🔧 BUILD Upside-down M90 GTP build thread

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When your wife gives you permission to build a racecar, you build a racecar.

This is what happened to me. However, all funding for this project comes out of my construction account. I really need a telehandler, so this is very budget friendly. Luckily, I've been stockpiling parts for years. This isn't an overnight build by any means. My goal is to make a 1/4 mile pass with it before the tracks close for the season. I'm taking a risk here and using photobucket for image hosting, so hopefully they don't screw me over again.

So let's start it off. I bought a 04 L26 motor with somewhere north of 100k on it and started to tear it down.

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Everything looks good so far. The pistons are really clean. There was some junk sitting in the oil pan, but not much.

Turbocharged400sbc

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People screw up the firing order on the 351 Windsors all the time so start with that before you go much further.
It's also very common for the TFI ignition module in the distributor to die and that's why that f250 truck should have the module located on a heatsink on the inner Fender... but it may not.
 
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Rdrnnr

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Sounds like gettin a spark tester and a multimeter out to me. Alot of that Era of stuff works on resistance and analog signal rather than the switches and self diagnostics we have today. I'm not super familiar with the ford's ignition system but I know alot of those trucks found boneyards over misfires. And the emissions caused alot of hell as well

If you get further into it and can get any info holler at me I got a cousin up by you whose into that Era ford's pretty deep that can probably help off the top of his head as well
 
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Turbocharged400sbc

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The EGR issue generally happens more often after a steady Cruise drive and rears its head at the first stop you come to after getting off the highway

An easy way to be able to rule this out is to remove the two bolts holding the EGR to the intake and making a block off gasket using the side of a cereal box.
Sometimes the chunk of carbon will not break apart and get out of there
 
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Rdrnnr

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The EGR issue generally happens more often after a steady Cruise drive and rears its head at the first stop you come to after getting off the highway

An easy way to be able to rule this out is to remove the two bolts holding the EGR to the intake and making a block off gasket using the side of a cereal box.
Sometimes the chunk of carbon will not break apart and get out of there
This. Or isn't there a steam pipe kinda thing in the back that rots out?
 
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Turbocharged400sbc

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You'll probably get lucky and the rubber grommet will just lift right out of the intake hole. But you're probably not going to be able to get the screen lock out without running in a couple of 3 inch long drywall screws and using vice grips and maybe a pry bar to work it up out of the intake.
You will want to ask for a PCV screen PCV valve grommet and PCV valve and valve elbow although if I recall you can generally take off a 90 degree spark plug wire Boot and make it work
 
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Rdrnnr

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I guess I should mention, this thing is all original. It has about 70k miles on it, and gets driven maybe 200 miles a year. I would have at least pulled the plugs to look at them, but that thing is an emissions nightmare. There is crap everywhere in the engine bay.
Yep. Vacuum pumps and smog pumps and stupid little pipes and all the other mid 80s and early 90s hell before they halfway figured out what they were doin. Thank God for obd2 and mpfi
 

Rdrnnr

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Dont be a pussy i slung wrenches on em all the time.

.... you can b**** when it's got a hundred ninety Thousand Miles and been a plow truck for the last 10 years.
Thats what they all are here ? that bein said I'll take early Ford emissions over beatin split rims and chloride filled farm tires for the last couple decades
 
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GTPpower

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I was able to work on the car for maybe a half hour yesterday. I'd really like to get this thing running.

So maybe everyone knows this, but it's incredibly hard to check powersteering fluid on the fwd cars... especially mine with all the crap in the way and the alternator moved back. So I went to the junkyard and got a power steering pump extension and dipstick from a 95 blazer.

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Cleaned it up a bit and welded a tab on it to mount to the alternator bracket. Still need to cut off the excess, drill the bolt hole, and paint it.

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My weld kind of sucked there, but it's getting painted.
 

GTPpower

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thats a great idea. i always hated checking/filling them...

maybe there is a market for thses to be sold? :unsure: get on it!


There might be. They only take a couple minutes to get out at the junkyard, and cost about $8 with tax. I'd have to test fit it on a normal car since my alternator is moved back an inch or so though.

Why this was not a factory item, I'm sure we can blame the bean counters.
 

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