Struttn' Around and stuff

Boy it sure has been a long long time since I posted. So here is a quick update. I finally did replace the front struts. They were so bad they would not rebound at all.... I replaced them with a set of KYB struts that my parts guru hooked me up with. Replacing those worn out old dogs sure makes you realize how bad the other end is! So rear shocks soon. But for now the Mustang has been driven around by my wife, and spent most of the winter in the shop out of the snow. I got a little crazy and ordered some parts recently..... Summit provided a set of Ford Racing 3.73 gears, a trak-lok rebuild kit, shorty headers and an off road h pipe. I found a speedo gear on ebay for a few bucks and we are off running! The Mustang sure fought me on giving up the old h pipes and headers. 17 years of habit will do that I guess. The install went a lot easier until I tried to put the passenger side o2 sensor back in. Turns out, the summit h pipe kit was built wrong and the o2 bung is in the wrong place. So fast forward another week. Tomorrow I am unistalling the passenger side h pipe, running it down to the exhaust shop to have a new bung welded in. Rob wants the old h pipe to get his heap :) through california smog, so a stop at UPS is in store as well. Then back to the shop to finish up the install on the exhaust and listen to her breath deep. Tuesday, the car is off to Grants Pass (where I am currently working) to get the gears installed and the trak lok rebuilt for good measure. So by then end of next week, not only will she sound like a bmf but she is going to pull like a bmf too. Now if I can just resist the urge to order the shock tower brace......

SUB

No not the sub your thinking of. Although the stock speakers do need help pretty bad. I finally got the subframe connectors welded in and finished up last night. I welded in torque box reinforcement plates and a set of subframe connectors. What an unbelievable difference in the attitude of the car. Even needing the worn out struts and shocks replaced the handling of the car is on par with the current model gt. I recently took an 08 California Special GT 5 speed down a local twisty road (rogue river drive) and then took my car down the same run last night. I was able to keep the same if not better speeds through the turns. The worn struts played a significant role in the extra little hop the got the front end loose in one corner, but everything else was pretty impressive. I really couldn't be happier with the results, the feels better, the steering is tighter and more precise, and the car even feels like it is putting power down better (placebo effect, maybe; do I care, no!). So far this has been the single best improvement done to the car. I very well spent $80 bucks. The best part is that I didn't even blow the car up. Kelsey was pretty concerned I was gonna blow it all up, when she found me with a wet wash cloth wrapped around the fuel lines, laying down a big fat bead of molten steel about a half inch from them!! :) By the way, the undercoating on this car really has no problem igniting and burning, I can't tell you how many fires I smothered with my welding gloves! All is well that ends well, and this chapter ended pretty damn well. Now we just need to replace the stuts and shocks, lower the car, replace the h pipe and headers and......... boy this is addicting!!!!

Is This Your Car Ma'am?

Kelsey just called and relayed a funny story. She has the Mustang today and went over to Wal-Mart in Eagle Point. She parked out away from most of the other cars and when she came out of the store there was an Eagle Point police car parked behind the mustang and the officer was out of his car looking at the mustang. Kelsey quickly ran through her head the possibilities of having cut off someone, or blasting through eagle point. As she approached the officer said "is this your car ma'am?" She said yes and he said "wow it is really nice!!!" Kinda funny, she thought she was in trouble and he just wanted to check out the car. I'll take it as a compliment, makes me wonder what she's doing in my car though.......................

Breath Dog! Breath!

This could have been titled "Waiting to Exhale" but then you would all have to shoot me....

The Flowmasters are IN!

Peter stepped up and helped me install the Flowmaster American Thunder Cat Back last night.
Two and a half hours including a dinner break. The install went really smoothly no major problems. Having this done, just makes me want to new H pipe and headers even sooner!!!




Here is a couple tach trips on the stock mufflers.




I like this sound. No mufflers, just open CATS!!!!




Moment of truth. Here is the cold start on the new Flowmasters




Backing out of the shop at 11:00 at night.






This is a really cool video, Kelsey thinks it looks like a scene from a horror flick. I think it's autoporn :).

Rob-

This is for you, missed you in the shop brother....



Till next time
the Thunder Rolls.

Glamour Shots

Leg Room!!!

Being just shy of 6' 5" tall. The fox body mustang is a little tight for me. So I had to "adjust" things a little bit. When I had my 90 lx I found out that if you unbolt the front seat there is another set of bolt holes in the bottom of the seat that will let you relocate the seat back about an inch and a half. The non power seat cars used an all steel bracket, but not too sturdy. I must have broke a dozen of them before I sold that car. What happens is that by moving the seat back it puts a lot of pressure on the front of the bracket because there is less support in the back. When I went to make the same alteration in the GT, I found that the power seat bracket has aluminum runners along the top, nowhere near sturdy enough to handle the pressure. So here is what I did....

First: unbolt the seat and remove it from the car.

seperate the seat bracket from the seat.

you will notice that on the bottom of the seat frame there are two front bolt holes, the two rear bolt holes (that you just unbolted) and two more holes about an inch and a half forward of the rear holes.

fit the seat bracket back up to the seat frame aligning the rear holes in the bracket to the forward set of holes.

you are going to need to drill new front holes in the bracket, so mark the location of the forward bolt holes on the bracket, then take it back apart and drill your holes out.

especially on the power seat bracket, you are going to have to re-inforce the bracket, or it will break.

i took a couple pieces of steel strap that I had laying around to make reinforcement plates.

the straps were about an inch wide and probably 1/4" thick.

I couldn't tell you how to make them fit on the steel bracket (too many years gone by) but on the aluminum bracket there is a channel that these straps will fit it.

I simply shaped them up a bit with the angle grinder until they fit into the channel, drilled out the bolt holes and then fit them in.

Turned out that my bolts were not quite long enough, so I recessed the bolt holes just enough to get some turns on the bolts and snug everything up good.

bolt it all back together and re-install it in the car.

Unlike the seat track extenders that you can buy. This mod is pretty much free, if you can find a couple steel straps. More importantly it doesn't raise the seat level. The extenders lift the seat nearly an inch.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that if your wanting more leg room, you don't want to sacrifice head room....

This mod is super easy and only took a couple hours total. My seat is stronger now and I have more than enough room, the Mustang is actually the only car I have that I don't have to have the seat back all the way.

Now I just gotta get the driver's seat reupholstered and call it good!!!!

Here is another article on how to do this mod.

CHEESE GRATERS GONE!!!!!!!!

Thank god for ebay and poor spellers. So here is the scoop. The LX taillights are the more desireable light. They were used on the saleens and are all around a better looking light. Generally you can find reproduction sets on ebay for about $120 and factory sets in good shape I have seen bring as much as $150.00. I happened across a set of factory lx lights on ebay that had a poorly written title and taillights misspelled. I was able to snag them, shipped, for only $80.00 :) I put the cheese grater gt lights up on ebay and got $115.00 for them. Yah for me! Got better looking lights and made a little change. Can't beat that!