1982 Dodge Rampage w/ Shelby front end & '89 2.5L Turbo-I engine

Ashyukun said:

In reply to pimpm3 :

It may end up that way (at least the second color)... will have to see, there are things that are solidly higher priorities than paint, but it's also something I can be doing that won't impact the drivability of the vehicle, and I will likely have plenty of room in the budget.

I'd love it if it were Silver w/blue stripe as that was a rare color combo and generally found on the early 83.5 Shelby Chargers.

Luckily its not a terribly hard paint scheme to pull off, just a bit time consuming to get the taping right.  The two colors are separated by dual pin stripes which will be harder to do without finding something close to use.

If you want graphics or decals, hit up Positive Impressions, they are licensed by Shelby to do the decals and I believe they worked with Cliff on their cars: http://www.unleashedbyshelby.com/

In reply to Stefan :

I take it you mean this?

I'm torn on whether I like the silver as a base color or the other color (leaning toward this- I'd prefer a more teal color, but they only make that in a satin finish and not gloss... and the seaside is a bit more unique color to have...). I would think that the non-metallic would be easier to use as the base...

I have some pinstriping tape that I used for the curves when masking the accursed Patriot's plastidip accents, so I think I can pull off the double-stripe...

I unfortunately won't have the budget or time to get the 'real' decals- I will either not have them (if painting it happens at all) or be doing them myself somehow.

BTW, doing an alignment is a bit of a pain due to the interaction of the camber changes with the toe.

I'd get the Camber app for your phone and get the camber set where you want it (generally max negative on these cars is around -1 to -1.5).

Then bounce the car a few times or take it for a spin to settle the suspension and then set the toe.

For Toe settings I tend to like a little toe-out on the front of these cars, but probably no more than 1/8" total with about the same amount of Toe-in in the rear.

Here's the GLH-S specs:

http://www.turbo-mopar.com/forums/showthread.php?29077-GLHS-alignment-specs

front camber: 0- 1/4 neg.
front toe total: 0- 1/16" in
rear camber: 0- 1/4 neg
rear toe total: 1/16" out - 3/32" in

The recommended camber is really more like -1 1/2 degree, Shelby was a bit conservative to keep from people understeering into the weeds.

Here are some general tips:

http://polybushings.com/pages/handlingtips.html

In reply to Ashyukun :

Reach out to the decal guy, he's a helpful guy and might make you a heck of a deal for a GRM Challenger.

In reply to Stefan :

I'll get in touch with him and see- I think time is going to be more of a limit though with only having a few days. I'm also a bit wary of putting decal side-stripes on with the number panels going over them...

In reply to Ashyukun :

Understood, I guess I'm thinking long term for after the Challenge.

I do like the Teal color and its a good color to match with a silver or gray base.

This is my favorite build thread right now.

I'm rooting for you!

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

Thanks! As of now, it will certainly be at the Challenge- just probably not as competitive as I'd like (not that it was ever going to be near the top- I'm just not that good ). 

Only had an hour tonight to work on the car thanks to getting to work very late due to a checkup this morning- but I was able to get the crappy HF welder set up and weld together the race exhaust setup. Hopefully I'll be able to make short work of the 'street' exhaust tomorrow...

Well, it’s barely past 8am and this day is already sucking hard. 

Attempted to drive the Rampage in to work this morning. Went exponentially worse than the last time I drove it.

I think that the front engine mount is totally shot. It was the only one that I didn't replace, but instead filled all the gaps with WindoWeld because it looked like it was going to be a royal pain to get out and put the new one in. It doesn't feel like it's doing anything at this point, so I think I don't have any choice- it just vibrates WAY too much.

The brakes also still feel quite soft- honestly they feel far firmer when it's not running (i.e. when I was bleeding the brakes). I worry at this point for it being able to stop in a reasonable distance after a drag run as well as during the AutoX (and, of course- actually driving down, I'm not confident of the brakes locking up properly in a panic stop...) 

The accelerator cable has had issues from the start (when they removed it from the LeBaron they apparently cut the pedal stop end off of it, so it's just bare- now fraying- cable at the pedal). I thought I had it resolved, but nope. What ultimately killed the attempt at driving it in was when the fix I'd come up with failed and the cable broke free from the accelerator pedal. It had felt like the throttle was really fighting me up until that point, and when I pushed pretty hard on the accelerator to start off from the stop light onto the main street the fix failed. Thankfully it was idling well enough to get me back around the corner where I could pull off and cobble together a hasty repair. The repair though didn't let the throttle return to idle and instead kept it running higher (should have looked to see the RPMs)- and for the drive back the few blocks to park it in front of my house it actually felt reasonably peppy (though at that point I was more driving with the brake than with the accelerator).

