Mustang II IFS build....

[The GTO has been my daily driver for the last couple months since the van has been under the knife.[/quote]....Well I guess if ya have to ruff it, It might as well be in a GTO...

started on the engine compartment. it looks really long but its only about 4 or 5 inches longer than stock....but it is considerably wider. i plan on adding a beveled lid approx 3 inches high. loks like i have to re route the upper radiator hose and the intake tube from the turbo. it will interfere with the passenger seat. hooooooooopefully i can get some sheet metal around it and take her for a drive this weekend...











and here is a pic with the 2 inch dropped spindles. this will be my ride height. i will of course get a better pic once i can get it out fo the garage.

That's gonna be sweeeeet. What will hold that house to the floor? Still going to be a bolt on I pre-sume? Or you going to try latching it down.

it will be bolted. if you look closely at the base you will see 2 one inch square tubes stacked ontop of each other. the bottom one i drilled out holes and welded in 3/8th inch coarse thread nuts flush. that is welded to the floor. the fastening bolts simply go through the upper one inch square tubing into the base that has the nuts welded in....i hope i described that ok. if not i can get a close up pic. the whole engine compartment with lid will be one (pretty easy to remove) piece in the event i have to do engine work or pull the motor etc. there are no wires going through it so to remove i will simply remove the 4 bolts that hold the seats in and then the 10 or so bolts that hold the engine compartment. i can get it in and out easily now by myself but im sure by the time i add all the sheet metal, lid and insulation it will probably become a 2 man job.

Now I see what you mean...I had to take a second look. The weight of it when finished may be a little bit of an arm wrestle, but if you have everything kept up under there a person shouldn't have to worry to much with removing it very often. What about fans for heat and such...any thoughts on putting in something to help get the heat out from under there, or will it be cool enough, maybe too soon to tell until you get it done enough to take it for a good ride and see what she does.

yea..here are some pics that better describe it..

base plate that is welded in..





close up of welded in nut...



pic of the engine compartment out of the van..



and here is a pic of what i did today...started to add the sheetmetal..




as for the heat issue i am going to insulate it well with this stuff i got off ebay.. i used it before with the old stock engine compartment and it works well.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SALE-1-4-4X6-BOAT-FIBERGLASS-INSULATION-REDUCE-HEAT-SOUND-/140780224442?hash=item20c727bfba&item=140780224442&pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&vxp=mtr

i am hoping that the 16 inch flex fan will keep the air moving around in there. i did entertain the idea of having a small electric fan mounted above the bell housing that would turn on for a minute or 2 AFTER i shut the motor off. it will pull juice off of the auxiliary battery so i wont kill my main battery come next start up.

Very nice work. Can't Waite to see how it all turns out. I was thinking of doing the base plate thing my self...still entertaining the idea, using a piece of flat thick enough to tap and thread holes to match up to original dog house holes and any new holes I may need.

Big W, I have a tap and die set if you need.

Thanks Corey for the offer, but my better half baught me one for christmas...hehe...what a keeper. She can stay to...

Looks great!!! Make sure you leave enough room to put a bigger turbo on it later!

lol..thank you. im pretty sure that turbo will be big enough but there is room in case it isnt. today i got more done on the engine compartment. i hope to finish it and have it installed and the motor tuned enough so i can drive it to the alignment shop monday at 1

oh my... my engine compartment looks like a coffin. lol i hope thats not a sign. here are some pics of it. i plan to paint it semi gloss black. i decided to keep it simple and not hinge it. i have a clamp at all 4 corners. i figure if i need to work on it i ll just take the top off. i thought that if i hinged it in the front it would be difficult to get to the master cylinder and if i hinged it in the back it would be hard to get at the trans dipstick. anyways. im guessing that the bottom weighs about 50 pounds. i was able to get it in and out by myself with not too much difficulty. the lid probably weighs 15 to 20. i beefed it up because me and my girls crawl over it to get to the back. i didnt want the top warping. i still have to put the insulation on the inside. i was in a rush to get it together to make my alignment appointment tomorrow.




here is a close up of the clamps..



pic of it installed...



tight fit but so far it seems to be getting enough air flow. i let it get up to temp and actually drove it around the block. the hottest spot on the engine compartment that i found with my infarred temp gauge is near the turbo and it was only 99 degrees. and that is just bare metal, no insulation.




so yes i did drive it around the block... here is a pic with the 2 inch dropped spindles....tooo much drop. looks cool as hell but my front bumper was hitting EVERY dip.


so i put the stock spindles back on. it looks fruity now (especially since the wheel is turned a bit in this picture. but i plan to run like this for a while, wait for the springs to sag a bit and then cut some off of the coils springs to get the perfect height. 2 inch drop is too low and stock is too high...need to find something in the middle. also, this is my daily driver. i dont want to drive around with a puckered up butt hole everytime i see a dip in the road.



i havent really had a chance to try out the new front end yet but i can tell you that the disc brakes freakin rock. i about did a face plant into my steering wheel at the end of my street lol

Looook'n good Army, look'n good.

thank you.

i took it to the alignment shop today. got it aligned except i didnt properly tighten the inner tie rod end so there was a little slop in the drivers side. but she drove pretty good. still kind of babying it. i have confidence in my welding abilities but still, its going to take time before i have complete confidence in it. anyways, NOOOO slop in the steering. man that is sooo nice.

