Preston's 1967 Mustang
 

I'm tired of Ron Schwarz getting all the credit for crazy home built junk :), so here is my $xxx,xxx budget Mustang. That's as realistic a number as Ron's $5k budget Mustang.

I guess I better whet your appetite to get some thread views - Twin Turbo all aluminum dry sumped 427 Windsor, 335 tires front and rear, flat bottom floor, custom dual a-arm front suspension, 3 link/watts in the rear, bla bla bla. Totally street legal.

Starting with a GT1/Trans Am inspired honeycomb reinforced space frame.
HOnestly I would probably go back to a standard frame rail setup next time but I fell in love with this build style while studying Trans Am cars. The front snout really is only about 10 lbs lighter than standard roll cage reinforced frame rail style car, but perhaps its stiffer, and it makes mounting a flat floor easier not to mention building it on the frame table

I use a combination of heavy cinder blocks and skip welding to keep the main rails from warping. Most of the rest of the structure I just skip weld and constantly check my measurements and adjust accordingly.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...rontsnout1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...rontsnout3.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...inemockup2.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...inemockup1.jpg

Angle cuts were made with a cold cut chop saw. It was a $500 saw, but it makes very nice quick clean cuts and while the angle finder on it is crude, I use a digital protractor to check the angle of the cuts and sneak up on them. BTW the digital protractor is used constantly on something like this.

Although I was interested in investing in a $45k 1/2" thick surfaced frame table with drilled and tapped holes on 3" centers, I ended up going with MDF boards on my carport floor. The whole surface is angled 0.5 degrees one direction, so I have to keep that in mind but the surface is flat enough. YOu can put a 10ft stick of 2*3 down on it and not see any gaps or air.

Bellhousing tunnel area is formed out of .125 cold rolled, make sure there is enough room to remove the bellhousing with the clutch installed !

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


Here is the pedal box being fabbed. One huge advantage of my chosen frame design is lots of room for firewall mounted junk nice and low. I am using a hydraboost with dual m/c's with an adapter, so I have a 16" long monstrosity sticking out (I wish !) right at the floor level. AT least the COG stays low, despite the 15lb weight penalty of the booster. But I hate manual brakes on a full weight car.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...1/pedalbox.jpg

I built flanges all around the floor, rear firewall, and firewall for epoxying in aluminum honeycomb. I think this hase been very successful on the floor and rear, but was a mistake on the firewall. Doesn't protect against intrusion, and despite my hopes of a "thermos" effect the heat insulation sucks, I had to end up adding stainless shields anyway as well as a crapload of DEI heat shield, so weight savings are zero anyway.

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


Here is some shots of the honeycomb being glued in. I am using Hysol 120HP or something like that. The honeycomb is from Teklam and is $550 for a 4*8 sheet plus shipping. 1" thick, it is as light as a .050 sheet of aluminum but so stiff you can't bend it over your knees. I estimate I saved about 15 lbs on the flooring vs running diaganol tubes and a 0.63 aluminum floor.

COG was important to me in this car so the main rails are all flat on the floor, and the exhaust runs down the rockers. This keeps the floor low, keeps the driver low, which keeps the roof low, which keeps the body and COG low.

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

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

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...combfloor3.jpg

Here is the dash area being constructed. Yes I am still using the original '67 throttle bell crank. You would think a cable would work better here, but there is very little real estate to make it work and I couldn't really find a good pedal that would fit so i used what I had. also, I am using the original wiper system for the most part, and the body is so low on the chassis that I had 1/2" to spare for the wiper motor, and that was after I cut off the motor arm, reclocked and re-welded it. I probably have 20 hours into making the original wipers work that angled square bracket off the front with the circle in it is where it will mount. What you don't see in this picture is the mockup roof I had placed on the chassis to fab it up. Actually its not a mockup roof, it is my roof ! ( and a-pillars).

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

Here are some pictures of the back end coming together. I am using an underslung watts link with the pivot mounted to the underside of the pumpkin, but as Stielow might say I have "package protected" the use of a Panhard bar, thats the square section of tubing on the lower left of the rear stub where a sliding heim joint clamp can be used. This was about a 6 lb penalty and I'm not using it. You can also make out the sway bar brackets. The sway bar will go through the lower frame rails. They were drilled and a 1.5" .120 tube section welded in.

I couldn't seem to find any pictures with the watts link brackets welded in, but they are just two double shear heim joint brackets on that underslung rail. As i get into the suspension you will see how simple it all is.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...1/chassis1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr.../rearstub2.jpg


If you are like me you are a junky for build threads, so I will be adding to this thread as I feel inspired or if there is any interest in my junk.

