Rustang Current Progress

December 15, 2003

Here are some updated pictures of Rustang.

Rear side view of Rustang

Rear view of Rustang

Side view of Rustang

Current shot of engine

Front Coil-over view

Line lock hidden in fender well

New Strange 3rd member

New Victor Jr. intake

July 16, 2001 to November 6, 2003

Been a while since I updated this so here is a list of what I have completed and what I will be working on next.

I completed the 9" install around November of 2002. Performed a complete front suspension upgrade consisting of SN95 spindles, calipers, rotors and hubs, a coil over setup and adjustable camber caster plates which I completed around June of 2003. I mounted 5-lug 15x3 1/2" Pro Stars on the front and 5-lug 15 x 12" Pro Stars on the rear with ET Street 15x13.5 tires. The rims and tires fit pretty good but I wish I had shortened the axles about 3 to 4 inches to bring them in a slight bit. I made about 4 passes and a few short road trips from June to now. Currently I am preparing for an intake swap from the Weiland Stealth model to a Edelbrock Victor Jr. and a new shortened 9" axle. I purchased a Strange Aluminum 3rd member with a 31spline full spool, 4:11 gears and a Daytona pinion support. I still need to buy the Moser axles and a Wilwood rear brake kit which I should have by December. I also will be changing out the T-5 transmission for a PowerGlide and I will most likely remove the SN95 spindles and move back to the 87 style except with 5-lug rotors. The SN95 style rotors require me to use spacers on the front rims which I do not particularly like or feel safe with.

I will post some pictures in a few days of some of the progress I have made before I disassemble the rear again.

July 16, 2001

Finally installed my Summit racing seats in Rustang. I hope to have pictures and a How To up soon. I also received my TCI line lock kit. I will be doing a how to article on this so check back soon.

June 25, 2001

I have almost completed the 9" rear differential install into Rustang. I still need to fabricate parking brake levers to attach my stock parking brake cables to the rear calipers and I need to order my rims and tires. All of which I should have complete soon. I registered and tagged Rustang last week and can't wait to get her on the road. 

Here are shots of the new 9" rear and Disk brake system.

Feb 27, 2001 to March 12, 2001

Got a few chances to work on Rustang over the past two weekends. I managed to weld on the axle support brace on the new 9inch rear I purchased and also managed to get all the front brake lines and such bent, flared and connected, so Rustang finally has some sort of brake system. Next weekend I hope to run the rear line and proportioning valve, so that when the 9inch is ready to drop in she will be ready to hook right up. Below are a few pictures of the progress.

Here are pictures of the front brake connections at the master cylinder. I still need to fabricate a mounting bracket for the three way connection under the master cylinder but that will have to wait until the line lock is installed.

Here are pictures of the rear support I welded onto the 9inch rear. Unfortunately I ran out of welding wire so the ladder bar and coil over mounts will need to wait a little longer. I hope to have this rear in by the end of March.

Jan. 4, 2001 to Feb. 27, 2001

Not much work has been done to Rustang lately due to me losing my license for a nasty reckless ticket I received in December so I don't have a means of getting to my car. I am also in the process of selling my townhouse in hopes of finding a house with some land and a garage. I did manage to find a 9" rear for Rustang for $200. I'm not sure exactly what this rear came out of but it's about 2 1/2" shorter than the stock 7.5/8.8 axle and has 10" disk brakes on it and 31 spine axles. Because this axle is exactly 2 1/2" shorter I will not have to have it shortened when I purchase my 13.5" wide tires. My plan is to purchase 12" rims and use a 6" back spacing.

Dec. 18, 2000 to Jan. 4, 2001

Not much progress lately other than carburetor tuning. I was able to install my 12 gallon fuel cell yesterday evening. Everything worked out as planned and the fit was perfect. Now that the fuel cell is mounted I will be finishing the brake system and then taking Rustang for it's first run.

Here are pictures of the fuel cell I mounted in my rear hatch. My initial plans were to mount the cell under the car, but after weighing my options and the limited space I have there with exhaust and wheelie bars still to come I decided to place the cell in the hatch area. I am still unsure whether I will box around the cell or partition off the rear hatch area to pass NHRA rules.