i started to tune the ECU and im having an issue. after it gets hot when i try to accelerate it sputters, spits, and dies. the datalog is showing that the ECU is momentarily showing zero RPM so it resets itself. soooo, one step forward...one step back. i am about ready to just slap a 4 bbl on there lol

what distributor do you have in this engine?
almost sounds like a pick up coil in the dist,
unless it has a crank sensor in the front cover.
but by the looks of the dist it doesn`t have the sensor
in the front cover, stil sounds like a pick up coil.
usually on the tbi units, if you don`t have a code but
you have driveability problems, we look at the fuel sys,
pump filter or relay, and the ignition sys, cap rotor wires
plugs coil, and the internals of the dist, ignition module and the pick up coil. hope this helps

ya gonna make the nats with this one? sure would
like to see it.

panelmanrd wrote:what distributor do you have in this engine?
almost sounds like a pick up coil in the dist,
unless it has a crank sensor in the front cover.
but by the looks of the dist it doesn`t have the sensor
in the front cover, stil sounds like a pick up coil.
usually on the tbi units, if you don`t have a code but
you have driveability problems, we look at the fuel sys,
pump filter or relay, and the ignition sys, cap rotor wires
plugs coil, and the internals of the dist, ignition module and the pick up coil. hope this helps

the distributor is a stock one i pulled out of an astro van at the local junk yard. stock 8 pin. i am getting a good spikeless tach signal until i drive it for 20 mins or so. then seems to sputter when i try to accelerate...the harder i try to accelerate the worse the sputter. this is when i see zero RPM momentarily. the weird thing is it runs/accelerates fine for the first 15 20 mins.

how about the ignition coil? I have see astro vans
do some very stange things due to a weak coil, didn`t
show up till warm. I have also see tachometers short
the tach signal to ground and cause similar problems,
if you have a tach just unhook the wire from the coil
if problem goes away you have a bad tach. Only way to
tell for sure about the coil is to use an osciliscope,
not someting everybody has, just try a known good one.

Nice work!

I think it looks good at stock height, but looks good low, too. If you keep it low and raise the bumper a little it wouldn't hit

the old chevy 6 distributors use to fail on paddle wheel . They use to retard slightly under hard excelleration caused by the press fit of the rotor to become weak causing it to slip on the shaft. Replaced a few when i was a mechanic in my younger years.

Agree that the sensor/pickup is the most likely cause. I will suggest this too; does it go into closed loop at about the same time/temp?
If so, disconnect the ECT after it's warm to see if it continues to behave when warm but in open loop.

panelmanrd wrote:how about the ignition coil? I have see astro vans
do some very stange things due to a weak coil, didn`t
show up till warm. I have also see tachometers short
the tach signal to ground and cause similar problems,
if you have a tach just unhook the wire from the coil
if problem goes away you have a bad tach. Only way to
tell for sure about the coil is to use an osciliscope,
not someting everybody has, just try a known good one.

i dont have a tach. the only RPMs i see are on the laptop. the coil is good, its the same coil i pulled off of the old motor with this ECU. i felt that the problem, because it only happened after i drove it for a while had something to do with the Injector drivers over heating because they are low inpeadence. so i started to play with the current limit percentages. to my surprise it seemed to have worked. i havent had that problem since...keyword being THAT lol. if that didnt work i was going to look at possible current draw.

Smallblockbug wrote:the old chevy 6 distributors use to fail on paddle wheel . They use to retard slightly under hard excelleration caused by the press fit of the rotor to become weak causing it to slip on the shaft. Replaced a few when i was a mechanic in my younger years.

yea, just as a precaution i was planning on buying a new one soon. you never know what you get form the junk yard.

RodStRace wrote:Agree that the sensor/pickup is the most likely cause. I will suggest this too; does it go into closed loop at about the same time/temp?
If so, disconnect the ECT after it's warm to see if it continues to behave when warm but in open loop.

i have closed loop disabled. one reason is my crappy innovative LC1 acts up, telling the ECU that the AFR is 7.4 which on the old motor the ECU would lean it out and lean it out until it died. i never ran it in closed loop after that and i probably wont on this one either. i was able to get it pretty dialed in by dialing in the fuel map.

slowly ive been smoothing things out. starts a little easier (knock on wood) i was getting bad starter kick back so i retarded the timing while cranking and also leaned out my cranking pulse widths. still have a slight miss at cruise which i think it too much timing. anyhow..slowly but surely.

as for the front end, pretty happy with it. i do have add some sway bars. she does seem more top heavier than before. and today i hit a good dip at speed and left like the spring compressed completely..not good.

slowly getting the bugs worked out. i figured out the starter problem. its a new starter and flexplate. during cranking is would strip and grind like there was a couple missing teeth. i figured out that the wire going tot he solenoid wasnt supplying enough voltage or amperage to the starter so it would quickly engage and disengage and engage again and again making for a very unpleasant sound. i simply ran a relay that is triggered by braking ign wire. the relay sends a 12 ga wire voltage and amperage straight from the battery. worked like a charm. ive laid off of tuning for now because i am going to fabricate my own throttle body fuel injection with 4 or 6 48lb injectors that i have. i also got the insulation installed and it made a huge difference. i think my dash board is hotter at any given time than my engine compartment. i ll try to get some pics of that shortly

i finally got the zerk fittings installed and all the ball joints lubed up. still have to get the toe in dialed in as well as a list of a hundred other things.