1984 SVO Mustang Project Car

Snap Crackle Pop

2010-11-15T07:23:00.000-08:00

It really is a sickening sound when a turbo lets go. For me it was a "pop" with a little added metal on metal grinding noise, during a spirited drive into the country. Once the turbo was removed, the amount of play in the shaft (sounds like a bad porno) that I found easily explained the noise. Movement perpendicular to the shaft allowed the blades to come into contact with the housing. The bearings were toast.

At this point it was decided to employ the T3 from the Turbo Coupe parts car. The donor turbo seems to be in good condition. It spins freelywith no shaft play and the blades look in good condition. One problem...it was water cooled and the '84 SVO had a non-water cooled turbo.

A little background is in order. The turbochargers on early SVO's were only oil cooled. No provision was made in the CHRA (central housing rotational assembly) for water coolant lines. In the 1985.5 and 1986 SVO's (and Merkur and Turbo Coupes), the turbo's were cooled with water coolant lines from the engine. Although having a water cooled turbo doesn't give you any more power, it obviously is a good upgrade if you consider longevity of turbo important.

Starting with a non-water cooled turbo engine there are several items that will be needed for the conversion. 1) A water cooled turbo - not surprising right? 2) Coolant lines that incorporate coolant feed and return line to and from the water cooled turbo 3) An engine block adapter for the coolant.

When Russell, his friend Zerick and I decided to start work on the new turbo, it began with the removal of the old turbo. If you haven't gone through this procedure, it's best if you remove the manifold and turbo as one unit. The procedure is fairly straight forward, but that still didn't make it terribly fun. From our experience I'd suggest jacking up the passenger side of the car and removing the tire. This gives you better access to the underside of the turbo area. Under there you will wrestle with the oil return line and turbo support bracket bolts. Another problem that we experienced was that the EGR tube refused to budge from the manifold.

Shown at the right is the fruit of our labors. A broken E3 manifold
(see this article) and a broken T3 turbo. At the upper left of the
picture you can see how we had to leave the EGR tube attached to the manifold because it didn't want to come free even after a heavy soaking with Liquid Wrench. Here you can see how the CHRA is sandwiched between the turbine (hot side) on the left and compressor housing on the right. Notice I kept a portion of a maple leaf in the photo for those botanists among us. The bolts attaching the manifold to the head removed fairly easily after Liquid Wrench was applied.

If we look at little closer at the top of the CHRA you can see the oil supply line connection on top. Directly below this supply line is the oil return line that connects to the engine block.

Notice there are no coolant supply or return adapters for coolant lines to connect to. Without these connections, it makes for a much simpler installation, but it makes the turbo rely solely on the oil to cool the turbo.

After removal of the old turbo, the next step was to get a coolant adapter installed in the engine block. Every 2.3 turbo block can be adapted for a water cooled turbo. The block will either have an adapter installed already or in my case, a plug installed in it's place. Conversion is simple, the plug is removed with an allen wrench and the new adapter installed, which I secured from the TC parts engine. Here we see the coolant adapter located just to the left of the oil return line.

The next items needed were the coolant lines. There are two different styles of hard lines. I ended up using parts from a 1987 Merkur. The TC coolant lines have slightly different routing, but can be used. If you don't have access to used parts, you can obtain a new set of stainless steel lines from www.fourcedfour.com, a vendor listed in my vendors section.

A visible difference between the water cooled turbo coolants and the coolant lines for a non-water cooled turbo is the routing. The coolant lines for a non-water cooled turbo sit low on the block, as shown here. The old coolant lines run below the turbo. Clicking on the picture you can see the lines more clearly as one connects to the thermostat housing and one connects to the water pump. As you look at the picture, you may also notice how much oil build on the block there was. We suspected a bad oil return line and took the opportunity to replace if with the part from the TC parts engine.

With either a Merkur or TC water coolant line set the line routing will be much higher. They sit above the turbo, and just below the bottom of the valve cover.

Here are pictures of the coolant lines mocked up away from the engine. The first picture shows the supply coolant line that connects to the thermostat housing. Clearly shown is the supply loop that feeds the turbo (red arrow) with coolant.

Shown next is the lower of the two coolant lines. This one sits just below the line shown above and connects to the water pump and routes around the back of the valve cover.

Shown below from left to right a few adapters or connectors that I had to secure from the parts engine. At left is the block adapter, at right is the coolant supply line for the turbo, notice the separate adapter.

Can I get your (part) number?

2010-11-10T20:33:00.000-08:00

I came across some Ford SVO part numbers and information that I will type up for people to digest...a little easy reading for those late nights that you can't get to sleep. Unless noted this information is from SVO Motorsports Catalogs.

Suspension:
Onion heads = M-18183-A100

"Sports" Handling Spring Kits (B Springs) = M-5300-B
Variable Spring Rates
Normal Ride Height - Front 425#-in Rear 200#-in
At Full Jounce - Front 530#-in. Rear300#-in.

"Super Sports" Handling Spring Kits (C-Springs) = M-5300-C
High Rate : Front - 650#-in.
Variable Spring Rates :Rear - 200#-in. to 300#-in.

Heavy Duty Brake Pads (metallic)
Front M-2100-C
Rear M-2200-A

Engine:
Oil Cooler (Sandwich Adapter) = M-6881-A101

Intake Valves
1.737" diameter = M-6507-A221
1.890" diameter = M-6507-B221

Exhaust Valves
1.500" diameter = M-6505-A221
1.590" diameter = M-6505-B221

Valve Guides (Brass) = M-6510-A221

SVO's migratory gathering?

2010-07-18T05:23:00.000-07:00

The First Annual NW Iowa SVO Symposium and Convention (FANWISSAC) took place in July of 2010. For some odd reason this event was not reported by the national press, so I will do my best to outline the events that took place.

