Thread: Operation t-bird

Good background story. You're ahead of some of us -- you've already met the love of your life. The only way I'll meet mine is if she walks into my garage, or if she works at Lowe's or Home Depot.

Good luck on your project.

bringing this back up, not that anyone will read it or care. Somehow I stumbled into my old thread started early 2006 about the carputer setup that I wanted. Well I need to get another go at this. I have found a couple of new things that are killing me that I don't have, and I have a couple of new updates.

Since my last post, I figured out my wife was pregneant, and now, we have a 3 week old baby. Money is tight, but insurance covered about 90% of the whole thing. My wife is really tetious with the budget, and we have had money put away to pay for some of it, if the insurance didn't cover anything. Luckily they did. Maternity leave at her work kills her health insurance. Luckily, they screwed up her paper work and she was forced to get short term disabilitly. Since they did it that way, she still has insurance . Now I will have around $1000 to throw at the car. Getting back to the car...

The last car was given up on. The v-6 tranny ended up being to weak and in not as good of shape as I remembered it. So I tried to get a good one and ended up empty handed quick. The best price I found was $400. I found another car for $400 and bought that one and scrapped the old car for $100. I hate playing musical chairs with cars. I got this one to run and pass saftey and emissions within 2 weeks. Over all it's in alot better shape and this spring I plan on trasforming it. I will have around $1000 to do it. I also still have that 87 mustang block to throw in.

* My plans for the car are going to be completely dependant on my tax return unfortinately. I have many plans and too few ways to do them. Especially while still being within budget. What I have planned so far. Here are the for sure's...

-Swap out old block, and throw in "New" block. New gaskets, clean it up, and maybe paint it if I feel the urge. "New" block has only around 10 hours of running time, and around 5 miles on it.

-T-5 swap. God how I want this. It would turn this car from a slow peice of **** to a good car that gets better gas mileage. More power and another gear. How could I lose? Plus there cheaper, and if I lose a gear, I have 4 more just incase. The only thing that really sucks is how long it will take and all the special parts I have to get for it.

*Here are the maybe's. I wish they weren't, but here goes it.

-Full mustang engine upgrade. Right now its a 306 rebuild block. Stock with flat top heads with vavle releifs. The pistons should also be forged. Not the best block in the world to start out with, but a good couple of steps better then my stock motor. Right now it is stock 87 tbird parts, minus the heads. The heads are the E7's that were found in 87-93 mustangs. To convert it to a full H.O. engine, all I need is the upper intake, fuel injectors, cam and maybe a new fuel pump. All the other parts I have right now, and it is esentially a drop in swap.

Second maybe, is the computer. I want one. Its not practicle, its now safe, and will probably be a giant head ache. But I have wanted one since I was about 16 years old. I love computers. I have owned 4 or 5 8088's, one 286, three 386's, several 486's, and thrown away more pentiums then my school had. I had comcast when it first came to my area. They told use we had to upgrade to a business account because we had so much drain from the system, and that we had 37 computers online at the same time. I used to have a computer for every task. I had a 75mhz pentium as a server. It was on all day every day, back in the dial up days. This one later turned into my mp3 juke box. Then I had one nicer 233mhz computer for games, and another couple for music, backup, and one to play dvd's. And a couple I called "loaners" when my freinds came over. All of these were only in my room.

I have loved computers for quite some time, and consider them to be esentile to everyday life.

Here's what I want for the computer so far.

-M2 power supply
-New radio deck. Anything with a input jack
-wireless internet. Currently a big maybe, but it will have wifi for sure.
-533mhz mini-itx. Just for a temp setup. If it all works out okay, I will throw something beefier in, or maybe I'll like it and add another computer.
-Nanovision 7inch screen. Usb and compatible. What more could you want?
-Laptop style keyboard with touch pad. This will be mated to the steering wheel in some way.
-CDRW/DVD player. For when I eventally go on a road trip or want to upload my music.

I have not chosen any front end software. Currentally the parts I have are the
-533mhz computer
-Keyboard

Not a long list, but I will get there before too long.

My parts for acuizition
-M2
-New stereo for the car
-Usb screen
-slot load DVD. I have a tray mount, but dont want to use one. I break these types of things.

I really hope this all works out okay. My price list isn't too high right now. I hope it stays that way. I want to ovoid using a junkyard transmission. I really want to get a used one rebuilt. Or a used one with low mileage and papers.