Vintage Thunderbird Club International

No I wasn't aware of that. What I'd read was that the 1958 Thunderbird was supposed to have optional air springs but those did not materialize and the 1959 reverted to leaf springs as a cost savings. I met a guy who road races a 1958 that handles surprisingly well, though I don't know the extent of ...

How closely related are the unibodies of the square and bullet birds? The reason I ask, is I wonder what it would take to adapt the 1958 Thunderbird rear suspension (trailing arms with Panhard rod and coil springs) to a 1962 Thunderbird. The 1959 Thunderbird got leaf springs like the bullet birds an...

My car had the shock towers cut out and the ones from the donor 1998 Lincoln Mark VIII grafted in, along with the suspension, brakes and rack and pinion steering. The other option would be a Mustang II front suspension kit which eliminates the shock towers. You'll also need to do something about the...

No, I decided to work on a few other project vehicles first. I'm wrapping up one now but have a couple of more minor projects in the queue. The Thunderbird will wait until I retire which is slated to happen within the next 18 months, if not sooner. On the plus side, a friend won a 2019 Mustang Coyot...

The heads, intake and timing cover look like 428CJ parts. Is there an external counterweight on the crankshaft? The 428 SCJ used an external counterweight to offset the extra weight of the LeMans rods. Pull the middle freeze plugs and see if it's got "428" cast into the water jacket base? ...

> I pulled the trigger on a new cam after a few brews after doing some reading, but the one I picked up > may have too much lift (.519) Is your concern how the cam will run with that much lift or piston-to-valve clearance or coil bind with the springs or compatibility with non adjustable rockershaft...

Spent a little time boxing up the parts that were in the Tbird: ./image-archive/i1127.photobucket.com/albums/l621/danielcjones2/DSCN1232_zps962016d1.jpg ./image-archive/i1127.photobucket.com/albums/l621/danielcjones2/DSCN1230_zps6d29b77b.jpg ./image-archive/i1127.photobucket.com/albums/l621/danielcj...

For a 390 like yours, Elgin makes a cam that I like better than Comp 268H: Elgin E-1793P 216/216 dur @ 0.050" (276/276 adv) 0.533"/0.533" lift 110 degrees LSA Comp Cam 268H 218/218 dur @ 0.050" (268/268 adv) 0.494"/0.494" lift 110 degrees LSA Alex Denysenko at MoneyMake...

> Very impressive... I'll be interested to watch this develop! Most of the fabrication work so far was done by the previous owner. I'm just picking up where he left off. I've got a couple of other projects going but want to work on this in parallel. I think the next step is to sort through all of th...

> 390 stroked to 410 scat kit. Edelbrock heads. FPA headers. Comp cam.

That should move it down the road.

> The air ride and anti-sway bars speak for themselves.

Yup. When I stumbled on your build, I figured this was a good place
for me. Very cool work you're doing there.

Dan Jones

A friend has an engine on the dyno now with IR EFI using an Electromotive ECU. It was run in on a carb and performed great, making over 600 HP. Switch to the IR EFI and it doesn't seem to respond to the tuning changes. Behaves the same whether we run a distributor or run the computer controlled igni...

Will you be running headers or cast iron exhaust manifolds?

Dan Jones

Some random independent runner EFI thoughts. 1. You'll need some sort of method of synchronizing the throttle bodies. 2. You'll want a non-linear throttle geometry. Small throttle openings correspond to large changes in power. A friend has an FE powered Cobra replica with linear linkage and it is ne...

I'll be using the original steering column. The passive anti theft system (PATS) in the EEC-V engine computer will need to be turned off to allow me to use the Thunderbird ignition key. The steering is hooked up, as is the shift linkage: ./image-archive/i1127.photobucket.com/albums/l621/danielcjones...

Now if I can only remember where all of this is supposed to go: