8.8 welded mustang rear installed today

installed the rear, swapped some brake lines and bleeders. and picked up my 1350 explorer pinion yolk and my 4l80e yolk for the th400, beefy drivetrain items

fairmont rear welding and ls1 intake

bought an ls1 intake off my friend pete for the fairmont, and also welded up the 8.8 rear for installation

just some quick pics

with my SLR because all other pics are from my cell phone lol

some good, and some bad, and some good

welp up and downs today, hah,

some stuff came today!

did you know 044 fuel pumps come in tubes, not boxes?

well the motor was set in, and we fabbed up the mounts quick, i dont have any pics i will have to grab some, but they are nice and shitty looking. i painted them too so they wont rust. drying now...

anyway my header bolt hole is a total trashed mess, and i just was drilling it out bigger and bigger and finally said fuck it.

my friend had his corvette valvetrain let go a few months ago and we traded him the 799 heads we had, for his stock ls1 ported heads, and we were gunna use em as a mock up motor before we got this 4.8... so i was like fuck it, i have those in my trunk, and i can make one good head out of the both of them... so the one has a broken spring, broken valve, and the valve stuck in the chamber sideways... lol so that one is a nogo, the other looks fine, i pull off the stock mutilated truck head,

and then we go get a head gasket laying on the ground in coreys garage... and spray it down, literally laying on the middle of the floor in his garage.

remember this is a clean room...

spray on rtv

now here is where it gets interesting, i go to put the fucking valve spring compressor on, with shop air in the spark plug hole and this thing goes nuts and pushes the valve down and air is rushing out of the intake... i am like wtf, ok, ill whack it with a hammer quick and knock the keeper loose.

i did this 3x, then realized the damn valve stem was mushroomed flat and into the keepers, fucked.

i was like mother fuck, and i was starting to get pissed and loose my motivation.

took an hour break or so, and i was like, oh shit, ill just take it off, swap a good valve from the fucked up head, and be off and running again...

so i take the head off, and smash the valves down all the way as far as the compressor can go, and i hammer the center of the valve with a bolt to knock the exhaust one loose, boom keepers fly out, i start hammering the intake valve, and its not doing shit.

fuck...

i got rid of the bolt and just whailed on it with the dead blow and the whole valve busted clean off, i was like awesome, now i can pull it out of the top of the head hahah...

so i yanked her out...

after this i was flying, happy i was going to get my practice fucked up motor complete lol.

so i installed all of my beehives.

what a dream

oh we also drilled and tapped the oil feed on the back of the block.

getting there!

motor and trans is in, i have to make the mounts now

ready for the engine fit tomororw

alright picked up some metal at tractor supply and some bolts, then cut up some metal and made some shitty plates for the sides of the motor, tomorrow ill do the plates in the stock K member and bolt them in with a nice tractor supply bolt, hover the motor in there and then cut the tubing to the height i need. and weld away, weld weld weld. then i can pull the motor back out and finish weld/gusset whatever i need to and then drop it back in, and concentrate on the trans mount when i get my subframes in, say... wednesday i think?

then i can start on little shit like, is the truck intake gunna fit where should the turbo go, etc.

i also have yet to drill out one last header bolt snapped off

here is a pic of the fuel rail spacers i picked up at work we were throwing them out and they are exactly right to put the taller 80s in the truck intake, so now i have two sets.

i also drilled out my flexplate for the converter since its th350 bolt pattern, and installed the oil pan for tomorrow

here is a super shitty engine mount plate

more work on the turbo fairmont

got the zr1 cam installed, more things ripped out of the car and thrown out, started removing all the exhaust bolts that were snapped in the heads today, ugh nightmare job taking forever to do something so simple, got all my arp headbolts in and tq'd down nice and installed teh cam cover and water pump today for shits, drilled out the tstat of course.

hopefully very soon i can get the last header bolt out, and then bolt the engine and trans together, and start to see where it all goes, mock up some motor mounts, and then sit her in place, get a good spot for the turbo drain then. my summit order and other things should be rolling in this week, and we can go nuts, i also have to throw the 8.8 rear into this thing while i am at it.

pulled the motor out of the fairmont, and started on the motor.

picked up my th400 and converter for the fairmont

picked up this beautiful trans and converter from a local man.

the 6.0 notch running ms1 with the stock truck intake and injectors