Through the SVO Club of America (svoca.com) site a few of us like minded SVO owners got together on one cool (111 heat index) summer day in LeMars, Iowa. Tom and Doug made the drive down from the Minneapolis area and Eric and his son Hayden drove up from Sioux City. The FANWISSAC began with a stop at Bob's Drive Inn. A local establishment that tends to attract sophisticated car enthusiasts and also car nuts like us.

After consuming taverns and shakes, we departed on our journey to begin the official bench racing and photo shoot portion of our highly organized convention. We took some time to look over a spare 2.3 turbo block, K-member an heads at my shop. After which we roamed the parking lot admiring each other's effort in keeping these cars on the road.An amendment was passed unanimously by the FANWISSAC planning committee to also include some tech sessions.

They would include but not be limited to:
1) Jump starting and looking at the wide open throttle hesitation on our car
2) Adjusting the fuel pressure on Tom's car.
3) Adding freon to Tom's car.

My son Russell and his friend Zerick braved the heat for this part of the Convention to learn a few things about our SVO. If was great to hear each story of how we came about getting these cars, the modifications and work we all had done to them and the plans we all have for them.

After the tech session portion of our event closed we proceeded to the closing ceremonies. Each of the cars were lined up and with the owners by the cars, photographs were taken. It was a great event with some new friends that I sincerely hope we can repeat in the years to come.

An unplanned problem or as we prefer to say spontaneous opportunity came about just after the Minnesota guys took off for home. Tom was not only able to let us swap out his alternator, but he was fortunate enough to visit the city of South Sioux City, Nebraska in the quest to find an alternator, just before the parts store closed for the day.

From left to right. Tom and his 1984 SVO, Eric and his 1984 SVO, Doug and his 1986 SVO and Russell and our 1984 SVO.

Oxygen is good.

2010-07-17T21:29:00.000-07:00

During our tuning efforts we decided to replace the O2 sensor. The 2.3 turbo motors have the O2 sensor located on the exhaust elbow directly behind the turbocharger.

To remove it, it helps to have the special O2 sensor socket and a ratchet wrench with an straight extension.

Some people have stated it was a bear to remove it. Since we had no intention of using it again, we liberally applied Liquid Wrench to help us remove this part.

Another thing to keep in mind is that there are two different O2 sensors for the SVO. A single wire sensor was used in the 1985.5 and 1986 cars. The earlier cars had a 3 wire unit. Besides this numerical difference, the connectors are significantly different.

Here the single wire unit can be seen on the left side of the picture, with the three wire unit on the right. When reinstalling the sensor do not use anything on the threads.

Hip to be square!

2010-04-12T20:12:00.001-07:00

Two style of intake manifolds were used on the SVO. On earlier SVO's an "inline" intake was used (see an earlier post in this blog). Later cars (85.5 and 86) used the "square" intake. This intake is called a square intake since all the ports are line up to resemble a square.

There are two types of square intakes that were used on turbocharged 2.3 Ford engines. It's my understanding (thanks Mike Flemming) that in 1987 Ford introduced the new intake. There is a couple differences between the two of them. In this photo you can see one of those differences.

On the left is the newer style. You can see that it is stamped with a design and "Ford 2.3 EFI" lettering. The intake on the right is the older style without any lettering or design.

Another difference that is more significant is that the older style intake is taller than the newer style. Here I hold up a piece metal stock below the intakes. You can clearly see how the newer style intake on the left is shorter than the older style by approximately 3/8" shorter. To accommodate the the newer intake, the valve cover had to be "dimpled" or "notched" at the Ford factory.

A/R Ratios of the T3 Turbo

2009-10-10T15:33:00.000-07:00

The T3 turbocharger was used on the SVO's, Merkur's, Thunderbird Turbo Coupes (TC's) and Cougar XR7's, with one exception. The 1987 and 1988 TC's used the IHI turbo chargers. This turbo is known for it's inability to take on high boost levels.

Although all these cars used T3 turbos, there are a number of differences in the various models. For one, the earlier turbos were only oil cooled, while the later models ('86 and up) used turbos that were both oil and water cooled.

Also different compressor housings were used depending on whether the car had an intercooler or not. All SVO's and the '87-'88 TC's had intercoolers. The first picture shows the compressor housing for an non-SVO T3. At the top of the picture you can see the flange fitting that connects to a tube that connects to the throttle body. At the lower left side of the picture is the air inlet. This is connected to the VAM via a flexible accordian style hose.

Shown here is an SVO compressor housing. It does not have the flange fitting since it is intended to be connected to the air charge intercooler via a hose fitting. The diameter of the compresseor outlet is the same for both SVO and non-SVO parts. Something else that is the same between the parts is the A/R ratio. All Ford 2.3L turbo motors had a 0.60 A/R ratio. This ratio is mathematical comparison between the radius of the compressor scroll to the area of the compressor outlet.

I found a diagram on another site (unforunately I can not remember what site it was to give do credit) This image shows what the A/R ratio is in graphic terms. The radius of the compressor scroll varies and so does the area, but the ratio stays constant. This same mathmatical ratio applies to the turbine housing (the hot or exhaust side). Unlike the compressor the turbine ratio is not the same among the T3 turbos.

Earlier T3 turbo equipped cars came with a larger turbine housing with a ratio of 0.63. I haven't been able to determine exactly what cars came with this ratio but earlier SVO's and Merkurs came with the larger A/R ratio. This larger ratio allows more exhaust gas to flow through the turbine.I know that my '84 came with it as shown in this picture. Note the A/R ratio is clearly visible on the scroll.

Later SVO's, TC's, XR7's and Merkurs came with a smaller turbine housing of 0.48. The parts from my '86 TC and '87 Merkur were both equipped with this housing. The smaller ratio does not flow as well as the 0.63 turbine housing, but also provides less turbo "lag". At right one of these parts. Note that the ratio is stamped in much smaller numbers just below the manifold flange.

E3 Vs. E6 Manifold

2009-09-17T13:25:00.001-07:00

If you look at the post "The Modification List" one of the upgrades that we had planned on doing was installing a better flowing exhaust manifold. Budget does not allow a new high flowing header. This leaves installing a ported and better flowing OEM manifold, namely the E6 casting.

After inspection of the manifold/turbo area, I noticed the E3 manifold on the engine was cracked between the 2nd and 3rd exhaust runners. It was a sign to hurry up with this modification. A fairly common "feature" of the E3 casting used on early SVO's, is that they are prone to cracks. This highlights the other big advantage in having the E6. It was redesigned to be less crack prone. To the right is a picture showing the crack.

As indicated above there are two different exhaust manifold castings that were used on the turbocharged 2.3L four cylinder engines. The earlier crack prone castings are known as an E3 casting.Beginning in 1986 the much better flowing E6 casting were used. There is some debate as to what vehicles received the E6 casting. Many 1986 SVO's came with the manifold and I know the 1986 TurboCoupe I bought had one on it.

There are many differences between these two castings, however the most significant difference that affects the flow capacity is the exhaust to turbo opening. The E6 is larger and shaped more like the letter "D" while the E3 has a much smaller oval shape. To help identify the two parts I show the E6 on the left and the E3. You can see I had begun to port the E6 in this picture.

Cracking some heads together

2008-10-29T19:12:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons I bought the Turbo Coupe parts car was that I could refurbish the head and install it on the SVO (read Ebay Donor Car post) I pulled the head off the Turbo Coupe and took it to the local machine shop to get it cleaned and checked for cracks.

One area you need to check for cracks is the exhaust valve seats and bowls. I'm glad to report that none of the exhaust seats were cracked.....BUT......we did find one of the intake valve seats and bowls were severely cracked. The crack extended deep enough that it was out of the question to use it again, do to the inability (within my budget) to be repaired. At right you can click on the picture to see the crack in better detail.

Also it was discovered that the head was a naturally aspirated (NA) head and not a turbo head.

There are big differences between the NA cylinder heads and the turbo head. First of all the standard NA head has a different combustion chamber size (therefore compression ratio) and intake valve shrouding. Standard NA heads have a chamber size in the low 50CC range, much less than the turbo head. This increase the compression ratio, which of course is a big plus for a non-turbo engine.

Shown above is a close up of the NA head. The chamber shape is roughly a "heart" shape. The area cross-hatched is the additional material that was added as compared to the turbo head to decrease the chamber volume.

The turbo head has a larger chamber size, measuring 62CC. The shape of the chamber more resembles a "D" and results in a 8.0:1 compression ratio. At right is a picture turbo head that when compared to the picture above, you can clearly see the difference in chamber shape.

Transmission 101

2008-10-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

Russell has been driving the SVO to school on a routine basis, all the while we still try to tame a few gremlins. Because of the routine use, wear and tear have taken it's toll. Just lately the transmission was the source of the problems.

First off, on his way back from class, the shifter gave way. I came and took a look and sure enough the shifter, although still attached, could lay flat as you either pushed or pulled it. The shifter handle is attached to the shifter with two bolts. In our case, the lower bolt broke. Although still attached, it could not be used to shift the transmission.

To replace the obviously broken shifter, but also to upgrade to a much shorter throw system, a Ford Short Throw shifter was ordered from www.forced4.com. Ford repackages the Steeda shifter and sells it under their own name. Luckily Eric at Forced4 caught my mistake and sent only ONE shifter rather than the TWO I had apparently ordered. Thanks Eric.

After removing the console (the hardest part of the job) the old shifter was removed. Here you can see the remants of the old RTV sealant around the lip of the base. After the clean up, its a simple job of placing new sealant around the shifter base and bolting the new shifter into place.

Its a pity such a nice looking piece of equipment has to be covered up with the shifter boot.

Soon after the shifter was bolted back up, Russ experienced another problem. As he depressed the clutch pedal, it went to the floor and stayed there.

This time it was a clutch cable. The T5 has two cables. One that connects the clutch pedal to the lower end of the pivot arm on the transmission. This is approximately 60". The other cable is referred to as a "dog bone". It connects the top end of the pivot arm to the clutch fork. It is approximately 2" long and yes....it shaped as a dog bone or perhaps more accurately as a dumbbell.

The "dog bone" is what broke, stranding the SVO along the road. Luckily the part was readily accessible from a local Ford dealer, but it was outrageously priced at $37. The Ford part number is E6ZZ-7535-A, for those who are keeping score. At right is a close up of the pivot arm on the right, the remants of the "dog bone" hanging from it, and the exposed clutch fork. The clutch fork is typically covered with a rubber boot, which was removed temporarily to allow the cable to be attached.

The process is quite straight forward, but it helps to have a second person around to pull up on the clutch pedal to take the tension off the cable and pivot arm as you install it.

He Returns!!

2008-10-23T06:25:00.000-07:00

With much hard work (just of portion of which has been documented here) Russell was able to get the SVO up and running, just before his Eagle Scout Court of Honor ceremony in October. As a surprise, family friends Bill and Suresh (Smesh) were able to make it for Russell's big day. Here Smesh takes time to pose (in his best Vanna White stance) with the car that limped away from Austin in much worse shape some years ago (see Das Beast post below)

After seeing the improvements we've made, and reminiscing about the good ole days, he offered his 2005 Z06 Corvette in trade for the SVO. Knowing my son is a good Ford fan, I of course refused on his behalf. Odd....he then broke out into tears, must have been real happy to see Smesh and Bill.

We don't need no stinking corrosion!

