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

[Ron Earp]

I've done a bit more work on the ITS Mustang build. Jeff and I went to the Mustang breaker man that is semi-local and picked up the entire running gear of the Mustang - engine, tranny, rear axle, front suspension, sway bars, computer, brakes, uprights, and hubs. The plan is to build each of these sub-assemblies up so that when it comes time to assemble the car it'll go smoothly.

I've got the engine on a stand now (pictures are from hoist) and have learned a few interesting things about this little motor. Based on what I've seen so far it should prove to be a decent performer. One refreshing change for "modern" automobiles is that they appear to have "real" oil pans that are designed to keep oil around the pickup. This engine has a very deep rear sump pan that incorporates some thought toward oil flow and containment. Vastly different from what Ford was putting on run-of-the-mill engines from the 70s/80s.





The engine itself is pretty small but the front dress adds a lot of length to it. The top of the engine looks like a mess but around 30% of that is the EGR plumbing and routing - EGR feeds, bypass, controller, connectors, and then wiring for the controller valve. The rest is pretty simple - fuel injection harness, coil pack, cam sensor, crankshaft sensor, then TPS, MAF harness, starter, and oil pressure/water temp senders. Interestingly enough the fuel injectors insert directly into the head. The injectors are closer to the valve than they are on the fuel injected 302/5L motors and, while not having an architecture similar to this engine, they have a very similar upper and lower intake design for the 86-95 years.

And, its got headers from the factory! Man, this thing is already optimized and no more power is to be had. We better run it back through the process and give it a weight break. Yeah. Headers. The inside of that collector is a joke with each of the three pipes coming into a triangular pie shaped merge. It is if someone cut the circle into thirds and each pipe gets a wedge shaped third to come into, no merge, just empties into space. The design of the 99-04 header is different and looks less impressive, more of a log with pipes going into it, but I suspect neither flow very well at all. There are some off the shelf V6 headers from the usual Ford suspects like Hooker, JBA, etc. but they frankly all look like crap and have large primaries, literally no merge collectors, and are not the correct lengths of anything according to PipeMax and Burns. Custom headers will be needed to extract maximum power.

[Ron Earp]

I started the ITS build in earnest this past weekend. Drove the car to work on Friday, drove it back home, parked it in the garage, and started the dis-assembly process. I must say it was a relaxing weekend of parts pulling, parts selling on Craigslist, sawsalls, grinders, and other assorted tools.

The car has a lot of weight in it, no doubt about that. I weighed most everything I took out and put it into my ITS Mustang spreadsheet. A few weights off the top of my head:

Driver seat 43 lbs
Passenger seat 38 lbs
Passenger air bag 14 lbs
Rear seat back 28 lbs
Rear seat Cushion 5 lbs
Mach 460 under deck speakers/amps 29 lbs
AC compressor 13 lbs
AC evaporator 4 lbs
etc.

I've got the total weight removed at home but that figure doesn't really matter a lot. I'll weigh the car on Wednesday and see what our starting place is for the cage, seat, and other needed items.

The build on the rear axle has started too. Jeff Y was in charge of taking it apart and made some progress there. Parts are on the way to be installed - LSD to go with my brand new off Ebay $45 Ford 3.45 R&P.

You absolutely cannot the beat parts cost on a Mustang. No way, no how. There are simply so many of these cars out there that new factory parts are very inexpensive and the aftermarket support is probably not duplicated on any other car in the US, maybe in the world. If you want it, can think it up, it has probably been made already.

[Racerlinn]

Find any loose change? Or condoms?

[Ron Earp]

Couple of bucks in change, some hair bobbins, Lance cracker package, potato chips, and that was about it. Pretty clean actually.

What I did learn is things don't weigh as nearly as much as we'd like or think they do. About the only item I can remember pulling and weighing that lived up to expectations was the windows and mechanisms. Tracks, motor, runners, and glass came in right at 22.4 lbs on my certified UPS scale here at work.

Door locks were surprisingly light. Just right at one pound each for the motor/rod, and you know these things are pretty strong.

But the old "seats weigh 60 lbs each" and "sound deadening is 50 lbs" is BS. This car has some heat/sound mats on the floor which are glued in place that I calculate weigh just shy of 2.9 lbs total, based on a 1cm x 1cm sample I took and weighed, then ran the area calculations with. I'm not bothering with them because they are a bitch to scrape off.

The rest of the sound deadening in this car looked like pillows - plastic bags stuffed with some sort of matting that weighed next to nothing. These were squirreled away in various recesses of the car and easily removed.

[seckerich]

Have you tried the dry ice on the sound mats?

[Ron Earp]

Have you tried the dry ice on the sound mats?

I have not but might give it a go. Dry ice is available here and it'd be nice to get those pieces out, even though they don't weigh much at all.

[seckerich]

Makes for a cleaner interior. Put the ice in a big thick plastic bag and break it up with a dead blow hammer. Lets you get better contact with the surface. After you see frost on the underside hit the area with the dead blow softly to break it loose. It took 15 minutes to strip the entire RX8. If you have a lot of melt strips and liner to remove just go by the welding supply place and get a dewer of liquid nitrogen, it is really fast with that.