Bart's 86 SVO restore thread!

[BartsSVO]

Okay...still no pictures (yet) but I figured I would update the progress of the restoration of my 1986 Mustang SVO.

NEW!! Website addy: http://home.comcast.net/~bart.youngblood/Home.html

First, for those not familiar with SVOs, allow me to bring you up to speed.

The SVO was the first project of Ford Special Vehicle Operations (hence the name of the car) and was comissioned in 1980 to build a car that could compete in IMSA production classes. The first two prototypes, with the assistance of Jack Roush, were built in 1982. By 1983 an SVO managed to place 2nd at the 24 hour GT race at Nelson Ledges, Ohio.

Ford's primary emphasis with the SVO was handling and not straight line speed (although they did end up being the fastest Mustangs built in 85-86) so the suspension on these cars is highly tweaked compared to other Mustangs of the same era. For instance, the SVO was the first Mustang to receive 16" wheels and 4 wheel disc brakes. Track width was slightly increased by using the front control arms and rear axle from a Lincoln Mark VII. The engine crossmember was slightly modified to improve suspension geometry and Koni was chosen to supply adjustable shocks and struts for the car.

Power wise, Ford chose the 2.3L SOHC 4 cylinder that had been in use since the mid-70s in the Mustang II and Pinto in order to shave some weight off of the nose of the car. Of course being a race vehicle, an anemic 88 hp normally produced by this engine in naturally aspirated trim would be nowhere near sufficient. Therefore the engine was equipped with port electronic fuel injection (one of the first Ford vehicles to get port injection, BTW), a special high output cam, high flow head, dished forged pistons and most importantly, a Garret T-3 turbocharger. In 1984 and the first half of 1985, this combo produced 175 hp @ 4400 rpm and 210 lb/ft @ 3000 rpm. Late in the 1985 model year Ford instituted a running change that gave the engine a higher lift, longer duration camshaft, larger fuel injectors, reprogrammed ECU and a faster spooling turbo. 85.5-86 SVOs gained about 30 hp with these modifications, bringing total power up to 205 @ 5000 rpm and 240 lb/ft at 3000 rpm. Not bad for a mid-80s 4 banger! In 1986, this was actually about 5 hp more than the F/I 5.0L found in the GT and LX models. With their ~200 lb weight advantage, an SVO would just slightly edge out its V8 brother in the quarter mile and top speed. Power was delivered to the ground via a special Borg/Warner T5 5 speed gearbox topped with a Hurst short-throw shifter and a 7.5" Ford rear end equipped with a limited-slip differential.

Not content just to improve the performance of the car, SVOs were also given a number of unique exterior and interior treatments. Inside, adjustable sport seats (allegedly designed by Recaro) with inflatable lumbar support were available in either a unique cloth or preforated leather. The steering wheel, horn pad, shift knob and parking brake handle were all leather wrapped. Dash panels received a textured surface, known to the SVO crowd as the "fuzzy dash panels". A 140 mph speedometer (only marked to 85 because of Federal Law at the time!), 8000 rpm tachometer and 18 psi boost gauge came standard. You could choose any interior color you wanted as long as it was a dark charcoal grey. Outside the car, the SVO got a special front bumper with aero parking/turn lights and later in 85.5-86 models aero headlamps similar to what were later used on 87-93 Mustangs. A quasi-functional bi-plane spoiler was implemented to help keep provide a little downforce, and if what I heard was correct, to keep the rear hatch from trying to lift itself open at speed! "Spats" mounted immediately ahead of the rear wheels helped the body lines flow around the rear wheels that sat out further than standard Mustangs. Tail lamps got a stripe treatment to set them off from other Mustang models of the time. The exterior trim and spoiler were painted a charcoal grey (semi-gloss black on 1984 models) similar to the interior to provide some contrast to the exterior paint.

Production wise, about 9800 SVOs were built over the span of 3 model years, with most being built during 1984 or 1986. Somewhere around 430 85.5 models were built, making them the rarest of all SVOs.

Anyway...if you made it through all that, here's the update on my 86 SVO.