Some semi-complete pictures of the chassis, note that extra gussetting was added in some places. Total chassis weight without front and rear crush structures was 470 lbs, pretty good considering a Vette frame is 420 with no crossmembers or roll cage.

The lessons learned are

1) the aforementioned firewall should be welded in stainless instead of the honeycomb.

2) I could have used more 2*2 on the lower rail instead of 2*3 for everything (about 8 lbs of weight savings). I used what I had at the time.

3) I would have liked to carry that small tube above the main rails that attaches to the cage side bar all the way from the rear cage post to the front firewall post.

4) there is another 10 lbs I could have whittled out of it in a few places.


Next week I will get into the suspension buildup or the body mounting.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...hassis90-1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...hassis90-2.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...hassis90-3.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...hassis90-4.jpg

Hey Preston
 

Thanks for finally posting up your build over here. I followed it over at CC and was very inspired and will enjoy watching the repost over here. Kind of like a "greatest hits" album...without the 2 or 3 year wait.

I have to ask since I am about to start another project, what do you think of the square set-up you are running (335 front and rear)? I have had mixed information, some say it is great and you get to rotate the tires, others say a slightly smaller front (305 or 315) help the car turn better. Thoughts?

I will say seeing the pics of your frame this morning has me re-energized to start my build.

VERY impressive Preston! :thumbsup:

How did you model the frame dimensions and suspension design? Look forward to more updates on this one...:cheers:

I'm a far cry from a driving expert, my only track cred comes from 20 HPDE's over the last 8 years and 7 years of shifter kart racing. But it seemed to turn in just fine to me I didn't notice anything strange. Just from a physics point of view that doesn't make sense to me - you turn the front tires 10 degrees and which tire develops a higher thrust angle? A small tire or a large tire? besides, any large bore racing class eventually moves to the largest front wheels they can package, Trans Am, Grand Am, LeMans. Whether that means the same for a street based car is open to debate, but unless you are going for top speed or are horsepower limited, I can't imagine you would want less tire, especially on our front heavy cars. Again what do they run in LeMan spec Vipers and Vettes ? Or the CP guys in autox ?

In this day and age of CNC laser cut Autocad designed wiper motor brackets, I actually find it kind of refreshing that I am so old school. My first try was a glorified ladder frame, and my 2nd try was all designed on Grape which is a freeware modelling software. Once you play around in something like Grape it doesn't take long to kind of "learn" where the structure needs to go for stiffness, and you are package limited for so much of it. So on the 3rd try I already knew the critical dimensions - firewall to rearwall distance, inside rocker dimensions, dash bar height, wheelbase, etc. So from there I literally design it in my head with a few paper sketches and just make sure I have structure near my suspension pickup points (the suspension is modelled in WinGeo). Ater that the cage superstructure is just built like any car with the roof mocked up in place. Speaking of mockup, i guess thats part of it too - constant and never yielding mockup -seat in & out, engine block in & out , roof on and off. Also the front and rear bodymount/crush structures are added later, so that final "fit" can be done with normal fabrication.

I'll go more into the suspension design later.

One other thing I wanted to add about frame design - with this kind of "square" style space frame, everything is really easy to keep "square", vs a mandrel bent curvy or OEM type replacement chassis or Ironworks round tube piece of art. I don't remember them now, but when I was in the middle of it I could tell you the required measurement from every corner. It was relatively easy to x-measure and keep stuff square, and all the structure is flat or angle cut square tubing. It doesn't look as inspiring as a tube bent Ironworks extravaganza with the laser cut brackets and gussets, but its about 100x simpler to build and probably a touch lighter too.

Thanks for the info
 

looking forward to future posts

I saw some posts of yours on CC too and it's great you posted here. Talk about a refreshing project. :thumbsup:

I too have been struggling with the squared vs staggered setup for the changes to my car.

This car was built with the bigger is better concept. Staggered or non-staggered, I believe in fitting the largest tires you can where you can. If that means 255 on the front and 345 on the back, then try to tune it out with suspension. Use a lot of rear roll stiffness !

Now a pure racer would disagree, might find advantages to lighter wheels and tires. But on our big motor, heavy, pro-touring inspired rides, I just don't see a point in hamstringing the only thing that keeps the car on the ground. I think the wear patterns are different for the front and rear too, so sure you can rotate them, but I find I keep the rear tires on the car a lot longer than the front if I am tracking. Now if you are basing it on economics and/or crash replacement that is something different.

