6G Celicas Forums

Well since the 1mz has been giving me trouble an i needed a break from it before i just threw a stick of tnt in an walked away i desided it was time to start fixing lizs old car



Little bit of a backstory. Shes been a big mustang fan since forever thanks to her mom the loves them too
so when she finished basic training for the army the first thing she bought was this mustang that a friend of mine

She paid 2000 for it (witch looking back was probably about 500 to much)
it was in fairly desent shape other than a slipping tranny
ok before i go any farther
Car specs
91 mustang lx hatchback
2.3l 4cyl nonturbo
Auto trans

When she bought it the stang was bone stock.
The first big thing that was done was the rims were changed to the ones in the above pic
I traded my old 90 ford festiva for them an 3 radios.

What are the plans for it?

Then the exhaust rusted apart
so i took it up an got a daul exhaust ran on it
This whole time the trans was still slipping( this was 06 ) but it was only doing under hard acceleration so it wasnt too big of a deal as long as we kept the trans full of lucus no slip trans fluid
But the time finally came when the trans finally let she had amazingly lasted alnost 2years
But when it did go we were too broke to fix it so she sat waiting for a new trans
About 6-8months go by an her mom ends up having a spare trans
So we got it an start swapping the trans an while were doing that my 90 celica gt died so we rushed the trans swap
In the process of the rush job we didnt get the torque converter seated all the way. Im use to chevy witch clunks 3time when the converter seated but ford is 4 clunks( didnt know that then)
Since we didnt have it seated before we bolted it up the t/c got f**ked up as well as so me of the inturnals in the trans

So she was parked yet again. Fast forward to last summer. While looking on Craigslist liz found a guy selling a 2.3l motor an auto trans with only 86,000 mile on them for 300 bucks!! So she contacted him an got the pair for 250
Me an 2 of my buddys that were home on leave( one from iraq the other from Afghanistan both in the army) dropped in the motor an trans in. Got it in an the powersteering wasnt working an the trans shifts hard an only wants to shift at certain rpms so being annoyed with it we quit working on it again till today

Today we gave her a good bath for the first time since she broke down the first time!
The paint shows the neglect
Heres some more pics


The pics dont show how bad the dirt an bird poo was caked on the car from setting outside
But under the wing shows how the whole car looked
Took 2 buckets of water with dawn dish soap to clean it up
Got the 3 flat tires pumped up the hood pulled of an the fiberglass one i got from her stepdad put on.
Put the battery in hit the key an nothing happen so i jumped it with the coupe. She fired up an ran for about 10 minutes then just died hit the key an nothing happen fml
So i took the battery out of the yellow celi an had her hit the key an she started right back up
An all the lights started working. Witch was nice since that was on the list of things to fix
So now we know we need a new battery witch made us feel stupid since the light were the main reason we stopped the last time but the trans still shifts hard so im going to pick up a new trans filter an see if that helps if not going to see how much a trans rebuild is going to cost

The last pic that was takin before it got dark

kinda shows how clean we got her
I will post more pics tomorrow.

Hope you guys like it

The plan is to fix all it little problems an get it back to its former daily driver status
Then from there new springs, shocks, intake, header to match the 2.5 exhaust thats on it already
Upgrade to coil packs fix the body work an get her repainted black
If i can get it off my buddy cheap enough one of my friends has the 2.3 turbo motor out of a t bird i might try an swap in with a new header fmic an a desent bov an hopefully rt un ok on the stock turbo computer
But thats along shot

Can always throw in a 351 and 4 on the floor.

If it was mine that would have been done already lol
But she like the 4cyl since it gets around 38-40 mpg
So the motor is staying

the new hood put on
It still needs some spots fixed but so does the rest of the car
Next thing will be to drop the trans pan an see what filter next

REALLY? From what I found online it got even worse gas mileage than the V6 that replaced it in the next generation.

I cant remember how many miles it got per tank but we could drive to lima( 30mile from my house) to her army base( another 10mile from lima)then put about another 15-20 mile driving around lima then drive home. On only 1/8 of a tank an the gas light wouldnt even kick on
so it got around 90-100 mile on an 1/8 tank. You have to take into account that we super babied it due to the trans too

Mustang of that year had a 15.4 gallon tank. 1/8 a tank would be 1.925 gallons. Upper 40's low 50's mpg.

Yea it got great mpg thats why we want to fix it

c'mon Kurt....

I've got a 351 longblock sitting in my garage taking up space... Plus, I can't in good conscience let her roll around with THAT hood and no power to back it up...

I plan on upping the power but she wants to be able to dd the stang
An with an hour drive one way to work a v8 wont work. Thats why im thinking a turbo 2.3 like the svo mustangs had
Stock to stock a svo foxbody was faster than a 5.0 fox body so im thinking thats the best way to go to try an keep desent gas mileage

Havent you guys learned yet i dont like to do what everyone else does lol
Plus i got my nova. For our v8 fun at the track lol

I like the slow cars. If i want to drive something fast ill just take one of kurts...lol (yeah right like hed ever let me drive anything other than the blue celi) but she's my big baby. Eventually I'm going to have my dream car.... a 60s mustang that's going to be stupid crazy. The Hood was Kurt's idea. It was a bday present last Sept and it took till yesterday to get put on

Turbo, sounds good.

Put a later ford modular V8 in it. A 5.4L Triton or even a 4.6L would make that car one sweet ride.

Maybe once shes not wanting to use it for a dd anymore itll change to a v8
maybe a 2jzge lol

2JZ-GE sucks balls I'd go with the turbo SVO engine. Like I said in a text a couple of weeks ago, my buddy Sean's car was pretty quick and he never had it running 100%. Always had a vacuum leak or something. That engine has my vote