2008-10-22T09:16:00.000-07:00

One of the items we found that needed attention was that the TFI connector and wires were severely corroded and insulation frayed. We took the connector from the engine harness on the Turbo Coupe (TC) parts car. We replaced about 12" of wiring when we put the new connector on. This included the "spout" connector. Here is a picture showing the corrosion of the old connector on the left to the much better TC connector on the right.

Face Lift

2008-09-26T15:28:00.001-07:00

One of the things that needed to be fixed was the damage done to the front clip. The front clip was damaged in an accident that led up to the SVO coming to my doorstep (see Das Beast entry http://svomustang.blogspot.com/2006/10/das-beast.html )

The damage from the accident was mainly on the drivers side, but also effected the entire front to a lesser degree.

Damage consisted of :
1) Broken headlight mounting panel - drivers side
2) Destroyed drivers side inner and outside markers
3) Destroyed passenger side inner marker
4) Damaged passenger side outside marker
5) Dent to the drivers side fender and hood.

I secured a NOS headlight panel from the local Ford dealer. The inner markers and drivers side outside markers were secured from Ebay. The headlight panel is made of a fiberglass material. The bumper cover "nose" is attached to it by large rivets, and the light attached to it with bolts. In turn the bumper cover is attached to the front frame and fenders.

Here you see my son Russell (on the right) and his friend Josh reinstalling the bumper cover onto the new headlight panel. There was no secret to this, just some aggravation and skinned knuckles.

The fender was reworked as best we could, but with repainting not in the budget it's still noticeable.

The SVO has a unique front fender. The difference between the regular Mustang fender and the SVO's is that the SVO has mounting holes and indentations for the wrap around front bumper cover. Here is a photo that shows the holes quite clearly.

Further information about locations of these holes can be found on the SVOCA site at in this thread.

These boots are made for cracking..

2008-09-01T02:43:00.000-07:00

...and thats just what they'll do. Ok...sorry couldn't resist.

As any SVO owner knows the Achilles heel of the SVO is the lack of a replaceable front lower control arm ball joints. The SVO came with a "one off" lower control arms. It is not the same in geometry or construction as the stamped control arms used on other Fox body mustangs. In a moment of short sidedness (call GMidess) Ford cast a non-replaceable and non-serviceable (no zerk fitting) ball joint into the lower control arm. The ball joint boots tend to split and crack, thereby allowing water to enter and the grease to dry out. If the ball joint is still in good repair the only thing that can be done to increase its life span is to replace the ball joint boot.

If the ball joints are bad there are a couple replacement options such as the Motion Dyanamics which uses a Fox body control arms with special adapters and a OEM style design control arm from Fatman. These are great options when the ball joints are bad. Downside is they are somewhat expensive and as indicated above they require the full replacement of the control arm.

The original boot is a steel reinforced (looks like a large washer at the top) rubber boot joint with a steel retaining ring around the base to secure it to the ball joint. The replacement boots are polyurethane and do not have this reinforcement or ring. We bought our replacments from www.svpu.com . When we called with a question we got a quick call back....good service is a plus!

We decided to replace the ball joint boots when we were in the process of replacing the front struts (see the strut post for more info), since the boots were badly cracked and split (click on the pictures to increase the size). After a lot of reading and consulting the SVOCA forums we came up with the following procedure that worked quite well.

First thing we had to do was make sure the ball joints were worth keeping. There is a wear indicator that looks like a button on the bottom of the ball joint. This should be exposed and not flush or receded into the ball joint. Also, the ball joint should move freely but not "fall out of place" when moved around, nor should be excessively stiff or frozen in place.

The procedure we used was as follows:

1) Car should have front tires removed and on jack stands....if you need an explanation of this procedure.....stop reading immediately and go buy a GM product.

2) Place jack under the lower control arm (LCA) ...leaving about 1/2" of gap.

3) Disconnect the brake calipers and suspend off to the side.

4) Remove grease cap, cotter pin and retaing cap from spindle.

5) Remove spindle arm nut - 1 1/8" socket needed.

6) Remove spindle arm washer and outer bearing.

7) Remove braker rotor. By the way, this is a great time to repack the bearings if you haven't for a while. Mmmmm...grease.

8) Remove brake shield - 3/8" socket needed.

9)Loosen but don't remove the top strut to body nut (in the engine bay) - 21mm socket is needed.

10) Loosen the strut to spindle bolts/nuts. A 21mm wrench is needed for the bolt heads (on the back side of the strut) and a 24 mm socket is needed for the nuts (on the front side of the struts). The tools are described below in the strut post. As shown here we used the wrench wedged against a jack stand, while we used the breaker bar with the extension to loosen up the nut. The nuts "pop" when loosened, and will take a lot of effort to loosen. Later a ratchet or air ratchet can be used.

11) Remove just the lower bolt/nut..leaving the top bolt of this pair in place to hold the strut.

12) Remove the cotter pin out of the top of the ball joint.

13) Loosen the spindle to ball joint nut - a 24mm socket attached to a breaker/cheater bar is needed. DO NOT take it all the way off. Just loosen it up about 1/2", leaving the nut on the ball joint.

14) Break the ball joint free from the LCA. Since the boot was torn in our case, we used the pickle fork and a hammer to loosen the ball joint. I did try another method of removal without any luck. By using a hammer to hit the outside of the spindle the ball joint would drop down. Just could not convince them to separate that way. Also resist the urge to hit the ball joint downward with a hammer.

15) The lower control arm now should have dropped down enough to make contact with the jack or it has been stopped by the fact that the ball joint/spindle nut is still attached. Make sure the jack is in contact and then proceed.

16) Remove the top strut to body nut (in the engine bay) completely.

17) Remove the remaining strut to spindle nut and bolt.

18) Remove the strut...you may struggle with this as it has to be compressed to move it out of the way.

