Bought a 2000 SSEi last night! Already regret it.

[CMNTMXR57]

I ran a 3.25" Intense Modular Pulley on stock manifolds and cat for years on my GTP and had absolutely ZERO issues. Car pulled 12psi pf boost and I ran 13.9's consistently along with a few other mods I had. Car had 107k when it was totaled.

I fail to see what the massive issue is. Would there have been more in it had I ran headers and no cats/gutted cats, yes. But it was also a DD and I didn't want headers and rasp.

[buickman104]

I have a buddy who would be interested in buying your wheels off once you find the wheels you want.

[LaserSVT]

All I want are some latter 5 spoke SSEi wheels. Would love some GXP wheels but I can tell I am already gonna spend more than I had planned so those are out the door. These wheels are in excellent shape being a Texas car and all but I hate the way they look.

[nos4blood70]

Looks like the car fell into good hands. I wonder the tune looks like for a pulley that small with no other mods.

[Zeik75]

Probably just need to reses the tire pressure monitor on the DIC. Just push the mode button till you get to vehicql data then select till you get to tire pressure and homd reset till its done.

[LaserSVT]

Probably just need to reses the tire pressure monitor on the DIC. Just push the mode button till you get to vehicql data then select till you get to tire pressure and homd reset till its done.

Thank you. I was just reading about that before bed last night. I have severe car OCD/ADD and need to know everything about each car I own right away so I can hury up and get bore with them. LOL

[LaserSVT]

This car is working on my last nerve I swear. LOL

Got the coolant done and then went to change the passenger rear window motor to the front driver because they had the same part number but I discovered they are different after yanking the rear. What a PITA. So just slapped in the new window motor. Got the front mount replaced and swapped out the tie rods and fixed the fog lights.

So I started to vac down the AC system. Couldn't pull a vac so I put the car in the air and see the AC hose manifold is cocked sideways into the compressor because the pressure side line does not fit into the compressor. Why you may ask? Well because the lying butt hole I bought it from must have gotten a Grand Prix compressor which has a couple mm smaller pressure port. Yet he swears it worked. Dingleberry.
So I order a new compressor and get it all setup. System blows ICE cold..... on the passenger side. *bangs head on wall* So joy, now there is yet another $150 for the dang blend door actuator I have to order.
Screw it, I want to drive it so I take it out and man does it run like crap. See a misfire on 4 and go to check the wire and sure enough the spark plug side retainer is no longer attached to the wire. So gotta get another set of wires on it too I guess.

At least it sounds better. My shop was slammed today so I could only sporadically work on the car and was only able to weld in one muffler. Put a welding glove over the other side to see if it was quieter and man was it nicer.


So the to do list is slowly winding down.
1. Weld in driver side muffler
2. Replace blend door actuator.
3. Replace spark plug wires.
4. Redo the headliner.
5. Have my detail guys work their magic on it.

Hmmm, think that's it!

[macksdaddy77]

wonder if ur plugs are a colder set or stock..

[LaserSVT]

I bought 605s and gapped them to .055 myself. Thought I could get away with reusing the wires since they seemed of nice quality. Now I know what that "Uh-oh" was from my brother when I asked him to pull the rear wires. When I asked what uh-oh ment he instantly replied with "Nothing."

Oh, knew I forgot something. I also have to do the rear shocks.

[Zeik75]

I understand your pain. I just got done putting in the engine and newly self rebuilt trans back into my 88 and its nothing but nightmares. Won't rev past 2k in gear, trans shifts ok and i have all 4 gears but no reverse. Also the rack and pinion i rebuilt leaks like crazy......

But i aligned the front tires by sight perfectly, literally better than any shop has done so i got that going for me at least


Edit: don't mean to thread jack just figured we could be angry car buddies LOL

[LaserSVT]

I was surprised with my eyball alignmet as well. Steering wheel is centered and I appear to be around 1* toe in or maybe even o*. Car tracks perfect.

Downside is as I was pushing the wheels back and forth to install the tie rods the dang rack spit out a little fluid through the boot on the driver side. Wont due it with steering input commands at all but if I push on the wheel (tire) to full left lock it spits a little fluid out.

Oh well, something for the future. I am in the car too deep now. I was going to just fix the minor stuff and sell it to find one that was more loved but when I see something wrong I just HAVE to fix it and even buying parts at cost and doing all the labor I will be in it $3500ish and that's ALL the money and I still need to reshoot the hood and bumpers and replace the tail lights so nobody would buy it for what I am in it. Meh, at least I know it will be a solid DD when I am done.

