So what are you working on that’s NOT your DSM?

[TerminalTalon]

My lifted 03 Forester destroyed the axle at 55-60mph. What a noise at random just going to work. Replaced and it’s good to go so far.

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My late coworkers kids friend(I know that’s a lot). He got the kid a 93 Stealth and had it painted before he passed so his little crew have a couple. His friend went 3-2 at redline and bent a valve so he pulled this head off the spare engine he has. I need to do a complete rebuild and I guess do the timing and waterpump on it as they aren’t ready for all that.

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As the daily went down the truck got to be driven until pets came in. Literally put the axle in and buttoned that up to check the rear brakes on the truck. Ebrake shoes delaminated from leaks so I need those to pass inspection. Drop it and go to move it out. To the floor the pedal goes. Mind you I drove this all week and the line let’s go as soon as I fix the other one. GM still makes brake lines. Move the gas tank over a little. Might as well replace the rear hose also. Should be good for another 288k .

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Massive oil pan leak on this HEMI Jeep. R&R entire front subframe, front diff and rack per the book. F*ck all that. Remove hardware from motor mounts. Loosen subframe. Jack engine up front the sides in the front. It will give you just enough to get it out by helping the fan shroud.

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[jdxnc]

Working on installing some lighting on the lift.

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[1990TSIAWDTALON]

Gasket matching intake and head ports on my SBC 400 parts. One down, one to go.
Pardon me, both are done, just the intake left. Carbide tools work really good.

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[BLACK'98DSM]

Nice job, Marty. People really tend to underestimate or set aside the fact that a gasket match makes a difference if you add the fuel accordingly. I always do it on the 420A builds. The ass dyno says it works .
My most recent V8 job was yet another 3V 4.6L. Port work plus camshafts brought it to life from 289whp to 314whp. I'm not sure how much of that was from the port work - but they were mild street cams and the difference is there.

There's an intricate science behind port work and it's easy to go wrong. Port volume shouldn't be drastically improved and the final finish shouldn't be too smooth for fuel atomization, etc etc. But on a carburated engine where you're simply gasket matching, it can't hurt. More flow is always better, IF you can compensate for it.

Ps: I got the newest forum server error, but I believe my post made it through so I won't mash that button again. Hopefully @Ludachris gets it sorted out.

 

[1990TSIAWDTALON]

Thanks Solomon. I've done this since day 1 (1978, I think). It's sure doesn't hurt. I like to leave some rough finish for air/fuel mix but it's deeper in the ports. A simple gasket match DOES make a 5 to10hp difference in some motors, and this is a BIG AIR PUMP @ 400cid. Thanks for tagging around!
I want ALL I CAN GET out of this long time build.
Marty

 

[motomattx]

Well, over the winter of 23' and into the spring of 24' I ended up signing on my first house, yep a bank was dumb enough to actually give me money to buy a house, in fact I have considered cutting ties with that bank just because I cant respect any bank that would be dumb enough to give any money to irresponsible riff raff like me. So anyway, I started getting serious about owning my own place after my landlords made me sign a new contract and in it was wording like "no car parts allowed in the house" "no car batteries allowed anywhere in the house" "no more than two vehicles of ANY type on the property" now that last one was the straw that broke the camels back, after all I own somewhere around eight total vehicles when you include cars, truck, motorcycles, and the part about the car parts is just nonsense.

The only time I have had car parts in the house is when the parts are either new or hot tanked used parts such as a used head thats bagged or a spare bare block thats bagged and they were kept in the attic which is an unfinished room off of my bathroom with a workbench in it where previous people had it set up as a makeshift work shop of sorts, and never has there been any mess made or smells of any type so of course I simply dont see the reason other than just to keep me from things that they know I enjoy being that I have always had those types of things up there for many years and no trouble with it.

