My first car.

XR7 Phillip

Registered User
Hi everybody. For those of you who don't know me already, my name is Phillip Dalke and I am the son of the famous David Dalke. I am 17 years old and a junior in high school.

My dad and I purchased Mark Kovalcik's cougar back in the summer of 2009 (I had just turned 15) with no powertrain. After that I got to watch it sit in the driveway. It sat there (about a year) till there was sufficient space in the shop and I got the motivation to start this long project. Well, it wasn't originally planned as a long project, but that's just how sc's seem to turn out.

Once it was in the shop, one of the first things I did was rebuild a 5-speed transmission for the car so I could swap the auto for a manual. After that we got to work on a motor for the car. We ended up getting a stock motor from Corey Binks that supposedly only needed headgaskets. Back at the shop I tore the motor down and found some not-so-nice wear on the cylinder walls. Dad decided that wasn't acceptable and decided the motor would have to be rebuilt. In the end it was rebuilt with good used parts that were found in SCU inventory, including pistons (mix-matched set), forged connecting rods (four were bent and had to be straightened, one on which may still have an S-curve in it, as it's shorter that the rest), a cam with .600 lift (originally it had been damaged, but Dave worked his magic and polished it to be acceptable), heads that are not ported, but do have a nice, 5-angle valve grind and big valves (originally one of the valves did not seat properly, so we just ran it hoping it would work itself out), and 1.73 rocker arms (more than half had flat spots on the rollers, which had to be replaced). The motor is topped off with a ported early model blower with coated rotors, a raised top, and a 5% pulley. It runs really strong for a pile of leftover parts.

Back to the car itself. While we had the motor out, we noticed it had several cracks in the firewall, testament to the many aggressive launches the car had experienced. We decided it was best to fix them now while the motor was out so I got to work taking the dash out so they could be welded. Once the dash was out and the carpet/underlay was peeled back we could get to the bare metal. However, that turned out to be more of a curse than anything else.. Under the carpet we found rust...lots of it! :( There was no way we could put the carpet back down over top of it, so began the tedious job of rust repair. Out came the seats, front and back, the carpet, and wiring. There holes under both the driver and passenger's feet, as well as the floor right in front of the back seat on the driver side. Eventually all of the cancer was cut out and the unibody repaired. It was also at this time the firewall was repaired, the pedals swapped, and the wires for the trunk-mounted battery rerouted. That took the longest of any work we did to the car. Dad says I'm lucky I'm his son because he won't do rust repair every again for anyone. Thanks Dad! :)

Fast forward and the motor is in the car, along with the trans, driveshaft and 2:73 gears. We also swapped the mustang hubs for Supercoupe ones because the wheels I decided I wanted on the car were Supercoupe bolt pattern. The car also has the 13" brake upgrade, along with blue tokico shocks and chassis bracing.

Finally the car fired up for the first time in many years late January, but car was far from drivable. First on the list of problems turned out to be the clutch switch. The car would want to die when you put it in gear. Eventually we found our wiring error and solved that problem. When we finally tried to drive the car, it would lurch after shifting. The computer told us that the TPS, ACT, and ECT sensors were not working, specifically when the car was acting up. After some diagnostics and tracing the wiring diagrams, we solved the problem by adding an extra ground to that circuit. Then, Dad drove it for a couple of days before the ABS kicked out. Dad said my problem was either a bad pressure switch or bad pump. I really didn't want to have to change either so I got kinda mad and depressed with the car because I had worked so hard and so long on the car and it still wasn't drivable. I took a break for a while and today I decided I would tackle the problem. First, I tested for power at the pump, and low-and-behold, after wiggling the connectors the pump worked! Yeah! :) So I cleaned all the connections and added some grease and hopefully that solves the problem. Now hopefully, after a year and half, my car can be done.

Recently we got the car on the dyno and it put down some pretty impressive numbers for having an early blower and stock intercooler IMO. It is officially faster than my father’s car. See dyno sheets below.

First on the list of upgrades include a FMIC, some gauges (probably oil pressure and AFR), and a stereo system.

Wow...that was rather long winded. Thanks to anyone who took the time to read my story. I look forward to sharing information and experiences, as well as general bs-ing with everyone.

