BARE METAL

With the rain today in KC. I decided to utilize the garage. It is so nice to work on stuff when the weather sucks. Before, I would just lounge in the house all day and be lazy. You can see by the pics I have been working on the passenger door. Look at that bare metal..MMMM...Its rust free. I decided to use paint stripper instead of sanding. It was much quicker and I wanted to make sure those doors really where rust free. This one looks great. It has a few dings, but I can take care of those. I was able to get a coat of primer on today as well. Looks pretty good. LATER...

I'LL BLOW MY OWN DOORS OFF

Ok. I think I can start to work on the Capri. We are 99.9% moved into the new place and we will soon have our old place up for sale. The headaches will soon go away!!! As you can see I am working on getting the rust free door on and while I have all this stuff off I'll get the front suspension on, along with taking the time to address some more little rust issues and do some preventive rust work. Several folks have e-mailed me wanting to know what is going on. Well, here is your "fix" for now. LATER...

GETTING ORGANIZED

Just getting some organization. Hard to believe I had been working out of a small storage shed with all this stuff. The Capri looks like a MILION dollars under that car cover, but we all know what it really looks like. LATER....

NICE CLEAN WORK AREA

Just a quick post this morning. Here is my new work areaa for the garage. Sam's club had these benches and based on what I have been looking at this looked to be the best. It even comes with a worklight. This should make things easier to work on and man...I think I'll be able to find all of my tools. I'll actually be able to unpack them all. I'll post more as I continue to get organized at the new place. LATER>>>>>>

MMMMMM.....GARAGE

Oh yeah...I have a garage and I can't be happier. It is 25' deep by 32' wide on the inside. plenty of room for 3 cars, tools, benches, and the list goes on. I'll be posting work on the car and stuff I am going to do to the garage to help with the Capri build. Later....

GARAGE HERE I COME

It has been well over one month since my last post. I have been busy in all areas of my life. The biggest??? We are moving. Yes, after several years and lots of sweat we are moving out of our little house and into a larger place. THE BIGGEST NEWS...IT HAS A 2 CAR DETACHED WORKSHOP.!!!! Lot's of room to finally give the old Capri some room to be worked on. You should see some great upcoming posts in the future. Thanks for being patient. Several folks at work are wondering what the heck was going on. I assure you, I will get to work on it as soon as I can. LATER.......I HAVE A GARAGE!!!!

LOUDER IS BETTER ANYWAY

I have to take advantage of my time before work to get some work done on the Capri. I decided to remove the mufflers from the car. This saves 24.5 pounds. It also makes the car sound more like the racer it is supposed to be. I'm curious if it will yield any power gains? With that 24.5 pounds, I am up to a 639 weight loss on the Capri. If I was looking to save weight to get better gas mileage, I would be doing one heck of a job. I am running out of weight loss options. Later...

HOLY FANS BATMAN

I had some time to work on the Capri today, and look what I got done. I hooked up the electric fan, installed some of the guages, and even had time to get some switches installed to control everything. Just in the driveway, the fan seemed to keep the temperature at 190. I imagine with the car driving down the road it should function just as well. That's it for now, I want to enjoy this weather we are having. LATER....

WHAT THE HELL AM I LOOKING AT???

Just another photo from last year. I am trying to figure out what I was looking at. Well, at least I am not trying to do some stupid..cheesy pose or something. LATER....

IS IT TIME TO GO RACING YET?

It's cold, I'm bored, and I want to go racin'. I was going through some photos not yet posted and decided to do some posts showing them off. These photos where taken by my buddy Dan when we went to the track last summer. Hopefully, I can have many more of these days. I've got lots of parts to install and it's too damn cold to do anything. Well....later for now and I'll post some more stuff to entertain you all out there in the cyberspace.

MY FIRST TIME

Just a quick post. I am going to attempt to rebuild my first carb. My first victim will be this Holley 3310. It is a 750 cfm carb. The one on the Capri now is a 600 cfm. With a single plane intake and the new heads, this carb should do pretty well. I'll play with it and the old carb to see which one proves to be the best.
As a side note. I changed the water pump out a while back, but a see it is leaking again. It looks like the timing cover is leaking though. I might have to replace it. I really hate FORD(S) design of the water pump area. LATER.....

LOOK AT MY REAR

I know the picture isn't pretty, but that my friends in an 8.8 "traction-lok" differential out of a 1990 Mustang GT. The tag is on the rear, so I'll attempt to identify the gears that it has in it. I had to drive a total of 5 hours, but I didn't have to take out a single bolt or load it in the truck. The gentleman I bought it from had already taken it out of the car and loaded it in my truck with his forklift. This unit should help plant the power that my newly acquired aluminum heads will be throwing at it. Of coarse, I'll clean it up, put on a fresh coat of paint, new axles, gears, girdle, and whatever else I think I could use. Later.....

