Decisions, decisions

I started on this project before I started this blog so several things are set in stone already.

The block:

I'm building a Ford 351 Windsor bored .030" over with a 408 stroker kit.  I bought a machined block from ProMar in NJ.  I considered buying a used engine locally, tearing it down myself and having it machined but I was afraid I might buy something irreparably damaged.  The block looks really good so far.  It's out of a '91 Ford truck (probably an F series pickup or an E-series van) and it was built for hydraulic rockers.  I initially thought I'd keep the engine's original displacement but the company I bought the crank and rod from (Coast High Performance) doesn't usually sell the original stuff so it would take longer to put a standard displacement kit together than a stroker kit.  The 408 stroker that I opted for is a pretty cool size.  The bore and stroke are almost identical (or square) at 4" apiece.  From what I understand it's a pretty flexible size.  It works well for drag racing and street racing (not that I'll ever race the car) but like any stroker kit it will wear out faster that a standard bore and stroke.  

The valve train:

I bought a used set of aluminum AFR 185 heads online.  They're cast aluminum but the intake and exhaust ports plus the combustion chamber are CNC milled for good flow.  They also have very big valves.  I got a pretty good deal on them and they arrived in really good shape.  I tore them down and rebuilt them cleaning the valves and replacing the seals.  I also had the combustion chambers, exhaust ports, valve faces, piston faces and the backsides of the exhaust valves ceramic-coated to handle heat.  I'm still considering running the engine on propane which burns pretty hot so I thought the coating would help.  On a block related note I had the piston skirts as well as the main bearings and connecting rod bearings ceramic coated to fight wear.  I chose CompCams XE274HR hydraulic roller cam and hydraulic roller lifters as well as full roller rockers.  The cam is relatively radical but with a good ignition setup it should idle nicely.

Ignition and intake:

We have pretty strict emissions standards in my county.  I don't think they'll apply to this project but I'm an environmentally conscious kind of guy so I chose to use closed loop fuel injection.  I'm installing an Accel DFI ignition system.  It's pretty much a complete fuel and ignition system.  The kit includes among other things, a programmable ECU with a bunch of preprogrammed base tunes to get you started, an intake manifold and throttle body, fuel rails, injectors, pumps, sensors including a wide band O2 sensor, a coil, hardware, hoses and a special distributor that tells the ECU the position of the crank and allows the ECU to adjust ignition timing.  It's a pretty sweet system. The only downside is that tuning it requires a little training.  I also considered using the Edelbrock Pro-FLo system but Amazon had a fantastic deal on the Accel system that I couldn't pass up.  The ignition system also promises to deliver a smooth manageable idle despite my radical cam.  We'll see.

Enough about me. What am I building?

I've always wanted to build a kit car.  At least once a year I'll search the internet, read some books and research possible projects.  It's always been more daydreaming than anything else but lately I've been looking for hobbies that I can enjoy without leaving the house.  The wife and I both spend a lot of time working and I spend the rest of my time hanging out with my kids.  My old hobbies (paintball, motorcycling, mountain biking, hockey, model cars and airplanes) require a lot of time away from home so I haven't been able to enjoy them for the last few years.  'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy'.  We all know how that worked out for Jack.  I haven't been talking to invisible bartenders but it's just a matter of time.

The last time I fell into my kit-car-researching groove I came across a Dallas company (Lone Star Classics) that was advertising a 7-day-build-at-home program.  I was never really a Cobra guy.  I love Cobras but I love them from a distance.  To me they're like a really good movie...I love watching them but I wouldn't enjoy seeing myself in one.  However, I was so sold on the idea of a 7 day build in my garage (with an experienced factory builder with his own tools) that I was willing to overlook my Cobra reservations.  I even drove an hour out of town with my son to catch a Lone Star Cobras get together and check out some examples of the final product.  The cars were really cool and my son was impressed.  My biggest problems were 1. they have no tops (I tan well but my wife and kids have the skin tone of the under-belly of a slug) and 2. The side pipes are really freaking loud.  I love loud cars but my wife and neighbors probably won't so that's an issue.  Still, I went from day-dreaming about a kit car to seriously-considering-a-kit-car at that get together.  I had already pitched the idea to my wife as a possibility and she was cool with it.  When I got home I told her that I really wanted to build one and she signed off.  She liked the idea of the kids helping out, learning some valuable skills and achieving a sense of accomplishment when the car was finished and she also thought the Cobras looked pretty cool (not really her style either, but still).

