It Lives!

After getting the engine into it's new home, all the rest of the required components had to go in. The stock radiator was put in for now with plans on changing it in the future. I had a set of Accel Super Wires laying around that I built to fit my engine. The Holley carb that I had from our Chevelle went on, and I purchased a Pertronix Flame Thrower 3 distributor to make the spark. It is a ready to run distributor with a built in adjustable rev limiter, it's a very nice part for the money.

This picture is not the best, I cobbled the engine bay together just to get it to run. I went back later and cleaned it up.

After that, it was time to bring it to life. After 20+ years of sitting, it was running! I had only one slight hiccup with the power steering having air in the lines, but other wise it went well! I ran it for a while to break it in, then worked on getting it to idle. I was very pleased with how it sounded.

Shortly after I got it running I was off for the Christmas holiday, so I loaded the car onto a trailer and drug it back to my parents house to make it road worthy. I fixed the power steering, solved an issue with the electrical system that wasn't letting it charge, stopped a fuel leak, and many more small tasks. Among those jobs, I got some mufflers to install. In keeping with my budget theme, I found a set of $50 Spintech mufflers on craigslist for a Fox Body. I welded some turn downs on them and got them in place. They were small so I expected the car to be loud, but it's actually not as much as I expected. It still has a rumble at idle, but has a nice crack when you wind it up.

Once all that was done, the car was safe to drive and I began to put miles on it. I even took it to a Friday Night Drag event at Wild Horse Pass (Firebird) just for fun. The car ran a 14.3 @103. Not the fastest there's ever been, I couldn't get the car to hook off the line with the cheap tires I put on it. But I had a good time and the car drove itself home after making about 10 passes, and I now have a baseline for the future.

More to come shortly, Phase 2 of the Rustang build is getting ready to start soon.

https://www.pro-touring.com/threads/127933-1984-quot-Rustang-quot-GT-(Slow-Build)