95 TA - Retrospective view of the build

[FastVert]

Hey guy's I have a lot of photos and lessons from building (two times) my TA. Hopefully this "review" will help someone in the future, and I plan on adding more pics and vids for the current configuration and the progress with it. Hope you enjoy it!

I purchased her (the Bitch and she has earned that name) in spring of 1997 in Jacksonville FL - I fell in love with the triple white convertible and about wrecked my formula to get turned around to look at it. I had made up my mind I was never getting stuck in the rain with the glass out again so the Vert purchase was on my mind a while before I spotted her. It was close to needing tires so I put new rims on it as well - back when 17" was considered balling LOL! Here she was:
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She stayed bone stock well except for the SLP intake that was on it when I bought it until I had to replace the 1st clutch (one of many to go in it) and upgraded to the centerforce and installed a B&M shifter.

The next mod was to put the bottle on it, and I had seen how much they pick up and loved the juice. So I got the NOS dry kit for up to 175HP and ran a bottle or two through it almost every week for years!! Not sure how much I picked up as I couldn't get it to hook and I didn't have the proper safety equip to make a full pass - oh well.


After 12mos of driving and my next duty station Wolferacraft offered a GP on rollcages, so that was by far the easiest / expensive purchase the wife didn't argue about for obvious reasons. I got the bolt in kit, tried to have it painted by a "flake" pun intended! I wound up finding a powder coater that would do a two day turn around two day's before new years I"m still wondering how I got that lucky - should have bought a lottery ticket that day - and he did it for 150.00 + I gave him a big tip for being such a help. Here it is fresh with the cage:
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Once I installed it and cleaned it up I drove to San Diego the next morning - that was a blast going cross country in my ride with a full bottle of giggle juice - in Nevada I HAD FUN and that's all I can say about that.

I'll do more tomorrow and I just realized this is going to take a while!

[Ugod02010]

😛 triple white!!!!! Badass car man. Waiting for update!

[JCzNova]

Quadruple white, needs some white wheels with a polished lip!

[Fastbird]

I don't think I've ever seen a triple white T/A before. Very very nice car!

[FastVert]

Ok I'm a slacker, when I was in San Diego I put on AS&M mid length headers and tried to make my NOS kit look like it was supposed to be there and body matched the paint to my SLP intake:
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This was the configuration she was in for a couple of years and that NOS kit hurt a lot of feelings! It was smooth and the torques was a HOOT! But my right foot and stupid greed for going fast were soon to teach me a lesson.

[FastVert]

The Carnage
So after returning to Jacksonville and making my permanent home I used her as my daily driver (I miss those days) and kept doing small things to it: Wheels, clutches (I think I've changed more clutches then anyone I've ever met lol) and other bolt on goodies. This was all fun and my dumbass was showing off when I hit the bottle went 1st - 2nd - 3rd and you guessed it BACK TO SECOND GEAR again :( She spun rod, main and cam bearings -
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This was about the time Overhauling and Hot Rod / Boyd's show was on TV - so I started disassemble her with big dreams of major modifications (they cost a lot of money I found out the hard way):
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Next post the Build.

[97Z4CZ28]

Absolutely love the White! I'm not a Vert man but I gotta say I likey this one! Funny there are a LOT of white F Body's on this forum compared to other forums in my opinion...my fav color...not that I'm partial ;-)

[FastVert]

Now that I had it apart it was time to start with the engine bay:
Before clean up and paint - 25813

1st shot was prep and then clean up and Paint (This was my very first paint job of any kind and I did in a made up tent from Tarps outside!) -258142581525816258172581825819

I must admit this was one of the more fun jobs to do of course the end product made it worth it, especially with this being my first paint job.

[FastVert]

Next up will be the build and a lot of pics to go along with it!!! I'm enjoying the memories of this build no matter how much I cussed during it LOL!

[ZOHAN]

I know of a short block for sale... ;) very clean car though. White looks very nice

Making you silky smooth...

[FastVert]

I know of a short block for sale... ;) very clean car though. White looks very nice

Making you silky smooth...

Thanks for both! This is just a recap of the build, I was able to reuse my block and it runs fairly good. Thanks for the compliments.

[MI6TA]

Loving the way you're making it a story. I'm thinking about painting my engine bay while the motor is out like you did. How did you get the wires out of the way? and was it easy to get all the surface areas covered?

[FastVert]

Loving the way you're making it a story. I'm thinking about painting my engine bay while the motor is out like you did. How did you get the wires out of the way? and was it easy to get all the surface areas covered?

Thanks a lot! It is a story when you've had it as long as I have. To keep the wires from being painted I wrapped them ALL in plastic from the paint store/ plastic bags and used bungee cords to hold them out of the way. The hardest part was cleaning all the surfaces and then going back and using a red scotch pad to scuff up the surface. If you have your engine out NOW IS THE TIME TO DO IT! I used a detail gun vs. a full size gun so I could turn my hands and the gun without it hitting anything - I used a 16.00 detail gun at that from Harbor Freight LOL.

[FastVert]

The Engine Build -
After reading several articles and talking with fellow LTer's I decided to go with the 383 instead of a 396 do to costs. I had my machine shop fill the block to the bottom of the freeze plugs and install the splayed main caps:
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Once I cleaned up the machine dirt etc... I installed the Eagle 4340 Crank(above), Probe SRS .030 pistons on the 6.0 Eagle I beam Rods - the file fit rings were a hoot to install measure, repeat several times for each cylinder:

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With all the rings filed to fit and measure I installed the rods pistons bearings etc..:
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Now for the money makers, yup the heads and CAM!!!

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Next post - installation and small mods along the way to the next build - Yup next one.

[FastVert]

Wow long time since last update, so the new set up went in and I had to work out a lot of little bugs- 1st was the fuel pump and what a pain in the arse it was - on a vert you must have the top UP in order to have enough room to make cuts on to access the fuel pump cover. Replaced the factory one with a Walbro and got it running well enough to dyno tune it. The first session wasn't very fun -more bugs to work out etc... Only made 369RWHP (very dissapointed). After replacing plugs and a small leak the next session was much better and netted a 390RWHP and still on a very rich tune as we were going to play with the N2O set up before did a final tune - The idle was great as well. - vid:

http://youtu.be/mt0nCIxf-Tw

Here are some pics of the new motor with the Del Teq being installed (another good try to replace the opti but another failure as well):
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I really liked this set up, looked great and when it worked it was fantastic but no support with issues forced me to go back to the traditional opti style ignition.

[popo8]

Soinds great!

Doesnt the deltek still utize the opti?

LTXtech.com is my drug.

[FastVert]

Soinds great!

Doesnt the deltek still utize the opti?

LTXtech.com is my drug.

Yup and I had a GEN III Dynaspark to run it - 26463

I still have the Delteq and parts but the brain is what died on it.

[popo8]

Ohhhhhh.

LTXtech.com is my drug.