FoxBody Red Fox Build Thread Profile - Fox Body Mustangs

[Peter92lx]

Damn Peter! If I had the time, skills, and more importantly, money I would build pretty much this exact car. The only thing I would probably be doing different would be either staying with the 418/427w and having a nice, quality stereo for long distance drives.
The quality of work you have done and are doing is exceptional!

My dream engine for the car is a all aluminum 427. I think that will be the next engine for the car but that's a long time off.

 

[Fabman]

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.

I think this is the part they are getting at:

All batteries (on-board power supplies) shall be attached securely to the frame or chassis structure independent of the marine type container"

They don't want a plastic box bolted down with a battery loose inside of it.
In a crash the battery can come through the plastic box like a wrecking ball.
Ask me how I know this.

 

[Fabman]

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.

I'd love to hear more about the ABS.

 

[Peter92lx]

I'd love to hear more about the ABS.

The ABS in the car is from a 04 Cobra. I went with since it would be the easiest to install. The only major thing I had to do is make all the brake lines. I didn't like my first version of the brake lines so I made a few new ones recently. It works pretty good one of the issues is my car is a lot lighter than the car the unit was designed for so I will get a quick lockup under hard braking but it's only for split second. The brakes calipers are the same in the rear as a 04 cobra and the fronts are the wilwood kit you would put on the cobra so those should be fine.

I do have two other ABS units I want to try I just haven't figured out which one I'm going to use at this time. I have the ABS module from a 09 GT500 which I've heard is the last year you can use standalone. This one I know people have run and should be a lot better than the one I have right now in the car. The only issue with it is I would have to mount new sensors since the ones I use right now are active and the GT500 unit uses passive sensors if I remember correctly. It really shouldn't be to big of a deal to mount the sensors but I have to look into it. The other one I have is a BMW MK60e5 ABS module out of a 2011 BMW M3. This one is interesting I have a friend that has it working in his 68 Camaro. He and a few others have figured out a way to crack it and change the settings in the ABS module to tune it. The issue with the BMW unit is the wheel speed sensors. I would have to replace the tone rings and sensors. The sensors wouldn't be that bad it's the tone rings that would be hard to figure out. I've heard someone is working on a converter to take the active signal from my ABS sensors and convert them to a signal the MK60 can understand.

The one issue I've run into with the ABS is the master cylinder. The first one I had in the car was rebuilt 93 cobra master cylinder I got from LMR lasted about half the season before the seals went bad inside. Based on what we could see the seals were damaged. After doing more research I found they design the master cylinders for ABS systems differently to handle the pulses when the ABS module triggers. The master cylinder I have in the car now is a 93 cobra but it's a new one from Raybestos which has been fine so far. I know tilton has master cylinders for their pedal setups designed for ABS brakes which is the route I would like to take in the future but that isn't happening this year.

 

[Fabman]

The ABS in the car is from a 04 Cobra. I went with since it would be the easiest to install. The only major thing I had to do is make all the brake lines. I didn't like my first version of the brake lines so I made a few new ones recently. It works pretty good one of the issues is my car is a lot lighter than the car the unit was designed for so I will get a quick lockup under hard braking but it's only for split second. The brakes calipers are the same in the rear as a 04 cobra and the fronts are the wilwood kit you would put on the cobra so those should be fine.

I do have two other ABS units I want to try I just haven't figured out which one I'm going to use at this time. I have the ABS module from a 09 GT500 which I've heard is the last year you can use standalone. This one I know people have run and should be a lot better than the one I have right now in the car. The only issue with it is I would have to mount new sensors since the ones I use right now are active and the GT500 unit uses passive sensors if I remember correctly. It really shouldn't be to big of a deal to mount the sensors but I have to look into it. The other one I have is a BMW MK60e5 ABS module out of a 2011 BMW M3. This one is interesting I have a friend that has it working in his 68 Camaro. He and a few others have figured out a way to crack it and change the settings in the ABS module to tune it. The issue with the BMW unit is the wheel speed sensors. I would have to replace the tone rings and sensors. The sensors wouldn't be that bad it's the tone rings that would be hard to figure out. I've heard someone is working on a converter to take the active signal from my ABS sensors and convert them to a signal the MK60 can understand.

The one issue I've run into with the ABS is the master cylinder. The first one I had in the car was rebuilt 93 cobra master cylinder I got from LMR lasted about half the season before the seals went bad inside. Based on what we could see the seals were damaged. After doing more research I found they design the master cylinders for ABS systems differently to handle the pulses when the ABS module triggers. The master cylinder I have in the car now is a 93 cobra but it's a new one from Raybestos which has been fine so far. I know tilton has master cylinders for their pedal setups designed for ABS brakes which is the route I would like to take in the future but that isn't happening this year.

I have a gen 3/2 coyote swapped 06 s197. I had no idea the abs would’t work with the coyote electronics when I did the swap so I currently have no abs and it’s just terrible. 2 seasons of w2w with it and it’s just…..terrible. I purchased an abs pump and module for a boss 302s and haven’t installed it yet….(wiring is not my friend). This is supposedly the preferred pump and it’s supposed to work stand alone. When I see swaps with abs I always like to see what’s up.
Love your thread….Carry on.