S197 3V Fabman's build; How did we get here? Build Thread

[Fabman]

I have been asked to start a build thread for my little project pony.
Its probably a little different than what you might expect to see in a track car, but it's because of the route that took me here that made it what it is. Different.
It's not a Boss or a GT 350 or even a GT 500. It's just a plain old vanilla Mustang GT.


It all started out very innocently, with a delivery from Ford. A new Mustang GT Premium in white.

It didn't take very long for the mod bug to bite and by the end of the week she had started to see some changes.
A lowering kit, tires and a tint job graced this simple yet elegant canvas.

I thought I was through, but boy was I wrong....









So how did we get from there to HERE:












I'll try to bring us up to speed as quickly as possible. (Pun Intended)

 

[Fabman]

I got involved with the show circuit and did very well with some attention from various Mustang websites, news papers, a photo shoot for Apex Racing wheels promo and Full Feature articles in Borelli Motorsports, Ford Racing Nation and Fuel Curve Magazines.

Fuel Curve Magazine:
https://fuelcurve.com/2006-ford-mustang-specfab-racings-track-monster/

 

[VoodooBoss]

If this is the car I saw at one of the Snakes At The Lake events @ Kings Beach it's very nicely executed. Well done!

 

[Fabman]

In that environment it was highly desirable to have a blower. But everybody had a blower....I wanted something different.


So I made a visit to the now defunct joint venture between Steve Saleen and Real Estate mogul and road racer Wayne Grafton.
The company was named "Techco" and they had some interesting new products, one of which caught my eye, a new 3 liter supercharger:

Unfortunately there were some issues between the principle owners and it showed in the service as my motor expired a few weeks after the install.


I took it to a shop near me for a new motor. In 2 years it never ran right and I got jerked around until he was ultimately sued by a whole group of unhappy customers.
He has been on the lamb ever since. So I took it to another shop and they could never get the motor to run properly either so after a compression tests showed bad news I ordered up a new JDM stroker short block. It was installed with some saleen heads and cams and other performance goodies but we could never get the blower belt to stop slipping since the design included no spring tensioner. Apparently this was a known problem and a cogged belt setup was in the works at the time of the companies unfortunate demise.

 

[Fabman]

If this is the car I saw at one of the Snakes At The Lake events @ Kings Beach it's very nicely executed. Well done!

The same....thank you.

 

[Fabman]

So as the JDM Stroker went in we disassembled that second motor and instead of a killer stroker it turned out to be a stock motor with 2 broken pistons and a very expensive lesson attached to it. Some people lie.


The new stroker from JDM was awesome with a new Kenne Bell Blower I ran a best of 10.70 @ 123 mph at Sacramento Raceway.
Unfortunately, out side influences cause the motor to expire, not the fault of JDM but rather the mechanic who was working on it. (can I kill him now?)




Enter new JDM stroker #2....I set this one on kill.
A 302 Stroker with all the good stuff including FRPP aluminum block, Forged crank and rods, CP pistons, O ringed oil pump with billet gears, stage 3 CNC ported heads and cams, Custom made ARH long tube headers, 3" magnaflow exhaust, an e85 divison X fuel system from Lethal performance and a whole boat load of other go fast goodies.

 

[Fabman]

 

[Fabman]

Being a fabricator, I quickly customed up a few pieces for it as well.


Breather tank:

And an intercooler tank w/integral pump and baffles:

A Maximum Motorsports roll cage kit: Later I welded up all the bolt together parts before installing it with a rear seat delete.

A TCI racing trans and PI custom curved converter:

And slap stick auto shifter from TCI rounded out the package along with a true track and 4:10 gears.

Plus some race tires to get it all to the ground:

 

[Fabman]

I also widened my bullits to 11" and added some meat the the project:

 

[Fabman]

The car graced the pages of www.fordracingnation.com as a feature article.


http://fordracingnation.com/features/view-all/54-car-of-the-month/710-sal-molinare-s-06-gtis-frn-s-march-car-of-the-month/

 

[Fabman]

So how did that 4th and final motor work out?

694 rwhp/677 rwtq and 10.22@135mph at the drags.

 

[Fabman]

So what's all this have to do with Road Racing/Track days?

Stay tuned for my next installment of "As the motor turns."
......until then.

 

[Grant 302]

Nice work, Fabman! Very impressive.Thanks for sharing! Definitely looking forward to any updates.

 

[TMSBOSS]

4th and final motor?? LOL

 

[ArizonaBOSS]

Looking good! Glad to see someone else out there stimulating the heck out of the economy

 

[302 Hi Pro]

Fabman:

Now I know why you're Fabman: I'd say that is some very nice custom fabrication on the Intercooler Tank. I thought you had a cool Mustang, I just didn't know how cool.

Great thread, nicely laid out from new to newly modded. Glad to see you finally got the right engine, as that process must have been painful.

Good luck with your track racing endevours.
302 Hi Pro

 

[Fabman]

4th and final motor?? LOL

4 motors, 2 blowers and 5 shops in all.
I finally ended up at AED who made my world right again.
Can't recommend those guys highly enough. I just wish I would have gone there first.
I had one of those shops wreck my car on a test drive....but don't get me started on that tangent or I'll be pissed all day.

 

[Fabman]

Fabman:

Now I know why you're Fabman: I'd say that is some very nice custom fabrication on the Intercooler Tank. I thought you had a cool Mustang, I just didn't know how cool.

Great thread, nicely laid out from new to newly modded. Glad to see you finally got the right engine, as that process must have been painful.

Good luck with your track racing endevours.
302 Hi Pro

Thank you. It's been quite a journey.

 

[Fabman]

Drag racing was fun for a while, but as an old stock car pilot of the 80's and 90's I wanted more than just step on it and drive straight for a 1/4 mile.
So I decided to do some track day events for fun. But first, some upgrades were in order...


First up, Brakes.
Some 14" 6 piston Baer brakes up front w/DTC 70 pads and a set or rear brakes off a super snake I worked on a while back.

Needed some cooling mods as well.
Gt 500 fan and triple pass aluminum radiator from Fluidyne, A/C delete (and horn delete while I was in there)

I needed to box in the radiator so I built some ducting and a small splitter with flow directors inside to help send the wind the right way.
I also added a short belly pan to smooth the airflow under the car until it got past the suspension.
Everything including the splitter struts and strut mounts were fabricated at my shop. (Have you seen the prices of splitters and hardware these days? I'll make my own)
There are some loops mounted under there that I use to tie the car down in the trailer and god forbid I ever go off track,they can be used a stow hooks.

 

[Fabman]

The stock seats were way too heavy and didn't hold you in very well so I visited an old friend Kirkey Racing and picked up some nice aluminum seats.

Since this is a non stock application, I needed to build some seat bottom and seat back mounts to get everything right where I wanted it...and so I did.