The best part? No place in town has the replacement accelerator cable for the LeBaron- the ONLY way it seems to get it in will be to have RockAuto overnight it to the tune of $30 shipping (and $20 for the part). None of the universal/repair kits I've seen look like they'll work- they're all like 3' long where the LeBaron's is closer to 4.5'.

So, instead of going out to WalMart over lunch to see if I can get enough of the spray paint I need, I get to run around and see if I can figure out a throttle cable solution.

McMaster Carr.

    Aircraft control cable....   Or Aircraft spruce.

       I tend to get stuff from Mcmaster Carr the next day.  Once I ordered after lunch and still had the stuff the next day.  Although my location might be a factor.

          It's just a cable with some end fittings.

    I had the throttle cable fail on a car once got towed to a hotel, and there was a store within walking distance, picked up some picture hanging cable and some other stuff, hour later back on the road.  I might have used some fishing lead sinkers for end fittings on the cable, it was a long time ago....

That sucks.

The soft brake issue is one I've seen on those cars many times, the distribution valve under the master cylinder may still have air in it or it may have tripped the safety valve that shuts off flow to one or more lines.  The only solution is to manually bleed the brakes and pump the hell out of the pedal between to get it to release.  Make sure the rear suspension has weight on it or even weight in the bed to allow the rear lines to move fluid.

For the throttle cable, an 87 Shelby Charger GLH-S cable would be a better fit and its about 50" long: 

http://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=5898600&cc=1080122&jsn=428

or there's this one that is 53" long:

http://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=5898591&cc=1065013&jsn=612&jsn=612

The ends are the same between the two, just the length is different.  You might get lucky and find the shorter one locally?

I'd pull the cable and try crimping and soldering an end on it.  I mean it will either work or it will wipe it out completely and you'll need to replace it either way.

I haven't looked, but is there a throttle return spring on the throttle body?  There should be one wound around the TB and a seperate one that runs from the throttle lever to the cable bracket itself.  If its missing, you could have return issues.

These aren't insurmountable issues, just really annoying and stress inducing.

In reply to Ashyukun :

This is GRM, just pick up a bicycle brake or shifter cable. 

Pete may be on to something.   Not familiar with the platform, but can you fabricate from flat stock, a solid motor mount?

Hadn't thought of the bicycle cable- there's shop a short ways from work I can get to over lunch. I assume there's just one diameter of it, and it should match up with the throttle cable?

I'll re-bleed the brakes when I get back home this evening, and make sure and load the crap out of the bed (should be easy, just throw on the stuff I plan to take down with me...). I thought I'd done a decent job of it before, but will give it another shot. How can I tell if the rear adjustable valve is behaving properly or not?

There throttle return spring is in place, it kicks back to idle normally but when I had to jury-rig the cable it was tighter than normal so wasn't letting that happen. Still curious why it was fighting me so much initially though...

It's not impossible to fabricate a solid mount, but I don't think that would be very pleasant- and I'd still likely have to get the old mount out. Far too seriously toying with seeing if Polybushings can overnight me one of their polyurethane front mounts since they're more solid and way easier to install...

In reply to Dirtydog :

That would likely make the vibrations worse, not better.  Filling the mount on the wife's car resulted in more vibrations, its just not an ideal solution for a street car.

That said, they really aren't that hard to change, the aftermarket rubber sucks though so they don't last long, even on an automatic.  Simply remove the bracket from the frame, bend the tabs on the rubber insert on the engine side, pound or push it out.  Install the new mount.

http://polybushings.com/pages/mountinstall.html

Any cable will do the trick.

   If properly adjusted or set up correctly there shouldn't be a lot of tension on it anyhow.  With the pedal pushed all the way to a hard stop, on the floor, the throttle should be open all the way, and not have any excessive tension. 

      Just be creative I am sure you will find a solution!

OK, accelerator cable should be acquired- walked over to the nearby bike shop and walked out $5.29 poorer with a 6' cable and crimp-on ends. That should take care of that nicely. Figure my plan of attack will be to get the new cable installed where the car sits in front of the house and then pull it in to see about getting the front mount replaced.

Debating whether or not to bother with the brakes at this point- it will be much easier to bleed them when eastsidemav & co. are here tomorrow and I'm not doing it alone.

