Automotive

Up until around 2016 or so, I primarily drove these quirky "Turbo Mopars" employing Chrysler's 2.2L turbocharged powertrain.  My last daily driver of this type was a 1986 Dodge Daytona Turbo Z C/S.  The car was a bit of a basket case when I got it, but it was eventually sorted out: the frame was straightened, the floor pans replaced, and the powertrain and interior were upgraded.  It was a very fun and comfortable car to drive (for a Turbo-Mopar anyway).  Eventually I had to let it go, as it just wasn't practical to use a 30+ year-old car as a daily.

My previous daily driver from 1995 through 2002 was a 1988 Dodge Shadow ES.  It was laid to rest due to a fatal case paint peel and floorpan/frame rust.  It had been in a few collisions over its life and it just wasn't worth saving.  Prior to that, I drove a 1987 Dodge Shadow Turbo and a 1987 Plymouth Sundance Turbo.  I had a thing for these particular cars (the "P-body", in Turbo-Mopar parlance), especially the first generation (1987-1988).

Back when I first graduated from college, I strongly desired the ultimate first-generation P-body: the 1987 Shelby CSX.  After some searching and waiting for the right car in my price range, I found Shelby CSX #694 of 750.  It has mainly been a project car, though it has had to step in as a daily from time to time.  This is the last of these cars that I still own.

Chrysler had an interesting relationship with Carroll Shelby in the late 1980s.  While the resulting vehicles were never taken very seriously in muscle car circles, a great online community did form around them.  The discourse has moved from mailing lists to online Forums to (unfortunately) Facebook Groups, but the community itself still exists.  The Shelby-Dodge Auto Club still holds an annual convention to this day.

In the dark recesses of the Internet lies an ancient tome of knowledge that (according to the server logs) people still visit for some reason: Mini-Mopar Resources.

The Daytona: July 29, 2008

Posted on July 29, 2008.

A week or two after the convention, the car suddenly got a bad vibration when making right turns.  It seemed like the left axle tripod was bottoming-out.  I had recentered the engine when I had the old stock axle in there and never put it back, but I wasn't sure what caused it to suddenly appear one day.  It turned out that the aftermarket trans mount I installed had partially collapsed, which was enough to take out the last bit of slack in the axle.  Anyway, I put the poly trans mount back in (the engine vibrations were no better with the rubber mount anyway), fixed the front mount bracket so I could slip washers in there to space the poly away from the bracket, and recentered the engine.  Everything is fine now and the washers did seem to help a bit with the vibs.

I also cleaned-up the crab rims from the CSX, hit the lips with a scotch-brite abrasive wheel, and polished them a bit before installing them on the Daytona.  The Dunlop SP8000s from JT are worn down to the markers now, so I'm running the Kuhmo 712s from the CSX.  They have flat spots from the freeway spin-out, but they do have plenty of tread.  The Dunlops were awesome tires, but you can't get them in 225/50 R15 anymore.  I'm saving the last of them for the CSX when it is done.

Lastly, I made shims for the brake pads on all four calipers to try to shut them up.  They still squeak, but are better overall.  I think the notches that are worn into the brackets from the pad plates may be to blame.  Would have to weld them up somehow, but I have bigger fish to fry.

The Daytona: July 9, 2008

Posted on July 09, 2008.

The first time I drove the car after coming home from the convention, the door handle broke on the drivers side.  Joe from the club was nice enough to pick one up from an 85 Daytona in the junkyard and ship it to me.  The rod had to be bent to match the old one, but it swapped over just fine otherwise.  While the door was apart, I installed the '87 power mirrors.  Man, the '91 wiring diagrams are horrible.  Not one single interesting circuit on the power mirror page was right and as such my splice job from way back when did not work.  I spent many hours trying to sort that out, but now I finally have working power mirrors!

The Daytona: June 26, 2008

Posted on June 26, 2008.

Another awesome time at SDAC has come and gone.  The performance driving school was a blast as always.  The Daytona did great overall, but the stress did highlight some issues.  The intercooler definitely needs to be kicked-out at the bottom to allow some air to get around it.  The loss in cooling capacity was very obvious after a few laps, though it will happen on the street in traffic with the A/C on as well.  I'm thinking of buying a new fan as well.  The other issue was oil pressure.  I know the pump has issues and when the oil temps got high, I was seeing only about 30psi of pressure at 5000rpm.  Not good, so I think it's time for a new pump.

