Treating her right - w/ pics!

[Al 96 Ram Air T/A]

The cold has put an end to working on the engine bay this year. I've kept you all long enough. I still have a lot of clean up work to do, and changing out of wire looms and all, but you can get a sense of what I was after.



Rerouting the oil tube was a bear, but I got it to work. Took a few hours of bending and trial fitting, but it's good to go!


Living in NJ, I chose to keep all of the EGR.AIR systems in tact, to avoid emissions problems. This side wasn't too bad:



However, this side took a bit of creativity. the original hose covered the valve cover completely. I wanted to keep it clean, and still have it functioning:

[Al 96 Ram Air T/A]

part deux

The stock STB was red...so that had to go too. Took a bit to strip it clean and repaint, but I like the final product.



Finding stainless Grade 8.8 bolts...not an easy task.


Of course, polishing up all of these bolts took a l-o-t of time.

[Al 96 Ram Air T/A]

part trois

If you remember, I ran into all kinds of problems trying to adapt a dual cat setup over to a single cat car. Overall, it looks completely stock now, so I'm hoping the Motor Vehicle guys don't notice she's missing a cat.



I even got Spohn's safety loop to play nice with everything:




These headers absolutely scream at WOT...sounds like a Cup car now:



So, here it is. Every nut and bolt possible has been converted over to polished stainless steel. Everything has been Loctite'd (is that even a word).



Believe it or not, I'm moving on to the interior. I'm working on molding my A-pillar pod into the pillar so it looks original. I'm also going to convert my cluster using a McNord overlay, and relamp the car blue. The door panels are coming off, and getting light gray/silver sued inserts to match the silver "Bird" on the embroidered headrests. The lower half of the dash is going to be painted (SEM products) to match the doors. (I always liked the look of the two-toned Mustangs).

Come the spring, God willing, I'm going to repaint the nose (perhaps the whole car) and then apply dark blue (a-la AC Cobra) racing stripes to match the engine bay. Iv'e got a custom leather shift boot and steering wheel cover on my X-mas wish list, so that should round it all out nicely. Finally, the CETA mod is in the mix, just not sure what color to do it yet.

Overall, since I've decided to keep the car again, I might as well go hog wild and enjoy her. She turns 14 next year, and with 42K on the clock, I'm hoping to make her look better than ever!

[FTA1995]

Very nice.

Keep it up!

[Performin Norman]

Nicely done. Very clean.

[Joe 1320]

Nicely done. Very clean.

+1

[1slo_camaro]

i envy you. my white z28 is getting converted to everything is either chrome/polished or blue. lol



absolutely beautiful man congrats

[slowbird]

thats hot. I like the Firebird throttle body plate best

[SeanC]

Thats looks awesome man! I also live in NJ...good luck with emissions my friend haha. I was wondering what you did with your exhaust. Please let me know if you have any problems passing emissions...i'm thinking about converting my car to a single cat so I can possibly put a decent set of long tubes on. Seriously though, it looks amazing.

[ConElite]

I cant imagine NJ is as bad as California. You pop your hook without intentions of repairing something and the Smog police comes and gets you


On the topic at hand, Thats one hell of a nice car man! Seriously Im lovin it. Im feeling the Valve covers and over Plug cables. Very very nice looking. I installed one ofthe routing kits when i was like 14, but that was on an Old school Chevy with a standard SBC with the Distributor through the Intake Manifold.

[Al 96 Ram Air T/A]

Thanks everyone. Running the custom wires was a royal PITA. Took a lot of trial and error.

I choose the single cats because the dual cat AS&M/RK Sport mid length headers are inferior to the single cat design. I don't think the MVC will even notice. The beauty of having a lowered car...nobody wants to get underneath.

As long as I don't have any codes set, they don't even "sniff" the exhaust. But if they want to , go for it. Every emission system is intact. The cat I used is more than capable of handling the duty two previously did, so no worries.

If all else fails, I'll have to buy a sticker. They're not hard to get, if you know where to look. Once I get my computer reprogrammed (have to have the rear set of O2 sensors removed ) I'll take her in. My emissions sticker expired in November, so I need to do this before I drive her again. I'll let you know...

[TraceZ]

Looks sweet.

Not to be picky, but the throttle body looks really dirty. Try removing it and cleaning it up on a brass wire wheel. If you don't feel comfortable doing that, I can do it for you for free if you send it to me. It'll look like brand new. You can also use a wire wheel in a drill to clean the top of the intake manifold.





Here is a look at my intake manifold and throttle body. See how clean they look? Bright and shiny!

[DRAGIN]

Looks Great!

you have a lot of time in the work you have shown i really like it!

[Al 96 Ram Air T/A]

Looks sweet.

Not to be picky, but the throttle body looks really dirty. Try removing it and cleaning it up on a brass wire wheel. If you don't feel comfortable doing that, I can do it for you for free if you send it to me. It'll look like brand new. You can also use a wire wheel in a drill to clean the top of the intake manifold.

Nope, I agree with you. The pictures make it look a lot worse than it is (it's simply rough cast) but you're right. I polished the fuel rails and intake fins, but I stopped short of removing the TB and intake to polish them up. Might have to revisit the issue in the spring.

[Injuneer]

Looks great. Makes me jealous. My car just sits in the garage and collects dust. Maybe seeing the great pics of your setup will get me off my lazy butt and I'll fire it up and at least get it cleaned up over the winter.

Did you do the alternator yourself? If so, I'll drop mine off and you can charge me whatever you want. Amazing.... we live less than 10 miles from each other, but we've never actually met.