It begins....

thanks eric.

Still waiting for some detailed vids!

It's been so long that I've had the car on the track I kinda forgot how to use the video camera! I took one video last weekend just showing the car driving around. I need to figure out how to hook up my external mic to the camera to alleviate the wind noise. Search under my name on youtube and you'll find that one.

I'm crawling under the car tonight to replace the passenger side primary O2 sensor. It sure is nice to be able to go to the local auto parts store and get what I need and for a smoking low price too.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Man, i sure wish mine drove that smoothly (i need a tune, too).

You gotta get some video editing in there though

Yeah I am hte suck at computer video editing etc.

Replaced the pre cat O2 sensor tonight. Damn Eric, you must have small hands to get that zip tie in there!

The exhaust sounded pretty quiet from in the car. What does it sound like from the outside?

It's pretty loud actually, both inside and outside the car. It's got a real bark to it from outside and you can definitely hear it inside. I had the windows down in that video and the camera picks up a lot of wind noise since it's mounted on my rollbar directly behind and to the right of the drivers seat.

I have an external mic that I need to figure out how to hook up, I'll attach it to the rear license plate frame, that way you'll hear the exhaust and no wind noise.

Well done handling the wife regarding project cost

First pic is how the car looks now. I replaced the hood pins with aero latches. They look great, I can't lose the pins and it's very obvious from inside the car whether they're latched or not.

Second pic is the fresh paint on my drivers side. I had an "Oops!" moment and backed my car up into my tire trailer. The drivers fender had peeling clear coat, so I just had the whole side painted. They also repainted the mirrors and I'm blown away at how good they look!

Last pic is the proper badging...

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

I just bought some areocatches too... Where they a pain in the butt to install?

Yes, very much so, at least where I have mine. The hood is multilayered there, so cutting it sucked, then I had to use longer hardware than supplied, which meant several trips to the hardware store to get what I needed.

Great... sounds like it's going to be fun! They look good though

Nice work, looking good

are those 8s and 10s or 9s and 10s??

8's and 10's.

My race wheels are 17x9 on all 4 wheels.

thanks. I am looking for a set of 9s and 10s. I currently have a set of four nines as well.

Well, I've had the car on the road now for about 9 months. (Although it was mostly garage for 4-5 months during the winter)

I've slowly worked through most of the little niggles.

#1 Needed to install an adjustable brake proportioning valve as the Mustang hydroboost system sends too much brake pressure to the rear.
On the street you'll never feel it, on hard braking on the track you notice it immediately!

#2 Took awhile for the power steering to bleed. Like a LONG time! Pump was making lots of noise and I was constantly refilling the reservoir, but now that's it bled it works great and is totally silent.

#3 Finally have the check engine light out. This was quite a long battle and the car was throwing numerous codes. The latest one was P1336 which is a crankshaft learning procedure code.

From what I could gather it has no effect on how the engine runs and is used for misfire diagnosis. It requires a +12V signal from the brake pedal switch to a lead into the PCM. (I'll post which one if people want) This code pops up more often if you're using a PCM that's not the one the motor came with.

Since there are no ill effects and I don't have that wire hooked up, I just turned the code off.

#4 The car wasn't getting a MAF or O2 sensor signal. I actually didn't realize this until I had the car on the dyno here and we were logging it. Turns out the connector in the fuse block that runs both had worked free. This caused a 40rwhp drop, but the motor ran fine and I literally couldn't tell there was a problem driving the car on the street.

#5 Bolts worked free from the motor mounts, allowing the steering shaft to rub against the header. Not sure if this is due to the vibration, or improper torqueing of the bolts after my latest cam install. Regardless Eric sent me his newly designed motor mount/uprights, so I was able to "upgrade" this.

Heading out to the track again next weekend and it's a track much closer to sea level! I'm looking forward to gaining 100hp and seeing what the car feels like there!

Great to hear the kinks are being worked out, I have a couple of my own but my project is finally staying alive.

Where are you located I forgot?

I'm in Denver CO. Due to altitude I'm down 18% power wise compared to sea level.

Ah, so you finally figured out what it was! Glad to hear it!!

That sounds like it was probably a tough problem to track down. Glad you got it figured out.

Thanks! Now I just need to get the car aligned and corner weighed again. After that is just putting on mileage and see what else pops up. I feel pretty confident though, I've driven it close to 1000 miles so far I bet.

I also swapped the S2 transmission for a Turbo S transmission. Much better gear ratios for the LS motor, but I wish I could add an overdriven 6th gear to drop rpm by another 1000 for freeway cruising.

It'd be great to turn 2200 rpm at 80mph on the freeway...

Any idea what that did to your current dyno? Did it throw you over the power limit for your class?

What kind of RPMs are you getting on the freeway currently? With the n/a 5th gear and 285/35 tires i'm about about 25-2700rpms on the freeway. Not ideal, but probably not worth fixing either.

You've got a solid foundation. I've had mine on the road for about 3 years now (in two different bodies) and it gets a little better every weekend. Hang in there, you'll have all the bugs sorted in no time...

I haven't dynoed since I did the tranny swap, but it shouldn't make any real difference.

Right now I see 3200 rpm at 80 mph with 285-35-18 rear tires. With the S2 tranmission I saw 3600 rpm at 80 mph.

I'm hitting the track this weekend, should be fun!

I meant by fixing your MAF/O2 wiring. You were dynoing like 240rwhp so you swapped cams and got like 270-something, IIRC. Then you fixed your sensor wiring, did that throw you over your limit?

did you swap fifth gears in your turbo trans? It helps highway speeds alot. I can already tell the ratio of the whole box is better but 70mph at around 2300-2500 rpm on stock size tires.