I present "The Project"

[Huskinhano]

Re: I present "The Project"

I replace the PCV which seemed to help idle quality a bit. I also noticed that the accelerator pump was at it's minimum setting. I moved the rod to the middle setting. This helped a lot but still running quite lean. Still has that lean surge and stumble and bucking. Yesterday I ordered a calibration kit off ebay so I'm looking forward to getting it.

This week I'm going on vacation to PA for a week and they're predicting a blizzard with 40 MPH winds with up to 18" of snow starting early on Sunday morning here in NE NJ > So I guess it's going to be a while before I get back to working on it.

[Huskinhano]

Re: I present "The Project"

It's alive! Been a while since I updated and it's about time since I've been working on it. I got it to run much better, I bought a calibration kit and richen the carb cruise circuit by 1.5% which has made a big difference. I replaced 2 plugs that weren't firing for what ever reason. I also set the toe. It was toe out by 1" :o I used 2 pieces of aluminum angle I got from a network rack I took apart at my last job. I though 2 big chunks of aluminum would come in handy down the road. I used a wooden folding rule to measure. Total cost of my toe gauge was $15, it would have been nothing but my folding rule is out of state. I set the toe at 1/8" Steers much better! I',m not going to check caster or camber right now even though I believe it needs a ton more caster. I plan on lowering the UCA so why bother setting caster/camber now?

So this afternoon, I made a camera mount out of a piece of wood stake clamped to the pass seat and clamp my cam to that along with propping the pass seat so I wouldn't be filming the head liner. Here's my first youtube clip, sorry I was in a rush.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEofBBFow2c

So, is it BS approved? can I put a BS sticker in the window?

[JOES66FURY]

Re: I present "The Project"

very nice, sounds like it runs real smooth...


Your neighborhood looks just like the one my grandma lives in in Pennsylvania....

[Huskinhano]

Re: I present "The Project"

very nice, sounds like it runs real smooth...


Your neighborhood looks just like the one my grandma lives in in Pennsylvania....

Thanks Joe, it's running OK. The engine is a little tired. The rear axle needs attention. I think I have some worn axle and carrier bearings and maybe in the trans as well. Next up is to put the GM style HEI dist I got on ebay for $40. That should help especially since I can open the gap to .050"

So where in PA? We're in the process of moving out there. Hopefully by fall

[JOES66FURY]

Re: I present "The Project"

My whole family is from a small city in Beaver County called Aliquippa, used to be the largest steel producing city in America in its heyday. We are form all around that small city, but all the little towns and burgs are aboutt 30 minutes from downtown Pittsburgh. I miss rural towns...be careful where you move back there, some counties have insanely high school, and property taxes.

[Huskinhano]

Re: I present "The Project"

Insanely high taxes??? Why do think I want to leave NJ? We lucked out. The house we bought last year in PA is in Wyoming county, about 20 miles from Scranton. We're in technically Washington Township but part of the Tunkhannock borough. I get all the good services but at the cheapest tax rate because of the particular town we're in has some big businesses. It's a lot cheaper then NJ!


Getting back to my car, the exhaust has a pretty nice sound to it. Walker Dynomax with stock exhaust manifolds. It has a nice deep tone that won't piss the neighbors off but a nice growl when you get into it. It really didn't pick it up in the clip.

[SuperBuickGuy]

Re: I present "The Project"

nice cruise man

[Huskinhano]

It's been a while since I did or posted anything on the Mustang. Life and a shortage of money has been getting in the way but I want to get going on it again and have some fun actually driving it. I've got it in my garage up on jack stands in preperation to lower the UCA pivot points to improve the geometry by raising the roll center and improving negative camber gain. For you non Ford guys, this was developed by the Ford engineer back in the 60's when the Mustang was penned. Originally the Mustang was suppose to have an independent rear suspension and this modification to the UCA pivot points was to compliment the rear IRS. However the bean counters reared their ugly head and nixed the IRS because they thought about 10,000 Mustangs would be sold, not nearly 1 million between 65 and 66. So Arning, who was the suspension engineer passed this mod to Shelby which has become known as the "Shelby" drop. The pivot points are lowered 1" down and 1/8" back. This is all the stock UCA ball joint angle will handle. The ideal spot from what I can tell is 1-3/8". But since I'm limited on tire size....

I'm also planning on replacing the front struts on the LCA with adjustable ones with rod ends to both reduce friction and make it work smoother and more accurate. I'm going to install slightly stiffer springs as well. I'll post pixs when I get them.



I made this spring compressor a few years ago when I parted ot a 65 coupe. I used the bottom of a shock, welded a 9/16" threaded rod to it. The top support is a 1.5" piece of electrical unistrut and I'm using a outer wheel bearing to reduce friction.



