TR engine out by do-it-yourselfer...

Mufflerman.....here is a pic of the system your asking about. The now discontinued Borla system is very well made, unique, and eliminates precats and cats. And it has a very very nice sound.
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Just an additional posting....I checked the conductor of the original Cavis wires and it was stranded wire. The wire was labelled as "Cavis 400 classe B" and then a few inches away was "9A". This pattern was repeated over the length of the wires. If anyone can decipher it's meaning I would be greatful. I worked on detailing the engine bay today...and left the motor alone until I hear more information about the wire situation from those more knowledgeable...I hope I haven't made a mistake.

Thank You Daniel for the fuel line....it arrived today. Now I can finish up the top half of the engine. And I just want to say I appreciate you taking my dilema to heart and helping me out like you did.

 

Well I've been busy as a bee and finally got the motor buttoned up and back in the car last night. Still lots of details to attend to, but it went back in very smoothly with no fuss. One bad thing happened, I'd originally ran a little guide wire through the pathway of the throttle cable, I would then use this wire to pull the cable through. But apparently while getting the motor back in the throttle cable fell backwards and pulled the wire with it!!!! I should have tied it off somehwere....lesson learned here. Now I have to wrestle around and get the cable back into the proper place...not happy about it but oh well. Here are a bunch of pics...some not so good, for that I apoligize. I'm definately not cut out for photography.
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Today I made some block-off plates for the air pump ports on the bottom of the heads...pretty simple job really. And I also bought new exhaust doughnuts to bolt up the Borla exhaust. I went to a good friend of mine who ownes a muffler shop and showed him the old nasty doughnut. He looked at it for about 2 seconds and said "part number 8717 from Auto-Value". So I went there and asked for "8717" and they brought me a near perfect match to the originals.....except the 8717 is for a chevy application. Total cost for 4 doughnuts was a whopping $3.01 . Just thought I'd share this with y'all.
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Just letting everyone know the latest news. After all the fuel lines and vacuum lines were hooked up. I ran the fuel pumps to check for leaks and found one. The driver's side filter was leaking at the fitting...a little more twist of the wrench and it stopped. Other than this all looked good. I then dumped in some antifreeze and distilled water, and let me girlfriend have the honor of turning the key. The motor cranked about 2 times and then fired right up, much to my relief! It ran a little erratic and settled down into a decent idle after a few seconds. I have some very slight throttle linkage adjustments to make yet. And then I'll use my gas analyzer and check the fuel mixture. But first I'm gonna finish getting the car back together. The only thing left is to install the rear wheel well panels, adjust the shifter rod, bleed the brakes and clutch, and then install the license plate! I'm sure the little adjusting and tweaking will take me a few days but at least the ole girl runs again!!

 

Here's the latest. I spent the last two days refinishing the brake calipers, rotors, and wheel wells. Not a fun job but the reward is substantial. It really sharpens up the appearance of the car. Tonight I finally put the TR back on her feet....what a sigh of relief. It took quite a while to adjust the shifter rod because I didn't mark anything or make a note...my fault. But I eventually got it pretty good....patience and very small adjustments are the key here. I bled the brakes after installing the calipers and that was no big deal. But the clutch has been another matter....after repeated tries I have a squishy pedal....and will try again tomorrow. I've never had so much trouble before and it's very frustrating. Sorry if I'm rambling here, but I've worked at least 8 hours (sometimes up to 16 hours) every day for the last 5 weeks on this car.....so I'm a little "mechanic-drunk" and suffering from slight disorientation. The remaining issues are to get the clutch working properly, try and fix an oil leak at the right side front cam cover, and tune the fuel injection system. All else seems okay so far.

If anyone has any tips on this clutch issue I certainly would appreciate hearing them. I'm using a mighty-vac to do the job and it works reasonably well....but maybe not considering my results.

Here are the latest pics with the ol'e girl on the ground again....and it's about time too!! I painted the calipers red...yes I know they were originally plated...but remember everything on this car was washed down with some caustic solution so I feel what I did was okay. I painted the "hat" area of the rotors low gloss black and I think it looks pretty good. I welcome opinions even if they aren't positive...but at least constructive.
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Well Gang....this may be my last posting in this thread since this project is about finished. I installed the air intake box, did some last minute checks and took her for a DRIVE...yep...an actual drive...right to the gas station. Once warm the car ran fine, but during warm up it was erratic. I'm pretty sure that once I set the fuel mixture most of this will go away.

