What did you do with your Thunderbird Today?

Agreed, doing the 5 speed swap on mine made it sooooo much more fun to drive...unlocked a can of worms with wheel hop, but not that that's all gone it's an absolute blast...
 
Once I get the tuning bug trying to shoot for the perfect shift points for performance, economy, somewhere in between I realized I'd never be satisfied, and that a manual swap was what I truly needed.

All EEC tuning in general sucks, but I'm not paying someone else to do it lol
 
TC engines are a 2300 pinto engine, with a turbo. Deano, one of my HS acquaintances, had one for a week, before he decided to check out a freshly plowed field at the end of a long straightaway, lol. That Vol-orange Pinto died horribly, rolling corner to corner.
 
I didn't do this tune originally. I didn't want to learn how to tune forced induction just yet. But the transmission points and pressures were messed with too. So it holds for too long and feels like you're getting rear ended when it finally shifts. Also has WAY too high of a redline (6700) for stock PI cams and a stock TC.

I'm essentially going through all the transmission parameters and putting them back to stock. I was happy with how is acted before during part throttle driving. Just WOT will shift at 5500. And the pressures and slip times are getting brought down to stock. It's Jmodded, so that doesn't need to be changed.
 
That's a big part of tuning, changing shit for hours and then reloading back stock values after you come to terms with everything you've done is wrong lol

I had my line pressure maxxed out, everybody who rode in my car with the 4R70w thought it was way too harsh but that was the only part of it I miss about it lol
 
Finished the trunk lid strut mod. I was going to do the 2 of them like Derphound01 did with his, didn't need it. I have to say, the trunk lid flies open now! o_O Compressing that rod and trying to get it popped in was a bitch.

Now to do a little driving to see what's up with the cam sensor code.

Joe
 
I finally fixed my seat inertia switches, so now the seats can fold forward without touching the lever on the back.

The original owner had "disabled" the inertia switches by holding them forward with a small spring. No idea why they would do that.
 
Topped off the tank after a week of strictly around town puttering around (no highways or mixed use)... 14mpg! woohoo! I was barely cracking 12 in city only driving before working on the tune
 
It's seat related!

Ok...I took off the bottom cloth and realigned the velcro.
After washing it last year, I did a bad job aligning it. As a result, the left to right velcro under my thighs wasn't attached which makes the seat look all flat.

Now the seat has a nice visual depth to it along that seam.

Screenshot_20231025_153508_Gallery.jpg
 
How'd you get the corners apart so quickly? They're notoriously difficult on 96-97s, requiring some major hackage with a dremel!
 
89 TBIRD said:
Chrome balls? (asked the confused owner of an '89)
Click to expand...

Right, your 89 wont have them, they came along with the clear headlight lenses of the 96 where you'd see the bulb otherwise. the older headlights have fluted lenses which essentially "hide" the amber bulb naturally
 
I didn’t take a picture of the bracket, but it’s not complicated. It is basically just a piece of 1”x1/8” aluminum bar. The end of it is bent 90 degrees and epoxied into the back of the bird, then I drilled a hole through it and the header panel and bolted it there.
 
I'm making a new grill for my red Cougar; The chrome has bubbled badly. I have some nomex honeycomb, and some aluminum honeycomb, I was going to make a CF project with, that I'm considering making a grill out of, and mounting a c-pillar emblem to. I'm looking for the emblem from a different cougar; the ones I have came off the green cougar I raped for parts for Lazarus. I met a nice rattlesnake; if he hadnt been toothy, I'd have kept him, he didn't have an issue with me picking him up. He was still there the next year, when I went back for the fuel filler tube Watched me work for an hour, and left. :) The JY guy I knew thought I was a Psycho, lol.

I found a huge blacksnake one time, while working on a blue tbird, taking the diff. He came out of the upper axle area as the guy was cutting the diff off with a torch(!), and I Snagged him as he came out. About 4 feet long, beautiful in the sun. I let him go at the house; they drive away poisonous snakes, and keep the cat active, lol. He was huge, the last time I saw him. Lot's of field mice around. :)

I've looked for chrome honeycomb, but cheap plastic chrome I have, lol. I wonder if I could make one out of the aluminum, and plate it with chrome? No bubbling on that, and it should be tough enough for a grill.
Thoughts?
 
OOH! Stainless steel, electropolished looks like chrome, and I know how to do that. I'm ordering some stainless honeycomb, about 1/16"" thick or so.

Mikey, I love the plate; "89 jersey fucker", lol. DMV won't give that out. if you asked I bet. lol.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Back
Top