[GlennSullivan]

Person that owned that thing REALLY liked BLUE!!
With all the crap you are having to go through with emissions, no wonder all the Cali car people love really old emissions exempt cars.

Is that an oil return line bung for a centrifugal blower welded into the side of the oil pan?

BTW those spherical rod end control arms in your post from 9/22 will knock the teeth out of your mouth when you hit a bump. Look for some Steeda tubular upper and lowers with HD bushings, they ride nice and will handle high HP.

 

[Detroit Iron]

The fox bodies and SN95s are in a tough spot for CA emissions. Anything 99 and older that still needs to be smogged will require a more stringent test (visual, sniffer on the rollers, etc). The stupid rules almost force people to do illegal things. There are plenty of high performance parts that have CARB EO numbers (AFR heads, Systemax intakes, etc). But unless you have a factory cobra, you legally need to run 19 lb injectors, factory computer, stock MAF or you will fail the visual test. This is what leads people to swap parts come emissions test time every two years. It sucks be a performance car enthusiast in this state.

 

[GlennSullivan]

The fox bodies and SN95s are in a tough spot for CA emissions. Anything 99 and older that still needs to be smogged will require a more stringent test (visual, sniffer on the rollers, etc). The stupid rules almost force people to do illegal things. There are plenty of high performance parts that have CARB EO numbers (AFR heads, Systemax intakes, etc). But unless you have a factory cobra, you legally need to run 19 lb injectors, factory computer, stock MAF or you will fail the visual test. This is what leads people to swap parts come emissions test time every two years. It sucks be a performance car enthusiast in this state.

Yeah that does SUCK. I Can see where Cali is driving (pun intended) car oriented people out of the state.

 

[Tire fry]

I am doing something similar with my 95 GT with over 450k on the original motor, including adding the smog pump back in. Where did you find replacements for the OEM vacuum hose bundles? Ebay only seems to show a single mm type.

 

[DCx]

I am doing something similar with my 95 GT with over 450k on the original motor, including adding the smog pump back in. Where did you find replacements for the OEM vacuum hose bundles? Ebay only seems to show a single mm type.

Yes, I got them on Ebay. They were expensive, $100 if I recall. I have a spare set of emissions equipment and they came with the first length of hoses. My car has the first length but the Red, Green and Tan hose were cut for the blue silicone. The complete set of hoses had both the fender well side and engine bay side hoses.

I ended up buying a new charcoal canister from LMR just incase mine is shot. The car has 125K miles.

 

[DCx]

Finally got the cam out of this thing! Its a good thing I did. It ended up having a brand new B303 cam! back to stock we go

Engine and trickflow intake are so clean!

Im pretty sure this guys combo of parts made this car run like crap and he just parked it. look how shot these sparkplugs are

Looks like I will be ordering some new lifters, cam, gaskets, and hardware. The timing set looked stock so I will add a billet roller setup. The push rods and lifters looked re-used. I will measure for pushrod length, buy hardened units and get some new Ford Racing lifters. I will probably leave the heads as is. Debating on painting the (eww) to hide them from the smog tech.

I will be spraying the stock intake with some single stage PPG silver this weekend. Will probably spray the front accessory brackets with the same silver. I will be replacing the tensioner and idler pulleys, they are so damn noisy and rusty.

 

[Ilusivefox]

Im pretty sure this guys combo of parts made this car run like crap and he just parked it. look how shot these sparkplugs are.

It wasn't the combo of parts that made it run like crap. It was who put the top end together and the crap gaskets they used. I guarantee those cork lower intake gaskets for the tops of the China walls developed a vacuum leak and ended up fouling the plugs. Can't tune it with a vacuum leak and I'm sure they tried and struck out.

 

[Ilusivefox]

I have to give you credit for the effort because I wouldn't be attempting what your doing with Cali emissions. Its hard enough here in Colorado trying to pass emissions every two years with my own two foxbody's and helping other friends and customers get their cars through emissions as well. And they keep lowering the limits on the HC's, CO's and NOX making it harder and harder to pass.
Question for you on a side note? Are you leaving the aluminum heads on it? Because none of these cars came from the factory with aluminum heads until 1996.

 

[Mustang5L5]

It wasn't the combo of parts that made it run like crap. It was who put the top end together and the crap gaskets they used. I guarantee those cork lower intake gaskets for the tops of the China walls developed a vacuum leak and ended up fouling the plugs. Can't tune it with a vacuum leak and I'm sure they tried and struck out.

