There was an article in Hot Rod a few years ago about the 5.3 that was really impressive. They're cheap and plentiful in the bone yards and what you get is a 290hp engine with all forged internals, 6 bolt main bearings, roller cam, and aluminum heads that flow better than any production old generation small block head. With just a cam change and the MSD/Edelbrock setup they picked up 100hp. A guy in the same magazine had a stock 5.3 with a bigger cam and a turbo in a Ford Fairmont of all things and was running in the upper 9's. He'd been beating it to death at the drag strip and it was still holding together after a year without even pulling the heads. Here's a link to his car on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk9uU_3VHT0 After reading all that I was sold; I looked up LKQ Salvage online and got a 2002 5.3 with 60,000 miles for $500. It looked great inside and I cant wait to try it. The Edelbrock/Msd kit fits any LS based engine and comes with 6 different chips for the box from economy to performance setting. No need for a laptop, just swap the chip for different performance levels. The harness is included, you just run a 12v+ wire to it and your done, no computer needed unless you're running the 4L60E trans, then you need a computer for that. I switched to a 700R4 so I wouldn't need one.
Spent the day on the trunk; I had several patches that I still has to grind down the welds plus a lot of general cleanup. I also had patches of old undercoating to scape out and I removed the spare tire well and mounting bracket and patched that in.
Like that sheet metel work! I need to take a class on welding and sheet-metel fab. Alot of people love doing the BONDO thing but its not really putting much into the vehicle. Nothing like putting hard work into a project and getting it back in original condition the way it was made and then adding new options to make it stick out and be more personnal to the owner. Glad that you don't do your work 1/2 a$$ but do it the way it should be done, correctly!!!!
Falconvan, With the way you did your trunk by removing the spare tire well and making the whole trunk flush, will this give you room to add a bigger fuel tank? If so, what size tank are you putting in?
That's exactly why I did it, sarge. The original was 15 gallons; I should be able to get a 20 under there now. I'm building this for a nice highway cruiser for my wife and me. We'd like to do some of those multi state car cruises and some long trips so i wanted a little more than it had.
I got the patch on the other side fully welded in today, along with most of the trunk patch and several hours of grinding.
Yeah, Mike is not only generous but one of the most morally upright guys I ever met. Besides the car, watching how he lives made me take a hard look at myself and change some things in my thinking. Men like him who live to be obedient to God make a real impact on the world. You cant help but want to be a better man when you're around him.
I decided I'm at a point where I'm going to need some help on this; my body skills are fair but I want this to be nice. I've got a friend who's a pretty good body man so I had him come look today. He gave me a pretty good price so we'll start working together on getting the main body work finished starting the last week of December. I'm excited; it's going to come out great plus I get to learn along the way.
You should invite Mike over one weekend for lunch and let him see the work that you are doing. Maybe he will get his hands dirty with you working on the car. Who knows, maybe he can start coming by once a week and share old stories with you about the car itself. Anyways, I still enjoy the build and seeing the work being made with her!!!
Oh, Mike's been checking out the process throughout the whole thing. He was really happy it could be saved. He does custom woodwork; I was thinking of having him make something for it; maybe a dash panel for the gauges.
I kind of jumped around today; I finished up welding in the trunk panel and a couple of little patches where the spare tire bracket was. I'm going to eliminate the cowl vent so I cut all the brackets off of it and turned it into a patch. This is going to be tough getting this straight so i just tacked it and I'll let my body man finish this up. I've got the whole week of Christmas off so i'm going to try and get a couple of long days to work on the underside and get the welds cleaned up and hopefully POR-15 the whole underside of the body along with a lot of the inner body structure. I know a lot of guys like to paint all that body color but I figure if you're not going to see it once the interior is together, it's getting the POR-15 treatment.