19)Take of the ball joint/spindle nut. Now the spindle can be swung out of the way so that you have free access to the boot. Here you can see the spindle free from the strut, but the strut has not been removed yet. Notice the floor jack under the control arm....it's critical to have it there.

20)Remove the old boot. It will be probably split in half from the pickle fork. The lower half will need to be removed by using a screwdriver and hammer to remove the retaining ring that attaches the boot to the ball joint.

21) Clean the ball joint well, removing all the old grease.

22) Pack new moly-filled (black) lithium-base grease into the new ball joint boot. I was surprised how small the new boot looks in comparison to the old one. But it did fit...very snuggly but it did. A quick call to Paul at SVPU.com comfirmed that.

23) Place the spindle back on the ball joint, loosely attaching the nut. Check that the bottom of the new boot is seated, and clean off excess grease.

24) Reinstall the strut, loosely installing the top strut to body nut and the top strut to spindle bolt and nut. Leave the bottom spindle to strut nut off for now.

25) Torque the ball joint/spindle nut to 150# and reinstall the cotter pin.

26) Install lower spindle to strut bolt and nut. Torque both to 150#.

27) Torque top strut to body nut to 100#.

28) Jack can be removed. All the precautions taking in having the jack just below the LCA and not removing the spindle/ball joint nut completely off at first is do the fact that the front coil spring is under a huge amount of compression. Without restraining it in this fashion, it could quickly become projectile. Which would kind of screw up your day .... and life.

29) Reinstall the brake shield, rotor and brakes calipers, and then remount your tire.

The Ebay Donor Car

2008-08-20T20:16:00.000-07:00

In my quest for spare parts at a reasonable price...ok, so I'm cheap...sue me...I stumbled across a 1986 Thunderbird Turbo Coupe on ebay in November 2004. It was located in a Minneapolis suburb (about a 4.5 hour drive). The owner said it ran, but was selling it as a parts car. As you probably know, a lot of the drive train and even some suspension pieces interchange with the SVO. I was particulary interested in the fact that I would have a spare engine.

Some of the parts on the engine would actually be an upgrade for the '84 SVO. They include:

E6 exhaust manifold

All 2.3L turbo motors prior to a 1986 build had an E3 manifold, which does not flow as well and is prone to cracking.

Water cooled T3 turbo with the 0.63 A/R ratio

Before 1986, the T3 turbos relied on oil cooling only.
1985.5 and later SVO and XR4Ti's had a compressor A/R ratio of 0.48. All otherT3 applications had an A/R ratio of 0.63.
The less favorable IHI turbos were used on 1987 and 1988 Turbo Coupes.

"Larger" A231 camshaft.

From the 1986 build date, a larger camshaft was used in turbo 2.3. They are noted by having a 0.400 lift. Both 1985.5 and 1986 SVOs have this cam.
Prior to 1986, all turbo camshafts used had a lift of 0.390.

I was able to snag this beauty for $134, and lined up my friend(?) and a jogging protaganist Bill "Brewer" March (on the right in the picture) to help me out in getting this beauty back to Iowa. Since he was working on the west side of the Twin Cities at the time it worked well. I arrived late after work on a Friday and claimed my prize for it's self propelled trip back to Iowa.

It definitely was a "parts car", the heater was shot, the steering wheel was loose, no stereo and the interior lights didn't work, not even the instrument cluster. However it was running!

So after spending saturday in the cities with Mr. March, I secured the necessary items for my solo return trip to Iowa. Mountain Dew, extra socks (no heater) and a flashlight (no dash lights) I ventured out.

It's times like this that you can really think about how lucky you are, to have such good friends like Bill. Knowing that I had a friend that would help me in the following ways:

...completing the sale with a stranger, that didn't want to open the door when I came to it, and definitely did not want me even looking into his basement apartment
...send me off for a 4.5 hour drive in the dead of the night over snow covered roads of Minnesota in a car that:
...I felt I had to keep pressure down onto the steering wheel, as it rocked violently on rough roads
...without a heater on a cold winter November night
...that I spent less on than I do for a weeks worth of groceries

Now that's a friend!!! Thanks? Bill.

The drive went pretty well...and I arrived back in Iowa early Sunday morning, cold but victorious.

Since that time many parts have been scavenged for my SVO, resold and re-used. The most interesting was the re-use of the front seats and seat belts. My two sons removed them and installed them into a "Tough Truck" that was entered at the Plymouth County fair by their friend.

Update:
I decided to pull the head off the engine and prep it up for the SVO. Do a valve job, port the intake and exhaust ports, etc. After removing the head, I started looking it over and felt there was something wrong. Not being able to put my finger on it, I took the head in to have it hot tanked and cracked checked. Unfortunately one of the valve seats and bowls had a large crack in it. The crack if fixed would only yield a marginal head at best.

Also after posting the picture on the SVOCA site , Bo from www.bo-ports.com identified the head as a NA (naturally aspirated) head and not a turbo head.

Lesson learned.... don't trust the original owner to know or offer all the information about an engine you are buying. Learn as much about what you are buying before purchasing it.

Rag joint repair

2008-07-26T23:34:00.000-07:00

An item that has been high on the priority list to be fixed (especially as my son Russell looks at driving the SVO) is the "ragjoint". The "ragjoint" is the fibrous material that both sections of the steering shaft are attached to. Over time the fibrous material becomes brittle and breaks. Although the two sections of the steering shaft are still attached do to it's geometry, their is considerable play in the steering wheel. It is a unnerving at best and dangerous at worse condition not to fix it.

Although you can replace just the "ragjoint", I elected to replace the entire top portion of the steering shaft. At right is the entire section. On the left side is the tapered section that is secured to the steering column next to the firewall with a 5/8" bolt and 11/16" nut. On the right side is the gray colored "ragjoint".

