Progress Thread Komo's 1990 GT - Parts Gathering Purgatory & Home Remodel

[gkomo]

Well WTH, go to put my first gasket on and it looks like this:



And this is the best one out of the ‘kit’. When I bought it, i thought it said for stock and 70mm (came with like 4 gaskets). Guess I’ll need to buy actual stock gaskets.

 

[Noobz347]

The "bars" on the gasket are there to hold the center ring in place.

Rotate it 90* counter-clockwise and send it.

 

[gkomo]

The "bars" on the gasket are there to hold the center ring in place.

Rotate it 90* counter-clockwise and send it.

You think? But what about the ID of the gasket being larger than the metal opening?

Meh, I ended up ordering some FelPro gaskets from RockAuto (EGR to Plenum and TB to EGR) that from the photos look exactly like what they need to be. $3-ish each, bought 2 of each just to be safe.

 

[Noobz347]

Well... The metal opening is your TB opening so having it smaller would be a problem.

So long as there is enough gasket material overlapping the metal to seal, you should be golden.

From what I recall: The inner and outer are the only points that have to be sealed. Everything else is reinforcement.

 

[gkomo]

Got the PCV hose hooked back up. For that forward facing vacuum line, i ended up replacing it with a longer piece of hose because it was super tight to where it connects to (some line that goes down the passenger side of the engine near the fuel hard lines) and was like rubbing on the corner of the upper intake manifold. Now its got plenty of slack.

I think thats all i can do for now until i get my gaskets in. I actually don't think i'm going to replace the passenger side valve cover gasket at this time. I don't think there is a reason to. It was the drivers side i thought was leaking. ill just have mismatched painted valve covers for the time being, lol

 

[General karthief]

That vac line from the front goes down to the charcoal canister purge valve.

 

[nicholase]

My plan is to have the plaque the same color as the intake then I’ll fill in the letting with some sort of high temp black paint (or something) I can squirt.

If it sucks, I’ll deal with it later.

It looks good. If you want to do the plaque lettering the best way is to paint it all black first being sure to get all the lettering real good. Then after it dries completely, block sand it in one direction. That will remove the black paint from the high spots and leave it in the lettering. If you carefully run the block in one direction it will leave a nice bare aluminum brushed finish on the high spots just like the factory. Then clear it if you want.

 

[gkomo]

It looks good. If you want to do the plaque lettering the best way is to paint it all black first being sure to get all the lettering real good. Then after it dries completely, block sand it in one direction. That will remove the black paint from the high spots and leave it in the lettering. If you carefully run the block in one direction it will leave a nice bare aluminum brushed finish on the high spots just like the factory. Then clear it if you want.

Woah he returns!

I may just leave it as is for, kind of a clean look and doesn’t look chinsy (IMO) all painted the same.

 

[gkomo]

Woohoo! Got everything buttoned back up.



Primed and checked for leaks, none. Great news. Decided to take her for a spin. Man, I think my #7 injector with the cracked pintle cap was messing things up big time. Car ran so much more smoothly and I could get up into the higher rpm’s 5k+ without the weird vibration I was experiencing before. The rear bilsteins made the rear more ‘solid’ feeling. Didn’t really push around corners but bumps that used to jar me now are stiff and solid but not jarring. Came home checked for leaks again. None, great news.

Ran both KOEO and KOER, finally got code 11 on KOEO, KOER still gave me code 34 for EGR. BUT I no longer have code 44! Cleaning out the heads and replacing the air crossover tube worked. So now I’m down to 1 code.

And a pic of her back in her spot

 

[91AOD5.0LX]

Fantastic work!!! It was great following your progress!

 

[gkomo]

Fantastic work!!! It was great following your progress!

Lot more to come! Always something with this car.

Among all my existing ’pile o’ parts’ I need to take care of… I’ve also started gathering parts for the steering system. Ordered a remanufactured motor craft PS pump, am on notification with RockAuto to get a 03-04’ cobra steering rack, and will need to buy the MM hybrid steering shaft. Got the pressure lines, inner/outer tie rods and poly rack bushings.

 

[AeroCoupe]

I will say that the regular SN95 GT steering rack is really nice. Have one in the Coupe and one in the T-Bird and zero complaints. Not as boosted as the Fox rack and really good feedback. I have driven a Coupe with the Cobra piece and there was definitely additional resistance vs mine but those things are like gold so I settled with what I can get at any parts store.

Either way you will absolutely love the SN95 rack over the Fox rack.

 

[gkomo]

I will say that the regular SN95 GT steering rack is really nice. Have one in the Coupe and one in the T-Bird and zero complaints. Not as boosted as the Fox rack and really good feedback. I have driven a Coupe with the Cobra piece and there was definitely additional resistance vs mine but those things are like gold so I settled with what I can get at any parts store.

Either way you will absolutely love the SN95 rack over the Fox rack.

From what I’ve been reading about the remanufactured racks is you may not actually get the ‘cobra’ internals, like it’s a crap shoot. So I’ll buy one, if it did get rebuilt properly, great, if not then like you said at least the SN95 rack is a big improvement over the Fox rack anyways.

I am looking the SPR-ZM (if I recall) from MMs website.

I won’t personally probably be able to tell the difference between a SN95 GT or Cobra rack, but if I’m doing it I may at least try to get the Cobra rack. I don’t/wont be tracking this car anyways.

 

[gkomo]

Didn’t even realize it, went into the garage to do some laundry and thought I saw some kid chalk on my tire, nope:



I don’t think it’s gone through. I don’t want to unscrew it here since I don’t have a spare tire anymore. Thankfully even if it did go through, I paid for extra ‘insurance’ with discount tire for free replacements.

 

[nickyb]

Didn’t even realize it, went into the garage to do some laundry and thought I saw some kid chalk on my tire, nope:



I don’t think it’s gone through. I don’t want to unscrew it here since I don’t have a spare tire anymore. Thankfully even if it did go through, I paid for extra ‘insurance’ with discount tire for free replacements.

Oh I hate when that happens,but like you I got the free replacement from costco.

 

[AeroCoupe]

Screw it all the way in and take it up there.

 

[gkomo]

Oh my dumbass forgot I can just take the wheel off and bring it by itself.

 

[gkomo]

Well the screw went through. New tire on order. Guess its not 'free', but $25 to renew the 'certificate'. I'll take that over the $250 for a new tire though.

 

[gkomo]

What a waste, that tire probably had 15 miles on it lol

 

[85GT4V]

Totally a waste of that tire!! Did they say if it could be patched?? California May have some wacky rule banning “patching” but, here in rural ‘merka it’s done all the time.

(I say his as a former Yorba Linda and Solvang resident)