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My 1992 Autocross Mustang

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Thanks guys the car has been a work in progress for the past 5 years. I've had ups and downs with the car but is doing good. I pulled the engine from the car a couple months ago to make some updates with a bigger cam new rockers and lifters new intake manifold and a bunch of other stuff. Then we had it on the engine stand dyno it made 508hp and 430tq so looking forward to having that in the car. I'm hoping to have it out by the end of the month. I still need to put the new 3 inch exhaust and new headers in the car and get it back on the dyno.
 
Any updates Peter? I've been following this car on corral.net for a long time and I love it! There are many things that you have done that would like to do to mine......I'm too scared! LOL.
 
Any updates Peter? I've been following this car on corral.net for a long time and I love it! There are many things that you have done that would like to do to mine......I'm too scared! LOL.

I've been meaning to update this thread and the one on the corral. The car is doing good right now. Still have a couple more things to do before it is ready for the final NMCA event Oct 15-16. I didn't do much updating to my threads since I had been thrashing on the car trying to get it ready for the NMCA Sept 3-4 event. But unfortunately the car wasn't ready for that event.

Here's some of the back story of the car starting at the rebuild. I mentioned before the car was sitting on jack stands for around 10 years. My plan back in 2000 was to build a SCCA CP car. So the car was gutted and caged. I really didn't have the budget for it and after not turning it into a real CP car with fender flares and big tires after close to 6 years I just didn't have the money to keep it going. Since I didn't want to get rid of the car it went on jack stands with the plan one day it would race again. Then in 2016 I was able to make my dream of racing the car again a reality. I took the car off jack stands and started the process to get the car ready to run in SCCA CAM-T. Here's how the car looked when I got it home.

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The car already had the Maximum Motorsports front suspension on it. The rear had a parallel 4 link with MM panhard bar and road race lower control arms. Here's how the interior looked.

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The first order of business was removing the front part of the cage and leaving the rear roll bar. The next thing I always wanted to do was build my own motor. I had never done that before but I knew I wanted to try. I really wanted to build a 347 for the car so i talked to Jim Woods aka Woody at fordstrokers. So I bought a pile of parts from him and set out to build an engine with his help. I decided not to use the block from my old motor. I used a Dart SHP block with a big bore 4.125 and a shorter stroke AFR heads. Which turned out to be really good for my first attempt at building an engine.
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Then I worked on widening the car since I wanted to run a 315 on it. I picked up Chicane 23 fender flares and started cutting up the car. The front was easy I did it myself but the rear I had help with since I have never really welded before. After a lot of work i had fender flares on the car. If someone wants to see what I did to make the flares work I can post more pictures.

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At this point the car was running and I took it out to it's first autocross which went better then expected I only had a couple minor issues with the power steering going dead mid corner which made things hard when you have 315 in the front an you loose power steering in the corner. Here's a picture of my second autocross with the car after I put the saleen air dam on it.

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This I believe was late 2019 if I remember correctly. My plan was to test the car with the flares just riveted on so if a tire hit one or something got damaged I wouldn't have to do a bunch of body work over again. I felt like the car was pretty set for the 2020 race season. Unfortunately things didn't go as planned as we all know. Between the stadium closing since it got sold off and covid my race plans got put on hold for 2020.

When I realized racing wasn't going to happen I decided to do the body work on the car. I've never done it before but I gave it a try. It didn't turn out to bad for my first time. I had always planned on wrapping the car. I wanted to be able to fix things myself and not rely on a body shop. So I did my best to blend the flares to the car and wrap it.

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Other things I had been doing during this time was add a 04 Cobra IRS and ABS system to the car. When I installed the IRS I was looking at the ABS sensors and thought I already of the mounts for the sensors and tone rings all I need to do is add plumb it and wire up the ABS module. Since I removed everything under my dash that's where I put my ABS module.

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The first event for the newly rebuilt again car was Jan 5 and chuckwalla valley raceway. I really wanted to the first event to be an autocross and not a track day but it ran good with no major issues. I did a bunch of autocross events another track day in 2021 and got a lot of the bugs worked out in the car and I managed a win in NMCA modern muscle class. I was looking forward to the 2022 season with the car.

For the new racing season I added a Pro-M EFI system and took the car to the dyno. I knew the car didn't make great power but I really didn't realize how bad it was. Since the car has a 347 with AFR heads mild cam it should make more then 300hp it only made 275hp and 318tq. The power fell off like a rock after 5000-5100 rpms. It did make great low end torque which is why the car did great on short tight courses. I decided to wait until the summer break to pull the motor put a new cam in the car with shaft mount rockers Holley Systemax bigger throttle body and MAF from Pro-M. I also set the car up with a better fuel system so I could run E85. I didn't do the motor work this time I really didn't have the time so I had the engine builders at JBA Racing do the engine work. Since the engine was out I added an Tremec TKX and MDL hydraulic clutch setup.

The car is currently at JBA getting the exhaust fixed and having it tuned for the new setup. It runs pretty good but it does need some fine tuning. I was hoping to get test event in before the NMCA event but it doesn't look like that is going to happen. Here's some pictures of the interior and the new engine setup.

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This is a cliff notes version of what I did with the car if anyone has questions about any part of it please let me know I'm happy to help if I can.
 