Another idea I have is the car is mostly tuned for the track and the 335 front tires. On the street I mostly leave the suspension alone (because its a lot of work changing stuff around anyay) and my street tires are 285 up front. So that gives me some built in understeer (safety). Not that I ever really push cornering on the street anyway. The downside is that the 285 doesn't fill up the fenders hella flush :)

I realize we are discussing performance, but c'mon these cars need big tires anyway ! And for performance, a front biased front engined car needs more front tire if you can fit it.

This is by far the MOST important aspect of any car build, obviously.

i too recall your car on cc years ago, actually tyler showed it to me when i was first getting into pro-touring and remember him being soo stoked on your car and that you did it all under a carport!:thumbsup:

The build is inspiring:thumbsup:

I can't wait to see your big little windsor with its twin turbos. You should have more hp than you need.:D

The tire debate is interesting. I hear everything you are saying about our nose heavy street cars and it's all logical. The only thing that makes me think is Vipers and Vetts come with staggered tires in their most potent street forms. This despite the drawbacks of different sized tires for a true street car. Do they go to a square setup for race stuff?

Rob, don't forget that those Vipers and 'Vettes are all engineered to have a safe amount of understeer when braking. I don't know how much that is on a Viper, but I do know Grand Sports like to push a little bit.

I know my big front heavy GT500 performs a lot better with a "square" setup than with a factory 265/285 combo. I don't know if steering feel is slightly more vague though.

I too would be interested to learn more, and hear more feedback about front and rear tire sizing. I suppose you could say I've joined the club of the "more front tire = better crowd" simply because it seems easier to drive and tune that type of set up. I'm not the best driver, or tuner, and I can really benefit from simplicity.

Preston, I want to see more pictures :thumbsup:

Matt

All right Preston, leave my name out of it.LOL

I told you, the only reason I joined C/C, and took the public flogging was to look at your car. Still amazed it was all built on the car port(definitley get extra style points for that). Love how our cars morph from one design to something totally different, and WAY more expensive.

Can't help but love the fact that we can bounce ideas, and errors(lots of errors) off each other. That is what keeps me reading, and posting on these sites. Hope to see that car in person one day.

You know all those photos we love of the completely gutted car shell sitting on the build table at Troy's or Rodger's place ?

Well we never seem to see any photos of how it got there ! Here's how mine worked, I think this is what they do at Rad Rides (?)

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...ming%20Off.jpg


(Note this photo below is the roof coming off my old chassis - see how I kept just the barest bit of metal holding the door jam on ? It saves a lot of time if you can index something like that even roughly)

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...ther/Roof1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...ther/Roof2.jpg

BTW that roof section with a-pillars, sail panels, and 16 lbs of dynamat permanently stuck on the inside of the roof weighed 120 lbs. OUCH

I started drilling holes in the unibody roof support structure but it was only 22 awg steel and I calculated that if I drilled 2" diameter holes all through the structure it would save like 1.2 lbs. So I gave up on that.. Lightening holes are almost worthless compared to using the correct and lightweight material in the first place when you are building something.

The next most important step is of course getting the roof placed right. I probably spent a few weeks mocking that up and testing the door fit before tacking it in place. The first big deal is getting the door pillars in the correct place. So clamping down the a-pillars I attached the doors to index the jams and verify the fit of the roof (thank goodness the top of the door on these cars is perfectly level). I also knew the correct angle of the windshield pillars to help me.

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

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


Next finish up the rear filler panel and deck, you can see how the interior panels have been built here, generally .063 aluminum with dynamat on the top side bent in a cheap brake and pop riveted and siliconed together. Sounds cheesy on paper but a large diameter 3/16" pop rivet every inch is pretty secure. A 1ft square of 20 awg steel is almost 2 lbs. A 1 ft square of .063 aluminum is 0.7 lbs, with dynamat its about 1.8 lbs. Of course, I now realize the aluminum is worthless for fire protection compared to the steel. Besides the weight, I use as much aluminum as I can because it doesn't rust. I can't stand seeing rust and I have a very difficult time preventing corrosion working in my carport and without any skill at painting/sealing stuff.

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


Here you can see the replacement filler panel attached. I used a cheap harbor freight brake, and a cheap Eastwood shrinker/stretcher to build all sorts of these panels and stuff.