Here are a few pictures of the sump area. The hole was cut tightly to the cell so that a bead of seam caulk would keep it water and tire smoke tight. The second -8AN output on the cell will later be used to fuel the blower and/or Nitrous system. 

Dec. 4, 2000 to Dec. 18, 2000

I received my back ordered thermostat housing on Friday afternoon. I was pretty shocked because I was not expecting the part until Monday or Tuesday. I was thrilled not to have to wait another week to fire Rustang up. After the initial smoked cleared I began dialing in the tune. I got a few video's of the first startups which are available for viewing below.

Video 1
Here's a clip of the first few times cranking Rustang.

Video 2
Rustang fires up!

Video 3
Breaking the motor in.

Video 4
Goosing Rustang!

Video 5
More break-in time.

Nov. 20,  2000 to Dec. 04, 2000

I finally found a belt to fit my new pulley system. I used March's AC/Power steering delete bracket and March's Adjustable Alt. bracket. It took me a little while to find the proper belt. Look for a How To on this modification.

Nov. 8, 2000 to Nov. 20, 2000

This past weekend I was able to hook up the battery and check all the electrical wiring of the car. I had previously removed most of the factory wiring leaving in the lights, power windows, power locks, outage display, and wiper system. Well after a few small issues I had everything working. I then began organizing the mess of wires hanging around my dash. I ended Sunday evening with the passenger side done and most of the drivers side completed as well.

Nov. 6, 2000 to Nov. 8, 2000

Installed the truant AC/PS eliminator bracket yesterday which pretty much completed the work in the engine bay minus the serpentine belt, thermostat housing, manual brake adapter plate and master cylinder. I noticed that the Alternator adjustable rod was sitting at an angle when I first installed it. Once I installed the AC/PS elimination bracket everything lined up perfectly. I'm not sure it the adjustable alt. bracket should only be used with the AC/PS elimination bracket or not but it surly didn't look correct by itself.

Nov. 3, 2000 to Nov. 6, 2000

I actually got an entire weekend to work on Rustang. Unfortunately I was hoping to have Rustang running today but all my parts did not arrive in time and of course I had forgotten a few minor things. I was shorted my valve cover stud kit, and my AC eliminating bracket. I did manage to run the 1/2 aluminum fuel line, installed my new electric fuel pump, installed my March adjustable alternator bracket, bent all new stainless steel brake lines for the front and rear of car, finished wiring my Auto Meter temp and oil gauges. Things I did not accomplish this weekend were the mounting of battery box, complete charging system wiring, install thermostat housing, and install mufflers. I am down to the final stages of starting Rustang. The anticipation is eating me alive. Doesn't look like she will be running before next weekend but hopefully....HOPEFULLY she will be running by the end of the coming weekend.

Oct. 30, 2000 to Nov. 3, 2000

I may finally have a full weekend this coming weekend to work on Rustang. I am only about 10 to 12 hours of work away from starting Rustang up. With any luck I should be able to crank Rustang over on Sunday afternoon for the first time in almost 2 years. Come to think of it , it may be even longer than 2 years now. Heh. I am more than ecstatic about it to say the least. I feel like a 5 year old on Christmas morning who just got the toy he pestered his parents for months prior. Unfortunately I won't be driving Rustang this weekend due to the fact that she has no brakes and no alignment yet. Damn!

Oct. 3, 2000 to Oct. 30, 2000

Well work has kept me from working on Rustang as much as I'd like to. But I did manage to squeeze in a day this past weekend. I spent the Sunday working on my gauges. I ordered all new Auto Meter Pro Comp Ultra Light gauges for the dash and finally got them installed. At first I was skeptical of how the gauges would look in the stock dash. The Speedo and Tach opening were larger than the 3 1/2" gauges I bought and I thought I would have to make a new dash plate. After pondering several ideas I came up with the following. I will be doing several write ups once work chills out and this will be one of them so I won't go into specific detail about what I had to do now. I'll just show some pictures of the process. Also on Sunday I was able to install my new PowerMaster 100amp one wire alternator and new Holley double pumper carburetor.

