I came across this place via Yahoo after searching for "Fox Thunderbirds". After just quickly reading some stuff for about 5 minutes I am glad I found this place!!
I currently have a moddifed Contour SVT (3.0L swap and some other goodies), and 2000 Lightning that has a few mods as well, and an 84 T-Bird that has been sitting in the garage awaiting to be resurected since October 1996.
here are some pics of my turds:
98 Contour SVT
(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y23/RTStabler51/CSVT_Carshow.jpg)
00 Lightning
(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y23/RTStabler51/Lightning/L.jpg)
84 'Bird (My Senior Pic for '95....car still looks the same, just lots of dust)
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/gallery/ryan.jpg)
Looking forward to picking your brains!
nice looking cars. Welcome to the board!
nice cars. Welcome!
whats wrong with the '84? and welcome to the board
Ft Wayne eh? That's where I'm originally from and where the 'Bird resides.
Not really sure. It was hesitating and I basically just got sick of it and bought a supercoupe. I parked it in the garage and haven't messed with it since. My brother actually started it up for the first time in about 4-5 years about a month ago.
yeah fort wayne...... hesitating? hmmmmmmm same problem here dude, i unhooked my EGR valve from the the harness and plugged the vac hose leading to it...... no hesitation..... well........mine was more of a surge and that stopped :crazy:
Sweet Bird and welcome aboard!
How can anyone get tired of messing with a car looking that good ???? Get 'er goin' !! Welcome aboard....
Welcome to the boards.
you can check out any time you like but you can never leave
Welcome to the boards.
Wow. I'm actually thinking of owning a four-eye for the first time. That is one clean unit.
Nice rides.... So what engine you running in the Bird???
welcome to the sight, glad to see you keep it in the ford family with your purchases
It has an 86 5.0 HO in it, unfortnately, when my dad swapped the motor into it, he didn't want to swap the EFI on it, so it still ahs the CFI on it. (Yes, the car was a 'hand me down' 12 years ago). My dad bought the car in ~ '88
Thanks for the compliments guys :-)
i guess oldraven spoke for me also. Ive been eyballing the four eyed birds around here and for some odd reason, they are starting to grow on me.
welcome to the board!!!!
now to the problem,, im a little confused on the "ITS AN HO" and "CFI" part but maybe you could explain that conversion a little more.
Anyway, ill make you one promise if you just listen. Pull out the injectors and remove the tiny screens. Either replace them or just not use any at all. They are the cause of the hesitation cause your fuel flow is slightly delayed from reaching the combustion chamber due to them being dirty. Dont buy any of that injector cleaner , if you cant verify it cleaned something then just dont trust it.
next i would verify that the green wire on the TPS has less than one volt on it with the key on and engine off. It should have about 4.6volts dc with the trottle wide open , engine not running cause there is no need for it to be running to take this test.
make sure you ground your meter out to the engine and read the green wire output then ground the meter to the black wire and read the green outputs. compare the two just to make sure your eec is seeing a good ground source through the green to black.
im still curious about the HO part of your conversion, i know the HO first arrived on the scene as a carb setup in the early 82 mustangs and maybe a caprice but maybe an under the hood shot will help.
as for the cfi,, ive done about all you can think of plus a whole lot more to them so if any questions, leme know.
you have a great looking car there!!!!
Welcome to the board dude, saw ya roming around SVTperformance and was wondering when ypu would come around here!
good looking stuff welcome and dont forget to check out coolcats.net lots of good stuff there too
Well, your going to have to forgive my ignorance a bit if it shows through. I was I think 11 when my dad put the motor in it. From what I can recall, he bought an 86 5.0L out of a Mustang GT complete with the wiring harness. At the time he didn't realize and/or know that the wiring harnesses would hav e to be s wapped. So in essence, its a 5.0L HO Long block with CFI sitting on top.
When I was 17 or 18 and the hesitation began, I took it into Ford and they told me it was because the HO 302 had a different firing ordering then the CFI (Or it seems as its called SO here). However, the car ran great for 4-5 years with that setup in it.
It likely has a fuel system problem.. My guess would be the fuel pump is getting weak. Would be a good idea to check/monitor the pressure...
ok, gotcha,,, a simple intake switcharoo and its a done deal.
check the fuel presure at the shrader valve on the top driver side of the CFI. You will want to duct tape the fuel pres tester to the windshield and drive the car while watching the presure. At idle, expect nothing less than 38psi, 40 is the benchmark.
while driving, do not accept any fuel presure reading that drops below 30psi in between gear shifts. My fuel pres tester is home made so i have a 3' long hose with a gutted Shrader valve clamped to it. To test my fuel pres, i remove my stock shrader valve and screw in my home made tester.
this whole duct tape thing to the windshield is actually a test called out in one of my FoMoCo shop manuals.
dont forget about those screens,, ive been running with out them for a long time now.
I never knew this place existed!
Shoot, I wouldn't call any of those cars turds. I would love to have any one of them in my posession. I have been thinking about getting a contour myself. I don't know much about them yet but I like the general looks of the car. I am looking for something to replace my 92 Taurus SHO.
I had a modded 93 ATX that I traded in on my CSVT back in Oct '00. If you compare the overall package the CSVT is a better car. If you break it down though, it just depends on what you like. Contour parts are much easier to come by than the discontinued way that SHO parts are becoming. check out http://www.contour.org if your serious.
I may even sell ya mine ;-)
Thanks. I am getting a new used vehicle. I have narrowed it down to ford contour, chevy astro (please don't banish me from the board), or toyota 4 runner. I am looking for a daily driver that will carry 3 kids and get descent gas mileage. The svt contour is similar to the SHO in that it will haul the family but will get up and go a little also. The SHO is too problematic for me to deal with any more. My project car is my 85 T-bird.
Welcome to the board Ryan.. I like the lightning :) any mods on it?
Just a few minor bolt ons...nuttin special. (http://www.dragtimes.com/Ford-F150-Lightning-Timeslip-3959.html)
Conturd SVT (http://www.dragtimes.com/Ford-Contour-Timeslip-3960.html)
That's really amazing... I remember seeing that picture of the '84 on coolcats.net wayyyyy back in the day.
Very nice cars.
Yeah its been on there forever :-)