I had a business to trip to Dallas scheduled a week after the Cobra trip so I called the Lone Star Cobra shop to see if I could come by and check out the operation.  I also asked them how soon I could schedule a home build.  Summer was right around the corner and I thought it might be cool to have the kids home for the entire project.  To my disappointment the owner told me they had cancelled the home build program and replaced it with a 'build-it-in-our-shop' program.  It seems it was really hard on the installers to be traveling all over the country.  I understand where they're coming from but I wasn't as excited about staying a week in Dallas with my kids and not being able to share the build with my friends, neighbors and wife.  Without the build-at-home program I was no longer willing to 'settle' for a Cobra.

I had decided I was going to build something.  I just had to figure out what.  There were two cars that I really liked and two more that I really, really liked.  I love Porsche Speedsters and I always thought it would be cool to have a Lotus Super7 track car but neither of those blow up my skirt like the Sebring ZX Austin Healy replica and a Factory Five Daytona Coupe.  Fortunately, (or unfortunately) I didn't have to spend much time weighing my options.  The Sebring Austin Healy is already an expensive replica but after import fees (from England) and the Euro to Dollar conversion, it's astronomical.  It's also based on European donor cars (actually European versions of American cars but I'm not willing to gamble that I won't have a very hard time sourcing proper parts).  There's an Austin Healy replica built by a Florida company but I couldn't find anyone who had ever assembled one, there were several negative reviews of the company on the internet and the owner wasn't very confidence inspring over the phone so I chose the Coupe.  Actullay, I think it's my favorite anyway.  Besides, it has a roof and enough room under the hood for chambered mufflers (more about that later) so the wife and the kids (and the neighbors) should be happy.

Introduction: I'm building a car

Welcome to my blog.  Several family and friends requested that I keep them up to date on my kit car project so I thought I'd put this together and update it from time to time.  I figured it would be a good idea to include some bio in case you wandered in here from some random google search and have no idea who I am.  Skip the rest of this post if you already know me.  It's mostly BS anyway. 

I am not a mechanic.  I have very little idea what I'm getting my self into.  I'm operating under the possibly mistaken assumption that a person can learn enough from the internet, books, magazines and life to pull off a project like this.  I attribute that to my dad.  He never met a project that he felt he couldn't do.  If something broke and it might be worth my dad's time to fix it, he did, and I was usually assisting.  He and my mom even designed and built their own home, mostly because the builders they talked to weren't up to snuff but also because my mom and dad figured they could.

I'm not one of those OCD types that has done months or years of research either but I have done a little and I have had some mechanical and electrical experience.  I helped my dad work on our cars when I was young.  We had one problem car in particular that I learned a lot on.  It was an '83 Cadillac Sedan de Ville that my dad bought my mom for mother's day or her birthday or something.  My favorite story about that car and one that describes our experience with it pretty well was that one day after work my dad went down to his parking place to discover that the Cadillac had been stolen.  I wasn't there but I always picture my dad fluctuating between anger that someone had stolen his car and delight at the thought of some stupid crook having to deal with it now.  In any event the car had other ideas.  The police found it several blocks away where it had broken down.  The thief apparently threw a tantrum when he couldn't get it going again.  There were shoe prints all over the interior as if he had been trying to kick start the car from the inside.  The Cadillac's interior stubbornly refused to yield (as the engine had stubbornly refused to restart) so he ripped out the CB handset and took it with him; I guess as a consolation prize.

My first car was a '73 Mustang convertible (if anyone has a picture of it forward it to me and I'll post it).  It was a great car and it rarely had any problems that weren't directly attributable to the driver (my brothers and I wrecked it several times and I put diesel in it once - I remember thinking, 'man, the green pump is really cheap!').  I chose a 351 Windsor engine for my kit car project because that's what was in my Mustang and I'm pretty familiar with it.  It's also almost identical to the 5.0 Mustang engines of the 80s and 90s.  My college roommate and best friend Russel had a 92? Mustang convertible that he was always hopping up (Seale, I know you have a picture) so I got to work on that engine a lot.  For about a year in college I discovered that I could turn a quick buck buying and selling cars and motorcycles from college students.  There was almost always some minor work involved so I got some more experience there.  When I moved backed to Houston I took a job as a generator mechanic specializing in electrical troubleshooting and repair for about three years before going back to school to get my electrical and computer engineering degree.  I'm now the R&D engineer for an emergency vehicle manufacturer.  I'm very good with electrical systems from a theoretical point of view but in practice I'm probably just above average.  As far as engines are concerned I'm just a shade-tree mechanic.  I have some basic fabrication skills.  I've never worked on a transmission, never done body work and can't paint.