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

[Ron Earp]

And we did a bit of clean up in the Mustang parts warehouse. I think we have enough parts above my garage to build another Mustang.





Took some different head castings apart for exploration. There are a good number of heads to work with on these cars, although the differences among them seem to be minor. Len has the "best" heads from what we can tell.



The number of blocks Ford has used, now that is a pain in the ass. We have discovered at least three different types of blocks for 94-98 MYs. No advantages among them that we can tell, but you've got to keep them separated because their critical bolts are not interchangable. We have sorted them into:

A - large coarse man cap bolts, short head bolts

B - small fine main cap bolts, one row short head bolts, one row long

C - smal fine main cap bolts with provisions for windage tray, long head bolts on both rows

We prefer "C", but it appears we've only got a pile of As and Bs, with both new motors having to be built from As.

And we got the Torino fired up and ready for the street.



However, the Torino could not hit the street. We worked with a local Ford guy in Mebane NC to have this motor built. But, he went too racy on the cam and what we've got is a big block Ford with all forged internals that wants to rev to 7k+ but won't idle worth a damn. We worked with the carb for 3-4 hours on adjustments to try and get it to idle but at 2k, running smoothly and purring along, it only generates 14" of vacuum. When the RPM hits 1500 that drops to 10", and as soon as we try and go lower the vacuum becomes non-existent and she won't run. Timing, fuel, idle, it seems that nothing will do the trick. But holy hell, rev this thing up and it sounds flat out awesome, like a NASCAR screamer. Anyhow, new cam and intake manifold on the way that is reported from a BB Ford builder and guru to cure this issue.

+------------------------------+

I've had a couple of people comment to me on the huge amount of time put into these cars and the relatively rapid development. No doubt, we spend a lot of time on the cars but having two cars being built at once provides more that twice the amount of development data. And it is less than twice the work. In looking back over the last 16 months we have disassembled three SN95 cars for parts, taken apart seven 3.8L Ford V6s of various years, built four race motors, built five rear ends with four different ratios, tried two different traction devices, tried out three types of brake pads, developed 20+ ECU tunes, dyno tuned at least five times, rebuilt two transmissions, run multiplr track widths, changed out springs rates four times and always going up in rate, Lots of changes in camber/caster/toe/corner weighting and had three separate exhaust systems built plus a lot of other things that I can't remember. For a single car/single driver team, in particular an oddball, this might normally take much, much more time. All I know is you're never at the end of development for an IT car although we're looking for the pace to slow down a bit.

But not yet. I'm out to Henderson at the crack of dawn to get a 2001 dual port 3.8L V6 as used in the ITR cars. Got an idea.....

[Ron]

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. We have 3 race motors in development all the time and every block is different from ford. No real difference in "power" just little things that make them all their own.

I have had to take some time off from the car. Kids in college demand a ton of $$$$$$$$. I mean metric tons of $$$$$$$$. But we will be back, maybe with a different car powered by the same motor.

I am very lucky that I have great friends who have offered rides in their cars while mine is dormant. Wonderful friends.

[Andy Bettencourt]

Best build thread on IT.com

[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

[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.





Six intake ports, three cylinders. We're going to keep the parts around for the possibility of building an ITE motor for the stang we have, or maybe one day building an ITR car. 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]

Thank you for the generous offer. I'm so glad that the car is a good handling beast. I'm sure it still is not light and nimble but perdictable and forgiving. Find the tracks that suit it best and you will continue with your success.

What I enjoy best about your build and development is that you and the team is that you are attacking several issues at the same time. None of this "lets improve braking first" "then fix handling" "Power now". You guys are hitting almost all of it all the time.

I, any many other non-traditional car developers, appreciate the effort in time and money it takes to make a car that doesn't come with a play book become competitive.

Well done boys, well done.

[lateapex911]

Good update, and great thorough work! Andy is right, best build thread here.

[Ron Earp]

Another Stangwerks Update

Both Mustangs made the recent races at CMP and for the most part a good time was had by all. Jeff G ran the red car for the test day on Friday and we incrementally improved our laptimes each session. One of our biggest issues was tires, or lack thereof, as we were trying to use old tires for the testing thus saving the new tires for the racing. That isn’t a good idea because at a tight track like CMP suspension changes can be masked by crappy tires. Anyhow, we got the car down to some high 50s and figured new tires would improve upon those times.

Test Day Arrival


The weather at CMP was quite nice, 60s in the day and while it was cold at night this took care of that problem.

Fire


We had a couple of enjoyable night sitting around the fire, BSing with friends, and having a few adult beverages. Good times were had by all, even our large furry friend decided to take it easy and not bite Steve Parrish’s leg off and take the beer.



Saturday was race day and the Mustangs were entered in the Carolina Cup at the SARRC race. Given that we had practice sessions for the races, plus qualifying, it was a busy morning and afternoon with little down time considering we had a few unplanned maintenance activities pop up. The morning sessions were cool but both Mustangs were fueling correctly and hitting a reasonable A/F target. Qualfiying came and went, and I was pretty happy with the results. There were not too many ITS cars entered in the CCPS and I was able to get the Mustang on the overall pole for that race with a 1:49.999, the fastest time I’ve ever turned at CMP. The SARRC qualifying was tight with two cars in the 48s and two in the 49s. I managed a 1:49.564 which became my best ever CMP time and put me fourth in ITS.

Steve E was getting it done with a 48, and Ron Munnerlyn gets my go-fast award by driving the damn wheels off his Miata. We all know the ITS Miata doesn't have class-leading horsepower by a long shot but if the car is driven expertly then it can do the job.



The Mustang was pretty easy to drive at CMP but in retrospect we wish we had done more to tune the car for that track. We made changes to the front roll bar, front compression and rebound, and changed the rear roll center as well as rear rebound settings. But I wish we’d have swapped in our softer springs too. Both cars were manageable and very predictable, but were looser than we would have liked and our ability to apply the go fast pedal was limited.

[Ron Earp]

For what it is worth, we now have a third Mustang build on the go and it's detailed on another forum.

What is the "other forum"

Steve

The third Mustang is very near completion lacking only graphics to be checked off.



The ITS Mustang team did well this year being first and second in SARRC points, up until a week or so before the SIC where a FL based fellow took the lead. We didn't attend the SIC because we calculated that the chances of finishing enough spots in front of the leader for the series win, given the double points situation, wouldn't be possible.

The 2015 season at VIR kicked off with a bang with Jeff G losing his and me putting myself into the wall at T3 and earning a concussion to boot. We've got a lot of work to do.

[Ron Earp]

Uh...it's like Fight Club I'm told. I can't link there.

Header piccy. We had the header off the other day for measurements so figure a picture would be worth putting up. Stainless steel, SS collectors as well, all properly sized. Version 3.0 but it was worth it for the midrange and top end gains.

[Ron Earp]

And gotta bust it up into multiple posts due to limit on pics. Anyhow, Jeff is still analyzing the data and looking for resonance effects from various vibrational modes.

[adamjabaay]

these have to be the two most developed cars in IT history. Truely inspiring, and intimidating, stuff ron and jeff.


unbelievable


what sort of go-faster-ness data come from the vibrational analysis.... Your way over my head!

[Ron Earp]

And more vibration analysis has been happening. This is from last weekend and fitting the chassis with three sensors as well as an RPM pickup to monitor the chassis, engine, and tranny throughout the RPM range.