What should I do with this?
 

I just aquired another fox body. It is an 88 t-top 5.0L 5 spd. It runs and drives. The body is rusty but still could be saved. I have been doing rotisserie restos on these cars and have fixed rustier examples. The question is does anyone even want a t-top car? Sometimes I'll fix a rusty fox and someone will race it-needing the rust repaired for structual reasons-Nobody wants a t-top race car. Should it be restored just because its rare? Or should I strip it for parts and crush it? I can't decide
Please help

give it to me... :)


i'd restore it...
T-Tops are awesome.. :)

i think thats one thing i miss the most about my 88 Trans Am.... cruising with the t-tops in the summer....

i definitely want another t-top car next season.... debating on another Trans Am.. or a fox body mustang... only next season will tell :D

good find though..

let us know what you do..

how much do you have ivested in the car?, I have a 95 with a supersoupe 6 waiting to go in, but have lost intrest in it. Would you consider a trade? don't crush it.

any pictures of your 95? definately interested

here it is, the supercoupe motor has 175,000 on it and teh car has 174,000 on it. it is a 6 banger with blown headgaskets and the supercoupe motor was pulled out of the rotten car.

I would definately trade here is the t-top car you should know it is a little rustier than it looks but it runs and drives. And the rims don't come with the car. But I can talk to the guy who owns the wheels I think we can work something out cheap. It does include 4 "turbine wheels" that look like they came off of earlier model maybe mid 80's .I am trying to send pics but not working send me you e-mail i'll send them to you

PM sent, looking for to working something out.

slowly working

t-tops are nice. grey interior is ugly though.

How long is it taking you to resto a fox, complete.

depending on the depth of the resto and the customers cash flow between 1 and 3 months plus paint

Turn the t-tops and doors into gullwing doors a-la gt40....


RESTORE IT. T-tops are sex on wheels.

T-Tops are awesome..don't crush it.

After drag racing the t-top car all day saturday-14.5 at 95mph. I traded 2tonebossgt for his sn95 v6 car. He said he plans to restore it. I hope it goes well and would like to be kept up on its progress.

89racer, i will make sure of it, that I keep in touch with you over the process. Friends of mine are already wanting to see the car on the street. I am making room in the shop right now so that work can begin ASAP.

thanks- I am also bringing in the new sn95 car to look it over and start to think about what we should do with it.
What does everyone think;
fix the stock 3.8
swap in the supercharged 3.8
swap in a 5.0L with the 3.8L auto trans
swap in a 5.0L with a t5
swap in a 4.6L with auto or manual
swap in a 5.4L with lightning heads and supercharger (we will have some laying around soon)
swap in ?

I wouldnt do the 5.0L swap, its a bigger pain.
Its really up to you, are you gonna race it or flip it....?

Don't know we really don't need another race car around here. We are kind of tripping over them as it is. It would be great to find a home for this thing. But maybe we should work on it first.

Well I finally decided the red 95 will become the shops new drag race rental car. We had great success with the t-top car at the drag strip a couple weeks ago...several customers and friends tried their hands at drag racing for the first time and had a blast. We support customers drag and road racing cars for a living, and having a car thats not to fast but still fun will be a useful tool for the shop to have. We are having all the dissembly work done by a local high school auto shop and then we are going to do the 5.0 swap. Hopefully by spring the car will be ready for some low 13sec passes. Whenever we have a customer track day it will be on hand for everyone to hammer on a bit. I'll post pics as progress allows

That sounds awesome, I have never heard of this before....it should work out well but could get costly due to breaking parts. :tup

The theory is that a low 13 high 12 second car shouldn't be too hard on parts esp with an auto trans besides we have quite a surplus and race car repairs are what we do.

Keep us up to date on the T-topper:tup

I wish I could come and rent it for a pass or two. Awesome idea, build log coming soon I hope!

Well, I will be more then happy to keep everyone posted on the T-Topper, Unfortunatly the project has been put on hold due to the fact that DAD WANTS TO BUILD A HOT ROD! Yahoo!, it think he might have fallen on his head, but hey I am running with it!, so the stang is out but some thing else is coming.

