I just got my june issue of CAR CRAFT, Nice! The 91 Fireturd project car makes me all misty. It's just like what I'm going threw with my 87 GTA 5-speed (also white) project. I can almost forsee the hells that car will put you threw. Dont worry it will be worth it in the end.
  I'm a 26 year old son of a mechanic car crafter with very little money. Your mag is the only one I have a subscription to. I have so many tips for you guys. It's hard to have a fast car with no money. Lack of money forces you to be very creative. It's to bad I cant post some pics in this forum, I have more pics of the cars I've owned than anything else. maybe I'll write down the story of my cars and send some pics to your mag, I think your readers would get a kick out of the throubles I've been threw in the name or car crafting.

3 of these Fireturds in the last 5-6 years is plenty. Yes they are a good deal for the dollar and yes they can be made to go fast. But obviously the performance car from the mid 80's and early 90's that are leading the aftermarket are the 5.0 Mustangs . Not that you should do more of those either. They are being done to death. Just saying that 3 in 6 years is plenty.  

Great.  Now I'm getting all misty thinking abouyt the '82 T/A I bought from the local auto auction for $450 with a 350 chevy in it.  I was mostly interested in it cos it had the the bandit paint scheme(no screaming chicken tho) and t-tops, no matter it's the wrong body style.  When I won the auction, the guy who ran it told me that I just stole this car, and I still agree with him.  The only trouble I ever had with it was a busted thermostat, pop-up headlight mechanism going out, and taillights not working.  That and those stupid leaky t-tops.  Thank goodness I got the car in summertime so the weather was nice more often than not.  

Agree on enough with the Gen III F-bodies (Adequately covered in GM High Performance, Super Chevy, Chevy High Performance, High Performance Pontiac . . . .)

However, Mustangs and non-Mustang Fox-body cars ('79-'86 Mercury Capri, '80-'88 Thunderbird, '80-'88 Mercury Cougar, '83-'92 Lincoln Mark VII, '82-'85 LTD (not Crown Victoria--although a cop car "Panther" project would be interesting too),  '81-'83 Ford Grenada, '83-87 Lincoln Continental (not Town Car, although . . . ) '78-'82 Ford Fairmont) are definitely not overdone.   The great thing about these Fox-body cars is that they are at least as affordable to buy and build as Gen III F- and G- bodies, can run bolt-in big block engines,  and can tap into the huge Mustang parts aftermarket.

Want different?  How about a JY-fresh Fox "surf" wagon with a low-buck 460, 5-speed, late model SVT Cobra brakes, Mustang buckets, Thunderbird/Cougar dash and console, slammed on Continental/Mark VII airbags and FRPP factory wheels?  That would rock, be mostly bolt-together, and cleanly fit within the dirt-cheap "LOUD, FAST, REAL" vibe Freiburger's cookin in the "new" CC.   

Hey how about a sweet aero bird? The Elliot style 83-86 one those cars rock and can get picked up for a dime. That would be sweet.  

i think the point of the article(s) is to show what can and need to be dont to get these cars back in running condition. there is also a great aftermarket for the camaros, and you can run bigblocks as well.  

Yeah but if it weren't a gm turd you wouldn't want to see some many in so few a time. TOO many . Did not need to be done again. Great story about it taking a dump though ....lol.  

ya,  but if it was the stang in the same situation, you wouldn't be complaining  

LOL well you know if it were a Stang in the same situation it would still be a great story about it conking out like that. I actually wish as I posted earlier someone would do a story on a V-8 aero bird like Million Dollar Bill drove in 85. Those cars are so sweet. Am considering buying one but not sure how many carsthe city of Denver will let me have on my property before they go ballistic.  

We're building a third gen TA "Project Y gen 3rd Gen" to debut on HR Power Tour along with "Evil Spirit" and "Poison Dart".
www.schwartzperformance.com

JS

Zzzzzzzz.......... that my interest in your power tour car.  

I'm interested in another 3rd gen article, but only if your goals change from what they currently are... Come on, a California legal 13 second 3rd gen? Weren't these hashed out in the 80's when these cars were new? 13 seconds is a rather lame goal to have... Solution = 2500-2800 converter (depending on your gears), some headers, a cat back, and then some better trailing arms and you can run 13's all day, driving one handed, drinking a Slurpie with the other. Could you arrange the one handed Slurpie test with your local track??? That would be a good article...

If you do 13's to long on that original 700r4, you may as well plan a tranny rebuild article too. A set of the red clutches and heavy duty bands would be a minimum. Extra points for throwing in a Corvette servo and later model 5 gear planet (not an aftermarket Chinesium one = weaker than stock 4 planet).

Want to up the budget a touch and still be streetable? How about a set of Vortec heads/base for some tire shredding torque? Stroker 383 crank from Scat/Eagle instead? Or are we staying out of the shortblock?

How about learning to self tune instead of buying an off the shelf Superchip that only does a handfull of simple tweeks that takes you 5 minutes to reproduce on your own? The small amount of money involved may shock your readers as to how cheap it actually is to get involved with tuning. It's a techno-geek world out there. I can emulate OBD-I ECU's on the fly with a palm pilot if I wanted to...

Only 13's? Boring. Show us something we haven't seen before and still keep it street legal for less money most people would think possible. I know the thirdgen peeps over at thirdgen.org have been helpfull in the past for Primedia articles and we can be again in the future. Just ask us how.

Dude! 

A Slurpie (tm) is SO '80s!  Nowadays they'd run the "one-hand" drag test with "Red Bull (R)." or maybe . . .

http://www.beverage-digest.com/editorial/050218.php

This lame Gen III F-body-in-white series is going to be DULLSVILLE until they let Matt King build a 5.0 or 4.6 Mustang to run against it!

Better yet, MAKE JEFF SMITH BUILD A 5.0 to atone for his shameless shilling for GM all of these years!

FireTurd ????
Learn to spell. If if was not a typo then may you and your car rust in hell.  

Yep, 13s and legal is the current goal. Later, it's low 12s and 160 mph and vaguely legal. We have to keep it CA legal, and those standards are pretty similar to what other states deal with these days.

Considering that we have to have the legalish cam, heads, and intake, we've been debating the merits of reducing the displacement to get more rpm. My thought was that, given the limited airflow of the legal parts, they would be better suited to less displacement. Like a good big-bore/short stroke 325 (400 block, 3-inch stroke)? Or how about a Trans-Am tribute 302? Not sure about it, but it's an idea. Sure we could do a 383 or 406, but it might not sniff clean and the inlet restrictions would limit the rpm. We're thinking a short stroke and some 4.88s could be more fun. Lame or cool?

DF