Cheap Thrills! My 1983 Ford Faimont built
 

So due to the fact I already have a turbo ls car, a 1979 Volvo 244, I thought man I could have done this shit a lot cheaper and not worry about wrecking it or blowing it up. Also I was first introduced to the turbo lsx stuff by sloppy mechanics and the first video I saw was the 9.6x pass in the Fairmont 3. I fell in love with that car, the color and the budget is what got me. So I started the hunt and ended up with this gem for 150 bucks with no engine or transmission, I just picked this thing up about 10 days ago.
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the first thing I did was tear into it after the 1400 mile roadtrip to get the car
I ripped the 7.5 axle out and the stock control arms and fuel tank, I welded a ebay sump into the stock tank and picked up a fox 8.8 off craigslist for 50 bucks with 3.07 gears and a lsd.
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the next thing I did was throw my mockup engine in and build engine and trans mounts, I have a gutted 80e and a gutted ls1 to make the job easier.
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I managed to get the truck intake to clear under the stock hood and found that I could use a early fox manual rack to help with pan clearance.

so then I welded the axle tubes on the 8.8 and swapped it in, the car came with brand new air shocks so im gonna try them out, I used summit rear control arms for the rear end because they are cheap and my bushings were wasted.
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that's where im at now, the car will be running a th400 and 4.8 with a 7665 turbo. the car is going to be running on microsquirt as well, the whole point is to do this entire build for under 3k and have a super fun beater that I can take to the drags. will post engine pics and other stuff soon!

So here is a rundown of what is currently done to the car.

POWERTRAIN

sbe gen 4 4.8 short block
pac 1219x springs
ls9 cam
one 706 head and one 862 head
stock flipped truck manifolds 2 inch hotside
tr6 plugs
stock coils
stock truck intake and tb
stock return style fuel rails
decapped 30lb lm truck injectors
stock truck alt bracket with egged out holes and mounted sideways
7665 on3 turbo
microsquirt wired up by me
ebay 380lph pump with parker lines off the stock tank with a tractor supply pre filter
stock carb feed as a return line
most of a snow performance meth kit
Taurus 2 speed fan using a Volvo relay
ebay radiator
ebay 31x12x3 ic with 2.5 piping

DRIVETRAIN
unopened th475 with some sort of 10 inch converter
stock driveshaft that was lengthened
un touched 8.8, turns out it was 2.73s in it
weld knock offs with et streets out back
amazon tubular control arms and subframe connectors
sn95 air shocks and footballs in the stock springs
other then that everything suspension wise is bone stock as well as brakes
also no sway bars

INTERIOR AND MISC
stock everything on the inside (except Mexican blanket seat cover)
tci fastgate shifter with working neutral safety switch
aem wideband
amazon.com tach, boostgauge, temp, op, and volt
microsquirt and fuel pump wired off of a fused switch and mounted in the glovebox with a fuse panel. push button starter

ill leave this guy for drivetrain posts.
so I nabbed a low mile gen 4 4.8 shortblock for dirt cheap, I paid 150 for it, I bought a 5.3 that had "no oil pressure" complete for 300 bucks, after selling a bunch of parts and stuff off the 5.3 that I didn't need I threw together the 4.8, I threw a used ls9 cam in it that I got for 80 bucks and a used set of pac 1219x springs. then I reused everything else and installed it in the car along with the th475. I built my own turbo kit and me being in a rush didn't help anything because it is one ugly sob. the guys at efi source have been good friends and ive bought a lot of stuff from them so I got a un terminated micro squirt harness and used the connectors off the harness I had to wire them up. I ddecapped the injectors and used some coil packs and used plugs I had lying around. the turbo routing is such that I had no room for a exhaust so I blasted 2 holes in the hood, one for the 3 inch pipe and one for the 44mm wastegate. here are some pics to break up my bad sentence structure and rambletron post
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anddd one more

Looks like a fun project. Unless you have parts horded up, no chance of doing it for 3K. I hope you do. But no chance. Your already $1000 in with fuel, truck and trailer rental, price of car and control arms. LOL

The tow was about 600 bucks with rental and gas. Not counting that in duh!!!! Everything is used on this car right now I'm in it for well under 1k minus the gas and tow. Also those control arms are about 150 on summit so no big loss.

