Another Mustang, LS3 power

In reply to Patientzero :

Ah ok, I thought it looked like those, but agreed, looked way better than I thought it would! 

Isn't there a weight minimum for CAM-C?

In reply to infinitenexus :

Yes, 3300lbs.  I was unknowingly very much underweight.  Now that my car is moved to CAM-T for 2020, I have a 3000lb minimum.

250 lbs underweight and still not winning except the one event in the rain.  Moving to CAM-T is the right call for these cars.

Ahhhhhhhhh, and since the SN95 is a continuation of the old Fox platform it's allowed.  Never really thought of it that way.  CAM-T makes a lot more sense, a 3300lb SN95 would be a pig.

Patientzero said:

I started looking at other options.  I'm not a fan of plastidip.  I don't have the facilities or knowledge to paint it myself.  The last real option was a vinyl wrap.  I started looking around and ended up getting a quote for $2900 to do the car.  Thanks but no thanks.  I watched about 6 Youtube videos and decided to give it a shot myself.  How hard can it be right?

I started by ordering just a small piece to try it out and see how it looked.  I went with red because I thought it might help hide small imperfections since the car was already red.  This was my first try wrapping anything ever.

 

I'm highly interested in where you got the vinyl wrap from.  I ironically have a red car that I don't want to be red.

Edit: I read more and found the brand.  Looks great and affordable!

This is a cool car. Thanks for sharing 

In reply to GoLucky :

Thanks for reading through all my rambling.  I'll get more posted up as soon as I can.  I don't have access to my pictures from work.

Patientzero said:

Over the next couple months I basically went to every event I could find just to shake the cobwebs out and give the car a thorough shakedown.

This is from an event with Ozark Region SCCA

 

I'm famous now, look at the purty white FRS in the background!

Unfortunately we didn't get to chat while you were there, had no idea another GRM guy was out and about. Let me know if you join us in the future.

Also agree that location was pretty terrible. I'm hoping they don't schedule any more there next year, I know I won't be back.

In reply to captainawesome :

I plan to make it down there at some point when you run in Neosho.  I won't be going back to Springfield though.

First on the agenda was some new control arms.  The car had an AJE K-member and controls arms on it when I bought it.  I felt that was good enough up until now and decided on some of MM forward offset control arms to try and help with the camber situation. The AJE control arms came off along with the STOCK rear control arms.  I should have upgraded these long ago and just never got to it.

The new control arms from MM seriously look fantastic.  I upgraded to the delrin bushings on the front and bought their "road race" arms for the rear.  This car see's little if any street driving anymore so NVH is not a concern.  Lap times are #1 priority. 

Stock rear lower control arm compared to the Maximum Motorsports control arm.  From the factory the rear sway bar bolts to the lower control arms on these car.  Since I opted for the version that doesn't have this provision I will also have to change to an adjustable style sway bar.

After several emails back and forth with Jack from Maximum Motorsports, he recommended I change sway bars to help eliminate some understeer.  The Steeda bars came off and I ordered an Eibach to replace it.  I will wait to order the rear bar once I get the car back on the ground and have my final weights and get those numbers to Jack.  He also recommended I go down to a 275lb spring on the rear from my 325lb.

Keeping with my mission to simplify, I pulled all the brake lines off the front of the car.  The ABS had been deleted long ago but now it was time to do something about all these extra brake lines.

During teardown I found one of my soft lines had come into contact with the wheel and chewed up the outside plastic cover so I got an order in for some new longer lines so I could route them away from the wheels better.

With the factory lines out of the way I got to work bending up some new lines and mounted my Baer proportioning valve that's been sitting on the shelf for 2 years.  I only had to make 4 or 5 trips to Oreilly's and Napa to get all the fittings I needed, lol.

Factory bumper support removed and replaced with the MAF Racing piece.  These are also available powdercoated but I'm going to be welding on some splitter support rods and a tow hook so I got the unfinished one.

Another goal that I hadn't really mentioned yet is to improve cooling.  The car never runs hot but it gets up to temp and the fan runs constantly, it doesn't cycle.  Even in 90+ degree weather, the highest I've seen it is 208 but I'd feel better if the fan would pull it down more than 203ish.  I want to start doing more track events with this car and eventually Time Trials so I want to make sure the cooling never becomes an issue.  To help this I'm laying the radiator down and adding some more vents in the hood along with boxing the radiator in to the bumper to prevent air from going around it.

To be able to get the top of the radiator tucked under the core support I had to start out by cutting off the filler neck and filling the hole.  I will relocate this later.

