A dusty little corner of the Internet: electronics, computer hardware and software, general aviation, 1980's Mopars, and related sundry.
Automotive
1987 Shelby CSX #694 of 750
This is my 1987 Shelby CSX that I've owned since 1998. It is number 694 out of 750 that were modified at Shelby Automobiles in Whittier, California. You can read the back story here. The car has somehow survived a move and a number of life change events, however I have not really done any serious work on it for about two decades. That has recently started to change....
The CSX: October 14, 2003
Posted on October 14, 2003.
Well, I spent much of the summer working on house and yard related things, so the Daytona sat for a long time. As such, the CSX has been my daily driver all summer and probably will be all fall. On the upside, some of that work included running 60A service out to my garage, which allows me to power my recently aquired compressor and stick welder. Hopefully I can get the Daytona back together in time to get the CSX back in the garage before winter.
On a whole, the CSX has held up well. There seems to be a coolant leak coming from the radiator. The radiator has desperately needed recoring since I got the car. I have also been using a custom calibration in place of the ND Performance cal I had before. It is much improved, though still has idle issues. The ND cal would always die two or three times at cold startup, but would eventually get going. It also would break up real bad around 5000rpm and had a part throttle lean spot around 10psi of boost that would cause the engine to cut-out. Aside from the idle problem (which may be mechanical), the new cal has none of these problems. It seems that I have the mixture setup right, but we shall see how my gas mileage is. See my Automotive Electronics pages for more info.
The CSX: May 23, 2003
Posted on May 23, 2003.
I've been driving the Shelby daily now for several weeks while I addressed some issues with the Daytona. All and all it has been reliable, though still has some cold startup issues, uses oil, and sounds like a Mack truck. I may drop the old Shadow engine in if looks like the Daytona project is going to take a long time. Eventually I put the Daytona wheels on because they actually have tread and they are also round. There are various things that need fixing on the CSX as well, but much of the work is the body. If all goes as planned, I will have a compressor fairly soon and will gain some experience at painting the Daytona. Then I'll be able to repaint the Shelby, finally. I may try to polish the rims next winter to have a nice, fresh Shelby by next summer. Yeah right. :p
The CSX: January 20, 2003
Posted on January 20, 2003.
I haven't driven this car at all lately. I don't like to drive it in the winter anyway, but real reason is that the starter solenoid was dying. I knew it would go, since I got the car with no heat shield and the solenoid was all melted. Well, this weekend I swapped the starter from my old Shadow in and found that my retrofit heat shield was now gone as well. That would explain that burning plastic smell I was noticing this summer. Luckily I had bought 2 new heat shields this fall (dealer parts), so I put one of those in along with the starter.
The CSX: December 2, 2002
Posted on December 02, 2002.
Well, the car is back together. It's not perfect, but it's close. I didn't notice it before, but the right rear quarter is pushed in about 1/4". Also, somehow the subchassis is tweaked such that the taillight is mounting a bit high and the bumper a bit low on the right side. It sort of spread things out. It looks fine until you get up close. Once these cars get bent, it's really hard to get them back where they should be again. Everything else lined up well, though the liftgate is not popping open as it should. I suspect the latch is not operating as smoothly as it used to. Still need to paint that trim below the taillights, but it will just have to stay red until the spring.
Putting the bumper back together was a bit of a pain. All those stupid plastic studs broke off the bumper fascia when I got hit, so I ended up making bolts with very flat heads to mount them. The heads are covered by the CSX fascia, so that's no biggie. I also threaded the CSX fascia studs so I could mount it to the bumper fascia with regular nuts. A lot of the original push nuts were gone anyway, so this setup worked well and allowed me to adjust the tension for minimal warpage.
The CSX: November 21, 2002
Posted on November 21, 2002.
With my Shadow now donating the rest of the parts I need, I have finally made some progress on the repairs. Using my dad's handy hydraulic kit, I was able to push the underbody most of the way back...still needs a few tweaks though. I test fitted the Shadow's bumper, just to make sure the frame wasn't tweaked at all. It fit perfectly. Looks like the restoration will have a happy ending.