Are you gonna build your own tranny or try and get by with a junkyard stocker?

Bought a rebuilt th400 with a good converter in it for 400 bucks. I was going to rebuild a 80e for it but when I tore the junkyard trans apart I found that the tangs that hold the thrust washer to the case we're completely broken off. No biggie though I sold the valve body and pump on it and scrapped the rest so now I have a good hollow trans for repower mockup

Seen this?


Nice build OP and good luck.

Yea the deals are out there you just got to be patient and search Craigslist like crazy. For example I bought a complete 5.3 that lost oil pressure for 300 and I bought the gen 4 4.8 for 150 for the short block. Ended up parting out the 5.3 short block and sold the AC compressor and power steering pump for around 400 bucks, reused all the gaskets and bolts and now I have a ready to run gen 4 4.8 for 50 bucks. You just have to get crafty

watching this. getting ready to do the same with my fairmont only adding a turbo. is that a 6 cyl k member?

I'm doing a turbo as well. Yes it's a 6cyl k member. You need to put either a manual steering rack from a early Fairmont or put a manual pinto rack to get the truck intake to clear and you need to mount the engine back as far as you can and as low as possible to clear the hood. Hence the super ugly mounts

Is it that a power steering rack is too big?

Yea with how low the engine sits on the kmember the power steering rack is too big in diameter. The Camaro pans at the front from flange to where the pan begins is 1.8 inches and the truck pan is 2.2 iirc. You may be able to get away with using the Camaro pan but I'm not going to be running power steering in the car anyway. That said if you are not trying to build the car on a tight budget like I am I would just get the aje stuff.

So I'm going to try one of these eBay aem 380lph knock offs. They are identical, my friend did a bunch of work with aem stuff and he claims the quantum stuff is made in the same facility. We will see, it's the same size, same weight, came with the same fittings and even draws the same amount of amprage as a aem and we did a test into a bucket after one minute it was the same. I know the flow test I performed isn't entirely accurate but hey, free next day shipping and lifetime warranty, the quantum was 75 and the aem was 150 so we will see how it works.
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Even the little eyelet connector baggie was the exact same
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Also here is my little trick for the oil pan drain to make sure you can fit a socket on there and clear the oil pan bolt
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Here is the sumped tank. Going to be running a 5/8 feed to the pump and using the stock feed line as my return.
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Where did you find this thing for 150 bucks? It looks pretty clean, im jealous.

Craigslist! It's not too bad really it's got a dent in the deck lid and a dent on the passenger side rear wheel well. It's great for what it's going to be!

Replaced my carb soft lines with some 5/16ths injection hose. Plumbed the entire fuel system and dropped in the 4.8. little bit of clearance issues with the studs on top of the truck manifold so I cut them off. Also went to install the converter into the th400 I bought and it wouldn't seat. Put some long picks in there and determined the pump was siezed. No biggie, pulled the pump and found it to be full of flash rust. Great!!!! So it scotch padded the pump gears and lubed them up and put the pump back in. Then I found that the pump siezed as soon as you tightened it! Removed the pan and found the case to be broken. Greattttt. Took the trans back and got my money back for it. Talked to my coworker and he had a th475 out of a old bus that he bought to use the engine. The buss had been in a massive wreck so I was confident the trans was okay. I bought it for 300 bucks and it feels fine. Fluid looks brand new. So I'm going to go ahead and install it and see how it works and see if I'm going to need a shift kit or something for it.

Man I did a really shitty job updating this thread, I will post a full update tonight. its running and driving and I managed to do one pass with it at the ziptie drags this last weekend before the event got shutdown. I have a bunch of pictures I have to upload tonight