I have always wanted a house, even as far back as being a teenager, the idea of my own place to do with what I want has always appealed to me, but the idea of actually pulling it off alone has always seemed like a far fetched idea and I had no idea where to really start. It wasn't nearly as hard as I had thought, I got my financial ducks in a row (I had gotten them in a row several years earlier) to prepare for a house purchase, I saved every penny to have a decent down payment, I contacted my bank to get pre-approval, and then all that was left was to pick out a house, make an offer and repeat until I had a place, I signed up for emails from zillow, looked at tons of places, found a few in my budget, contacted the listing agent and before I knew what happened I was signing on the dotted line. I took about a week before I even visited the place that I bought oddly enough because it didnt really register to me that I now owned that place until I saw the grass growing to high since the bank was no longer going to mow it.

So what I wanted and wanted to afford was a starter home, well thats easier said than done these days, I had to change my budget and go back and ask the bank for more several times after reality hit me and I found out that the price of starter homes with any property more than what the house sat on and in the country in a nice area was going to be six figures, well I ended up with a foreclosure not far from where I rent, just a few miles up the road, nice very desirable area, but needed gutted and redone, the house is only around twenty years old, but its been a rental, then owner occupied, then a rental again, then owner occupied until foreclosure, needless to say in all of that things went under maintained and just flat out rigged or abused from lack of knowledge and or lack of funds. So thats what I have been working on since spring, I have missed time with my car and have only gone to a few events in 24' hopefully I can hit it hard in the new year and get things finished enough to move forward and put it behind me, working six days a week and going right to the house to work on it every night until dark definitely takes it out of you both physically and financially.

 

[4G63510]

Well, I've been trying to work on this thing for 2 years. It's an 87 Starion with the stock 2.6L. It was running decent for the 100 or so miles I drove it. I was taking it to a local car show and putting some miles on it when I decided to adjust a switch on the dash for the hazards. Well, that switch got stuck, so I turned around and drove home. I backed into the garage and shut the car off. I decided I needed to adjust my parking job and when I turned the key, the car did nothing. I popped the hood and saw the battery was touching the chassis with the positive battery terminal. After moving the battery, nothing changed. I have probed every wire I can think of.

Today, I spent some time tearing things apart and trying to diagnose it. I pulled the ECU, the ECU relay, the ignition switch, and some other things in the area. I found odd voltage readings at the ignition switch from the battery feed wire. I went back and found that the "fusable link" was not giving consistent voltage, so I replaced it with a bodge wire for testing. I got a battery light when turning the key and then a click from the starter. Then no voltage. I checked my bodge wire and wiggled some things. I got the same behavior. After that I could not replicate the scenario and there is once again no power.

I was getting power to the headlights, but now the whole system has lost power. My next step is to tear out the whole power system and replace it with a modern equivalent. My goal was to get the car running and driving well so I could swap in a 6.0L LS. I'm still going to do that, but I'd like to have the car sorted before I introduce another variable. Is anyone familiar with the Starion and Conquest? The Starquest forums are not very active and I'm not getting anywhere with that forum.

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And sadly, I just discovered this is the only picture I have of this car. It's frustrating that I can't enjoy it and work on it :/

 

[CrackedDSM]

Well, over the winter of 23' and into the spring of 24' I ended up signing on my first house, yep a bank was dumb enough to actually give me money to buy a house, in fact I have considered cutting ties with that bank just because I cant respect any bank that would be dumb enough to give any money to irresponsible riff raff like me. So anyway, I started getting serious about owning my own place after my landlords made me sign a new contract and in it was wording like "no car parts allowed in the house" "no car batteries allowed anywhere in the house" "no more than two vehicles of ANY type on the property" now that last one was the straw that broke the camels back, after all I own somewhere around eight total vehicles when you include cars, truck, motorcycles, and the part about the car parts is just nonsense.

The only time I have had car parts in the house is when the parts are either new or hot tanked used parts such as a used head thats bagged or a spare bare block thats bagged and they were kept in the attic which is an unfinished room off of my bathroom with a workbench in it where previous people had it set up as a makeshift work shop of sorts, and never has there been any mess made or smells of any type so of course I simply dont see the reason other than just to keep me from things that they know I enjoy being that I have always had those types of things up there for many years and no trouble with it.

