Haha wow!
that is an absurd amount of work but it looks great!
I also think 85 is the best, last year of the carb, first year of the roller cam!
All the 85 needed was the 8.8!!! To bad it went to the 86.
Thanks for the compliment. It was an incrediable amount of work. Started as a simple carb conversion and spiraled way out of control. This bay was ugly. The car has a nice 3 stage, color sanded paint job but the under the hood was not matched when I bought it
I welded up all the small holes on the towers and frame and then I went stupid. I decided to cut the fender aprons out because they were not worth patching. Then I did the rear aprons. Then I plug welded the small holes on the firewall and patched the AC/heater box and wire harness holes. I cut, welded and leaded the pinch weld. Never ever do this unless you are up for a ton of work. I striped the interior and had to use a torch to remove all the seam sealer and sound deadning junk so the welds would not be contaminated. I was not happy with the fire wall results when I was done so I cut it all out and made my own fire wall from a sheet of cold rolled 18g. Now it was flat and smooth. I kept some stock aspects such as weep holes at the top, windsheild wiper, junk etc... hoping to fool track officals that the firewall is stock so I don't have to cage her. My cam is just barely capable of making enough vacuum so I kept power brakes. I also made new brake lines so their out of sight, got rid of the stock proportion valve and mounted a manual one behind the drivers strut tower, relocated all the wiring, solinoid, msd box, a terminal block accessory set up behind the dash where the heater box used to sit. Still not done with the wiring. All the wiring into the engine bay will be in that one gromet you see by the tunnel. I also pushed the sides of the tunnel back a couple of inches so the longtubes are easier to deal with. Prior to this I had to hammer the tunnel to fit the headers. Looked like ****. I removed the front sway bar mounts so the frame rails look really clean. I cheaped out and painted stock K member vs. tubular. That pic is where I had just squared K member back in. That is why there are two tape mesures on the floor.
I was going to turn it into a drag car but I decided to keep her on the street as I want my boys (3 & 6 years old) to ride and enjoy it with me since they help me work on it. My 6 year old has been driving the cherry picker for me since he was 4. I just taught the 3 year old how to use a floor jack. He will be ready for the cherry picker soon. My 6 year old is pretty good with tools now. I let him put all the sheet metal and covers on the engine as we tore it back down to adress some issues while we were at it.
Been with out my car for 3 years in July
I had a heavily modified 73 camero before this and I drove a fox my buddy bought, 3 hours back to phoenix and fell in love! I was a ford hater before this! Now I eat and breath fox bodies. Though I want to do this same thing to a SN95 cobra. Ok back to the tools sorry.
Before pic:
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over the 85's. I like the 86 too but prefer the 85 as it was the end of the carb era for foxes. I got an 88. I just gutted and smoothed the engine bay. It's getting a carb. I cut most of the fire wall out and replaced with 18 gauge to get rid of the pinch weld, bead rolls, and other lumpy areas.