I was thinking the exact same thing as I looked through those pics.

 

[DCx]

It wasn't the combo of parts that made it run like crap. It was who put the top end together and the crap gaskets they used. I guarantee those cork lower intake gaskets for the tops of the China walls developed a vacuum leak and ended up fouling the plugs. Can't tune it with a vacuum leak and I'm sure they tried and struck out.

Oh im sure this thing was plagued with vacuum leaks. I took a mallet and gently hit the thermostat housing and the intake nearly flew off the engine. The china wall at the front of the black had a cellophane like plastic stuck to the block. no rtv was used around the water ports either.

I noticed the trick flow intake had a new PCV screen in it, however; the rubber PCV grommet is very loose and just falls right into the manifold. Granted, it is very hard and dry, not sure if it sealed well. The excessive use of blue silicone hoses im sure was a nightmare, generally one size was used for all of the vacuum lines and the previous owner stuffed hoses inside hoses without adding reducers and tees. The fuel pressure regulator had tape on the barb to increase its OD for the silicone hoses, lol.

I am well aware of the aluminum heads not being OEM. I would hate to paint them but I just might have to. This engine has so many hoses and accessories I didn't notice the heads when I first hauled it home.

I just ordered the Melling SYB-51 stock replacement camshaft. Any recommendations on a good timing set? I see most billet setups require countersinking holes in the cam retainer for a thrust washer. I was just going to get the Ford Racing setup with new cam retainer unless I a budget Cloys true roller setup would be better and cheaper. Either way, I will get new ford lifters for piece of mind.

 

[DCx]

I ordered ARP everything: cam bolt, cam retainer, balancer, water pump/timing cover (LMR), header (1" stainless), lower intake (LMR). I also got new ford racing lifters, comp hardened pushrods in stock length ($39), ford racing intake gaskets (gt40x specific) and a new cloyes true roller timing set. Oh, and I got a 1 piece oil pan gasket. I am not a fan of the china studs that are in the oil pan now. It was a royal pain to pull the studs out to remove the timing cover. I don't believe they are arp, they are very short and had what looked to be rusty grade 5 nuts. The studs had no star or hex drive to uninstall them, had to use vice grips.

Still a no go on the CARB-EO sticker from trickflow. They wrote me an email and stated the sticker was shipped on the 20th. The 20th? what month? August or September? lol what a joke they are.

A new street burner upper is $300 from summit, in stock, ready to ship. Just not sure if the upper alone will come with a CARB-EO sticker. Im starting to think they dont exist, I have never seen on on the forums or google picture search, then again, Ive never seen a BBK sticker on the web, yet; I own one.

 

[HYBRED]

Is that an oil return line bung for a centrifugal blower welded into the side of the oil pan?

No, that’s for the low oil level sensor. The return bungs are usually installed on the passenger side oil pan, same side as the blower.

BTW those spherical rod end control arms in your post from 9/22 will knock the teeth out of your mouth when you hit a bump. Look for some Steeda tubular upper and lowers with HD bushings, they ride nice and will handle high HP.

Those are double adjustable UCA’s, for correcting pinion angle on lowered cars. Without a pinion angle adjusted properly you have no traction. I’m pretty sure I also saw a panhard bar back there as well.
Those are things people typically neglect to address, only serious enthuists pop for that stuff.

 

[GlennSullivan]

No, that’s for the low oil level sensor. The return bungs are usually installed on the passenger side oil pan, same side as the blower.

Those are double adjustable UCA’s, for correcting pinion angle on lowered cars. Those are things people typically neglect to address, only serious enthuists pop for that stuff.Without a pinion angle adjusted properly you have no traction. I’m pretty sure I also saw a panhard bar back there as well.

Blower can be on either side, which is why I asked. Although I prefer passenger side as it saves the battery relocation.

I fully understand the reasoning and adjustable control arms are available with bushings. I would consider myself a serious enthusiast and have had both the double adjustable with spherical rod ends and the Steed's I mentioned. I found the Steedas provided a decent street ride as opposed to the spherical rod end units and at the same time a straight launch with good control throughout the pass
with 800RWHP stick car launching at 5500 on 10.50 x 28s.

 

[HYBRED]

But you didn’t recognize the low oil sensor for what it was? 🤷🏻‍♂️

 

[GlennSullivan]

But you didn’t recognize the low oil sensor for what it was? 🤷🏻‍♂️

No, actually I did not, It did seem low in the pan for a return, but was focused on the owner not knowing what was or might have been in the car and the rest of it did not seem to have been well thought out / put together.