I have always wanted a house, even as far back as being a teenager, the idea of my own place to do with what I want has always appealed to me, but the idea of actually pulling it off alone has always seemed like a far fetched idea and I had no idea where to really start. It wasn't nearly as hard as I had thought, I got my financial ducks in a row (I had gotten them in a row several years earlier) to prepare for a house purchase, I saved every penny to have a decent down payment, I contacted my bank to get pre-approval, and then all that was left was to pick out a house, make an offer and repeat until I had a place, I signed up for emails from zillow, looked at tons of places, found a few in my budget, contacted the listing agent and before I knew what happened I was signing on the dotted line. I took about a week before I even visited the place that I bought oddly enough because it didnt really register to me that I now owned that place until I saw the grass growing to high since the bank was no longer going to mow it.

So what I wanted and wanted to afford was a starter home, well thats easier said than done these days, I had to change my budget and go back and ask the bank for more several times after reality hit me and I found out that the price of starter homes with any property more than what the house sat on and in the country in a nice area was going to be six figures, well I ended up with a foreclosure not far from where I rent, just a few miles up the road, nice very desirable area, but needed gutted and redone, the house is only around twenty years old, but its been a rental, then owner occupied, then a rental again, then owner occupied until foreclosure, needless to say in all of that things went under maintained and just flat out rigged or abused from lack of knowledge and or lack of funds. So thats what I have been working on since spring, I have missed time with my car and have only gone to a few events in 24' hopefully I can hit it hard in the new year and get things finished enough to move forward and put it behind me, working six days a week and going right to the house to work on it every night until dark definitely takes it out of you both physically and financially.

Doing home repair is not a joke. That shit is exhausting, and I lift 300-400lb fat people daily for a living. My hats off to you, sir.

 

[BLACK'98DSM]

I'm damn near sick and tired of improving the home and shop. Not the result, but the process. I don't know how much more wood cutting, screwing, hammering and painting my wrists and arms can handle at this point. It's fun and fulfilling to a certain degree but running to Lowe's twice a week and slinging materials every time I'm free is getting old. I won't complain too much because the home of my dreams and the shop of my dreams aren't going to build themselves, and I'm definitely not paying thousands for someone else to get it done. But even stretching the projects out long term is exhausting. It doesn't help that I'm also wrenching quite often in between, but I'm not going to forget my passion for it. One of these days in the coming years everything will be finished, but in the meantime my explosive ideas will run free and I'll try not to cripple myself in the process.

I suppose it's much better than sitting on my ass and living a stagnant lifestyle though.

 

[DSMPT]

Fighting against pain. Today my left leg is sore a lot. Because I took my 1g out to drive yesterday for the first time in 6 months. I'm sure you DSMers here have the same experience and know this pain is a kind of happiness

 

[CrackedDSM]

I definitely don’t miss that. Back before I was diabetic driving a 5 speed DSM made my gout flare up. Ooof. Thank god for diabetes. .

 

[1990TSIAWDTALON]

I finished the gasket matching of the SBC intake. I'll be assembling the Monster this next week.
A few pics.....and a couple mock up shots with one head sitting in place. No one will ever see the stuff INSIDE, so get a good look! I was measuring for proper pushrod (what are those?) length. It looks like I need 7.475" for correct geometry. I also cut the baffles out of the valve covers for clearance for the rocker stud girdles.

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[TerminalTalon]

I’m sure others have forgotten projects.
As soon as I dropped it I audibly said “damn that looks good. Might as well keep it now”

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[Turbski91]

Recently moved into a new house over the summer, and have been washing cloths at my parents house due to no washer/dryer hookup. Took care of that this weekend. Everyone loves pro presses, but km old school, and love to sweat copper. Also side note…I’m pretty sure my house is also a DSM because whenever i touched one part of the pipe the next in line started leaking. Lol

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[motomattx]

I finished the gasket matching of the SBC intake. I'll be assembling the Monster this next week.
A few pics.....and a couple mock up shots with one head sitting in place. No one will ever see the stuff INSIDE, so get a good look! I was measuring for proper pushrod (what are those?) length. It looks like I need 7.475" for correct geometry. I also cut the baffles out of the valve covers for clearance for the rocker stud girdles.

