$5000 budget Mustang by Ron S

7 minute(s) of a 178 minute read

Thanks Tom, here are the lap times from 2 years ago and now. Karl's collaboration with Chis was worth 11 seconds or so, way to go Karl. Its funny how the the fast guys got faster, but not near as much as the medium guys.

6-14-2014

This poor car has set all winter in the garage accumulating dust. Loved the crazy patterns in the dust made by the local beetles. Pulled it out today washed and took it for a cruise, actually made it to a car show today. Forgot how cool our P/T cars are compared to everything else.

6-22-2014

Don't know if anyone else that is running a full floating rear is experiencing the same issues I am. It seems the inner axle seals just won't stop leaking. These rears are unique in the fact that you pack the outer wheel bearings with grease, and seal the gear oil in the center section. They don't want the gear oil getting to the wheel bearings and cleaning the grease out of them. I have replaced the grease seals 3 times, and they just let the oil leak into the wheel bearings constantly.

It was so bad that on my AMX rear I machined the inside of the axle tubes to except Dana 44 front inner axle seals. Figured that is what the OEM did and it should work, but that didn't fix my Mustang. 

On the Mustang I vented the center section, and each individual axle tube thinking they were building pressure blowing past the seals, didn't help. Glued the aluminum seal housing in place thought maybe it was leaking past the O rings, didn't help.

Several calls, and a bunch of investigation later this is what I found. Due to the cambered axles, Nascar uses these funky seals that have the ability to seal even when there is a fair amount of misalignment. It is a dual seal, in which you pack between the two seals with axle grease, installed them today, they seem really nice, will let you know how it goes.  

http://www.sealsit.com/specs/axlehub.pdf

7-12-2014

With all the working on the other car this poor car has been abandoned. Baer sent me a new brake set up before I went to Optima, I never had a chance to adjust anything before it left for Vegas. Car slid all over the track, front tires locked up at every turn. Adjusted the rear bias as much as possible, but still not a lot of rear brake.

While getting ready for Motorstate I decided to check the front to rear brake pressures. The first check, pushing as hard as I could, showed 2100psi front/ 400psi rear. Don't know what they are supposed to be, but I know that's not right.

Decided to ditch the tandem master cylinder with the rear bias adjuster, in favor of a dual master set up. Drilling the holes in the firewall was a real pain, but I did get it done. Made an aluminum cover for that mess, powder coated it, and will assemble it tomorrow.

The original set up definitely never worked considering I've cracked 3 front rotors, and the rears look pristine. This definitely a case of too many irons in the fire, this should have been checked/corrected years ago, just had too much going on. Building the car is easy, sorting it is the hard part.

Made a bunch of calls Andrew, just to find out what others pressures were, and what the percentage differences were. What we have determined is that there is already bias built in to the system because of the piston differences front to back. I'm going to start with a 3/4" masters front and back, and change if need be, after driving it. It has to be better then what I have.

7-15-2014

Got the masters in place, will make up the lines tomorrow. This is getting stupid working on two cars at once, and posting crap.

10-25-2014

Was just finally uploading some pics on to the computer from Bob's event in Pittsburg. Thought they were cool so I would post a few. Some of the best pics I've seen of this car.

10-26-2014

At the Pitt event I took second on the road course, the brakes feel so much better. I can't believe I drove that car that way (and thought it worked ok) for that long. Still tweaking on the alignment a bit trying to get the camber where I'm happy with it. If you look in a couple pics the inside tire is far from flat which I can't think is optimum.

I put the 2 separate masters on the car and started with 3/4f / 3/4/r. After checking the pressures with the balance bar in the middle. 3/4F-3/4R Masters. The pressures were 1050 rear / 950 front. Adjusting the bar I could get it 1200 F/ 800R and then reverse it 1200R/ 800F with just a turn of the knob. It did seem to favor the rear pressure wise, so I may change the rear to 7/8. After changing to 3/4f / 7/8r the with the adjuster in the middle the offsets got worse high in the front low in the rear. Ended up with 7/8f / 3/4r with 1050/1050 on pressures. makes no sense to me, but that is how it ended up.