$5000 budget Mustang by Ron S

8 minute(s) of a 178 minute read

I took 4" 1/4 wall tubing and ovalled it in the press, and welded it in the 2x4 box tubing. The way the truck arm suspension runs, the frame ends up doubled at that section, made it a little hard to fit mufflers though.

4-19-2011

Got most of the metal formed and fitted, I'm so used to looking at this car, I forgot how far from stock it really is. Had to stretch and roll the quarters, and add several inches of material. Hopefully I get the welding finished this week, and start smearing mud.

4-27-2011

There must be something wrong with me, but I always thought this car looked like it had a flabby butt. Always wanted to clean the lines up on the rear of the car. So while I'm fixing the quarter, I reshaped it to kind of give it a more athletic as$, the only problem is that it required cutting the bottom off the good quarter to give it the same shape. Plus, I will have to make a new more streamline splash panel. The sad part is 99% of people won't even see the difference.

4-30-2011

The rear of the car has a belly pan on it, I wanted the quarters to flow right into that bellypan. Which left the quarter higher in the front then in the back, I will have to fab a new pan to work with shape of the new quarters. You can see the difference in the pics.

6-5-2011

Busy season at work, working 12 hour days, haven't had 5 minutes to touch this poor car. Finally got the engine together and set in this weekend, no more Ford blue paint (just bad mojo). Looks like I will probably be at Motorstate in primer.

6-12-2011

Redid alot of the dry sump stuff, which required adding a remote filter, and changing all of my oil lines. Alot of the fitting and ends were special order which has drug this whole process out alot longer then I was hoping. Finally fired the new engine last night only to find two quarts of oil on the shop floor. Appears one of the factory crimped ends on one of the lines is leaking like crazy, and will have to be replaced. 

Everyone said to just use the push lock hose, that stuff just gives me the willies on oil or fuel. I used teflon lined, full bore braded, with factory crimped type ends because I was affraid of blowing an oil line. Which now kind of screwed me, because this car needs to be on the trailer Thurs, heading to Motorstate. I can't put the rest of the car together beause of the location of this line, and I still have to order a new line. Can't really fire the engine to break it in, so I'll be in Michigan with an untested, primered POS, that probably has 2 break in miles on it right before it goes on the trailer.

I just have to laugh, $5000 budget my as$. The new ARE oil pan requires way more lines then my old set up, this thing has gotten way too exotic, from under the car it looks like a braided line snake pit. It turned out to be a very sanitary installation, but with all those lines I was bound to have one of the fittings leak. Sorry, I just needed to vent, and my wife just doesn't get it.

6-13-2011

Got the oil line today, and finally got to put a few miles on it. Seems to run pretty good, and be leak free, at least for now. The more I look at the roughed in body work, the rougher it looks, but I'll take care of that when I get back from Michigan. Its funny, I've got the new belly pan made for under the fuel tank, but I don't want to install it until I have the new splash panel fabricated. I love when I open the trunk, and look at the ground its very Flintstones.

6-30-2011

I really didn't post anything about it because it was kind of embarasing, but on my first qualifying run the car overheated (for sum reason the fans didn't come on) so I had to come in early. I jumped out the fan relays, the fans came on OK. So I propped the hood up a couple inches to let the heat out, and ran the car around the pits about 3 mph. a gust of wind came up and took the hood up and the windsheild out. I only got one qualifying run, everyone else got four. The car felt strong, it would have been much faster after the four runs, if I wasn't such a bonehead.

SCCA weren't going to let me autox Sunday until I threatened to kick the windsheild the rest of the way out and go roadster. The SCCA guy didn't know what to say, he finally agree to let me go if I kept the face sheild down.

A smart as$ buddy made these for me when I got home, Herb and Carol got a few good pics of the car before the unfortunate hood pin incedent .

7-1-2011

I did post some pics in the Motorstate section of the board. Here are more that Herb & Carol took. There is a before and after shot, the first is from Motorstate 2 years ago. I think it looks more petite then it did, but the belly pan,splash panel and rear bumper aren't installed yet.

Edit:You did mean the cars back side right? I know Mary didn't post those pics of her backside!!

7-17-2011

While I was fixing the cowl and windsheild that the hood screwed up, I desided to put some wipers on this car. It seems every event I go to a monsoon seems to follow, hell I had to drive in Michigan at 80 mph, with my fist holding the winsheild from falling in my lap, in driving rain, trying not to rearend Steevo.

The problem was that the inner cowl section that the wipers attach to was removed off of this car to get the engine back far enough. I ended up using a 2005 Dodge Neon wiper motor and linkage, welded to my roll cage, getting the ratios correct was a pain but it works pretty good.

When I painted the cowl I went body color instead of flat black, because I think I'm going to paint the whole car blue, and put the white GT350 stripes over the top for something different(not sure if I will like it or not, so I think I'll do the stripes in vinyl).