A LITTLE ELBOW GREASE

With some tips from the folks over at the carbdford.com message board I have successfully done a pretty good cleaning on the Edelbrock Performer RPM aluminum heads. Lots of WD40, brass brushes, rags, and the softest 3M pads you can find. I also found that my gun cleaning kit came in handy as well. All they need now is a good blast of compressed air to ensure all of the little stuff has been blown out. That's about it for now. I am traveling to Camdenton, Missouri to pick-up a 8.8 differential. I'll keep you all posted on that build-up. It seems that I am going a little crazy on the parts gathering these cold winter days. Later....

HEAD INFO

Ok here is one of the heads after a cleaning. I wanted to list some of the info on this head so you can get an idea of the difference between the aluminum head vs the stock ford head.
Edlebrock spec:
1.90 Intake
1.60 Exhaust
170 Intake Runners
60 Exhaust Runner
Factory 302 Head( Not perfect but close)
1.78 Intake
1.46 Exhaust
125 Intake Runner
40 Exhaust Runner
As you can see some big differences in the Edelbrock head vs the stock head. The edelrock heads should be able to help the airflow. Remember, an engine is just a big airpump. You want air in and air out and you want to do it as efficiently as possible. Hopefully these heads will help with that. Later.......

HORSEPOWER..I'M GOING TO BREAK SOMETHING NOW!

The pictures say it all. I have aquired a set of Edelbrock Performer RPM Aluminum Heads. Not only with this shave 50 pounds of the front of the car, if I match up the heads with a good intake and a quality carb, I could see a 80-100 horsepower gain...WOW....I am sure some carnage is coming this racing season. The only downfall of the heads are that one head needs one intake bolt hole fixed. I paid about a 1/3 of what the heads cost new. They even came with roller rockers, which I can sell and get some money back. Later.....

THE GREAT WEIGHT DEBATE

The weight update. I am now at 614.5 pounds off the Capri and still looking. I can't wait to hit the track again and see if the improvements and weight loss improve my 1/4 mile times. Also, you can click on most of the picture images and "super-size" the pictures. You can get more detailed images and see where I might have screwed something up.

I'M YOUR BIGGEST FAN...WAIT...WHAT FAN?

Well, the new year has brought some new projects. The biggest change that was made was the new water pump. The thing always had a small leak, so I went to the Summit catalog and went for a new pump....a QUALITY pump. This one is made by GMB and it has a little different design on the back of the pump, so it won't leak. Almost every older Ford I have had leaked on the bottom back of the pump. Hopefully, this one will do what it was designed to do. When I had everything off, I decided to eliminate the clutch fan and go with an electric fan. The clutch fan weighed 7 pounds. While I was at it I decided to also eliminate the belt tensioner. That thing weighed 4 pounds. I included a picture of it to show you how small it is, but it has some weight to it. That is 11 pounds that the engine doesn't have to drag around anymore. The electric fan I am looking at weighs 2 pounds, so I netted 9 pounds off this little project. Sorry for the dark photo and the shadows. I'm no professional, so get off my back.....LATER

SUPER PIG

The weight update for those lazy folks. Well, really its for me, because I am the one that is lazy. I don't want to go back and add it all up either. 605.5 pounds of weight off the Capri. There is more weight to be found. I really don't want to throw out the carpet, door panels, etc, so I'll look for more ways to be creative. I hear that folks "swiss cheese" parts. I am going to look into that. I'll update you on my findings. LATER...

NOSE JOB

What a beautiful December day in Kansas City. The day allowed me to get several things done I have been unable to do for a long time. We have some help at work and I have a few days off......WOW DAYS OFF IN A ROW...I almost forgot what days off where. Well, I removed the front nose off to get to the front bumper support. 39.5 pounds of weight came off the front. I included a picture of the support. It is actually was heavier than the rear support.
I also remove the clutch fan in the engine bay and I am going to look for an electric fan, this along with some pulley's should yield about 8-15 horsepower gain. I ran the engine without a fan. I can really tell the engine has some extra "UMPF". You get to know your car when you have worked on it as much as I have. The slightest change can either yield results or not. We will see what results I gain when I hit the track again. LATER......

ARE YOU KEEPING TRACK

For those of you keeping track, but are too lazy to look at the old posts. The Capri has lost 566 pounds (not including me). Base on "fuzzy" math that's over a half second in the quarter mile for me. That's free horsepower and anything free is good for me. Two posts in one day.....hmmmm.....Later