Had a good weekend at the track. the only thing that was a bummer was the last 3 courses were all about horse power so I was looking forward to that with the new motor. The course was a tight technical course that I won't get a chance to stretch the cars new legs on. This one was a real drivers course that took patience which unfortunately I lack from time to time. This was a weekend that slow and smooth was the fastest way around the course. I almost had 4th both days but on Saturday I got beat by .0009 to drop me to 5th. Considering since I've been in the pro class I would normally be in last place over 2 seconds out of the lead to less then a second out of the lead shows we made progress with the car. I think the next thing that needs to be adjusted is the guy behind the wheel. Here's my fastest runs from Saturday and Sunday.



The only issue I ran into with the car was on Sunday. I'm not sure if the E85 throws off the fuel level sensor or what on my first set of runs in a long right hand turn the when coming out of the turn into the slalom the car would start to die when I got back on the gas. The fuel level was still reading high so I thought the gas level was fine. I ended up pouring 6 gallons of E85 in the car which solved the problem. I ordered one of these to install in the car so I don't run into this issue again.

http://www.radiumauto.com/MPFST-Multi-Pump-Fuel-Surge-Tank-P1565.aspx

It will hold 2 liters of fuel which is around 1/2 gallon. I just need to work on mounting it.

Now I'm planning out the rest of my season I have a few SCCA events and one Racing Byrds autocross challenge before the end of the year. I think the main focus for those events is working on my driving. The car has what it takes to be a top challenger it's me that's holding it back right now.
 
Been getting some work done on the car the past few weeks. I've been running a small battery in the car since I got it running 4 years ago. I mounted it in the factory position since it only weighs 15 pounds. It worked well until it died they day we were leaving for the last NMCA event. This when I realized one of the drawbacks to having a small battery. The battery it the car was shot wouldn't even take a charge. we searched everywhere for a replacement with no luck. The shop that sponsors the car just happened to have a slightly larger version but it wouldn't work with my battery mount. We made some brackets and got it to work. Had it not been for the fact they just happened to have a battery that worked I would have missed the event after all the work that was done to the car getting it ready.

I decided to replace the battery with a standard size battery and put it in the back passenger seat area.

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This will give me the ability to use a small or a full size battery and take a bit of weight off the front of the car. I will be adding a bit of weight to the car over all but not to much since the battery I'm installing is very light weight for it's size. I was going to mount the battery on top of the rear seat delete but decided I didn't like the looks of it. I really didn't want to cut a hole in my rear seat delete but I did. It came out okay not really happy with the job I did but it worked.

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I was going to build a mounting plate on the floor then mount the battery box to it. I decided to put 90 degree angled aluminum on the sides of the battery box and attach it to the rear seat delete.

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I attached it to the front and the sides the back is at an angle so I didn't attach it in the back. But after setting the battery in the box I'm going to make some brackets to support the back. I'm hoping to get the mounting of the box finalized tonight so I can start wiring the battery the rest of the week with the hope of starting it this weekend.
 
NASA Rule
"11.4.9 Battery The battery should be securely fastened to the car. No Bungee cords or rubber cords may be used to function as the sole hold down mechanism. An electrically non-conductive material should cover the positive battery terminal. Any battery located inside the driver’s compartment should be fully covered and firmly secured to the chassis (or tub) in a marine type battery case. Dry cell, gel cell, and AGM batteries may be mounted without a surrounding case however a case is still recommended. Lithium ion batteries must be outside of the passenger area of the vehicle. Note- a ruptured lithium ion battery is subject to instant ignition at such high temperatures, the owner/ builder runs the risk of the entire vehicle being consumed by the fire."

SCCA Rule
"9.3.8. BATTERIES Battery location is unrestricted within the bodywork (except Spec Miata, Touring 2-4, B-Spec, and Improved Touring). If located in the driver/passenger compartment, vented wet cell batteries shall be in a nonconductive marine type container or equivalent. The hot terminal shall be insulated on all cars. All batteries (on-board power supplies) shall be attached securely to the frame or chassis structure independent of the marine type container"

I would think chassis means more than just body panels. Maybe I'm interpreting that wrong?

Unibody cars usually still have frame rails they just might not be connected front to back. My battery is mounted through the rear frame rail in the Mustang.
 
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"11.4.9 Battery The battery should be securely fastened to the car. No Bungee cords or rubber cords may be used to function as the sole hold down mechanism. An electrically non-conductive material should cover the positive battery terminal. Any battery located inside the driver’s compartment should be fully covered and firmly secured to the chassis (or tub) in a marine type battery case. Dry cell, gel cell, and AGM batteries may be mounted without a surrounding case however a case is still recommended. Lithium ion batteries must be outside of the passenger area of the vehicle. Note- a ruptured lithium ion battery is subject to instant ignition at such high temperatures, the owner/ builder runs the risk of the entire vehicle being consumed by the fire."

Unibody cars usually still have frame rails they just might not be connected front to back. My battery is mounted through the rear frame rail in the Mustang.
I just read that section in NASA CC&R, doesn't say anything about needing to mount to the "frame" though? I think OP is ok with how he mounted it.
 
I just read that section in NASA CC&R, doesn't say anything about needing to mount to the "frame" though? I think OP is ok with how he mounted it.
The SCCA rule specifically mentions "frame". OP, is it only attached to the sheet metal panels you put in or am I looking at it wrong?
 
The SCCA rule specifically mentions "frame". OP, is it only attached to the sheet metal panels you put in or am I looking at it wrong?
Its currently only attached to the panels in the car. I can create a mount below to the chassis of the car to cover the SCCA rule. Only issue would be is if they need to see that it's mounted to the chassis which you wouldn't be able to see under the panels.
 

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