Wolfe_Man
Don't Label Me!
This pickup I built with my buddy out of mostly free crap we had laying around. This is a refereed/smog legal conversion since in Cal it has to be 75 or older to skip smog. The most expensive thing in it is the Ron Frances 2.3 wiring harness. Everything else is pretty much junkyard items. My youngest brother now owns the truck and is his daily driver.
So, lets start.
A friend of our had this old dead 78 courier sitting in his yard we was going to scrap as the factory 2.3 had given up the ghost. Lucky us we had access to a 60k mile 83/84? Thunderbird Turbo Coupe that hadnt been on the road in 30 years. Someone had started to do a clutch swap and never finished then the rodents ate all the wiring. So, this turbo courier was born.
It is a stock turbo 2.3, larger injectors, SAAB inter-cooler, no muffler, straight 2.5" exhaust with a Magnaflow Ca legal high flow cat only, some no name China blow off valve. We put an MSD ignition in it and with some other tweaks (turned the boost from 7 to 20lbs and played with the VAM spring rate). Cooling is Champion cooling radiator for an FJ that with a small backet cut from old radiator fit like it was meant for it. It also has a remote mount oil filter with a large cooler to help the turbo temps when beating on it.
Truck itself is pretty much stock though we did lower it a bit by blocks in the back and cut a coil up front.
How the truck was received
Checking and resealing the turbo coupe motor
Stuffed into the courier and figuring out where to mount the VAM/Air intake
Here is the 1st iteration of the turbo/intake system. This got changed when we added the inter-cooler later but it was a runner now.
Below you can see where we stuffed the ECU, fuse panel and MSD Coil (actual MSD box is on core support)
So, lets start.
A friend of our had this old dead 78 courier sitting in his yard we was going to scrap as the factory 2.3 had given up the ghost. Lucky us we had access to a 60k mile 83/84? Thunderbird Turbo Coupe that hadnt been on the road in 30 years. Someone had started to do a clutch swap and never finished then the rodents ate all the wiring. So, this turbo courier was born.
It is a stock turbo 2.3, larger injectors, SAAB inter-cooler, no muffler, straight 2.5" exhaust with a Magnaflow Ca legal high flow cat only, some no name China blow off valve. We put an MSD ignition in it and with some other tweaks (turned the boost from 7 to 20lbs and played with the VAM spring rate). Cooling is Champion cooling radiator for an FJ that with a small backet cut from old radiator fit like it was meant for it. It also has a remote mount oil filter with a large cooler to help the turbo temps when beating on it.
Truck itself is pretty much stock though we did lower it a bit by blocks in the back and cut a coil up front.
How the truck was received
Checking and resealing the turbo coupe motor
Stuffed into the courier and figuring out where to mount the VAM/Air intake
Here is the 1st iteration of the turbo/intake system. This got changed when we added the inter-cooler later but it was a runner now.
Below you can see where we stuffed the ECU, fuse panel and MSD Coil (actual MSD box is on core support)