awesome updates, Preston. You should be proud of those end caps they look great. I think you're hood design is going to work out well, too. Keep up the good work!

Looking good man! I about pooped my pants the first time I saw your car however many years ago! Glad you're still at it!

Preston - you mention doing a "low key" cowl hood... here's the one on my Mustang. At first I thought - wow - that's a bit "Camaroish"... but I've grown to like it and it works well to clear the air cleaner.


It's not nearly as aggressive as the "parachute" nostrils you like (and I like too!) but it does work.






http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/a...r/DSC_4738.jpg







http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/a...r/DSC_4739.jpg






http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/a...r/4TR_3349.jpg

I started building my hood Thanksgiving weekend, and its 50% done. It looks like its 80% done, but you know how that goes.

Of course "building the hood" also includes the time necessary to install a new manifold. Which meant cutting open my firewall, fishing out the wiper linkage to cut it and re-weld it up a little bit, and then closing the firewall back up without lighting all the dynamat on fire inside. I had to cut open the firewal just for manifold clearance, and the reason the firewall bulged out there was for the wiper linkage, and I really didn't want to take the whole dashboard off too. I also had to build a new throttle pedal and cable system to replace the old OEM Mustang bellcrank I was still using. I had a lot of problems getting the cable to work and clocking the new throttle body and I used two different lokar pedal assemblies to build a dual bearing pedal setup to make up for the offset of the pedal, and of course I also had to cut and weld both ends of the standard lokar setup to get the ratio I wanted - approximately 3.58" of pedal travel. I should have taken a picture of my new throttle pdeal.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr.../manifold2.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...ldfirewall.jpg


anyway it was all worth it because this manifold did exactly what I wanted it to do - I can lug it up the hills around my neighborhood in 4th gear now, and low end throttle response is vastly improved, In fact it comes on almost too hard now ! So it lived up to everything Wilson promised in my mind. Even on the first cold startup in the driveway the motor seemed happier, and later on driving around the auto tune was taking out fuel everywhere, indicating a much more efficient setup. Very happy with this purchase, even though it was quite spendy.
(On the photo of the back of the manifold by the firewall, those notches are to get an allen wrench into the attachment bolts. Normally this will be covered by the removeable cowl).

for the hood I started with the foundation of course, some bent up pieces of 0.063 3003 aluminum. My brake is only 36" long, so I had to these the hard way, using a tipping wheel in my roller, and then clamp it down and hammer the flange by hand. Then its into the shrinker/stretcher to make the curves. Note how you can use little tabls of aluminum to make sure you have exactly .063 of clearance to the top of the fender.

I don't know if you can tell from the photos but I started with a 3/4" *3/4" angle of aluminum and attached it to the main piece that connects to the hinge. That makes a double width of alumimun along that crucial curved vertical.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...foundation.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...oundation2.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...tioncorner.jpg


I built it from the outside in. Its hard to pick it out in the photos, but I'm pretty proud of the character line going down the center. Its more prominent that it looks in the photo and really helps break up the hood as well as match the OEM style which has a similar crease.

Of course I hate that the nostrils create a massive aerodynamic fail, but 85% of that air is going straight intot he open vent, and at this point looks are more important than some theoretical aero tip on a car with a huge amount of front end drag anyway. And what you cant' see here is how the gaps are tight and even all the way around and level panels etc. The stop skin btw is properly folded all along the base structure. I used Fusor to attach the substructure to the skin, no need to get that all distorted trying to weld it.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...nstruction.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...oodmockup1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...issingside.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...oodtopview.jpg

Ready to weld -

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...adytoweld3.jpg


gotta admit, at this point I'm pretty proud of this hood. I knew it would be a stretch for my skills, but its coming out pretty nice. Although final welding is always a bit dismaying, it hasn't been anything my hammer and dolly can't handle. After 3 or 4 years of hobby work, I actually feel 100% with my TIG welding.

Still a lot of work to do including aerocatch hood latches, but I hope to get it to the painter in another 6 weeks and when it comes back, i will take some full car photos somewhere besides the carport and the 1968 Mustang Shelby replica wide body project metalwork will be complete ! I don't know where I will drive it though, just the valence and hood represent a full year of leisure time I bet. It looks pretty awesome when you put all the front end pieces together, which I have deliberately not shown here. I mean, it will look cool if you're into wide body '68 shelby look mustangs.

nice work Preston.

I like it!

Great job on that hood. That's a ton of work, and you have to be happy because it looks pretty cool to boot!

Very nice Preston! :thumbsup:

I think you nailed it with that hood. The drag penalty for the GT500-esque nostrils will be worth it. I love that you have separate extraction vents for the radiator and filters. Very well thought out, and your fabrication skills are very commendable, as well.

I don't even like Mustangs, but you have my attention, for sure.

Nice work! If you never stretch your skills, you never improve them.