I finally bought a car - time to start working on it

Doing more things on the car -

Remember those blue kick panels from above?
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Painted Cluster carrier - did not smooth. Too many broken mounting tabs to want to put work into the panel other than paint. Its black but the sun makes it look lighter.
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Got the metal part of the dash painted Ultra Silver Metallic. Just need wifey to stitch up the leather dash pad cover and start reassembling.
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Also started polishing the dash trim piece. I highly recommend the Dremel polishing kit for these smaller pieces. YOu can see in the pic the part that is polished and the part I havent hit yet.
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Not much more to update here.
I sanded and polished the lens for the gauge panel
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After and mounted into freshly painted carrier
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Covered the a-pillars in Whisper Vinyl
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And mounted license plate
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Just waiting on some parts (whisper vinyl covered dash pad, ducting) to finish reinstalling interior.
 
Dufaq? Plate means Time Machine - old college joke. I would DD, friends would get in car and black out losing a couple hours of memory. Started calling my car the Time Machine.

For sanding I started with 1500grit, then wet 2000, then wet 2500. Then I used a Porter Cable with foam pad and Meguiars Plast-X (I used a dremel and dremel polishing wheels for the smaller spots). When buffing I just used the edge of the pad and worked first against the sanding grain then with the grain. Finally finished up with polished. I should take it a step further though.
 
Dufaq? Plate means Time Machine - old college joke. I would DD, friends would get in car and black out losing a couple hours of memory. Started calling my car the Time Machine.

For sanding I started with 1500grit, then wet 2000, then wet 2500. Then I used a Porter Cable with foam pad and Meguiars Plast-X (I used a dremel and dremel polishing wheels for the smaller spots). When buffing I just used the edge of the pad and worked first against the sanding grain then with the grain. Finally finished up with polished. I should take it a step further though.


I know, was just messing with you. To me it looks like some Asian guy named Tim A. Chin. :rofl:
 
Update: So I strayed from my original path of just replacing the core support and cleaning up the front suspension with some powder coat and new bushings. Whilst I did replace the core support, I also replaced the A-Arms and springs in the front, new alternator, lower alternator bracket (was missing), new CPP 3" springs in back, body bushings, and seats.

4/15/13 - Everything removed from drivers side. Gonna clean up the frame and paint before putting new stuff on.
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Gross old stuff on the ground. It was at this point I decided to buy all new stuffs. I waffled a bit. But I got really frustrated with trying to remove the old bushings, so I chucked the a-arm and hit up ebay.
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Rats nest behind the firewall. This is how it came to me. Its the horn relay (life of the car apparently) and the voltage regulator. 2 things that are curious about the factory build/wiring. 1.) The horn relay needs constant 12v power. Without it the car has absolutely 0 power. None. Cant even turn it over. 2.) All of the passenger side wires run in front of the core support on the outside of the car. I believe all of the wires were run and the connectors put on after that. Because I could not pull them back through - the connectors were too big. I had to cut 5 wires and put them back to together as a semi temporary fix.
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4/19/13 - Grille, headlights,header panel, ect removed
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Still 4/19/13 - Everything is off. Reassembly can begin.
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4/30/13 - New A-Arms with Energy Suspension Bushings and Proforged ball joints with Hotchikis 2" drop springs. Im impressed the sway bar link are roto-joints. Not bad for cheap a-arms. .

*Disclaimer - I really really wanted UMIs with tall BJs but the coin wasnt there and I wanted to stretch my buck a bit further. So I bought these CPP A-arms for $279 shipped. I bought the Proforged BJs at the same time with the intention of swapping them out immediately. When the arms arrived, I disassembled them and installed the new bushings and ball joints. I reused the original ball joint grease boots because they fit better then the Proforged ones for whatever reason. I also painted them silver - just because. What I did leave however, is the sway bar end links. The lower connection is a roto-joint as opposed to the OG bushing method.

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Still 4/30/13 - Caliper bracket - steering linkage shot
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5/4/13 - Painted new core support to install.
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Another shot of some more stuff installed. Also, some wires just hanging around.
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Some poly body bushings to show. Yes theyre on the whole car and not just right here.
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Brackets and header panel reinstalled
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Filler panel and headlights reinstalled. Used all new headlight bucket hardware and springs. Decided against installing retrofit projectors at this time because I just wanted to get the car on the road. Will install later - requires cutting headlight buckets and core support. So I just put in H4 highs (replaces T3s) and installed new relay harness. OEM wiring sends all headlight power through the headlight switch - makes for dim lights. Relays are the way.
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5/5/13 - Forgot to take some pics along the way. So in this pic I have the fender wells reinstalled (painted silver), core support bracket reinstalled, and dirty **** reinstalled. You can also see new CS130 Alternator. It bothers me to no end to put old shit back on, but, this isnt an unlimited budget build. So I make due. I couldve cleaned some things up I suppose but I was in a damn hurry.
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5/5/13 - Had old Edelbrock Q-Jet 850cfm carb on there. I bought this 770cfm Holley Street Avenger to use instead. Holy off idle hesitation batman. Took some research and some parts but it is tuned up and makes way more power than the Q-Jet did.