Sept. 8, 2000 to Oct. 3, 2000

No new pictures to post on this update. I have mainly been working on re-wiring the car, that is whenever I get a break from work. Anyway who wants to see a bunch of pictures of wires right... I'm hoping to have the wiring done within the next few weeks and hopefully I will be ready to fire Rustang up within the next month or so. So far I have wired Rustang's lighting system leaving the bulb outage display in tacked. I left the power windows and locks, wiper system and some other little odds and ends. I removed all the MCU computer wires, charging system, ignition system, cruise control system, radio, and the heating and AC wire systems from the car. Let me just say it was a pain is the ass. Even with full page diagrams of the wiring system it still has taken me two weeks to sort out all the wires. I still need to wire in the new ignition system, charging system, and engine gauges. I also picked up a set of smoked clear tail light lenses for the rear of Rustang from the fall Carlisle PA, show on Sept.30, 2000.

June 31, 2000 to Sept. 8, 2000

Work has kept me to busy lately so I haven't had much time to work on Rustang. I did manage to get the motor and Trans set into the car a few weeks ago and also hooked up the drive shaft, exhaust and radiator. I plan on completing the motor install this weekend and begin the painstaking process of rewiring the car. I will be using most of the factory harness to do the lighting but will be scrapping the rest as most of it is not needed any longer.

June 30, 2000 to July 31, 2000

After over a year of planning and modifications Rustang has been painted. I wanted to keep the stock look so I had the car painted white with a touch of pearl in it and kept the factory black out treatment that Ford gave it from the factory. I must say I was pretty amazed at the paint job on the car. Although I wish it had a touch more pearl in the paint the car is beautiful.  I owe a big thanks to Larry Wilcox for painting the car he did an outstanding job!

May 26, 2000 to June 30, 2000

Rustang is in the paint shop! Yeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaa! Finally I finished everything I wanted to do and trailered the car down to Fredericksburg Va. where Larry Wilcox will be applying  Fleet White Pearl paint and the Factory Charcoal color will be used to cover the trim and provide the rest of the blackout treatment on the car. I opted to remove the hood sticker and have the stripe painted on the car instead. I am also getting the stock hood painted along with my 3 inch cowl hood. The stock hood will be used later when I slap on the tunnel ram next summer. Below are the last pictures taken on Rustang before the paint. Note some of the pictures show the hood lift system I installed on the car. I will be doing a How To on this in the near future.

May 1, 2000 to May 26, 2000

I have completed the engine bay touch up due to the Sportsman cage upgrade. Anyone following my build up knows I had done this once before but after welding in the front Sportsman cage bars I needed to do a little touchup.  I added 10 more main support bars to the existing 10 point S&W cage. Two running from the front crossbar (Running under dash) to the strut towers in the engine bay and from there to the front radiator support area. Next I added two bars running from the top of the main hoop to the rear upper torque box area. This added lots of support to the narrowed frame area. Next I added a four crossbars next to the doors for extra support. Finally I ran two more bars from the existing rear hatch bars to the coil over shock cross-member bar. Once all these bars were welded into place the car was as stiff as a rock. You could feel the difference just shaking the car. After almost a month of welding and body work under the hood this is the final product. Aside from some seem clue underneath around the wheel tubs Rustang is ready for paint.

April 23, 2000 to April 30, 2000

After many hours of pondering the idea of fully tubing my Mustang I have decided to do a semi full tub. Semi full tub you ask....let me explain. What I have done was back halved the car just after the stock control arm brackets and narrowed the rear frame rails slightly. This allows me to run either the stock control arm system and stock axle length with 12" wide tires, or I can run a ladder bar suspension which I have also installed and a shortened or stock length rear with 16" wide tires.  This required me to remove the rear floor and spare tire well to narrow the frame rails, but I had not planned on using the spare well anyway. This will also give me plenty of room underneath the car for a large fuel cell. During this time I also upgraded to a sportsman roll cage to add extra support for the ladder bar suspension that I installed in the rear.

April 21, 2000 to April 22, 2000

I have started the mini tub on Rustang. Progress is going smooth and we have successfully installed the coil over shock system and removed the stock wheel wells. Only problem encountered so far was that the stock floor material is crap and burns through as soon as you apply heat to it. It's making it very time consuming to weld anything to the existing floor.