3/1/1988 Pontiac announces the end of the Fiero automobile – Was anyone sad about that?
Pontiac Fiero
3/1/1937 In New Jersey one of the largest dealerships of the era was opened. The Miro Brothers opened a state-of-the-art facility with “one of the largest and most modern showrooms in the country,” measuring 38′ x 40′ . The dealership was service station and dealt for Buick, Packard, Oldsmoble, and REO trucks. The east side of the building served as a Mobil gas station and service garage during the World War II.
As I get ready to start the new round of mods for my 1970 Mustang Coupe, I’m reminded of a couple of issues that came up when I was assisting a fellow Mustang owner doing a trans – transplant.
The first tip is partially dependent on what stage you are in of your restoration.
He has already finished most of the interior when the a transmission he wanted to add became affordable, it was a good deal…saving some $$$$.
He had decided to do the swap and add a short shifter. This of course requires the removal the bezel and the current 3 speed shift lever, which is easily done from inside the car.
Bezel and Boot
In the course of removing those two parts, he found that the opening cut in the new carpet was not going to allow the access necessary. An attempt to ‘widen’ it was successful but left a bit of a jagged slit. Additionally, while removing one of the screws it snagged the carpet and pulled a few loops out. Can you guess what the tip is? Yeah…remove the carpet and if possible make the swap before you put new carpet in.
One other quick tip is to apply a little silicone spray to the shifter to help slide the boot off..oh…yeah…removing the shift knob before the boot is a good idea…..DON”T ASK!!!!!
So I left a couple of photos out of the last post. But I wanted to show (IMHO) a couple stars of the show and one of the strange one.
I covered the Galaxies and 500’s, however, here are a couple more: (Come..on..you would be able to pick just one or two either!!!)
(In no particular order)
Crown Victorian (before the exploding gas tanks and cop lights)
Oh..the Chrome!!
Did I mention the Chrome?
Just look at that smile..I mean bumper!!!
Not really comparable to the Crown Vic – this Starliner was, although not original, very nicely done.
Ford Starliner with a little custom work.
Oh..check out the intake setup on that Starliner!!!!
OK.. I know at least one of my readers will like this next car.
It is a 1965 Ford Mustang Station Wagon. Originally a concept created by William Sibo (designer for Ford Motor Company). He actually built this car from the original drawings. Car is currently owned by Ken Berger. The car now has a 429, rack and pinion steering C-6 auto trans, coil over suspension and power brakes, A/C and stereo system.
No Middle Road - Hate it or Love it.
There you go!
I can’t get past the that rear end….but this helps:
I love attending car shows. Either as just a spectator or participant, I have capital F, capital U, capital N.
Today (2/20/2011) I attend for the 3rd year Tucson’s Fords on 4th Ave. A very good size show for the area, considering it was limited to Fords. This year I was only a spectator the Mustang wasn’t ready for a show (needed a bunch of detailing).
There were a ton of newer Mustangs, nice machines, shinny inter-cooled turbos and all the tubing, all nice machines, no doubt. But there was a huge void of older Fords. I love seeing the 40’s and 50’s Fords and Mercurys.
The stars for me of this show were the Fairlanes and Galaxies. Yes there were 60 Mustangs, Shelby’s, Mach I’s and GT. But the lines of these longer 60’s cars are just some of the best designed, ever.
Here some interesting facts for the new in 2008 LS9 engine.
– It was a combination of upgraded LS3 and LS7 components and took 3 years to develop
– All 2000 units were hand-assembled in GM’s Performance Build Center in Wixom, Michigan
-It displaced 6.2 liters
– Bore and stroke 4.06×3.62 with a compression ratio of 9.1:1
– It had reinforced bulkhead to improve block stiffness and used six bolt steel main caps.
– Of note the headgasketts were cut to the shape of the LS3 but had four layers of steel.
– Remember the “tornado”? That device that was sold and was added to your air intake and was supposed to funnel air into your carb or throttle body, booting HP? Well the LS9’s intake had “swirl ring” to improve the air flow.
– Sported the Eaton R1900 2 rotor supercharger, pumping out 2.3 liters of compressed air, but that’s all – this air was then super cooled by the Behr intercooler, that knocked off about 140 degrees.
– The valve were titanium on the intake side and stainless steel on the exhaust side
– The pistons were forged aluminum and the rods were titanium.
Here’s some output numbers:
At 1000 rpm – 300 hp and 320 lb-ft torque
The maximum was approx. 620 hp coming at 6500 rpm and 595 lb-ft of torque coming at 4000 rpm with nearly all of its top end torque available between 2600 and 6000 rpm.
