numba four

[zoom zoom]

I would man, but I got 3 cars I need this done to and 80$ a pop is just insane. If it comes down to no other option, I might get one set..but I doubt it, 80$ is insane for two bushings. I know I'm a 'flip-flopper' the idea of getting OEM/stock parts that just bolt right in is really really nice, but I'm having a really hard time with the idea of spending that much money on two bushings. It's the whole reason I am driving Aspires and not a Vette.

[nitrofarm]

This car seems to be running great, I think I finally hit the sweet spot for the timing. Ive put 2 tanks of gas in her, well over 350 miles and I've got almost half a tank left. I drove to marietta first thing this morning, met up with a fellow aspire enthusiast. He doesn't have the internet so he don't get on the forums. Between both of us we might have a full car worth of good panels Haha... My 97 Auto next to his 97 auto, both green!

This evening I drove down to my moms and picked up my neice, roughly a 150 mile round trip. The car does great, does have some wheel vibrations up above 65, below 60 its smooth as silk. I want to blame the bushings. Babyspire has the same issue, new lcas and lca bushings and good tie rod ends, and this car just got a new steering rack AND NEW tie rod ends, they both have a homebrew alignment but they trek straight and corner good, the only thing I have yet to replace IS the front sway bar mounts. I might try to figure out those energy suspension bushings tomorrow and make them work on my aspires.

Also, there is a LOT of road noise from the rear tires, I think its the right rear, I swapped in new tires and I still get it. When I go into a corner to the left it quiets down. I haven't checked air pressure but both tires are doing it..I'm thinking something might be wrong with the axel but a visual inspection came up nil. It's not eating my tire yet so I'm not too concerned.

Hmmmmmmm def gotta tint my windows this spring after seeing yours. Hey get the front bushings from AUS. $80 shipped to your door no muss or fuss. Just drop em in. World of diffrence

[zoom zoom]

This car seems to be running great, I think I finally hit the sweet spot for the timing. Ive put 2 tanks of gas in her, well over 350 miles and I've got almost half a tank left. I drove to marietta first thing this morning, met up with a fellow aspire enthusiast. He doesn't have the internet so he don't get on the forums. Between both of us we might have a full car worth of good panels Haha... My 97 Auto next to his 97 auto, both green!

This evening I drove down to my moms and picked up my neice, roughly a 150 mile round trip. The car does great, does have some wheel vibrations up above 65, below 60 its smooth as silk. I want to blame the bushings. Babyspire has the same issue, new lcas and lca bushings and good tie rod ends, and this car just got a new steering rack AND NEW tie rod ends, they both have a homebrew alignment but they trek straight and corner good, the only thing I have yet to replace IS the front sway bar mounts. I might try to figure out those energy suspension bushings tomorrow and make them work on my aspires.

Also, there is a LOT of road noise from the rear tires, I think its the right rear, I swapped in new tires and I still get it. When I go into a corner to the left it quiets down. I haven't checked air pressure but both tires are doing it..I'm thinking something might be wrong with the axel but a visual inspection came up nil. It's not eating my tire yet so I'm not too concerned.

[zoom zoom]

haha, I wonder if that was what happened to babyspire? It had 3 1/2 cam lobes worn down to the point it dug into the rocker arms and broke the rollers off. Since I reset the lifters the noise is really not that loud. I played with them for a minute and they all had resistance on the detent ball after I released the oil.

[nitrofarm]

Glad you got it going,but dont trade it for a bike.:nono:
fyi You can eat a cam lobe if the lifters are bad and you run em like that for too long especially in a higher rpm ATX.

[zoom zoom]

oh when i was doing the retorquing I also removed the lifters/rocker arms and collapsed the lifters, that bad knocking/ticking it had going on disappeared, now it's just a typical annoying lifter noise, but it's not bad at all.

[zoom zoom]

Yea cheap torque wrenches will get you every time. I believe that's been my problem this whole time..well that and I shouldn't mess with timing unless I absolutely have to haha..

I went out this morning and retorqued the bolts by loosening them all up a little, I didn't relieve all the pressure, just enough that they were still snug, and torqued them down to 63 ft lbs. I fired it up and it blew out a little white smoke for a couple minutes, then miraculously stopped blowing out white smoke!!!!! I let it sit there idling like that for awhile, then took it for a drive.. the steering was sloppy and I figured this whole time it was a ball joint...I got it jacked up and wiggled the tire and the slop was comming from the inner tie rod end...or so I thought...I got the inner rod end off my spare rack and went to remove the one off the car, and found out the slop was comming from the rack itself!!!!!!!!

So I swapped the steering rack I had laying around from crustyspire (which was in good shape, feels like brand new inner rod ends) and got together a couple decent outter tie rod ends/ ball joints I had laying around. The ones that were on the car were sloppy loose but not totally shot, I just put slightly less garbage ball joints back on it.

Anyway after a home brew front end alignment I fired it up and drove into town, cruised around stopped and seen friends.. just made a 2-3 hour trip out of it...the car did great. It still has plenty of problems, but for now it's moving under its' own power. I wouldn't take further than 50 miles yet because the front brake hardware but it's rolling good. Time for a major cleanup for a couple days and I'll work out the rest....if I still have it lol, a friend offered to trade me his 89 Honda Shadow 750 for it, his bike runs and looks good...so I might take him up on that.