 

[DCx]

Those are double adjustable UCA’s, for correcting pinion angle on lowered cars. Without a pinion angle adjusted properly you have no traction. I’m pretty sure I also saw a panhard bar back there as well.
Those are things people typically neglect to address, only serious enthuists pop for that stuff.

no panhard bar as of yet, what is pictured is the BMR tubular upper torque box reinforcement. Major pain to install, required denting in the floors to install the longer supplied upper control arm bolt. I still need to modify/relocate the intermediate rear brake hose bracket due to the bars location. I would like to add a panhard bar in the future.

Im at the point where I dont care if the car is largely stock motor wise. I live in the twisty hills of the san bernardino mountains and wanted something that could handle well and make v8 noises with a 5 speed.

The car has new poly rack, control arm, trans, and motor mounts. Maximum motor sports K member brace, steeda strut tower brace, bbk bolt in subs, SVE caster camber plates and SVE bump steer kit. Tires are 285/35/18 rear on a 10" rim and 265/35/18 on 9" rim.

I'm basically restoring this hunk of junk. Didn't get any work done due to waiting on LMR and Summit Racing orders. The cam did arrive Saturday. Looks nice but all that came with it were dowel pins, no cam card. I have a copy of the cam card from melling on my phone. All stock specs, .444 lift, 115LSA.

 

[cw50]

What I've needed to pass over the last decade (and have failed a test).

1. Have a performance shop recommend a smog center (avoids the anal testers), my center has never asked for e.o. stickers, but last year mentioned them so the state likely wanting to create a database I bet--need to pull them out in case, I guess). Some centers do I hear. My center understands it's a freakin 25y.o. muscle car...
2. Stock H pipe
3. EGR (1-5/8 headers with egr == ok)
4. cam with lobe sep >=114 and <0.555 lift (timing events are important too)
5. stock eec (chip will work, but most will throw a error code 511. Quarterhorse does wonders. And no eec error codes (they will pull from under the dash, so no aftermarket computers, e.g. holley)
6. stock pcv setup, aka no vac leaks, period
7. 100% working dizzy, as it will effect idle quality (I've been thru 4 in the last 10yrs) as I found ir caused me to fail on 2 test occasions.

(optional) stock MAF and injs if not running a chip

Everything else is open for mods, just don't go bonkers. Cause I've seen guys come in with modded 240sxs or right-hand RX7s and even a performance biased smog owner will turn them down immediately cause it's too much of a hassle and knows trickery is involved. Have fun with suspension and everything else.

 

[DCx]

Work on the motor and car has been pretty slow. Kind of a pain to work on it since its marooned at my folks house. I spent the last few weekends finishing renovations on my house.

Got some good news and some bad news... Trick Flow finally delivered on a Carb-EO sticker for a street burner intake, bad news is the part number listed is for a silver finish intake, not black, different part number. Additionally, all Trick Flow intakes have no part numbers on them at all. Bottom side of the intake has "TFS-SBF-EFI-2U" cast in the bottom. "2U" is a track heat "1U" is a street burner. one would need to do some deep google work and read forums and look at photos to figure that one out. Both intakes are identical to the naked eye. Shall I slap the Trick Flow back on it and take it to the smog shop with my shiny new sticker? here is a link to the executive order pdf, no part number or product description listed. 1995 mustang gt used for testing

Executive Order D-369-3 Trick Flow Specialties

CARB approval executive order D-369-3 validity, vehicle applications, and document download

arb.parts

okay bad news time... I think I need a new timing cover. I was cleaning the gasket surface and noticed some huge globs of RTV stuck to the gasket. After cleaning it up some I found 4 pretty large chunks out of the water pump mounting flange.

Would you run this timing cover and just goop it with RTV or buy a replacement for $65 from LMR?

 

[GlennSullivan]

Assuming the replacement is a quality piece, that is a no brainer, get the new replacement.

 

[Killer95Stang]

Go buy a #1 and #U punch and fix the discrepency. I understand what you are doing, but man, what a mess to pass smog. I passed multiple times with GT40P heads (drilled for thermactor piping), shorty headers, Crane 2031, Cobra intake, 24lb injectors with J4J1 ECU. Everything else was stock and all smog equipment connected. Key was to not make it look flashy.