Assuming I wanted to be really ambitious regarding the brakes- what would be the best/quickest method to flush and replace the old brake fluid with new? Or would that be worth it?

The accelerator should take 10 minutes tops, the mount will take some more time but hopefully not more than an hour. Still on the fence about trying to put together a 'street' exhaust- I may just drop that idea, especially if we're trailering it down instead of driving it and instead use the time to get things organized and everything put together and ready to go- and to test drive it and see how the engine is behaving and if I'm still having throttle problems.

Weird question- could the problem with the throttle seeming to fight me be that the throttle plates close too tightly and the pressure from the turbo is making it difficult to open them? Seems like a long shot, but seems plausible given it worked pretty much normally when the idle was (effectively due to the shortened accelerator cable) set much higher...

Upon reading your comments about the nasty vibration, my thought was that this is because of the window weld fill, not that the mount has failed. I has once swapped in poly motor mounts on my 3800 V6 and the vibration was completely insufferable. It was literally shaking the mirrors of the car so badly that they were unusable. I swapped rubber mounts back in about a week later. You may want to try revving the engine from the throttle body and watch to see if the motor is moving much. If the mount is failed, I'd suspect the engine would be moving a lot on a quick rev.

Disclaimer: I have no experience with these Dodge platforms or engines, so these comments may be completely off base. 

I don't know that having positive pressure coming in would hamper the ability of the butterfly to open.  You'd need to be cranking some pretty serious pressure for that to be noticable and the whole setup is basically an air pump, right?  So, if the throttle is closed, you're not pushing any air out the exhaust which means you're not spinning the impeller which means you're not spinning the compressor, which means you're not under pressure. And by the time you are under pressure, your butterfly is already open.

A common problem that Saturns had (enter the "back in my day" zone here...) is that the butterfly would work a groove into the throttle body.  At 0% throttle, the blade would settle into that groove and require a little extra pressure to get over the literal hump.  If you were at partial throttle, though, the blade would already be out of that groove and everything would be smooth. 

Another possibility is that some part of the cable assembly is binding.  Either the cable itself or the pedal or the torsion assembly on the throttle body.  I know that on my Neon, the throttle cable bracket that I built is just a hair maladjusted which means that the first couple degrees of throttle pedal movement does nothing but take up slack in the line and then all of a sudden the butterfly valve starts moving.  It makes slow starts pretty imprecise, but doesn't affect larger movements.

Hold the tube and shine a flashlight in there. If there's carbon and junk built up around the throttle blade it can make it sticky. Also take a look for your idle stop set screw and maybe give it a turn or two. Last least for a little bit of lubrication on the outsides of the shafts to deal with any rust or oxidation that may be there.

Oh, and when you say that the motor mount vibrates...  what do you mean by that?  Is the motor rocking back and forth a ton or are you feeling a lot of vibrations in the chasssis?  

If the motor is moving around, yeah -- that mount is shot and let's fix it (I have two spare Heim joints and some steel tube that you could use to make a solid mount if you want to go down that path).  If the motor is not rocking around a ton, but you're getting chassis vibration...  well, that's what a solidly mounted motor feels like and it's probably okay.

In reply to wae :

I'm pretty sure the motor is rocking back and forth- at lower engine speeds the exhaust (which is pretty solid between clamps/welds off the downpipe, so moves with the engine) was banging into the bottom of the floorpan where it is closest to a frame rail. I could be wrong- I'll watch the engine and see for sure, would love to not have to replace that thing.

Regarding the idle set speed- looking at mine's TB, mine appears to have a little cap covering where I'd expect the idle speed screw to be- is the correct/normal? I wanted to up the idle slightly with it, but didn't want to try prying what appears to be a cap off if it isn't one and I could damage the TB...

With the throttle cable that it has had on it throttle application was pretty sloppy, I intend to fix that with the new one since I should be able to get everything nice and snug since I'll have plenty of cable to adjust with. I will clean and lube the TB for good measure.

Bleeding the brakes, build one of these:

http://faculty.ccp.edu/faculty/dreed/Campingart/jettatech/bleeder/index.htm

Should take about an hour, the trick may be getting a spare cap for the master cylinder.  Works a treat.

If you filled the mount and the engine is still moving, I'd be worried that the mounting brackets might be damaged, its worth jacking the front up and poking your head under the front and seeing what's going on.  If you look at the link I posted about replacing that mount, its really not that bad to do.