Aight well my first question. Is it possible to use a turbocoupe bellhousing and and pedal assembly in a pinto to retain the hydraulic clutch? Id rather have the hydraulic clutch instead of cable just for the ease of no adjustments or binding. If i have to i could buy a pedal assembly for like a VW/Hotrod with the resivor mounted on it.
My second question. Can anyone tell me the width of a pinto/bobcat rear end from outer edge to outer edge of the drums? Im wondering this cause i really want to install my turbocoupe 8.8 rear so i can have the disc brakes and because of the fact im gunna be shooting for 300+ WHP when im done and i see a set of slicks blowing the original rear apart. If it wont be possible ill just get a 9inch and go from there.
I researched that rear end width question to death. I found a dozen DIFFERENT answers to it. All I can figure is there are a dozen widths.
lol id go out and measure mine but its storming pretty good atm so ill have to wait till it clears up
I had considered the 87-88 Turbo Coupe hydraulic setup, but it just seemed too difficult. There is all the lever action going on under the dash (have you seen that yet). There is also limited room for the interior mounted, clutch master cylinder, that pretty much parallels the steering column. Unfortunately there is no room under the hood for a regular hydraulic setup.
The bell crank from the earlier Turbo Coupes was so much easier. The stock Pinto clutch cable works with it. People talk about clearance issues with the cable and the crossmember, but a simple bracket solves that. (See picture - notice the side offset of the cable, the height, the angle and on the bottom the anti-rotate in case it ever worked loose)
So, unless you like intensive, complicated fabrication with possible minimal results I would just use the bell crank. Also that hydraulic setup is sold as a set (master, slave and hose) only. I recall it is about $169. Even if you have it, it will cost a lot to replace - some day. Yea, it is nice to use what you have (I'm very cheap that way), but in the long run the bell crank and cable is the wiser way to go. I converted from a C-4 Auto. At the local self serve yard the bellhousing was $16 and the cable $6. The pedals were $12 (got the wrong one's, but traded with Fred).
Tom
well good to know i havent had much time to look under the dash of my bobcat ill see it i can figure out a way to make it fit guess i could alway build a custom 1 off fiberglass dash to make a little more room under there. If i think its not worth the hassel ill just go grab a cable bell some pedals and buy a new cable and be done with that part.
Many have done this swap. If you do a search of my posts "Wittsend" you will find a lot of talk about the 2.3 Turbo swap. I have some pictures too. From what I see your car is a later model. That is an advantage over the '73 and earlier car I had additional complications with.
You doing the right thing by asking questions first. All the best with the swap.
Tom
Only thing i havent settled on is if i wanna just pull the wiring for the engine out of the turbocoupe or if i just wanna dish out 450 bucks for a Wiring harness from The Detail Zone. I thought about buying MS but Svojohn over on turboford has me really wanting to do the SD swap.
I opted to use the '88 Turbo Copue harness against a lot of advice. One reason was I'm cheap and the other is I was intending to use the Turbo Coupe steering column. I'll just say it wasn't easy. I spent DAYS dissecting the wires out. And, in the end I still have about 15 wires "I'm not sure of." The car runs and did on the first key turn, but it was a lot of work. Note, I left the Pinto wiring intact save for intigrating the steering column. The Turbo coupe harness is run/powered as a separate harness.
I'm including a picture of the '88 Turbo Coupe harness at the steering column (a real rats nest) and the '88 turbo coupe harness installed in the Pinto (photo less the intercooler). Notice how burried the brake master cylinder is. Just a lot of wire. I have heard the Murkur harness is the easiest, but requires pin configuration at the computer.
Tom
Did the older cars have smaller engine bays? And ya that looks like a mess under the dash i think id pull my hair out messing with that im a neat freak when it comes to wiring like to make it as simple as possible with the least amount of wires as possible looks like the simplicity of The detail zone harness it is $450+maybe 5 wires to hookup= A WIN to me lol.
if you get a harness out of a merkur xr4ti they are a standalone harness since the body was make overseas and the engine installed in the us..... it makes the swap very simple.... if you use the la3 ecu you only need to repin the connector for i think 3 wires.... then theres 3 wires for power and some grounds... simple.