ITS Ford Mustang(s) Build - Stripper Stang Part II

[Ron Earp]

Best build thread on IT.com

Thanks, we're trying to keep the fans happy.

Ron keep up the work. My parts area looks like yours. I have rows and rows of tried and failed parts. And the different motors, the 2.3 is just as bad.

Man, Ford is bad with parts. I just was reading through some of my info last night and Ford had used, up to 2001, ten different blocks for the 3.8. The variations are slight and mean little (other than the FWD/RWD distinction) but can create headaches for building engines and using parts on hand.

The 1999+ split port 3.8L engine is one hell of a motor. We got one yesterday and disassembled it to have a look at what it is all about. Mostly it is the same as the 3.8L single port motors like we have, but the heads on this engine can really breathe. They have two intake ports and larger valves to boot. The exhaust ports are tiny, but, they are way undersized for the gasket and unless the water jacket is a problem they could be improved even under IT rules. The motors are internally balanced therefore the crank is different than our engines.

Anyhow, for ITR I think these motors could really put down some power. They are rated at 190hp from the factory but they would see significant gains with a proper IT build. However, my main reason to purchase it didn't pan out so well. I wanted the windage tray from this engine since the 94-99 units are NLA from Ford and we're out of them. But, this motor is a 2001 and Ford decided to change the windage tray unit to be a stud girdle/windage tray that I can't use. At least the front cover was the same though and I can use that. Front covers are fragile and we've a pile of cracked ones.

Ron come to one of the race weekends and you can have a drive of the Mustang on a test day or race. I think you'd find it to be like your ITB car, just with a little more power. After all the underpinnings are essentially the same, very honest handling and fun to drive.

[Ron Earp]

Thanks but I'm sure lots of folks do some of this stuff, it's just people don't post about it. The vibrational analysis is Jeff G's forte. He's an engineer for a large company and that's his daily job, and, his Ph.D. is in vibrational analysis as well. Of course, that makes him extremely sensitive to vibrations but he's not been wrong about that aspect of the development.

Buried back up in the thread is the fact that the red car has a very odd, and sometimes extremely strong, vibration at certain RPMs. The green car does not have this problem, although it has a little vibration but not nearly the magnitude of the red car. We've done many experiments to rid ourselves of the problem: we've changed motor mounts, subframes, transmission mounts, two motors, one motor with a different balance percentage, transmissions, driveshafts, flywheel, pressure plate, pinon angle, u joints, axle shafts, tri-link, and axle housings. Still, the problem persists and the red car has broken three tailshaft housings while the green car has broken none.

We think we have a handle on it now though. We knew from Ford engineering papers that the 3.8 has a primary pitching moment fore-aft. With the measurements we think the moment can be particularly strong and believe the tailshaft became the weak link when the bellhousing would tag the chassis (clearance is extremely tight on the 3.8, about a pinky width at tightest point). So we're resolving some solutions to the problem and the green car will get them for good measure.
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EDIT:
For what it is worth, we now have a third Mustang build on the go and it's detailed on another forum. The car will be built to be IT-legal, but its primary, at least initially, purpose is LeChump so we decided not to build it here. That build thread will be more detailed than this thread since we're building even more items from scratch - panhard, trilink, perches, etc. will all be fabricated from steel by us to keep costs extremely low. On these stangs we paid over $1200 for a rear end setup we ended up only using half of, but with the new build we're spent $16 on steel to make the entire rear suspension, although with many more hours of work. Here is a link to the photo album with build pictures, although for narrative you'll have to go to the other forum.

https://www.facebook.com/Ron.Earp/me...4789574&type=3

[Steve35]

EDIT:
For what it is worth, we now have a third Mustang build on the go and it's detailed on another forum. The car will be built to be IT-legal, but its primary, at least initially, purpose is LeChump so we decided not to build it here. That build thread will be more detailed than this thread since we're building even more items from scratch - panhard, trilink, perches, etc. will all be fabricated from steel by us to keep costs extremely low. On these stangs we paid over $1200 for a rear end setup we ended up only using half of, but with the new build we're spent $16 on steel to make the entire rear suspension, although with many more hours of work. Here is a link to the photo album with build pictures, although for narrative you'll have to go to the other forum


What is the "other forum"

Steve