I also made a couple modifications to my overflow tank.  The way it was, the radiator was just dumping into it.  Once the coolant was in the overflow the radiator would be slightly low and the coolant could never get back.  To make this work like a factory system I drilled and tapped a 1/8npt hole in the top and installed a fitting a had in my toolbox with a piece of tube already attached to it.  This would get the overflow below fluid level so once the radiator cooled and pressure dropped it would draw coolant back into the radiator to keep it full. 

The fitting on the bottom right in this picture has a tube that runs almost to the bottom of the tank.  The tube in the opening of this picture is for overflow if the tank gets completely full.  It allows it to vent to atmosphere also.

For the vent/overflow, I drilled a hole through the center of the drain plug on the bottom of the tank and welded a piece of tubing that goes almost to the top of the tank.  This is the tube you can see in the first picture above.

To mount the radiator I made an aluminum frame inside the core support to make it easier to transition the aluminum sheeting into the bumper.

I welded these pieces of 1x3 rectangle tubing to the radiator for the top mounting brackets.

On the bottom side I made these little L brackets out of steel that bolt to the frame rails.  Brackets made from some more pieces of 1x3 got welded onto the end tanks and the whole radiator is supported on rubber isolators to help prevent stress cracks from vibration.

The final angle on the radiator is 20 degrees.  I hoping this should help the air make the turn and get out the hood.

I needed to put a new filler neck on.  It basically ended up in the stock location.

With the radiator mounted I needed to get the oil cooler and power steering cooler mounted.  I didn't want them hanging out in no man's land again so I decided to tuck them in from of the radiator to keep them protected.  Plus, they were previously behind the fog light holes but those were getting repurposed for brake cooling ducts.

Then I started making templates for the sheet aluminum to box this all in and seal it up as best as possible.

Then I made templates for the front half that channels down to the bumper opening.  This will be removable with 4 bolts.

I ordered some brake cooling ducts from Full Tilt Boogie.  These will get hooked up to the factory fog light holes.

The new rules for CAM came out and my car got moved to CAM-T.  I get a 300lb weight break now along with the ability to have a front splitter up to 6".

I had to get supplies.

I basically traced the shape of the bumper onto the 1/2" Birch plywood and squared up all the lines.  Then I came forward 5 1/2" to make sure I'm within the rules.

Here's the splitter mocked up on the car,  It's just sitting on jack stands.  The next step is getting the splitter mounted to the car and then water-proofing it and wrapping or painting it.

I found 4lbs by trimming some extra material off the bottom of the front bumper.  This will at least help offset some of the weight of the splitter.  I'll weight the splitter once I figure out how I'm going to mount it.  I have a couple ideas but I want it to be quickly removable for loading on the trailer.

I wanted to add some additional bracing to my AJE k-member, mainly where the lower control arm mounts.  It's just kinda hanging out in space and I can't imagine it's very rigid for the lateral loads this car sees.

The plan was to triangulate this area to stiffen it up.

I cut a couple pieces of 1" .120" wall tubing and welded them in.

Then I ran into a hiccup with the new front lower control arms.  The AJE control arms and K-member use a little 1/2" bolt where as the Maximum Motorsports control arms(and factory) use a 5/8" (16mm) bolt.  So, the MM control arms won't bolt up to the AJE k-member and there is no good way to modify it.  You could possibly have spacers made to fit in the MM arms and use a 1/2" bolt but that seems sketchy at best.

The head of the 5/8" bolt wont even fit inside the tubing this K-member is made out of.

And there isn't much material here to drill out either.

Really the best option here is switching to the MM k-member.  It wasn't what I had planned to do this winter but I think it will be best in the long run.  Another issue I've suspected with the AJE k-member is that the track width is more narrow than factory.  The reason I believe this is because my MM camber plates are maxed out and I can only get about -2.2 degrees of camber.  I should be able to get -3-4 degrees.

With that, this thread is completely up to date.  I will continued to add to it as I go.  I should be able to work on mounting the splitter tomorrow.

Awesome work! I've always had a soft spot for the "Edge" mustangs. I just wish I had your fab skill!

Sucks about the hardware snafu AFTER welding in braces. I guess that's a desirable selling point to the future owner.

In reply to captainawesome :

True, I don't imagine it will be difficult to sell.  I do wish I hadn't already sold the control arms so I'd have a package deal.  At least they are still available from AJE.

Great thread.  Really enjoyed reading this, and helped the afternoon go by at work!

Can't wait to see where you go with this next. 

In reply to andyb72 :

That's why I posted it.  I enjoy reading about other people's projects.  I think some of the stuff I'm doing is pretty cool so I thought somebody else might like to read about mine.  I do have some pretty big plans before next season but I don't want to spoil it just in case I can't swing it.  So I guess we'll just have to wait and both be surprised, haha.

Awesome build so far!  I need to look through the wrap thread.  I'm debating between spray bomb and wrap for my Civic.