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

I probably should go more into the process of indexing the body and stuff as it took weeks and weeks of configuring and reconfiguring, but its kind of boring. Just make sure you have a good centerline through the whole build, and put on as many body panels as you can mock up to make sure everything lines up. For example my "unibody" still had a place to bolt on the hood hinges to line the hood up, and as seen above I could mount the doors correctly as well.

here is a shot of the seat being mocked (make sure your head and helmet fit the roof). In my case since the floor was so low I actually have a lot of good clearance to the roof and even have pretty good clearance from the cage for street driving without a helmet. In fact my bare head is about the same distance from the high density padding on the upper side bar as it is from the unibody structure when it was a normal car. Note also the big 2*2 bar holding up the sail panels for mockup. By shimming that bar with 1/8" steel pads I could get the perfect alignment. Note also the double shear brackets for the seat belts. The car is setup so I can run shoulder belts and 6 point harnesses at the same time.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...t%20mockup.jpg

Something we don't talk about much is cabin ventilation. After building a couple of these you realize how integrated that is into OEM design and how easy it is to F'up, especially when you no longer have a cowl. Most cars of this era depend on fresh air being prsssured down into the cowl and then routed to the cabin. And don't forget, that air also has to go somewhere, so you need exit vents. I had tried running 3" duct from the front of the car to the cabin before but I knew I didn'th ave room to do that so I built these ducts into the A-pillars and then run 3" brake hose to some fender mounted inlet ducts that you will see later. One duct goes straight to the driver with a manual door to block it off, and one goes straight into my heater box. I don't have pictures handy, but then I also built 3" ducts from the rear interior side panels behind the seats that connect to holes in the door jams. Sort of a crude approximation of the vents you see in GM car door jambs.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...20vent%203.jpg

Here you can see the "HVAC" system such as it is, or maybe I should call it the HV system. Its the smallest cheapest heater you can get form Vintage Air. Like all of their stuff its designed to just breathe in cabin air but I didn't want to circulate stale air and the fan is loud, so I built an aluminum plenum around the intake fan and tied it to my passenger side duct. The unit is small but it produces plenty of heat at least for the NW. You can also see the wiper being built up. I would have loved a nice big vintage air repro A/C heater box, but there was no room behind the firewall for that stuff because of the 15" engine setback. I used the vintage air electronic hot water solenoid though so I at least had a nice smooth modern feeling knob for controlling the heat level rather than some kind of crappy cable. although I still use a cable to open and close the little defrost door. The system has worked well for heat and defrost, but the little squirrel fan is still loud. Its kind of amazing to me how well the original '67 ventilation/heater box system worked, its too bad I couldn't have kept those parts.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...innerdash1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...%20mounted.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...innerdash2.jpg


here is a shot of the finished insulated firewall (DEI tunnel/heat shield, pretty good stuff). You can also see the hydraboost brake booster adapted to dual M/C's.

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

I know these photos jump around the build process quite a bit but hey I'm lazy posting all this junk. I work on computers all day so I don't want to spend an inordinate amount of time posting.
In that vein, here is the trunk coming together and one sexy shot to keep you interested perhaps in the final build. The coolers and pumps are for the trans and rear end. I would have preferred an internal mechanicl pump especially in the rear end but couldn't afford it or didn't know about them when I had it built. Also note the fuel filler tube.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...her/trunk2.jpg

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

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...ther/test4.jpg

That last picture is the money shot. Cool build Preston. :thumbsup:

Hey Preston...can't tell you how much fun it is to see/read about this car. The thought, design and execution is a great learning experience. Keep going Sir! :cheers:

I love the randomness of the pics. :thumbsup:

The cabin ventilation... that's a new one on this site for me.... see something different everyday.

Cool stuff Preston. You definitely did the right thing allowing for big front tires. I've raced Vettes and Vipers (which have static 51% rear weight bias BTW) a bunch in autox, and they just get better and better the more front tire you give them. 335s are definitely not too much!

Suspension design is one of the main things that got me into building my own cars. When I started on my latest design the C5 stuff was fairly new. I agonized a long time between using C5 and the circle track race equipment. At the time there was a lot of complaining on the vette racers forums about spindle flex, pad knockback, and bearings wearing out. THis was before the upgraded SKF and ZR1 bearings were available. I had visions of a super car that could be run on banked race tracks and I'd had pad knockback before and it sucked. Plus I wanted the design freedom to put my pickups and such wherever I wanted and create longer controls and such. I could already see a future where the majority of hot rods would be using the vette stuff too and I wanted something different. Nowadays I'm a litle more inspired by pro-touring and hot rods, at the time I was much more inspired by true racing cars so that also aided my decision. PIctures like this made it more stark - just compare the C5 hub to a real aluminum racing hub (slightly different than the one I used).

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...nsion/hubs.jpg

The downsides were
1) Big hub means big wheel offset to get a good scrub radius, which means I am limited on my wheel choices and have no recourse to buy/sell used wheels.
2) no parts compatibily, all the brakes and steering are custom
3) the biggest downside is weight, a C5 hub is ~8.5 lbs, but the spindle and brake bracket are only 6 lbs with UBJ. My hub is ~6 lbs, but my upright and brake bracket is 13.5 lbs for a 25% increase in weight.