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Your hung up on some engine from the SIXTIES man!

 

[motomattx]

So for my next feat of strength, I get to climb my utilty pole in my yard and take down the electrical service entry drop wire, (4/0 gauge wire three conductor) and pull it all down and replace it since the fine power company decided that I needed an electrical inspector to sign off on my power before I can have it turned on, I have been using a generator all summer for electric since I didnt want power on at the house since I was removing walls and installing a new breaker box because I decided to use mini split heat pumps for heating and cooling in the house as well as heated tile floors since I am replacing the sub flooring anyway and this is the easiest and most obvious time to do that the old breaker box of course didnt have enough breakers in it and I didnt like the location of the box so I moved it while I was replacing it.

So the inspector at first put a green sticker on the meter box and then looked again and ripped the green sticker back off because the service drop wire from the air to my meter socket has cracked sun baked outer sheath on it, and yeah I get it, its a shock hazard if somebody would somehow manage to reach into it and then break through one of the plastic conductors with something metal , but its been like that for who knows how long already. So more work, and more expense, this house has 200 amp service because the garage has its own buried 100 amp line from the main on the pole, and then the house has its 100amp buried line to it also, this makes the cable not only around $8.00 a foot but very hard to deal with when your on a ladder up a 25ft pole in the winter by yourself, seems like everybody has to get their cut is what I am learning about home ownership at this point.

 

[TerminalTalon]

Well, I've been trying to work on this thing for 2 years. It's an 87 Starion with the stock 2.6L. It was running decent for the 100 or so miles I drove it. I was taking it to a local car show and putting some miles on it when I decided to adjust a switch on the dash for the hazards. Well, that switch got stuck, so I turned around and drove home. I backed into the garage and shut the car off. I decided I needed to adjust my parking job and when I turned the key, the car did nothing. I popped the hood and saw the battery was touching the chassis with the positive battery terminal. After moving the battery, nothing changed. I have probed every wire I can think of.

Today, I spent some time tearing things apart and trying to diagnose it. I pulled the ECU, the ECU relay, the ignition switch, and some other things in the area. I found odd voltage readings at the ignition switch from the battery feed wire. I went back and found that the "fusable link" was not giving consistent voltage, so I replaced it with a bodge wire for testing. I got a battery light when turning the key and then a click from the starter. Then no voltage. I checked my bodge wire and wiggled some things. I got the same behavior. After that I could not replicate the scenario and there is once again no power.

I was getting power to the headlights, but now the whole system has lost power. My next step is to tear out the whole power system and replace it with a modern equivalent. My goal was to get the car running and driving well so I could swap in a 6.0L LS. I'm still going to do that, but I'd like to have the car sorted before I introduce another variable. Is anyone familiar with the Starion and Conquest? The Starquest forums are not very active and I'm not getting anywhere with that forum.

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And sadly, I just discovered this is the only picture I have of this car. It's frustrating that I can't enjoy it and work on it :/

I’d have to say it blew the main fuse but I’d have to look at the wiring diagram first.

 

[4G63510]

These cars don't have regular fuses. They have "fusable links". I replaced the main ignition link that seemed to be intermittently bad, but it didn't really change anything. I went back through the whole thing today. Same behavior.

Here is the FSM. I have poured over this so many times. My few conclusions are that the ETACS unit (controls a lot of things including the anti-theft system) might be bad, or there is just a bad wire somewhere that only shorts out when I try to turn the ignition. I did here a click today that sounded more like a breaker clicking than the starter solenoid clicking.