The bearing is a BR1. I don't know the specific aplication. I went to NAPA and asked them to find a bearing that would fit. I had to use a 1" lock nut from an electrical fitting to act as a spacer since the total width of the inner race was the widest point of the bearing and the nut would bind on the inner race. With the lock nut acting as a spacer, the 9/16" nut doesn't bind.



A little peak of things to come! I bought these ARP wheels about 6 years ago, been sitting in boxes. Found out they are now made in China, these are good old USA made wheels!

[Huskinhano]

OK, I'm back. I posted this picture in the general post but I'll show it here as well. These are the new bits I'm installing. The spring perches replace the rubber bushings with roller bearings which reduce artificial spring rates as well as working a whole lot smoother and easier. The UCA use teflon lined rod ends which are adjustable. I can add a lot more caster! Adjustable struts using a rod end again smoother action that I have as another option for caster adjustments.



Taking the spring out wit my home made spring compressor.


It worked very well


RF after removing the UCA.


The new UCA mounting location. Down 1" back 1/8". The steel template was included in with the UCA. I started with a 1/8" bit, then a 1/4" bit, 3/8" and finally a 17/32" bit. The reason for the relocation is two fold. It improves the negative camber gain and probably just as important, it raises the roll center. Did you guys know Dick Guldstrand (sp) did the the same trick on 1st gen Camaros? That's one reason he was successful in Trans Am races. His measurement were a little different though. Take a hint Camaro owners!


I discover drain holes blocked with years of crud!


A little out of sequence but this HF ball joint breaker worked like a champ! $18 if you need one.


Both UCAs installed as well as shocks, his photo shows the spring compressor.


That's about as much as I've had time to do. I still have the struts and sway bar to install. I'll install the sway bar after I've done the alignment.

[mrocketscience]

Nice suspension goodies! I have the roller spring perches on mine, but I'd love to get the tube A arms as well. I also have the Calvert drag shocks on it.

[Huskinhano]

The arms are made by www.streetortrack.com They are really nice pieces!

[racingsnake440]

Cool, those streetortrack pieces look very nice! I want to make up some adjustable strut rods like that for my Dart when I redo the suspension.

[Huskinhano]

It's on the road and drives great! OK, so know you know how it ends you skip the rest of this post or see the rest. When I had initially settled on what mods I was going to do on this car it didn't included the SoT upper or lower arms. I decided to use the uppers because a big problem with these early Mustangs is a lack of caster. They called for something like 0* to something like 1*+. With the way you shim for + caster, it adds + camber which is exactly what you don't want to add on these cars. They already have too much. I wasn't sure exactly how much caster I could get with shims and adjustable struts which pulls the LCA forward as well as the wheel closer to the fender lip. I only wanted to do this once because it seems extra time has been hard to come by as well. So the decision was made to use the Street or Track UCA with their rod ends that I could alter built in caster to the arm. Something that can not be done with Global West UCA since they cheaped out and built an arm that could be used on either side. While the Street or Track arm is "universal" they already come assembled and adjusted and marked LH and RH. You just take them out of the box and install, nice! My guess is that they are set with 3*. I would also like to note with these arms, you do not set caster/camber by adjusting the rod ends like the Total Control arms that have the barrel adjusters to make setting alignment easy for the alignment guys. The problem is you're going to end up with two different length control arms, not cool. What ever adjustments you do on one side with the SoT arms, you must do to the other! OK, so you see where this is going. These arms are function first and purpose built, not convenience built for marketing. I full well understood this when I bought them.

After I had the uppers in, I suddenly realized I had jumped into the deep end of the pool when it comes to alignment. I had no idea where I was and didn't spend all this money to have some one who I didn't know try to do an alignment. I had visions of the shop taking everything apart and screwing everything up and charging a kings ransom. At this point is when I thought I better learn to do my own alignment. You can see my post on this in the tech section. Once I got the caster/camber gauge I quickly discovered I had other problems, too much positive camber.

The top arm is the left lower control arm. It was bent, the opening in the arm for the bushing was oval shape and I could easily pull the whole bushing out with my fingers. The right side wasn't too much better. I should note there wasn't a lot of miles on these arms. Also adding in more caster was going to wear out new bushings quickly which is a common ailment even with stock settings. I had to buy the SoT lower arms.




The new lower arms are a work of art like the upper arms.
.

Since I was in it this far I went with a camber kit. The stock lower control arm has a fixed location. On 67 & up Mustangs they use an eccentric bolt like Chevrolets B body from 65-69. The kit consist of a "U" shaped braket that's welded to the frame, the bolt hole is oblong and you grind out the frame to match. Plates in 1* increments are used to fix camber with no possibility of slipping.

You install the neutral or 0* plate in to locate and weld.


Then grind, wear safety glasses or better yet a full face shield as the tailings are sharp.


The bit.


