Atilla the Fun wrote:A purple Formula. Perfect! I'm inclined co copy it,
AkursedX wrote:Anyways, great looking car and it's awesome seeing progress pics over the years. I wish I would have taken more photos of my GT and all of it's phases.
Thank you both.
March 2007
The DOHC overheated while driving around with the UNCC HPA crew. Coolant was somehow escaping from the system. I couldn't find the leak hard as I searched, so I drove the car an hour to my parents house, stopping to top off the engine every few exits. Mike put a pressure check on the system and found a pin hole in one of the hoses. I replaced the hose.
April 2007
Jinxmutt offered up a solution to my warped center console. He brought an extra console back from Connecticut. I picked up some clamps and glue from Home Depot, and Jinx had a Popsicle stick from the ice cream bar he had bought at the campus thrift store.
We repaired the console he brought back.
A week later the SES light lit up, and the car started acting weird. I borrowed Jinx's autoXray and found the cam signal wasn't being detected. A few days more, and the car wouldn't crank, leaving the car stranded at the local grocery store. I figured something was wrong with the wiring. So I spent a day building a temporary harness in the parking lot. I got the car running and drove it back to Winston to see Mike and get his opinion. We found a section of the harness, which was slightly too long, had come away from the firewall strap and burnt on the header. We patched this section and removed the temporary wiring I had put in.
While I was with Mike, we talked about the engine mounting. The WCF dogbone had stress cracked, and was getting worse. I had used rubber mounts rather than poly with the DOHC, and we both agreed the stock rubber mounts were in need of replacement. In light of this, I ordered a set of poly transmission and engine mounts from WCF, and left the car in Winston for two weeks. Once the poly was in, the engine position shifted, and so a longer dogbone was needed. I ordered another from WCF, but knew it would be a while before it arrived. My pop assured me that he and Mike had chirped the tires with the poly mounts in, and the engine appeared to be fairly stable, and moved less than before, even without the dogbone. I decided to drive the car back to school and have the shipping address changed, so the dogbone would arrive in Charlotte where I could install it. When I got back to Charlotte, I picked up a set of replacement gaskets for the intake. You can hear what the engine sounded like with a vacuum leak
here. Jinx was coming with me to replace the gaskets in one of the parking decks, when I stopped at my dorm to get some drinks in case we got thirsty while working. The battery was too weak to crank the engine when I got back to the car. So I decided to jump start the car with the clutch, rolling down a hill. In hindsight, this was a completely foolish thing to do, given I knew about the dogbone. I popped the clutch, and the engine tried to come through the decklid. In the process, the aluminum front cover, which the power stearing bypass pulley was bolted to, snapped away from the cover. Jinx and I pushed the car to a parking space.
My pops urged me to have the car towed home so that Mike could replace the cover. I was at a point in my life where I wanted to be self sustaining, so I convinced them both I would fix the cover on my own in the parking lot. I tried JB welding the aluminum cover back together, but didn't get very far before the weld turned to toothpaste consistency and left me in the parking lot again. So I caught rides to and from the yard, pulled another cover from a Grand Prix, and took the front cover off of the DOHC in the Fiero. I was doing all of this after class each day, and spent maybe a month getting the job finished. Fortunately, my Pops was supportive and made several trips to help and bring specialty tools. Getting the crank pulley bolt out was fun. I destroyed two sockets, and ended up using the starter to work against a 1/2" breaker bar and the ground.
I finished one weekend night around 3am. I decided to drive the car home to see my family and correctly set the cam timing. The new dogbone had come in long ago, and was installed. I got to the interstate. I was waiting at a light when the slave cylinder leaked down. The clutch bit hard and my foot was on the brake. The engine slammed against the closed decklid again, and the new front cover broke exactly as the first had. I was furious and felt as though my committed efforts were falling short. The next morning I called Mike. He came the next weekend with his flatbed. I had Mike deliver the car at the house. Mike said he had the time work on it with me, but to me this was my right of passage. I was determined to fix the problem on my own. I declined.
I bummed rides home during holidays and weekends to work on the car.
I ordered a third front cover, installed it, and built a heat shield for the rear header. I also replaced the rear transmission mount, which looked like an origami folding and was certainly the reason the engine had enough travel over the axle to slap the front cover against the decklid (twice).
Mike's had wanted to detail the engine and bay when we installed the engine, but I had been worried about our time frame, so I told him I'd tackle it later on. I decided I might as well do the job right this time while I was insistent to fly solo.
I shortened the wiring loom so that it would be taught, rather than be fastened out of the way and in risk of coming undone again. I also covered the critical portions with heat deflection tape.
When I replaced the front cover in the parking lot, I apparently didn't get the front cover gasket to seal correctly. My short trip to the highway and back was enough to mix a great deal of coolant with synthetic oil. I had never dealt with this before, and was led to believe that I should flush the system and use clean oil to rid myself of systemic problems. If I had known what I do now, that 2% trace amount of water in oil is enough to cause catastrophic bearing failure, I would have torn the block down completely and gone over every nook and passage. Instead, I flushed the oil twice, and added more clean Mobile 1. This is why things got ugly for me later.
Cleaned the bay up a lot. Removed all insulation, and painting the rear of the car.
You'll notice the rear glass is missing, I shattered it by just nicking it with a grinder while adding clearance to the right hinge. Jinx helped me pull another rear glass out of a car in the yard in Charlotte. It wasn't a fun task, but I'm grateful he was there to help.
I did ask Mike to weld a second front side mount to the cradle to relieve the load on the transmission mount. Series8217 was kind enough to help me draw out an force diagram to aid in my understanding of how the drivetrain rotated about the axle in transverse drive systems.
I purchased another parts car from member Pocket, an 87 GT, it can be seen in the background below.
I decided to try something different, and use the panels from the GT on my formula. At this point in time, I think everyone thought I had lost it entirely. I wanted to try everything...
I was really excited about painting the car Tour De France Blue, but school was eating through my income. I had to make due with what I had from this point onward.
I drove the car like this for about a month. If anything, I was proud to be driving my car around school again. I had tackled the problems, on my own.
July 2008
DOHC spins rod bearing. Several lifters have also developed an obnoxious tick. I also found that the front mount and the dogbone had stress fractured again.