Give me a call on my cell I have your keys including the t-top keys and the rims maybe we can swap

carb the sn95 with something big and dirty, spray it and put a slick on it :)

T-Tops are nice, full resto, two tone it, dump it, and cruise it :tup If budget permits, swap the 5L for the 03 motor :wiggle:

My thoughts exactly. The project is well underway and I will be posting pictures soon. It will be full race no interior , 6 point roll bar 5.0L supercharged or sprayed. Anyone have a spare 8.8 axle this car only has a 7.5?

I found an 8.8 axle. Here are some pics of the Ingersoll High School students working on removing the original blown 3.8L engine and the interior. They will also be installing the 5.0L and installing the roll bar.

perfect car for a learning curv ;)

that seems like a pretty nice project... any updates?

I'll take the T-Top... Just drop it off in Shakespeare.

lol. Can't blame a guy for trying.

We decided to supercharge and run the engine on our dyno. So we decided to do the install ourselves instead of the school doing it. They do good work but after running it on the dyno it won't take long to install. We will also do the cage install in-house. A rental race car has to be safe as well as fast.
So if the supercharger bracket arrives soon and I pick the car up from the school this week then the car should appear in the London Autorama in march and race in early april. We are hoping for 11 sec ets with the supercharged engine. Fast enough to be fun not so fast it is dangerous for rookie drivers.
I'll keep updates coming.

How much would it cost to rent the car? And since you're from London, which track would be the car be available at? Grand Bend or Sparta?

Cost has not been 100% determined.
We are thinking that several packages will be available from one run to an entire day or full weekend events.
The cost of a full day of racing will be $500.
This includes delivery of the car to the track and crew support.
It can be run at either grand bend or sparta.
Two drivers may participate and share costs.
Customers may participate in eliminations or test and tune.
Number of runs is determined by track time and traffic.
These conditions are not set in stone.
Thoughts?

Sounds pretty good. I'm just thinking about the running the Stratford Spectacular (If it's on in '09), so I'd only need a car for that.

I think the Stratford spectacular will occur- it has for 15 years.
When the new schedule is established for 2009 we will begin taking deposits-$50-on any given weekend or days etc. Marketing will begin more heavily starting with the autorama show in march. The new schedules are always out for this event. By the way the company name is Derkzen Motorsports we are at Derkzenmotorsports.com

Major progress with the new rental car. Engine is sitting on the dyno ready to run. New sparco seat , autometer guages, front clip repainted, brand new M/T slicks installed, 4.10 gears with spool and c-clip eliminators, Six point cage. Major issues with insurance have been sorted out. Car will be seen at the London Auto Expo march 27-28-29 at the western fairgrounds.
We are very excited about our new racing venture. The winter has been long and hard, its about time to get out there and go drag racing.

Maybe I missed this. By rental you mean you will loan your vehicle out for a price to someone else at the track?

Kick ass idea, can't imagine the liability involved regardless of what waiver you have people sign.

Nice pics though, keep them coming! :tup

whats the cost of having a car on a rotissery, blasted clean and painted?

Yes we tow the car to the track, provide crew, helmet, fuel, tires, parts etc. You just show up with your money and your drivers licence. Insurance is not a big deal but there is no coverage for crashing only personal injury and liability. This means if you crash the car you pay for us to fix the car. It is all spelled out in the contract. Body damage car be repaired quite cheaply though esp when done in house and race cars often have a less than show quality appearance. Driveline damage is our responsibility unless you do something stupid.

The cost of having a car blasted cleaned and welded varies
as does the cost for paint
we have repaired some very rusty cars for $10000
an average fox body in ontario that you would consider soild should cost about $5000
All prices are plus paint, parts, and taxes.
It really only includes dissembly blasting, welding, and reasembly costs
This discussion should really be done on a case by case basis I don't like to quote or ballpark. I don't want to end up working for free... and I don't want to scare away any potential customers.
PM if you have questions