The bit I bought from Grainger. I used a 90* pneumatic die grinder at a low speed. It worked very well. It took about 15 minutes for each hole.


And painted.


So that's the basics of my front end work. It was well worth the expense and time. Even with no rubber bushings any where and replaced by some sort of bearing the car rides very nicely. No ill manors and really, really handles well! Even with drums in the front, it stops straight because there are no rubber bushings to deflect on the struts. Hope you like my update.

I set my caster to 3.5*+, camber is 1 3/8*- (both sides where with in 1/8* when I finished) and toe was set at 1/16".

[Huskinhano]

Well it's time for an update and bring this back from the dead. I waited until I had it up and running with the bugs worked out before posting so if anyone is planning on doing it, they'll have all my info ready to go and not waiting on me. Sorry for the poor cell phone quality, it's mostly to show it actually running. It's taken me a while mostly because I'm not home during the week. it's been a little here and there. It runs really well. The specs are a stock Mustang 91 5.0 used roller cam, used Weiand Stealth, a used yard shed Edelbrock off ebay, off the shelf long tube headers and used Ford Cobra 1.72 roller rockers and a points distributor for now. Yes, off the shelf regular, unmodified long tube headers. I'm not going to post to much more tonight. I just wanted to kick it off. I'll be posting a fair amount of info and photos. While I realize this isn't the first one done, just the most current there still is some new info as no two swaps are the same. Feel free to ask any questions.

Here's what I started with. A 97 Mountainer GT40P with less the 40K miles.

[Huskinhano]

There's a lot of confusion on this topic and I'm still not 100% sure. I recommend you talk to whom ever you buy a distributor or camshaft from on exactly what to use. As far as what I understand is the following. Distributor gears come in regular cast iron, composite, brass, steel and Melonite. A composite will work on anything but it's not cheap. Brass is used on billet cams but wears. Steel is steel and is for billet hydraulic cams, not mechanical roller cams. Melonite is a chemical treatment that is suppose to make the surface about 20 times harder.

Camshafts can be made from several materials. A flat tappet cam is cast iron. Ford factory roller cams are billet steel. A fully machined blank made from 5150 alloy. Most aftermarket hydraulic roller cams are not billet. They are what is called "SADI" or Selectively hardened Austempered Ductile Iron. It's a cast blank of ductile iron. The individual lobes are induction hardened. I was seriously thinking of buying a new cam after I found that the E303 cam I was going to use which was given to me had gotten wet and rusted pretty badly at some point. I was going to buy a Howard's cam. I spoke with several techs over several weeks to see if there info was consistent on distributor gears. I was informed with their hydraulic roller cams I could use a plain cast iron gear just like a flat tappet cam. They said any SADI cam could use a cast iron gear no matter who makes the cam. I recall them saying that all the cam companies get their blanks from all the same places and there was something like 3 companies that make SADI cores. I know Crane also says you can use a cast iron gear on their hydraulic cams. Now I read one article where Comp Cams said you can use a cast iron gear on their and then read else where they were misquoted. On Corral there was a discussion about Comp Cams where some techs said you could use a cast iron gear and otheres said you couldn't. So check with who's cam you use is my adivice.


Poking around on the net, I ran across a article by MSD I believe. Melonite gears are apparently the default material of distributor manufacturers now for the most part. It will or is suppose to work on cast iron, SADI or 5150 hydraulic roller cams. It will not work on mechanical roller cams as they are 8620 which is a lot harder. So with that info I spoke with a tech from MSD and was assured that I could use their Melonite gear on a Ford 5150 factory billet cam. I also spoke with a tech from Ford Motorsport who confirmed the same info. In both cases I was very specific in my questioning to be certain. With that I used a MSD gear I bought from Autozone for $30 http://www.autozone.com/ignition-tun...?checkfit=true

The gear should be a snug fit on the shaft. It comes with 1 hole. Once you locate the gear use the 1 hole as a guide. Use a drill press and I would highly recommend clamping the shaft so it won't walk around. I used a V block made of wood but the shaft moved a little bit and my hole ended up being slightly off but oh well. Below are two sets of instructions, 1 from Ford and 1 from MSD. The MSD version is easier IMO.

https://performanceparts.ford.com/download/instructionsheets/FordInstShtM-12390-ABCDEFGHJKL.pdf

http://static.speedwaymotors.com/pdf/547-8583.pdf

Here's my distributor. Sorry for the fuzzy picture, it was a little hard to hold the caliper with one hand and take the picture with the other




I set mine almost exactly at 4.000"



My distributor had been rebuilt somewhere in it's past. What ever company did it installed a 2nd bushing



I do plan of pulling my distributor and inspect both the cam and distributor gears. I hope I may have explained some of the issues. In the end I would recommend checking with the cam and distributor company you use.