Here is a close up view of the ragjoint. It shows the 9/16" bolts coming through the "ragjoint". These attach to the rack and opinion. When the "ragjoint" fails the shaft can freely rotate the angle from the bolts to the black studs (shown at 12 and 6 o'clock in the picture).

At right is the reason we replaced this part. We found some of the pieces still attached while some of the pieces had fallen down onto the cross member.

New struts....or man those bolts are tight!

2008-07-16T22:48:00.001-07:00

One of the improvements that needed to be done is the replacement of the front struts. Originally they were not scheduled to be replaced until later, but when a good buy came along on ebay, I decided to do them sooner.

The struts that we purchased were for 1985 through 1986 SVO's. There is a slight difference between these and the struts on the 1984, but the difference is limited to some minor internal valving, so the new struts physically will fit on the car. One of the things that is noticeable is the adjustment screw at the top of the strut. On the left is replacment 1985-1986 strut (Part number 8741-1054) and on the right is the 1984 strut. Both have a 21mm top nut.

To remove the lower strut bolts we found it easiest to remove the brake caliper, rotor and brake shield. With this parts removed, we had better access to the bolts. Here you can see just how much leakage was occuring in the struts. You can also see the gasket that is hanging loosely on the spindle. This is the "brake shield to spindle" gasket that is no longer stocked by Ford. It also clearly shows the two bolts that need to be removed. The bolt (back side of the spindle) is 21mm in size, while the nut (front side of the spindle) is 24mm in size.

Shown here are the tools of the trade used in removing the lower bolts. It took some trial and error, and some help from the SVO Club of America to get the procedure down...but mainly it took brute force.

To loosen the spindles bolts it we used the extension placed on the end of the breaker bar on the nut (front) with a wrench on the bolt (back) to get those bolts free. After that an air wrench was used. Don't be alarmed by a large "pop" sound when loosening up the nuts.

Liquid wrench (even after a long soak, I'm still not sure it actually helped)

21mm box end wrench

24mm impact socket

Breaker bar

3' long cheater bar (1" steel conduit)

Impact wrench (once the breaker bar loosen up the nuts)

After inspection of the suspension we decided to replace the Lower Control Arm (LCA) ball joint boots at the same time. As you probably know, the LCA ball joints are non-replaceable and a source of headaches. So the next best thing is to inspect the wear button (bottom of the ball joint) if the wear button is exposed and not flush or recessed the ball joint may still be ok. Almost all SVO's suffer from torn rubber ball joint boots They can be removed and replaced and new grease installed.

In our case, we found that not only were old struts leaking oil but they would not rebound at all! On the right is the original strut. Notice not only the excessive wear and oil leakage, but also the fact that the top has not rebounded like the strut on the left has. We felt the money and effort spent on the struts were well placed.

Das Beast!

2006-10-21T21:09:00.000-07:00

I thought I would post a picture of the SVO. You can see it's in the process of tearing down/rebuilding. The wheels have been taken off to get the new tires installed.

Also maybe I should give a little more background about "my" SVO. I first came across it when I was a student at ISU in Ames, Iowa in 1989. After taking it for a drive and even negotiating a price I decided not to buy it. Something in the back of my mind kept telling me that my fiance would not understand why we couldn't have a wedding reception because I bought a car instead. Instead of me buying it, my roommate and good friend, Suresh, stepped up and agreed to buy it.

Fast forward to 1997. I received a call one day from Suresh, stating that he had gotten in an accident and the insurance company "totalled" the car, due to some (relatively minor) front end damage. He asked that if I wanted the car, it was free for the taking. With a weekend free, I quickly arranged to use a rental car, grabbed my friend Bill and drove the 1000 miles to Austin, Texas where Suresh now lived.

A few things should be noted at this point. Just as Bill and I started to point the car north, Suresh casually reveals a couple new features that had been added to the car. One is what became known as "infinite assist" steering the second as a "semi-attached" steering system, and the third as "self inspired sound system". The first item was do to a failed rack and pinion, the second due to the material connecting the steering column to the rack being detiorated to the point of failure, and the third being the fact that the CD player was kept by Suresh for his next car. Undaunted and confident I would prevail, we purchased a portable CD player, batteries and some beef jerky for the ride home.

The trip home went smoothly, and since that time, I have replaced the rack and pinion, and my wife has purchased more life insurance to cover my stupid stunts.

Already done at this point is the interior marker lights have been replaced. I secured the outside drivers marker light and hope to rebuild the passengers side one since it was not badly damaged.

UPDATE:

In the spring of 2008, after being asked too many times to remember, I agreed to let my son Russell have the SVO in exchange for him purchasing all the parts and providing labor (with my assistance) in getting the car up and running. I can tell you I have had a great time working with Russell on the car. He is a funny and very smart kid..er young man, who catches on quickly to what we are doing. Here he is working on replacing the struts.

Tires, schmires!

2006-10-16T21:27:00.000-07:00

Well, went and ordered a set of tires. After careful research, discussing it with my One Lap Team mate, and sweeping the floor blind folded and standing on one leg....I went ahead and purchased a set of tires. They are Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D3 high performance tires from Tirerack. I couldn't resist when I saw the price ($89/each - originally $149/each) so they should be here soon. I stuck with the 225/50/16 size for because of tire selection. A very popular thing to do is to upgrade to 245/45/16 instead, but the selection of tires is greatly decreased as compared to the 225 size. Here is a picture of the tread design.

Here is a picture of the reason why I am buying new tires and why my wife actually suggested that I get the "best" tires.

Nothing like having a major blowout doing 75mph on a rain slickened highway at 5:30am, to get your adrenalin pumping.

Since I have all the tires off the car, I thought I would take some time to clean the wheels. Over time, the rims have accumulated a lot of grease and dirt on the back side and I figured it was time to clean them. Thanks to a good de-greaser and a BBQ scrubber (made of plastic mtl. not steel), the back sides of the wheels now look good as new. The cleaned portion of the wheel is shown on the right side.