I bought this car back in December with a blown head gasket and leaky radiator. I replaced the gasket shortly after buying the car and drove it for about 3 months although it still wasn't running quite right the whole time. I pulled the plugs and found evidence of coolant still getting into the cylinders so a few weeks later I pulled the engine and transmission to find the cylinder head warped and the main and rod bearings wiped out, no doubt from being contaminated by coolant. I tracked down another head (these are unique to turbocharged 2.3L engines due to the combustion chamber design and hardened valve seats) and sent both the block and head to the machine shop to have them checked out. The machinist informed me that the block would need to be bored due to minor pitting of the cylinder walls from the coolant getting into the cylinders. I was also having the cylinder head cut for larger intake and exhaust valves as we all know the power produced by the stock engine is never enough. Since I had everything apart, I decided to go ahead and have the car painted while the engine was out of the way. So began the tedious process of stripping off all the trim, headlights, interior and anything else under the hood that would be in the way of the painter. I probably have about 20 hours wrapped up in that alone! Right now I've got parts strewn everywhere in my garage and attic...I'm looking forward to getting the car back just so I can get the stuff out of the way!

So here's where I am right now. I have everything back from the machine shop. Block was bored .030" over and checked for cracks and the deck was checked for flatness. The cylinder head received similar treatment for defects (especially since these heads are prone to cracked exhaust valve seats), cut for 1.89" intake and 1.59" exhaust valves and milled about .010" to make sure its flat. My old crankshaft was toast but a buddy had a few spares just sitting around his shop and was kind enough to donate one to the cause. This past Monday I installed it along with new main bearings. I have new SpeedPro forged low-compression pistons (same as stock) .030" oversize. With the milled head and dished pistons I should be around a 8.2:1 compression ratio, slightly higher than the stock 8.0:1. I'm waiting for my rings to arrive so I can get the pistons installed and finish work on the short block.

The body shell is at a local painter and at last report he had started stripping the old paint off of it in preperation for a nice BASF polyester base/clear paint that will hopefully fare much better than the last repaint which featured peeling clearcoat and solvent bubbles! Certainly for $4000 I hope so! I'm planning on dropping by the shop tomorrow to take some pictures on the progress for posting here and on the website I'm planning on creating to track the progress of the build. I've made a few of the engine build but I've just got to work on them in Photoshop to cut them down to a manageable size.

Plans include refurbishing the interior, including new carpet and recovered leather seats. Under the hood I'm probably going to powdercoat alot of the brackets and other engine parts to dress them up and to protect them from corrosion.

Anyway, I'll update this as soon as I get some pics and I do some more work on the car. I'm probably looking at 3-4 months before I get the car drivable again if everything goes to plan and my wallet can hold out! :D

If anyone wants more info on the SVO, the best place to go is www.svoca.com , the offical website of the SVO Club of America, of which I am a member. There are a number of links on the main page further detailing the history and other specifics of the car as well as a picture gallery of member's cars.

[R33 GT-R]

Keep us informed Bart it sounds sweet.

[footoflead]

Keep us informed Bart it sounds sweet.

Lookin forward to the pics

[BMWDave]

Wow, seems like you got everything planned out here! :)  The SVO is a nice car, and I'm looking forward to the pictures.

[Catman]

This is going to be my favorite thread! :D  

[BMWDave]

This is going to be my favorite thread! :D

Me too!  I love restorations.   :D  

[BMWDave]

BartsSVO, when you get the restoration underway, I can pin this topic so that everyone will see it.  Would you want me to do that?

[Run Away]

Wow, sounds like this is going to be quite a sweet car when finnished. I wish I had the money to do stuff like this.

[Fire It Up]

GET LOTSA PICS

[BartsSVO]

Dave...that'd be cool. I'm in the process of working on a website to put the updates on.

Just to keep everyone up to speed in the meantime, here's what's been going on.

I installed the pistons, rings and new rod bearings over the past two nights. I could have done it all at once but it is a very tedious process with a lot of test fitting, filing, more test fitting, more filing, etc., until you get the ring gaps right (I set them to .017"). I've got a box full of parts that I'm having a buddy media blast for me to remove all the crud and oxidation that has accumulated over the past 20 years. I yanked the valves out of the head to do a little cleanup in the bowl area and in the intake and exhaust runners. I doubt I'll do any major porting especially since I've got a few buddies with SVOs making close to 300 rwhp with a stock head w/ larger valves.

