The ten holes are nice it is just a lack of tire sizes for a 16” wheel, not much out there.

 

/\ snowflakes I meant to say.

 

I was really humming and hawing over the wheel choice, it would be nice to have a set of the 9” wide ten holes and get the factory ten holes narrowed.

 

Well after all this time, I finally have the car!
I had the car shipped to Scottsdale as the company I work for has a lot going on there, mainly the owner who drag races his nostalgia nitro funny car and it was kept at a company who does the Barret Jackson car detailing. I will give a shout out to them, Rolling Art Motorsports, thanks Mike your a stand up dude!
Part of the reason for the delay was one of our enclosed auto hauling guys got Crohn’s disease and was off work the past couple of months and one of the other guys got very severe lung infection that brought his lungs down to 55% of normal, and no it wasn’t Covid. So needless to say my car got put on the back burner as I am not a paying customer. After my experience with my 96 f150 purchase in the states I am a lot more patient now! So I drove it home and to my surprise the car isn’t as gutless as I thought it would be, I mean don’t get me wrong it is slow, but it does have a bit of bottom end torque so it’s not to bad.
Drove it home doing around 75 to 80 on the highway and the car drives perfect, no vibrations, no weird sounds, just cruised along nicely. So as soon as I had it in my driveway I popped off the rear wheels and looked at the brakes, drums were good but the shoes were almost toast, so did the rear brakes and took out the stupid quad shocks and put in my Koni’s. Man the car is super clean and no rust at all, the underside looks fantastic, everything is original. The trans shifted good and works like I expected. I have never owned an aod car before, have some parts coming for that also.
So I went to bolt up my sve mesh wheels and opened up the Mcguard splined narrow wheel nuts, they came in 4 a package and they were expensive! Guess what they don’t come with the install tool, you have to order that separate! What a bunch of bs, I went with these lug nuts as the are black and the cheap ones rust right away, sure didn’t expect to have to purchased the plane key separate, the ad on Amazon did not say anything about that. Tried to get the key local but no go, had to be ordered so no install the but the offset looks perfect on the rears so I am dying to get them bolted up. It started raining this afternoon so the car is wet in the pics.
Oh this one has the window sticker like my truck, gotta lIke that!

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Here is my parts list that I already have or waiting on.
Sve staggered mesh wheels 17 x 9 and 17 x 8
Nitto 255/50 zr17 and 245/45 zr 17 tires
Koni sport shocks for the rear ( with shock adapter mounts designed to use sn95 rear shocks on a t bird )
Tokiko d spec front adjustable struts
Sway bar and end link bushings
Che upper and lower control arms
Global west subframe connectors
B&M trans pac kit
B&M 1800 stall converter
ARP head bolts
Fel pro 9333pt1 head gaskets
Walbro 190 lph fuel pump
Power master 3G alternator and summit wire harness upgrade
Cloyes double roller timing chain.
Explorer cam
Scorpion 1.7 pedestal mount rockers
Ported e7 heads with gt40 valves
GT40 tubular intake manifold with correct lower and plenum cover
BBK shorty headers
Stainless exhaust system and x pipe
Flowmaster stainless mufflers
Ford racing fox body valve covers
Accufab 65 mm throttle body.
19 lb injectors
Kirban adjustable fuel pressure regulator
Shrader valve adapter with gauge
Aem wide band
1988 mustang auto speed density pcm
335 gears

I was going to just use the heads that were on my 96 but I cam across this head porter in Winnipeg and he had a set of these heads, they come with upgraded springs, gt40 valves and his port work. These are mild heads but do offer a decent gain over stock e7 heads. He has a set that he ported with 190 intake valves and they flow just like TFS 170 heads. He took my old ones as a core and gave me 100 for them. Hard to believe but I have seen e7 heads listed for 400 dollars on eBay lately, you know things are bad when that happens!

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The car looks great! I didn't know that Turbo Coupes came with factory automatic transmissions. I thought they were all 5 speeds.

I am surprised that Tim gave you time off to drive it home. Work is usually pretty busy at this time of year.

 

I only drove it from our yard to home, it was brought up with a company enclosed transport. This one is a 5.0 sport, not a turbo coupe. Wish they would have sold these cars with a stick.

 

Here is the Marti report, nothing special going on here but nice to have.

 

So I am really liking my wheel choice, the rears fit perfect but the fronts could be tucked in a bit more.
Check out the inner clearance with 255 50 17 rears, no problem fitting a 295 back there. I will have to do some research to see what I can do with the front track, hopefully a spindle change will cure that and tuck in those fronts an inch or more. Also thinking I will try the turbo coupe springs off my 85 in the front to get rid of some fenderwell gap, should drop it down around 1.5”.

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Looks way better with those wheels!

 

Very nice! I assume you would be changing the A-arms to pull them in???

 

I am hoping on just a spindle change but we will see.

 

Yes, amazing the difference in attitude a set of wheels make. I have a set of halo headrests that I should use on this car and the 80’s will be back minus the hair, lol….

 

What, no mullet???

 

Nope, not these days that’s for sure.
So it looks like the deal with the front track is that the 87/88 cars use sn95 control arms with fox ball joints and the earlier 83/86 cars use fox arms. So I guess guys just swap out the lower arm to get it pulled in 3/4”
I am going to install a set of maximum Motorsports cc plates so I will be able to dial it in. I still have the complete stock k member from my 85 in the garage. I am installing a tubular k in that car so I have all the parts to do this. Hopefully that will pull them in enough and drop that front end down a bit. Well the car is now a legal Canuck! Got the out of province done on it today, it didn’t need anything to pass so that was cool.

 

Most of the chassis is the same as the Lincoln Mark VII, so if you have any questions, I can probably help out.

I'd also implore you to cancel that order for the B&M 1800 converter. The stock converter is a 1800, so it won't be an upgrade at all. If you can find a nice used PRecision INdustries, that would be much better.

 

I was having second thoughts about it, mainly because I am waiting for it.
Here is the link, seemed like a reasonable deal but I have to be honest, I have mainly owned stick cars, only my trucks have been autos so not much experience there.

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/bmm-40437

 

I'll bet money you won't tell a gain from it, and might be slower. Speaking from experience.

 

I cancelled it, they had no clue when it was going to arrive.
I guess I will go with just a shift kit for now. What I am trying to accomplish is new to me. I am trying to find a happy medium where I can get some half decent fuel economy on the highway but still have a bit of power when the need arises. I have only ever built for maximum performance that my budget allows, not highway fuel economy. So I started looking for a mild torque converter, stall should be 2000 to 2400 range, full lock up and allow me to cruise at a low rpm. 70 mph is going to be a bit below 2100, closer to 2000. I was going to install one in my 96 F150 but once I had the trans control with the pimp x shift, it was not needed.
Is Pete from Hughes still on site? He has not posted for quite some time. I should get a price from them if they still offer a discount to TTF members.
Any recommendations for mild aod upgrades? I did build a 4r70w before, J mod, and made it work with a 95 aode pcm in a 94 super coupe 5.0. That trans worked good, got all the info for that in click click racing but that site seems to have gone away. How about transmission shift improvement kits? Looking for the best bang for the buck but also want it to last, which should not be hard but the most important is that I want the trans to put a smile on my face when I drive the car, which In my experience is difficult and one of the reasons why I prefer a stick car.
Maybe I should just save for a tkx and swap this auto out in the future,

 

I don't know anything about transmissions or converters. On of my biggest regrets was not leaving the factory stall in the 93 GT I had years ago when I had the transmission rebuilt. Waiting for it to pull through the RPM from stall to torque seemed to take forever.