Thanks again,

Phillip
 

Attachments

  • Dyno text.jpg
    Dyno text.jpg
    377.7 KB · Views: 144
  • Dyno 1.jpg
    Dyno 1.jpg
    383.2 KB · Views: 177
Last edited:
Better get to sleep its a school night.:p

I think Dad should be the Infamous David Dalke.

Dang the kid can put some sentences and paragraphs together. Must not be a texter.:D

Anyway welcome, youngin.:cool:
 
I'm glad that you do as well with cars as you do in English class, bro. Did you accidentally call your dad "Dave" or is there another one at the shop?

Have fun with the car and be safe. No turbos for you until you get comfortable with driving an SC! Most people on here are still at that stage, so no worries.:)
 
Welcome Phillip. Really glad to hear you've got the car running. That car has always been one of my favorites in the club. Congrats on making some very impressive power for the mods you have.

David

PS: Hope to see you on the Power Tour next month.
 
I was wondering when you'd finally sign up Philip. :) Congratulations on getting the car driveable! It does get very frustrating at times...especially when it seems like everything is falling apart on the car. Sometimes taking a break from the work for a little while helps.

Also congrats on the dyno numbers! Looks pretty dang good to me! :cool:
 
Good to see you here Phillip. Now that you've made it past all of the early pains with your car, you should be good for a while.
 
I am impressed with the story. If all the youngun's were so proper.


And welcome. And good luck.
 
Thanks for all the replies guys.

It was too late last night for me to resize a bunch of pictures, but here they are.

I do plan on driving the car daily, but I don't have insurance, so that hasn't happened yet. Hopefully that issue will be resolved within a week so I can drive my car on the road for the first time. :D
 

Attachments

  • engine finished.JPG
    engine finished.JPG
    339.1 KB · Views: 148
  • supercharger.JPG
    supercharger.JPG
    347.5 KB · Views: 134
  • mixmatched pistons.jpg
    mixmatched pistons.jpg
    321.3 KB · Views: 136
  • valve covers.jpg
    valve covers.jpg
    344.9 KB · Views: 123
  • flat rollers 3.jpg
    flat rollers 3.jpg
    347 KB · Views: 123
Sorry, forgot to switch log-ins....

I'm going to have to make double sure of that next time.. :eek: I'm still new to this..

Anyway, more pictures.
 

Attachments

  • rust repair.JPG
    rust repair.JPG
    316.9 KB · Views: 126
  • rust repair finished.JPG
    rust repair finished.JPG
    349.4 KB · Views: 121
  • rust 1.JPG
    rust 1.JPG
    334 KB · Views: 125
  • interior 2.JPG
    interior 2.JPG
    337.2 KB · Views: 128
  • Interior.JPG
    Interior.JPG
    354.8 KB · Views: 133
Welcome aboard Phillip, I'm sure that in a couple of years I'll be trying to catch you instead of you trying to catch me. Listen to your dad because he's "been there/done that" plus he can save you a ton of money.....:D
 
And more pictures...
 

Attachments

  • brakes 1.JPG
    brakes 1.JPG
    315.3 KB · Views: 101
  • brakes 2.JPG
    brakes 2.JPG
    345.7 KB · Views: 94
  • trans before.jpg
    trans before.jpg
    340.3 KB · Views: 97
  • trans after.JPG
    trans after.JPG
    333 KB · Views: 99
  • DSC08099.JPG
    DSC08099.JPG
    354.6 KB · Views: 98
And a few more of the finished rust repair...

I just realized I don't have any current pictures of the car as it sits now. Hopefully I can get some of those tomorrow.
 

Attachments

  • DSC08104.JPG
    DSC08104.JPG
    325.2 KB · Views: 98
  • rust repari finished 2.JPG
    rust repari finished 2.JPG
    319.9 KB · Views: 97
  • DSC08107.JPG
    DSC08107.JPG
    350.3 KB · Views: 96
  • DSC08110.JPG
    DSC08110.JPG
    336.9 KB · Views: 106
Did I mention I hate rust repair? That was a work of congress to get me to do that. It's pretty solid now though and we put POR15 over all of it to hopefully seal out any future deterioration.

Notice it has the right # of pedals? ;)
 
Did I mention I hate rust repair? That was a work of congress to get me to do that. It's pretty solid now though and we put POR15 over all of it to hopefully seal out any future deterioration.

Notice it has the right # of pedals? ;)

So now that you are in practice. I'll fly you down and we can do a tune-and-fix-rust weekend.
 
Back
Top