PCV Valve modifications

2006-10-15T18:10:00.000-07:00

To help prevent oil blow back problems I installed a one way valve in line with the PCV valve. This was an early modification to the ventilation system. Unfortunately, I did not keep information on where I purchased the valve, and didn't take care in getting background information on whether it has prevented blow back of oil. But when I removed the upper intake I took the opportunity to remove it and photograph it.

Compressor Bypass Valve

2006-10-09T21:22:00.000-07:00

One of the items I felt was necessary for the long term survivability of the turbocharger was to install a compressor bypass valve (BPV). The primary reason for installing a bypass valve is to reduce strain on the compressor turbine wheel. This pressure is due to compressor surge. Between shifts, or sudden throttle lift-off, the turbine is still spinning very fast and pumping air at the closed throttle plate. It also places strain on the intercooler, hoses and fittings. A BPV keeps air from flowing backwards over the compressor wheel, allowing the turbine to continue spinning freely. When back on the throttle, boost pressure quickly rises again with little lag. A suitable valve location is just before the throttle plate. A BPV works similar to the very common blow off valves, except a blow off valve discharges directly to the atmosphere rather than back into the air intake stream.

Shown here is a diagram courtesy of SVO Club of America web site. It shows the location of the components. I purchased the bypass valve kit from Forced 4 Motorsports. It includes the collar that is placed after the VAM, the BPV, nipple fitting and hoses. It is a nice kit overall.

At left is the location I used to tap the intercooler where an unused vacuum fitting is located.

At right is the intercooler after it has been drilled.

In my case I drilled and tapped the Turbo Coupe intercooler. When drilling the hole in the TC intercooler, keep the intercooler vertical so that your drill is drilling up...that way the metal filings will fall out, rather than back into the intercooler. Below is the finished intercooler with the brass nipple installed. From this fitting, a hose is installed directly to the BPV. The other end is connected to the collar. A smaller line is connected to the vacuum port on the BPV then connected to a empty vacuum fitting on the car. I chose to run the vacuum hose to the block of fittings on the firewall, just in front of the driver position.

At left is how I tapped the hole. The tap was large enough that I did not have a tap wrench that would fit, so I used an open end wrench.

At right the finished intercooler.

The rest of the installation was fairly straight forward. There was a little trial and error to get the hoses cut to size. One special note, there is a specific way the BPV is installed. Notice the orientation of the valve in the picture. Here my son Russell is connecting the hose from the BPV to the brass nipple on the intercooler. The vacuum line has not been connected yet.

"Would you like a fuel line with your eggs?"

2006-10-06T12:27:00.000-07:00

Just a word of caution to those removing fuel lines from the fuel rail. The fuel lines are connected using either "hairpin" or "duckbill" connectors. They have a clip that needs to be removed. When attempting to remove this clip, the hose broke off immediately behind the connector. I'm sure partly do to age of the line and partly do to my "oafish" like method of removal. At right you can see the hose, connector and clip nicely disassembled, but broken. Luckily Eric at Forced4.com has kits to repair them.

The fuel line repair was pretty straight forward. The instructions call for soaking the fuel line in "hot" water for 10 minutes. After a couple trial runs on some excess length of fuel line and a spare union, I found that about 20 minutes in "simmering hot" water work well and allowed me to force the fuel line onto the barbs of the union I was attaching to. What was great was that I combined two things I love to do, cook and work on cars. Here you see the picture of the fuel line soaking in a pot of water, while I prepare French toast for my family.

To the right I show the finished product. Good as new, and ready to make some horsepower....odd thing though, it smelled like Maple syrup when I was done with it.

Installing New Fuel Regulator and 35# Injectors

2006-10-05T20:15:00.000-07:00

As described below, the eventual aim under Stage II is to install an adjustable boost valve which will allow increased boost to be dialed in and hence more horsepower. As we know, when more boost is dialed in, we also need to increase the amount of fuel delivered to the engine so that a proper air/fuel ratio is obtained. To allow this not only do larger 35# fuel injectors need to be installed but an adjustable fuel regulator. Here you can see the original non-adjustable fuel regulator still attached to the fuel rail. It is attached to the fuel rail by 3 allen head screws. Even after the screws were removed, the regulator required a little persuasion to release from the fuel rail.

The adjustable fuel regulator has an adjustment screw (hence the name "adjustable"...duh) on the top of the regulator body. Here is a photo showing the new regulator that I bought from Motion Dynamics and the injectors installed on the rail. With the upper intake removed, the removal and reinstallation of the injectors is very straight forward. After installation the injectors rotate freely, to allow easy installation of the wiring harness.

Turbo Coupe Intercooler

2006-10-04T10:49:00.000-07:00

One of the first modifications I did was to purchase and install a Turbo Thunderbird Coupe intercooler. The TC intercooler is considerably larger than the original SVO intercooler as shown in the picture on the right.

Although the inlet and outlet hoses line up when comparing the SVO and TC intercoolers, since the TC intercooler is much larger, the brackets that support it do not. These "V" brackets had to be abandoned. Most conversions that I had seen simply rely on the stiff hoses to support the weight of the intercooler. However, I made a simple bracket to support at least the front of the intercooler. It consists of a 1.5" wide by 8" long steel (1/8" thick) stock bolted to the support frame and the outside bolt hole of the intercooler.

Vendors

2006-10-04T05:48:00.000-07:00

Even though each of these vendors rebuffed my attempts at giving me a huge commission on sales do to them being listed below (lol) I will mention them anyway. Hopefully this list will serve as a mini-clearing house of sorts for the SVO community. I added my comments for those suppliers I have purchased or tried to purchase items from only.