On the upside I can see this car was well loved most of its life. No carbon build up or sludge. Underside is beautiful and not a hint of rust plus someone spent a lot of coin modding it before the last owner got it and abused it. I was worried when the car ran out of gas on the test drive and he threw $5 of regular in it.

I can also see the manifolds have been removed before and the car has Intense header heat boots for the wires so I would bet the car used to have headers on it.
When I get headers I am going to remove the stock cat and just keep the 3" high flow one in it to help keep the noise down.

[LaserSVT]

Can I assume my TC button is stuck "ON"? The light on the button is on and when I break the tires loose the dash will show low traction but if I press the button the light (on the button) never turns off.

[Zeik75]

Could be. If it were unplugged there would be no light on the button however the TC would be on for the car by default. If you push the button there should be a light on the dash that says trac off i believe.

[LaserSVT]

Well at least the car has personality. I got the wires done and then safety inspected the car so I could get her out on the road. The first REAL drive in her. Love the power and how the car fits. Blower sounds sweet. I need to balance the tires though cause at 100 (which came WAY quicker than I expected) they are shakey and I know everything is tight suspension wise save for the rear shocks.
I just got back and sent out another $300 for the rest of its stuff. One find was brand new OEM shocks with new mounts for $50. :D Blend door was also only $50 so that's a couple good finds. Missed out on a $30 mint center console lid so gonna hunt some more.

I also ran my scanner and while I only did one WOT run through second and most of third I only saw 2* of KR. Engine was at temp but blower wasn't heat soaked so I imagine Texas traffic in the summer wont be too good for it but I still need headers anyway. Think I am going to order a short stack cooler too.

[2000Silverbullet]

If you want these old cars to survive you have to work hard on them and keep up the maintenance. Either that or spend $40k - $60k on a new one. Well worth the effort.

[LaserSVT]

If you want these old cars to survive you have to work hard on them and keep up the maintenance. Either that or spend $40k - $60k on a new one. Well worth the effort.

Sweet car! Couldn't have picked a better color or year! :p

Your mod list is pretty close to what I want. I don't really wanna hassle with the GEN V changeover stuff so in a year or so I will get a rebuilt and ported version of what I have. Believe mine is a little tired only making 10psi wit that 3.3" pulley. Also don't plan on meth, I want a short stack instead. I know the meth cools better but as a DD in Texas I want the constant cooling. Still debating about TOGs or just get the SDs. Gonna do the rockers and springs and pump and injectors but that's all a few months down the road. Gotta recoupe from the cash I just spent plus I am trying to buy someone one heres wheels. :D


As for old performance cars. With the exception of one of my Cobras and one of my Corvettes they have all been labors of love. My last Lincoln Mark VIII I dumped 12k into not including the car. Of course I installed a twin screw, tons of suspension and chasis goodies, big brakes with some high dollar rotors, Borla exhaust etc etc etc. Of course they always need a little something here and there. Now that I have taken care of the majority of the SSEi typical faults I think she will be a solid car.

Warped rotors are bugging me so in the next week or two I am doing the GXP brakes. Don't think I will be driving the car for another week yet anyway. Too much stuff at work to have time for it and tomorrow I just want to pull out the stereo and install some new bulbs in it and hope I get the unlock procedure right.

[2000Silverbullet]

Good plans. Be aware that even water to air inter oilers will heat soak in city driving.
I often wonder why one spends money on upgrades that have only one return. That ear to ear grin.

[LaserSVT]

Well I was planning on taking the day off but couldn't help myself.

Went ahead and swapped out the nasty cabin filter to one of those Fram Baking Soda ones, did a new intake filter since the one it had was nasty, swapped out the fuel filter, installed the new plug wires (car seems to like them) and then did the stereo bulb replacement. Must have done something wrong because the clock seems to not quite light up all the way.
After that I finished aligning the sunroof so it now opens and closes without assistance. Then cleaned up the engine bay a bit and called it a day..... after taking a quick romp on the highway.

[nos4blood70]

Did you bend the bulbs back the same way behind the screen?

Otherwise, looks like you're making great progress on the car.

[LaserSVT]

I layed the bulbs out just how the old ones came out. I may have touched the terminals for the LCD and a couple are dirty or it could be from the previous owner beating on it because he said that's how it worked sometimes. He was special.

I may pull it out again, really just wanted to see my audio adjustments so I am not too worried. Besides, Radio Shack only had two packages of the lights so there are still two on the bottom of the deck burned out. When they get back in stock I will open it up and see whats wrong.