I'm off work all week and man does that feel good. I think I'm going to start scouting around for a different job; I thought I'd really like a higher level of management but it has been nothing but constant aggravation. I just cant get away from it; long hours plus constant calls and emails when I'm not there. The money was nice at the beginning but It's just not worth it so hopefully I can find a way out. I got to spend a few hours working on the car the last few days. Lots of prep work underneath but nothing that really shows on a picture. I had a few spots in the floor that had some small pinholes so I mixed up some All-Metal filler and took care of those. I got the door hinges out which was an adventure all in itself. Those big #3 Phillips screws figured they had been there since 1948 so they were staying. It took about 3 hours to get 16 screws out. I saved this brake petal assembly from a 96 Firebird we scrapped and I think it's going to work fine once I trimmed off the unnecessary pieces. I did a little trial fit with the dash and front seat; it might have to come down a few inches but I think it'll work.
My friend Kyle has been putting some time in on this and it's nice to have the help. He's been finishing up some metal repair and is getting ready to start at one corner of the car and work his way around smoothing everything. I've been painting some POR-15 in all the hidden cavities and the trunk floor to try and make sure the rust stays gone once we're done. It's moving along pretty good; as soon as we've got the main body finished and primered, I'll move to setting the drive train, and setting up the steering.
We've steadily been working on this a few nights the last couple of weeks. I've got the rustproofing paint pretty much done on the interior and will be starting underneath soon. Kyle's starting to go back over the patched areas and smooth them out. Still a ways to go but moving along.
You think you're getting pretty decent at body work until you sit and watch someone that does it for a living. Man, I got a lot to learn. I've got him putting about six hours a week into this; that's about all I can afford but he's making much better progress than I was. I'm doing the grunt work; lots of sanding, stripping and patching and Kyle's doing the finish work. I'm optimistically hoping we'll have the body work wrapped up by mid summer. It's good to be excited about working on this car again.
OK, while Kyle's smoothing the wrinkles I decided to start figuring out how to make this 64 T-bird rear seat work. I always thought the wrap around rear seat was cool so when I saw one in the bone yard last year, I jumped on it. It's about 4" too wide and after a lot of staring and thinking, it made the most sense to narrow it in the middle. I'm going to figure out the back section first and then move to the seat. Here we are cutting up and narrowing the package tray.
That back seat idea is awesome. Did you ever finish the R&P i'd love some more info/pics on that whole fiasco, I'm debating that right now! Keep up the good work I'm diggin it!
Thanks; I thought it would look pretty good if I could make it work. R & P? Not sure what you mean but let me know and I'll tell you. Here we are starting to float out the quarter panel; defiantly a few high spots to work over. I'm not totally sold on using this door, that's why I stopped stripping it for now. Once we get the main body done I might look for a better candidate; it's got some rust damage near the bottom. They do make a lower door skin, too.
Hey old buddy, saw your name on this thread and clicked on it. Cool story man! The build will surely be special because of the all the good karma that surounds the car from the start, I will follow this one closely!
Hey Swimeasy, good to hear from you! This is special and was one of those once in a lifetime gifts. That's why I decided to build this for my wife and hang on to it for many years to come. Plus if its hers that gives me an excuse to build another car for me when it's done. OK, rack and pinion, I got it. I've got a 94 Cavalier rack that's going to go on but I havent welded the brackets on yet. I figured as soon as we get the main part of the body in primer I can set it on the frame and finish setting up drivetrain and steering. The MII setup i used at first ended up looking good but after a couple chassis guys looked it over, we decided it wasnt going to be a good system; too many potential problems. I bought the Cavalier brackets from Fatmans along with a new 94 R&P and that's where I'm at now.
Awesome, I just stumbled on your post about the R&P issues so I understand what your going through! Keep up the good work and thanks!
Glad you like it and good luck on your project! We hung the other door so we can start fitting it and making sure everything lines up good. In the meantime I went back to work on the package tray, making a filler piece and finishing up the mounting brackets for it. I like it; I think it'll add a nice touch. Next I'll narrow the seat base and start on the folding armrest.
The Jalopy Journal