 

[1990TSIAWDTALON]

Your hung up on some engine from the SIXTIES man!

I was BORN in the Sixties, these engines came out in the Fifties to start with (70 for this block), now I make that old shit do some crazy things. It will run EFI and Holley tuning software.
I make these 30 yr old things do some fun stuff too! . I need to turn her up....but she's so crazy fun!!!

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[CrackedDSM]

Been a few days, but after I had to bust out the driver's side rear window in the Edge, I got around to replacing it.


Seriously, every single thing I've had to do on this car has been a joy. IDK WTF was up with Ford and this specific model, but the engineering team must have all really loved or had a mechanic for a father. Because everything is easy and just makes sense. (Rear struts are three bolts, drain pan is socketless/can be drained with a finger, oil filter is right in the engine bay easy to twist off with a socket, blend door actuator bolts in with two bolts and is easy to access, etc)

The window doesn't even bolt in. The rails it uses to slide come out without any effort, and everything is held in tight and flush with trim. There's a total of like 8 screws/bolts including the three that hold the door panel on. The window itself just clicks onto the mechanism that raises and lowers it. Seriously. I continue to worry about having to do new stuff to this car, and I'm always surprised at how much of a joy it is.

I wouldn't recommend other Ford products...but if you're looking for a smaller 2 row SUV that can run 12's with just a tune, is comfortable AF, reliable AF, and easy as a MF'er to work on, grab yourself a 2015-2019 Ford Edge Sport(make sure it's the sport), or 2020-2024 Ford Edge ST(same exact car, different name). The ST's will run mid 12's on E50 blend too. And cops won't even look at you. Total sleeper status.

 

[jdxnc]

Trying out my new tube notcher

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[4G63510]

These cars don't have regular fuses. They have "fusable links". I replaced the main ignition link that seemed to be intermittently bad, but it didn't really change anything. I went back through the whole thing today. Same behavior.

Here is the FSM. I have poured over this so many times. My few conclusions are that the ETACS unit (controls a lot of things including the anti-theft system) might be bad, or there is just a bad wire somewhere that only shorts out when I try to turn the ignition. I did here a click today that sounded more like a breaker clicking than the starter solenoid clicking.

I just tested a theory. I disconnected the battery and turned the ignition key to drain any residual power. After reconnecting the battery, the battery light and headlights work. As soon as I turn the key to start, everything goes away as previously stated. I do hear a loud click that sounds like it is coming from the battery area. I swapped the starter relay, with no results.

 

[BLACK'98DSM]

I finished the gasket matching of the SBC intake. I'll be assembling the Monster this next week.
A few pics.....and a couple mock up shots with one head sitting in place. No one will ever see the stuff INSIDE, so get a good look! I was measuring for proper pushrod (what are those?) length. It looks like I need 7.475" for correct geometry. I also cut the baffles out of the valve covers for clearance for the rocker stud girdles.

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Just wondering Marty, are your entire valve covers chromed? I mean baffles and all. I personally prefer the baffles be installed after the chroming process, but have seen Summit covers chromed through and through. I just couldn't run the risk of chrome flakes circulating through an engine.

 

[1990TSIAWDTALON]

No, they are stamped steel. Chrome only on the outside. I HAVE to take the PCV valve baffle out in order for the rocker stud girdle, that i run, to fit. It only leaves about a half inch or so from it to the top of the VC's. Makes it a slow process to put oil in but holds all the rocker studs solid with the cams I tend to run. This one has a
600" lift, 304* retro-roller with BIG springs on the heads and the girdle keeps the studs all straight and tied together.

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[92Turbski]

I just tested a theory. I disconnected the battery and turned the ignition key to drain any residual power. After reconnecting the battery, the battery light and headlights work. As soon as I turn the key to start, everything goes away as previously stated. I do hear a loud click that sounds like it is coming from the battery area. I swapped the starter relay, with no results.

It sounds like an internal short or perhaps an open the ignition switch is creating. Can you yank the wiring and bypass the keyed switch and test?