Yes, that is air under the...
Yes, that is air under the left front tire. Our poor man's suspension is working very well.
The Fox chassis Mustang that made its debut in 1979 was a sign of good things to come. Ford made considerable advancements each year, and by 1985, Ford had the Mustang rocking out with a 210hp 5.0L engine-it was the most horsepower from a late-model Mustang until that point. In addition to a new hydraulic roller camshaft, the 5.0L also received new tubular steel exhaust headers and a high-flow Motorcraft/Holley 600-cfm carburetor. This would be the swan song for the carbureted Mustang, however, as in 1986, Ford pulled the four-barrel for sequential multi-port fuel injection.
Here's the '85 Mercury Capri...
Here's the '85 Mercury Capri that we picked up for just $1,300. It's pretty hard to come across deals like this anymore, but if you have the cash handy at the right time, you'll at least be in the game. Your author actually sold the car before we had a chance to do anything with it, but the new owner, Dave Bohnsack, has offered to let us continue with our plans to hop up it up.
The carbureted Fox-body cars are getting harder and harder to come by, and it seems like most have been ridden hard and put away wet. It's hard to come across any that are close to stock, but we just happened to snag an '85 Mercury Capri that's about as close to stock as one will find without buying a rare, low-mileage example.
According to website www.ascmclaren coupe.com's factory Mercury literature, the Capri in question is an '85 GS model, equipped with the 5.0L engine and the T-5 five-speed manual transmission. The interior is fairly clean, though it looks as though a hungry dog may have gnawed at the passenger-side headrest. On the outside, the panels of the 134,000-mile car are in decent shape, but one of the previous owners attempted to paint the car and while they nailed the basecoat, the clearcoat mix wasn't quite spot-on and now looks like a week-old sunburn. What we were most pleased with was that the front bumper cover was in relatively pristine condition. Oftentimes these are broken, bashed, cut, and scuffed because of their low-slung nature.
One of the previous owners...
One of the previous owners used to work at a crushed stone facility, and evidently didn't visit the car wash too often. We were very impressed that the majority of stock components was still here though.
On the testdrive, we were informed that the car had no brakes, other than the emergency brake, but it ran well, was reasonably quick and idled smoothly. It was also relatively stock, with little modifications. The person we bought the car from said he had 3.73 gears installed in the 7.5 rear axle, and at some point, another owner ditched the factory Holley carb and Ford air cleaner for an Edelbrock 750-cfm carburetor and open element air cleaner. The factory headers, Y-pipe, and dual exhaust were all still there, as were the 10-hole 15-inch wheels with Mercury-spec center caps. We made the deal and walked away with the car for $1,300. We probably should have bargained the price down further on account of the master cylinder being filled with a soupy paste along the lines of grit-infused hand cleaner, but we were stoked enough about the rest of the car that we felt good about the purchase price.
After a thorough cleaning,...
After a thorough cleaning, the engine bay looked a lot better. We picked up the factory air cleaner for $20 at the NMRA 2009 season opener in the swap meet. We also needed to buy a battery for the car, and a remanufactured unit from the local auto parts store got the starter motor turning, though it doesn't fit the factory battery tray.
After getting the Capri back home and giving it the once over, we decided that getting the brakes working was priority. We could have rebuilt the factory setup, but since we're going to be adding more horsepower to the car, and running it at the dragstrip, we opted for an upgrade from MPS Auto Salvage. MPS set us up with a complete '87-newer front brake system, which included the calipers, freshly turned rotors, spindles, brake lines and master cylinder.
We ended up replacing the rear wheel cylinders as they were leaking, and to be sure to get all of the sediment out of the system, we flushed it. We had a pair of old Flowmaster mufflers lying around, so we tossed those on as well.
We gave the Capri a thorough cleaning inside and out, and took it for a few testdrives to deem it track-worthy. All was good, so we loaded up the rare Fox-body and headed to our local track.
With just the Edelbrock carb and the mufflers, our two get acquainted passes came in at 15.44 seconds at 89.79 mph (2.30 60-foot time) and a 15.68 at 89.45 (2.44 60-foot). Not bad, but there was definitely room for improvement. We advanced the timing two degrees, and the Capri responded with 15.29 at 88.62 mph (2.38 60-foot).
With the factory master cylinder...
With the factory master cylinder in bad shape, we opted to upgrade the weak front brakes to the '87-and-newer setup. MPS Auto Salvage hooked us up with everything we needed, including newly turned rotors, calipers, brake lines and master cylinder.
Test and tune night at our...
Test and tune night at our local quarter-mile strip turned out to be a lot of fun, although we did have to mess with the driver's side window switch to get the window back up. We were able to make 10 passes before our test session came to an abrupt close.
Our ace driver, George Xenos,...
Our ace driver, George Xenos, attempted a quick clutch drop at 4,400 rpm, which resulted in a loud bang, followed by a shower of debris from beneath the car. To everyone's relief, it was just caked on lime rock that fell onto the track.