SVO and Turbo 2.3 Specific Vendors - UPDATED 2008

Forced 4 Motorsports http://www.forced4.com/index.html - Recommended

Motion Dynamics R.I.P.
Stinger Performance http://projecthp.ford23.com/stingerperformance.html
Racer Walsh http://racerwalsh.zoovy.com/category/racer_walsh_parts_list/
Modern Performance http://www.modernperformanceinc.com/
Rapido Group http://www.rapidogroup.com/products.htm
Performance Parts http://www.performancepartsinc.com/main.htm - Recommended

40Bob http://www.40bob.com/
Boport Racing Heads http://www.bo-port.com/ Recommended
SVP Unlimited http://www.svpu.com/ - Recommended
Merkur Depot http://www.merkur.50megs.com/
Max PSI Racing http://www.maxpsiracing.com/Ford.asp - NOT Recommended

I have not purchased from all of these suppliers, so I can not give you first hand information about products or service from each one. If you know of any more please post a comment.

Porting the upper intake

2006-10-03T22:38:00.000-07:00

During the process of removing the old valve cover to replace the gasket, and to allow me better access to the fuel rail/injectors I not only removed the throttle body but the upper section of the intake manifold. This allowed me to look at matching the ports to the gaskets.

The throttle body opening was well matched to the gasket. The port openings on the lower intake matched the gasket, but the ports on the upper intake had room for improvement. Measurements showed that the unmodified port had a cross sectional area of 1.389sq. in./port.

To the left, the manifold is shown with the areas marked that need to be removed to match the gaskets. A permanent marker and gasket was used to highlight these areas.

I used a combination of grinding tips on my air grinder. Most of the material was removed using a carbide tip as shown on the right side of the picture. The grinding stone (center) was using to smooth out the rough spots after the carbide tip removed the majority of the material. The final step was to use a 120 grit sanding wheel (left) to polish the port to a very smooth finish.

After I matched each port to the gasket opening, I then tapered the removal back into the throat of the port for about 1 inch. This way the air has a smoother transition from the original size to the larger cross sectional area. The enlarged ports measured 1.616 sq. in./port or roughly a 16% increase. The opening on the left is almost completely polished, while the right port has been worked on using the carbide tip only. This picture shows that polishing is extended to a depth of about 2.5 inches, well beyond the reshaping area. I'm not sure what, if any horsepower is gained through this process, (although I'm hoping for 150hp....well ok, maybe not that much) but I do know that, when I bolt this back together, I've done everything I can to increase the efficiency on the stock part.

As I stated above, the throttle body opening matched the gasket very well, however I did take the opportunity to remove casting imperfections and sharp areas just inside the port opening. Also, what should be noted, is that the EGR hole was completely plugged with carbon. This was cleaned out using a steel wire and a brush.

35# Injectors

2006-10-03T21:42:00.000-07:00

With the eventual installation of an adjustable boost valve and therefore more boost (vroom!) new 35# injectors are needed to improve fuel flow. I purchased 8 used injectors off ebay. After which I shipped them to Witchhunter Performance to have the 4 best tested, cleaned, new o-rings installed and calibrated.

The new injector is shown above the old injector in this picture. 35# injectors have brown tops as opposed to the original green top 30# injectors.

On removing the original injectors, the top o-ring remained stuck in the fuel rail (notice that the lower injector is missing the o-ring near the electrical connector) in above picture.

In the picture to the right, I am seen removing the o-ring from the fuel rail with a screwdriver. It was left after removing the original injectors. This is necessary so that the new injectors will seat properly.

The Modification List

2006-10-03T20:46:00.000-07:00

I have listed my route for breathing life back into this unique car in a spreadsheet (after all...I am an engineer). They are as follows:

Stage I - Run what you brung
a) Get new tires 245-45-16 - Purchased 225/50/16
b) Install compressor bypass valve - Done
c) Install valve cover with new gasket - Done
d) Install boost and fuel guages
e) Install seal on intercooler
f) Install Ford PCV and inline check valve - Done
g) Install new fuel filter - Done
h) Replace steering column rag joint - Done
i) Install new Koni struts (front) - Done
j) Install new Koni shocks (rear)
k) Match ports - throttle body to upper intake and upper to lower intake -Done
l) Take base performance measurements

Stage II - Turn up the wick a bit
a) Install adjustable fuel regulator - Done
b) Install adjustable boost valve - Done
c) Install 190 or 225 lph fuel pump -N/A (see future post)
d) Install ported E6 exhaust manifold
e) Install new less restrictive muffler system
f) Install larger throttle body
g) Install cleaned and calibrated 35# injectors - Done
h) Install LA 3 computer - Done
i) Take new performance measurements

Stage III - Make it stick like bubble gum
a) Install new sub-frame connectors
b) Install caster camber plates
c) Install new brake lines
d) Install new brake pads
e) Change brake fluid with 550 temp fluid
f) Install shock tower brace

Stage IV - Make it stick like glue
a) Replace rear lower control arms
b) Replace front control arms - (Replaced boot joints with front struts)
c) Install new springs and isolators

I am already seeing that some of the items may get swapped from one stage to another stage. This is in part do to timing of auctions or sales.

Also, I do not show general maintenance items I've already done, such as re-packing front wheel bearings and replacement of tie rod ends.

Welcome

2006-10-03T20:03:00.000-07:00

I hope you enjoy this blog. It's my attempt to document the modifications and repairs that I have performed on my 1984 Mustang SVO or hope to shortly.

A little about the car. It is an early black SVO as indicated by the fact that it has "slapper bars" instead of the quad Koni shocks. As with most SVO's there were few options avialable.

As far as modifications, it is nearly bone stock. The only thing I've done is to remove the old air cleaner and install a K&N air filter and a Turbo Coupe (Thunderbird) intercooler. In addition I have replaced the rack and pinion and front sway bar bushings.