I'll probably have a crude website up over the weekend with the pics I've taken. I sat down and edited most of them last night and I probably have about a dozen or so pics ready to go.  

[BMWDave]

You should post some pics too in this thread. :)

[TBR]

Are you using nvu to edit your website?

[BartsSVO]

Yup...that I am. I'm having my usual creative block though...if anyone has any snazzy layouts that I could build off of it would be helpful

[TBR]

My advice is to draw your layout/template in a graphics program (such as the one included in the openoffice suite) and then crop out the different elements and then replicate the look of the original template in html with the small images. Doing it that way gives you a lot of room in the flexibility department.  

[RS200]

Whoa..I just realized I should make a thread of my '87 convertible resto, as well as my '88 GT buildup. Seems you people like this stuff.

Bart...I have always like the SVO's. The 1986 version had 205hp, right? With a chip you could crank the boost safely and make a lot more power. I believe the '86 also came with 5-lug wheels, as well as an 8.8" diff with 3.73s preloaded. Such potential in these cars..Sonny Bryant Racing makes a stroker crank, excellent H-beam rods are available, JE pistons, Volvo DOHC swap, nice intake manifolds, and infinite turbo setups. Some people take the 2.3L and get 1500HP out of it, and run 8s! Sure it won't last long, but it would be a blast. A good 300HP would kill lots on the street, but let's not go too far. Best of luck with the build.

[BMWDave]

Whoa..I just realized I should make a thread of my '87 convertible resto, as well as my '88 GT buildup. Seems you people like this stuff.

Bart...I have always like the SVO's. The 1986 version had 205hp, right? With a chip you could crank the boost safely and make a lot more power. I believe the '86 also came with 5-lug wheels, as well as an 8.8" diff with 3.73s preloaded. Such potential in these cars..Sonny Bryant Racing makes a stroker crank, excellent H-beam rods are available, JE pistons, Volvo DOHC swap, nice intake manifolds, and infinite turbo setups. Some people take the 2.3L and get 1500HP out of it, and run 8s! Sure it won't last long, but it would be a blast. A good 300HP would kill lots on the street, but let's not go too far. Best of luck with the build.

It would be cool for you to make those threads....I am also making a restoration thread myself soon...we enjoy that sort of stuff here :)

And good to have you on board :)

[Fire It Up]

Woohoo! More restoration/buildup threads!

[BMWDave]

Bart, is the website up yet?  

[BartsSVO]

Its coming...I spent more time working on the car this weekend than I did on the site. I have most of the content done although it doesn't look pretty. I would have had it finished last night had I not forgotten to send myself the html files from work.

[BMWDave]

Its coming...I spent more time working on the car this weekend than I did on the site. I have most of the content done although it doesn't look pretty. I would have had it finished last night had I not forgotten to send myself the html files from work.

So do you have a link to the site?  I would love to see the pictures :)

[BartsSVO]

Okay....here 'tis.

http://home.comcast.net/~bart.youngblood/Home.html

Basic, but it gets the job done right now. I'm working on prettying it up.

[BMWDave]

I just checked out the site...very nice B)

[Catman]

Cool site! B)  

[Fire It Up]

nice. What color are you painting it? Black?

[BartsSVO]

Nope, its staying the same color as in the pics. I've got more pictures of the engine build I'll be throwing up tonight. I'm getting some parts back from being media blasted after I get off work. Should be real pretty!

[BartsSVO]

Just posted a few updates. New pics will be up tonight since I won't be doing much work on the car tonight.

[BMWDave]

Just posted a few updates. New pics will be up tonight since I won't be doing much work on the car tonight.

Cool, I'll check it out :)

[Raza]

Nice, man, nice.

How fast is this thing going to be?

[footoflead]

Nice B)  

[BartsSVO]

Ohh....I'm shooting for around 250 hp at the wheels (right now) which would be comperable with my former 99 GT. My best time in that car was a 13.4 @ 102 back in 2001. This car wasn't built for getting out of the hole from a dead standstill so figure it'll probably do 2-3 tenths slower at about the same trap speed. Top speed should be about 160ish.

If its running before I go to Europe in September I'm planning on running it at Talladega at the Georgia Regional Mustang Club outing there the 2nd weekend of October. Part of the course they have laid out is on the oval which should give me a great chance to stretch its legs legally. :D