My 1980 z7 turbo

Fresh out of the field.

as it sits now


Mods so far
- Lincoln front brakes
- my own fabricated frame connectors
- 9" rear ( fabbed my own jig and made control arm brackets to save money)
- metco double adjustable upper control arms
- team z adjustable lower control arms
- 16 gallon fuel cell
My z7 will be powered by a 460/c-4 combo. Here's a link to the rest of my pics....more to come!
Bryan
https://s316.photobucket.com/albums/mm338/z7turbo/zephyr%20pics/

looks like a nice project car.

I`ll be keeping an eye on the progress. I`ve got a 460 and a C6 w/ brake look`n for a place to live. Keep us posted.

Thanks guys. Although it appears rough, it only has 2 small areas of rust behind the rear wheels. It appears to have only logged 58k before being parked. I'm going to be starting engine and tranny mock up this weekend, so that I can fab motor/tranny mounts, and a new trans crossmember.

Here's what I've been up to this week.




playing with carb spacers

Looks sick as hell man, I would love a BBF in my 'mont!

Solids man, no messing around. Nice fab work. If it came with the turbo hood bubble, that would be perfect to clear the air cleaner.

-MJS

Unfortunately the guy I bought the car from kept the hood....It was wasted from a blow open anyways....that was the reason for the extensive cowl repair.
Thanks for the compliment.

nice. but get rid of that damn fram filter!!

Futurama wrote:

nice. but get rid of that damn fram filter!!

whats wrong with the fram?

yuck, ive seen to many engines ruined with fram filters, saw one in half next time and look how crappy they are made. get a motorcraft filter. same price and much higher quality.

Hey I'm digging the Mavedrick/Comet in the background too! Tell us about that!

Fram...if you get online you can do some research on their products and you'll find there's a long list of filters made by the same manufacturer and not all filters are creatred equal. It would be interesting to have people post their filter preferences. I've been using Motorcraft based upon my research. Here's a link to a partial study for reference:

http://people.msoe.edu/~yoderw/oilfilterstudy/oilfilterstudy.html

Don

yeah i will see if i can remember the link but i had a page where a guy posted up pictures of 15 different filters and took them apart and the fram was hands down the biggest piece of crap.

Futurama wrote:

yeah i will see if i can remember the link but i had a page where a guy posted up pictures of 15 different filters and took them apart and the fram was hands down the biggest piece of crap.

Thanks for for the info....I still need to do the initial 20 min run in with the engine, so I'll swap it out afterwards.

I've owned the Maverick for nearly 10 years...It was someones abandoned and abortioned attempt to build a drag car. As of right now the car has a strut front suspension from a 70's model Ford Capri. I removed all of the rusted and damaged inner fender aprons, and have fabricated tubular inner fender supports. I will resume building the car after my zephyr is running....I just don't have the cash to build the Maverick the way that I want to right now....4 kids cost a fotune these days. Plans are.....total body restoration....mini tubs...either a Cal Trac rear suspension, or ladder bars, and the icing on the cake....turbocharged 460 with a glide. For right now....it makes a good shelf.

Thanks, Bryan

Four kids?! Are you crazy? Oh wait, I have four kids...nevermind.

I still love it. After I finish the Fairmont I have I want to do another one, a boxtop, in fullon race with frame, tubs, etc.

Thanks for posting the Comet, I have always loved them.

Don

z7turbo wrote:

Futurama wrote:

yeah i will see if i can remember the link but i had a page where a guy posted up pictures of 15 different filters and took them apart and the fram was hands down the biggest piece of crap.

Thanks for for the info....I still need to do the initial 20 min run in with the engine, so I'll swap it out afterwards.

ph it will work fine as a break in filter, but i damn sure wouldnt use it for the first 3000miles or so .

It's been a while since I've updated my progress.

I've modified my double hump crossmember to fit the stock zephyr mounts.
Built a second set of motor mounts. (had a brain fart the day I built the first ones)
Tonight,I've started fabbing my headers. The flanges are from Speedway and had no primary stubs....so, I had to fit and form tubing into the flanges. Tomorrow I will do the final weld on the flanges, then call on a buddy for a favor to have them surface ground. This will flatten my welds to create the sealing surface for the gasket. I'll post pics as the actual headers are being fabbed.
Goals for the header build.....Starter clearance. Who wants to spend a few hours trying to pull a starter. I'm going to try and build them so that they just drop in.....wishful thinking. I'm gonna have to a little homework to see if I can actually make that happen.

Bryan

Nice work! I lve the big block. SOmone on here has an FE in the mont. If only there were more time and moeny!! I'd love to build another car.

When you finally get to the body work / paint...what color are you going for?

Don

detroitiron2000 wrote:

Nice work! I lve the big block. SOmone on here has an FE in the mont. If only there were more time and moeny!! I'd love to build another car.

When you finally get to the body work / paint...what color are you going for?

Don

I was thinking mopars b-5 blue with a blacked out hood and deck lid. Waddya think,kinda roadrunnerish, but cool. I was even thinking blacked out steel wheels with some dog dishes.

On another note...I have about a grand wrapped up in my car right now....sure I've bartered a lot and had some of the parts laying around, but most of my savings have been the fruits of my own labor.....the car would have been done a long time ago if I would have gone out and bought everything.

The body work isn't going to be right away....I'm going to have fun with it the way it is. I even have 5.0 badges for the fenders.

Snortin good time! I like the 70's street look. My GTA looked like that for all of the early 80's!! I ran my 390 badges even though I was running a pretty hot 428. Very cool.

Header flanges.

Yes, the garage is almost as bad as my workbench.....time to do some cleaning!

I recently started fab work on my headers....what a bitch. #4 & #8 are proving to be the bastards. Trick to building the headers is to get the collector and 1 primary tube in position, then the rest basically fall into place. As soon as I get a little further into the build I'll start posting pictures. I can see why it costs so much for custom headers...but I don't have that kind of money. My kit was $165 bucks mailed to the door. It came with 2" primary tubes 5/16" flangers and 3 1/2" collectors.