Here are the good issues: Prior to this major service the car would pull slightly to the right under hard acceleration. I'm ecstatic to report this condition is gone! I noticed that when dropping the motor out the frame bolts were tight...but could have been tighter in my opinion. I retightened them REALLY TIGHT, and I'm assuming this was the cause of the problem. Another problem was that the shifting gears was quite "balky" and notchy. Well after several tries at installing and adjusting the shifter, I finally got it right. The car shifts very nicely now. Overall the car runs smooth and has decent power considering how much it was disassembled, refinished, and then assembled in 5 weeks.

Also today I installed aluminum pedals, dead pedal, and shifter knob from Hill Engineering. It really improves the look of the driver's footwell, and his shifter knob is larger in diameter than the factory piece and feels much better in the hand. It's a bit of a pain to drill those holes in the pedals due to the cramped space to work in, but the results are worth it.

Here are remaining problems: There is an oil leak at the right side cam cover at the front. It's hard to tell exactly where it's coming from, some seems to seep downward from above, and some seems to weep out just forward of the return line outlet. After warming the engine up several times, I would then go around and tighten up all of the cam cover nuts, and each time there would be some slack to take up. This last time I snugged them down pretty hard and so far it looks dry under there. I didn't use any sealant on the cam cover gaskets because they already had that red stuff on both sides. Perhaps I should have? The other issue is leaking fluid out of the front of the trans at the shifter bellows. I must confess I've never tackled this area and would appreciate any advice from those more-learned. Lastly the right side throttle body plate is sticking causing a slightly high idle speed occasionally. So I will remove the air intake box and do some tweaking in this area.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the way things turned out, it could have been so much worse. The car drives well, but I know there's room for improvement. Thank You Everyone for being so supportive through this ordeal. Here are some last pics for you to remember me by.....
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Hello Gang!! Just thought I'd pop in and give some final comments regarding this big project.

A big THANK YOU goes out to Daniel at Ricambi for supplying all the parts and being in my corner through all of this. Also Thank You to Ferrarifixer Phil for his wisdom and sense of humor. As well as Hugh Jardon for sharing knowledge that only true mechanics would know from experience. And Thank You to everyone else who extended a helping hand, and provided encouragement to me through all of this ordeal.

I tuned the fuel injection last week as best I could, and then the car went to a painter/artist, to fix a spot of corrosion on the driver's side door. I finally got the car back home on Friday. Unfortunately our Michigan weather is just awful with a solid week of rain and temps in the 40s, with another week of rain to go...very depressing. Well today we had a slight break in the weather and I took the ol'e girl on her first drive, and all went very well. The car runs very smoothly and pulls hard. In fact my brother has a corvette (....and 84 with the ceasefire injection and manual trans) and he was behind me as I wound her out through the gears and he quickly became a spec in my rear view mirror. I think I need to do one more round of slight tweaks of the fuel injection system to get it absolutely perfect. But she does run good...

In an ironic twist of fate, I was trying to get the car ready for our local carshow (huge..3k plus cars!) but as I said before the weather turned sour. So after everything the TR just sat in the garage all weekend while the carshow was rained out...till this evening. It felt great to drive it again! The power is so smoooooooooth, and never seems to run out of breath.

My next project is to disassemble the power window motors, clean, relube, and reassemble everything. I'm hoping this speeds up their operation a little. A snail would move faster than the windows do going up. I will consult a fellow fchater's thread regarding this operation.

This is what makes fchat SO GREAT !!!!!!!!!! I can see what another enthusiast has done to fix his TR's slow windows and learn from his experiences. And I'm greatful that he took the time to post everything. And I'm hoping that maybe other fchaters can use my thread in the same way. This (fchat) is a priceless resource.....so let's all remember that. We are very lucky to be able to "talk" to each other and share ideas and opinions, and hear experiences from those whom we consider as icons (Brian Crall, Steve Magnusson, Ferrarifixer, Ferrarioldman, Daniel Pass....the list goes on) Just keep a positive attitude, don't stare at the ground when you walk but look upwards, smile and realize it could always be worse....Life is Good !