But I learned a lot about the Holley carb. Most people said the lean condition I was experiencing (popping out of the exhaust, off idle hesitation) was caused by vac leak or improperly set accelerator pump. So this gave a place to start. I removed the accel pump diaphragm and checked the primary squirter size. Everything seemed to be good there. I reinstalled those parts and set up a slightly more aggressive pump cam with a longer squirt duration. Still hesitated pretty bad but I could push through it and the car would move. So I bought a vac gauge and set the idle mixture screws, then the curb idle screw, and made sure the float levels were correct and also dialed the fuel pressure up from 4 1/2 psi to 6psi. Still a mean hesitation. Finally I decided to look at the primary and secondary metering jets. 68 and 76 respectively - yup, car is lean. Bought new jets and started with 72/76 combo. That almost did the trick - still a slight hesitation under light throttle. Went up to 76/82 - BOOM! MONEY! Now just waiting on my AFR gauge to arrive to see where I sit.

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And on Friday 5/17 - New Seats and Wheel installed. The wheel is a flimsy piece of crap and I need to find a better one (thats my personal opinion about this particular wheel made by Forever Sharp. They may have better wheels I dont know. But the adapter parts that came with the wheels are awesome). I'll make due for now. The Cipher seats however, firm, good bolstering, solid construction - not bad for $340 shipped. Im am slightly concerned about the sitching - we'll see how well it holds over time. The biggest hit was buying the Planted seat brackets. $140 each. Theyre very nice brackets though.
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And the lowered shots -
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Forgot to remove SS plate. Oh well.
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For the most part, everything went ok. Only one bolt on the passenger side lower A-Arm had to be cut off. Mostly everything lined back up which is lucky considering the nature of aftermarket replacement sheet metal. I had one issue with the headlight wiring, it was a ground so easy fix. Then I mentioned the no power thing - that had me stumped. I initially thought the POs terrible wiring job was the culprit - there was a random blue wire tied to battery +. Turns out random blue is pretty important to the life of the car so I ran a new red power wire to the horn relay.

So in the end, I have some nice new parts. Jury is still out on if it handles any better. I'll do my best to describe the before and after seat of the pants handling.
Before - car seemed to roll slightly then bite hard in sharp corners
After - car doesnt seem to roll. Seems to effortlessly glide through the corners. Giving the illusion the car isnt biting. Handling seems worse but I have more confidence in the corners.
 
good update. must be something that you would need to sit in and ride about the roll and bite vs. smooth and not handling as well issue.
 
I dont know if its an issue as much as it is an illusion of not handling better. I think the whole roll over center before the camber corrects thing made me think the car handled better than it does now.
 
So is that silver going to be the color of the car when you're done or an accent color?
 
So is that silver going to be the color of the car when you're done or an accent color?

I dont know. It will definitely be an accent color. I think I want the over all color scheme to be silvers/aluminums especially in the engine bay area. I was strongly considering the lower 2/3 of the car be silver and the top 1/3 be arrival blue. But the more I see monochrome cars the more I love them.

holley carbs are so much better and simple then q-jets.

any questions on them, let me know.

I think at this point Im ok. But I am looking at stepping up another notch at a carb that may be a bit more tunable. There isnt much to this one - Power Valve Sizing, Idle Mixture, Main/Secondary Jets, Squirter, Accel pump, and float adjustments and thats it. Once I get my AFR gauge in I'll tune this one to its max potential and start shopping for another. If you have any suggestions on where to go next - I would appreciate it.
 
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to tell you the true all carbs have that.

you shouldnt need anything bigger than a 750 IMO.

Do you find yourself needing to use the choke. i assume you donr drive this in the winter?

if not i would get one of holleys need ultra hp 750's its a all aluminum carb its pretty damn nice.
 
I dont drive in the "winter" - which means I dont drive when there is snow on the ground. But I do frequently drive it when its in the 40s. Choke is pretty helpful. Id really like something with drop in venturis.

I gotta tell ya. This carb is light years ahead of the q-jet. I barely touch the key and the car comes to life. I could never do that before. Fuel would leak out of the float bowl and down into combustion chambers leaving the bowls empty - making for hard starts most of the time.