C3 Build Thread

[Livewire80]

Hey All!

I figured rather than lurking and posting randomly I would kick off an official build thread.

Ordered my Base Kit back in March with an August completion date. Hopefully Stewart can get the car here to the Chicago area quickly after they pick it up. I am doing a mix of donor parts, new parts. The goal of this build personally for me is to teach myself and my three kids (C3) about cars and problem solving. With that in mind, I'm starting with the base kit and working up. In my mind the car will NEVER be done. We are starting with the base kit and with Chicago winters there will be plenty of downtime to assess what we don't like, what's broken, or what we want to upgrade and install them.

Factory Five Base Kit
Manual Steering
Body cut outs
Electrical Completion Kit
Rear Koni coil overs

Engine
4.6L 2V
Holley Terminator EFI

Transmission
T45

Rear End
FoxBody 8.8
3.73 gears


A little background on the parts I've acquired.

Engine - I did a lot of searching and research I settled on the 4.6L 2v based on cost and simplicity. It's a mature platform with a rather simple internals. I found an engine out of a 2006 Mercury Grand Marquis that had 106k miles on it that had been totaled out due to a side swipe. I received the engine and did a tear down and found that the cylinders were super clean with no scoring, the bottom end was rock solid. So I cleaned everything up, did a home made hot soak for the cylinder heads and put it all back together and put a coat of lipstick on this ford pig. I also gave it some shiny parts on the covers and intake.
engine-before.jpg
engine-after.jpg

Also I did spend a bit of money on the Holley TerminatorX ECU system for the engine rather than put a stock harness on a diet. My hopes is that this will simplify install and any troubleshooting that needs to happen to start the beast up.


Transmission - After lots of searching I came upon a T45 Transmission that I found on ebay, through some stroke of luck it was a local salvage yard and by actually calling them it was $200 cheaper than their Ebay Buy It Now and since it was local I was able to save on shipping. Once I received it, I think I may have won the salvage yard lottery. As they loaded in the back of the car, I noticed that the shifter handle was chrome (hmm...thats not stock). Once home I found that it had a Steeda Tri-Ax shifter. Upon further inspection the bottom of the transmission had a big ole "The T45 Source" sticker on the bottom. With some research it looks like that was a T45 Rebuilder out of Atlanta. I ran the transmission through all the gear and no grinding or binding when turning things by hand. I emptied out the trans fluid and it was crystal clear with no glitter to be seen. Fingers crossed that when the drivetrain is assembled everything works out.

Rear End - I was able to find the fox body housing, Differential and New Ring & Pinion gear all through various sources, but total spend on the rear end with a rebuild kit was less than $400. Just have to pick up some 5 lug axles and disc brake brackets but that's a problem for future me to worry about.


I've also acquired front spindles, and suspension bits from random mustang donors in local salvage yards. These have all been given some baths in evaporust, hit with the descaler tool and primed and painted. My goal over the summer is to keep acquiring parts and getting the garage ready to start building.

[Blitzboy54]

Cool, I love builds like this. Most people (me included) go with the full kit. I will enjoy watching you source and rebuild parts.

Did you change the heads any on your 4.6?

[Livewire80]

The heads got a deep soak in simple green and hot water then I went over them with a lots of brass brushes, brake clean and compressed air. I used die grinder on the intake and exhaust ports to make them shiny, but nothing approaching "ported" territory. I also went through and lapped the valves for good measure and put everything back together. Also for the engine I replaced the timing chains, tensioners and guides while "I was in there".

[Greg Wenzel]

You and I may end up being Stewart truck buddies, I ordered my kit a couple of weeks ago and have a completion date of 8/26/21. I'm in the St. Louis area so my guess is you'll see yours a few day ahead of me.