I made 14 passes at the drag strip.  Times weren't what I had hoped (was shooting for 13s), but I didn't break the car.  I couldn't get the car to hook nor could I get it to make more than 18-19psi of boost...even with the wastegate unplugged.  I also trashed 3rd gear by the end and it seems that it will need a new syncro.  Did a bit of tuning, but most of the effort was spent trying to learn how to launch the car.  Best time was 14.269sec @ 98.87mph.

The Daytona: June 21, 2008

Posted on June 21, 2008.

So I'm going to SDAC-18 and have been doing a mad-dash to get the car ready.  The axle boot was the wrong one and tore itself up on the trans case.  I put an old stocker in there from the Shadow while I worked on other things.  Later I got the correct boots from JT and completely went though the axles.  Only the short axle has the tripod welded to it and it looks like they did it while the bearings were on.  They must have slipped and tagged one of them with the welder.  The tulip race is chewed-up pretty good there.  The outer joints have a lot of hammer blows on them and long axle's has a lot of play and binds much beyond the center.  I put them back together anyway and they seem to be holding up so far.  I don't expect to get a whole lot of miles out of them.

Trying to address the somewhat-weak oil pressure issues, I pulled the pan and removed the pickup.  My thought was that it may have been leaking at the o-ring since I had to bend the tube a bit when putting the motor together.  I took the pump apart as well to check the clearances.  It had a lot of scoring in it for some reason, but the clearances were all well within spec.  I also plastiguaged the rods bearings, which looked great and were nice and tight.

I'm going to be running the road course, so I put new pads and rotors in the front and bled the brakes.  Also replaced the front swaybar bushings with new ones from Johnny.  The radiator was throughly flushed, since I had some oil in there.

The ends on the CS Racer panhard bar were shot, so I modified a stocker to make it adjustable.  One end was cut off and a grade 10.9 M16 bolt welded to it.  Some of the bar was removed and an M16 coupler nut was welded to that end and the whole bar was boxed-in.  It warped a bit after all the welding, so I lowered on car on it to bend it straight again.  It was installed with new poly bushings from Johnny Spiva.

I DA'ed and rattle-canned the roof and mounted the side door mouldings.  Painted those as well as some missing paint on the nose.  Also painted the exposed bumper support since the grill is missing there.  Did lots of touch-ups and also tried to deal with the worst of the rust on the hood.  Didn't have enough time to finish sanding and rubbing-out the patches, but it looks better than it did before.

The Daytona: May 23, 2008

Posted on May 23, 2008.

Last night/this morning I finally fixed a few pressing issues.  One was the boot on the driver's inner CV joint had chewed through itself a while ago and I've been meaning to put a new one one there for some time.  I discovered that the Driveshaft Shop Level 3 axles have the tripods welded to the shafts, so they have to be taken apart from the outer CV end.  Also, the inner joints have some kind of fiber reinforced plastic cap that seems to be there to keep the tripod in the tulip housing.  The problem is the boot seals to the cap and the cap seals to the tulip with a rubber seal.  On the other axle, grease is coming out between the cap and the tulip, so I am going to have to deal with that at some point.

The big project was replacing the shift fork pads on the 1-2 and 3-4 forks.  I've been limping 3rd gear along for over a year now, as I cheezed it pretty bad on a hard shift one day but it was still usable.  A week or so ago I did the same to 2nd gear, rendering it useless.  I hoped it was just the pads and so I bought some new ones.  Thankfully, that's all it was.  The trans looked clean inside, though the sprags for 3rd and especially for 2nd gear are pretty chewed up.  It shifts great now, so I am not going to worry about it.

Finally, both of the outer tie rod ends are so sloppy that they have about 1/2" of play now.  They are only a few years old, so no more Moog suspension parts for me.  I got the more expensive ones from NAPA (Spicer I think).  Same brand as the new ball joints that replaced the failed Moog joints and are holding up well.