Okay, some word vomit updates.
It's a 1988 Turbo Coupe that was a factory automatic car. The PO swapped in the complete T5 setup from a manual 87 TC (yes, even the rare as hen's teeth hydraulic clutch setup, the only fox body to have one). It retains the deeper 3.73 rear end of the automatic, has a bigger .60 A/R T3 turbo from an 86 TC, and has a manual boost controller cranked to 18 psi.
This car is a berkeleying riot. I didn't realize how much I missed turbochargers and stupid amounts of boost.
I have it titled, licensed, and tagged (vintage plates, natch!) and insured (Hagerty - $64/year). Drove it on a 150 mile road trip yesterday, flawlessly.
This is going to be good!
Jealous.
I can't own any more turbo cars. They've all gone "POP" on me eventually.
I miss my 850T. It went "urp!" at only 14lbs and lots of miles.
You're making me excited to get my 2.3 running. It's the bigger turbo, has the Hydraulic TC, and I have 4.10's. Just going to be short a few lbs of boost. Looks fantastic though.
The same turbo and boost level I ran on my turbo coupe swapped foxbody. It was a blast for sure.
In reply to ShawnG :
That's the great part about Lima's! Iron block, iron head, so when it pops it's just a head gasket. Back in the day, I could change one on my car in under an hour.
ARP head studs and a MLS gasket is all you need for 25+ psi shenanigans.
In reply to Javelin :
Please don't feed my demons.
You know I have an aluminum Esslinger head and cam for one of these.
akylekoz said:You know I have an aluminum Esslinger head and cam for one of these.
Why isn't it in a box headed to me yet?!?
These motors are easy to work on. At our last Lemons race we decided to change heads after 9 successful hours of racing on saturday. Pulled off the track at 6:30, started working, enjoying pizza in the trailer by 8:30 with a running car.
I got this head from Danny Shields as part of Mark Lasota's garage sale so it needs to get some GRM love.
The Esslinger head is currently as cast fully assembled. It is going to get a mild port job this winter by Jim Vakeko. Jim worked for Roush back in the day and knows these heads. Jim's biggest business is power boat heads now but I asked him if he would clean this one up for me.
My plan is to put this on our spare motor, give it a go and see if it gets us where we want to be power wise. These heads are a lot lighter than the iron heads which will make a difference on our car also.
How about I test run it and keep you in mind when we ditch the 4 cylinder and go V8.
The cam in it is for a turbo motor, how well will it work on an NA motor?
In reply to akylekoz :
Not very for NA. Turbo cams have little to no overlap, which is good for boost and bad for cylinder scavenging. Slap another cam in it, takes like 30 seconds?
Turns out I have a Camcraft 220/220 hydraulic cam, for a turbo 2.3.
Lets find a good road course cam that I can swap in.
What about the hydraulic clutch system is so rare??
jfryjfry said:What about the hydraulic clutch system is so rare??
Only fox chassis to ever have a hydraulic clutch from the factory. All others were cable clutch, including the 83-86 Thunderbird Turbo Coupes.
So a 2-year only production, of a rare trim level, of a rare car. All of the parts of the clutch system are NLA.
I always liked those cars. For some reason, back when the turbo coupes first came out I got a letter from Ford inviting me to a wine and cheese reception at a local dealer where they had one on display. I got a set of nice crystal wine glasses as a door prize, and then I got to take the car home for the weekend. 
As it happened I was going out of town that weekend to attend a wedding, so it was perfect timing - I put hundreds of miles on that thing.
In reply to stuart in mn :
Do you still have those glasses?
These are cool. Love me a good Lima. Love me a good turbo. Love me some 80s Ford. Keep it up!
I'm not saying you should bring it to the Challenge next year, but I'll just say that Turbo Coupes are VERY Radwood-eligible. 
Yesss, more Turbo 2.3 goodness! Once I get some good tuning in my car, I'm pumped to get the boost closer to 18psi in my XR4Ti. Now that it's not blazing hot in TX, maybe it won't heat soak so much.
Clutch hydraulic parts are very interchangeable. If the master cylinder bore is the same as the original the worst case is you make an adapter plate and extended pushrod. Same with the slave, although some Fords use a snap ring to retain into the bell housing. Answer there is to take a conventional flange mount slave to the lathe to remove the excess and cut snap ring grooves. Look at the Pegasus catalog to see the master cylinders that are available. They list a couple of slaves as well, but there are more options than they have. Lotus Elan parts suppliers like GRM advertiser RD Enterprises have at least one size snap ring style slave as well.
In reply to TurnerX19 :
The clutch fork inside the transmission is the big problem.
Javelin said:In reply to stuart in mn :
Do you still have those glasses?
I do. They don't say Ford on them or anything, they're just nice quality glasses.
I would love to get to play with a Turbo Lima.
That's all the input I have at this point, sorry.
You'll need to log in to post.