[rmoltis]

Is it possible the other mating surface isn't flat/true? The top of the bottom end.
Or could it need to be torqued down a tiny bit more for the added pressure in the cylinder?(sounds risky of breaking a bolt) I'm just trying to think of possible ideas.

My last idea is torque wrenches aren't always %100 accurate they have a sort of accuracy band for certain ft lbs. And the cheaper the torque wrench the less accurate. This could be part of the problem. I know most people don't spend $300-$500 on a quality wrench that has high accuracy.

[zoom zoom]

Well, I got it fired up today, idles ok but there's a bad knocking which is hopefully a lifter, doesn't really sound like a bottom end issue to me but ill find out more tomorrow.

It was idling fine, I didn't try to rev it a single time, I just let it idle for about 10-15 minutes. It was fine until it got warmed up, then started smoking white out of the tailpipe. I shut it down as soon as I seen it, it wasn't a thick cloud, and it only had a tail a foot or 2 before it dissipated. Anyway I shut it down and let it cool off, I was going to retorque the bolts and when I picked up my torque wrench it was broke. Slacked off all the way it was really hard to click, and when it did it didn't pop back in place. Anyway I returned it to autozone and they traded me a new in box one for the one I had and didn't ask any questions.

Now, its burning antifreeze(or could it be unburned fuel??) Is there any hope for this working or do I need to pull the head and do the whole nine yards all over again with a new gasket? I want to try loosening the bolts one at a time and torquing them down to 60, and hope it quits blowing smoke but with that little bit of antifreeze already in there I don't know if it will work or not. What's the deal do I gotta pull this head again?

[zoom zoom]

The first pic is where oil was leaking from the back of the engine behind cylinder 4.

Second pic is of cylinders 1 & 2, you can see where the copper spray washed out.

It looks basically like the whole seal from the head gasket to the head failed...to me.

[zoom zoom]

Yea buddy and I screwed the pooch on that. I also had to work out an issue with an injector, which turned into two bad injectors, then got fixed.

http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/showthread.php?47729-Did-I-blow-it-up

Haha the head gasket went bad and its my fault. It was running decent, then I set the timing back to TDC and went for a wot ride up a very steep hill. Only took a couple minutes and I came back leaving a smoke trail so thick you couldn't see your hand in front of your face Haha..

It never overheated, the thing started bogging down, I kept it WOT, it got up the hill, I laid into it again, major loss of power and it started knocking, kept it WOT...and the smoke started rolling. After I got it back home I set the timing back to 10*btdc and ran it around...obvious smoke blowing but I got the power back so when I get the new gasket and head back on it should be good to go..hopefully.

The head gasket sealed against the block, but I have some pics here of the head...

[nitrofarm]

Well I got the exhaust welded up today, and there's either not enough back pressure or the tranny has some serious issues. I'm opting for not enough backpressure lol.. gonna buy a thrush turbo muffler tomorrow and see if that helps my cause. I had it up to 55, but it takes forever to get there, it doesn't want to speed up..it's almost like running with an open header. The tranny kicks a little but I think it will calm down a bit when the thing is actually accelerating like it should. The engine sounds smooth to me, it may be slightly out of time, *maybe*, but I haven't heard it backfire at all, and it revs so smooth when it's just sitting and idling.

Timing needs a little advance maybe?

[zoom zoom]

Well I got the exhaust welded up today, and there's either not enough back pressure or the tranny has some serious issues. I'm opting for not enough backpressure lol.. gonna buy a thrush turbo muffler tomorrow and see if that helps my cause. I had it up to 55, but it takes forever to get there, it doesn't want to speed up..it's almost like running with an open header. The tranny kicks a little but I think it will calm down a bit when the thing is actually accelerating like it should. The engine sounds smooth to me, it may be slightly out of time, *maybe*, but I haven't heard it backfire at all, and it revs so smooth when it's just sitting and idling.

[zoom zoom]

I could, I just hate to run a 2" exhaust the rest of the way back from it. I can't find a 1.5/1.75 (whatever stock size pipe is) glasspack, the smallest I can get is a 2". I've got a straight stock pipe back to a cheap muffler on babyspire and she's not too horribly loud at all, the stereo drowns it out. That's also not a straight thru muffler either so I might end up having to do something like that..we'll see how it turns out I suppose.

[nitrofarm]

yea buddy! I put it in gear and drove forward and backward about 20', it shifted smooth, and we'll see how 2nd and 3rd go tomorrow. They're such dogs when it's just open header lol...almost makes me think the exhaust flowing out the back is what propels it forward!

Plans are just a stock pipe straight back to a 2" cherrybomb with a "pretty" chrome tip. (already on the car just needs welded up)

Matt put the "Cherry Bomb" in place of the converter(if you can get past emissions) and put a turbo muffler in back. I did the "Glass pack" alone & its really loud even @ idle. My wife hated it- and I had to agree with her cuz she was right.drool And with the 3 speed it was SOOOO loud on the freeway.