratio that'd be better but still idk man I think I'd want power brakes.

I concur.

Race wrote:

Derrick I personally would not go with manual brakes. what are you amish?! especially with a BBC! if it has a different ratio that'd be better but still idk man I think I'd want power brakes.

haha i didn't expect that out of you of all people. pedal feel is supposed to be better, a lot of drag/road racers do the conversion, so i thought this was a non-issue. looks like i will have to bang in the shock tower though, which i don't want to do
http://vb.foureyedpride.com/showthread.php?t=71212

lsx's are still considered to be SBC's

Adam VD has manual brakes on his Jetta haha, he likes them.

old school double wing? get rid of the bubble back hatch?

does the double wing actually serve some functionality?

double the downforce!

Do not like.

The bubble is awesome though

My 2 cents on the manual brakes is try it out!

First of all I've driven a car with manual brakes. It was actually a bit of a surprise since he failed to mention it until after I went through the first stop sign lol.
But after that little incident I got the hang of it pretty quickly. Normal stopping really isn't to terrible It's more mental than anything, It definitely requires you to think about the braking for a while because you have to really get into the brakes but that also helps with modulation. If this is going to be a road race car than modulation of the brakes will be key for going fast.

Also it seems like manual brakes is something that's easily reversed. I can't believe I haven't seen anybody mention this. Hammering away at your strut tower is not really something you can take back in a jiffy. Not to mention the strut tower is a structural part of the car, you might not even pass tech at a road course if they spot giant dents in your strut tower...

Also you can play around with different MC sizes which would dial in the pedal feel.

As for the wing, Hell to the no!