However, it also looks way more hardcore and of course quite different from another me-too vette front end. Also my LCA's are about 1" longer (always good) and my spindle pin is very high, ie my CA mounts are very low allowing me to retain a very low RC without compromising other geometry. I also can use mammoth brakes as I have no issue with wheel clearance, and I use a direct mount hat which is stronger with less deflection than an offset hat. My crappy photography doesn't do it justice but the latest package looks truly awesome when you pull the wheel off. For some reason I don't have that picture.

The first upright you see in the photos is a Coleman modular asphalt spindle with custom dimensions. It is the same basic spindle used on the Agent47 front end and the Schwartz chassis. As you can see I added some further boxing and pin reinforcement at the expense of 1 lb.

Some of things I was striving for in my design were low scrub, low scrub radius, mild camber gain under bump and aggressive caster gain for extra camber gain in turns. In the end I actually copied the layout of the C5 pretty closely (I had a geometry file for the vette). The difference is my design ended up with less RC movement and less scrub and less bumpsteer, with longer IC's and slightly lower RC, while maintaing similar figures for trail, caster gain, and camber gain.
I wanted a high performance suspension, but I also wanted something that felt very stable going down the freeway, my sports cars have always felt darty to me with their big tires. I also tried to set the coilover as upright as possible for maxium motion ratio. Note also the high mounted swaybar, based on the standard circle track splined hollow bar and bendable aluminum arms.

I am running a 450 lb spring and I think it works out to about a 275 lb/in wheel rate. Pretty stiff on the street but then again my daily is a '92 Cadillac.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...ionmockup1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...ionMockup2.jpg

One regret was not setting the UCA up with a shim style alignment system. THe adjustable length UCA is actually pretty easy to setup and adjust, but not as easy, fast as a shim setup, plus with a shim setup you can instantly go back to previous settings.

The bushings are Currie "JOnny joints' which are basically an articulating polyurethane rode end. They are hard to keep greased and honestly the NVH level doesn't feel that different from when I used QA1 teflon rod ends. And they definitely have more stiction, so that's some thing I might change abck to using rod ends at some point. All of the coilovers also have a poly bushing at one end. I'll be honest though, the NVH in this car is pretty high, despite all my efforts I cannot really say it feels as streetable as I would like.

My street wheel is a 18*10.5" with 9" backspacing and my track wheel is a 18*12 with 9.375" backspacing. In the rear I use 18*13 wheels for both street and track.

Just last year I built my own uprights out of box steel re-using the Coleman aluminum steering arm/BJ mount. My overall design saved about 2lbs from the modified coleman. You can see the new spindle being built below, although I really didn't take enough pictures. Note the double shear mounting bracket for the caliper adapter, with enough room to shim it side to side to make up for welding distortion and tolerances. That system worked pretty well. With machining and fastidiousness you could probably shave another lb out of the whole design, but by the time you are done with everything its like "eh".

These are the original modified and gussetted Coleman spindles based on a Grand National pin.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...n/Spindle1.jpg

Here are some of the parts of the one I built

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...indlePart2.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...indlePart1.jpg


http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...indlePart3.jpg


http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...indlePart4.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...n/Upright3.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...n/Upright5.jpg

Note the custom built trigger wheel from eMachineShop that will eventually be connected to a Racelogic traction control system.

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

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...ggerWheel2.jpg

You also may note the change in steering rack- I originally had a circle track rack that I had modified to support my wide track that never worked well. My suggestion is if you need any kind of custom steering - go directly to Woodward. This would have saved me a lot of headaches if I had done that originally. This new rack works great, and looks very pretty as well, and was setup with custom width for me. Tony Woodward got the assist just right on the first try too based on my input.

here are some pictures of the rack

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr.../Steering1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr.../Steering2.jpg


The new uprights helped support an eBay purchase I made of some SERIOUS PFC Endurance racing calipers. These things retail in the Hoerr catalog for $3k apiece. Needless to say I paid no where near that. THey were a lightly used spares package from a Ferrari challenge team that was based in England. NIckel plated mono-block goodness !! Only downside is pads are hard to get, very expensive, and since they are race pads my wheels are permanently dusty. But man do they look cool LOL. I have not even had them on track yet. Remember how I mentioned lots of brake clearance ? I am using a 15" rotor in a 18" wheel with a ~8+" wide caliper that uses 1.25" thick brake pads. Makes all the Baer/Wilwood/Stoptech street based stuff look pretty wimpy (and looks are what we care bout on lateral-g right ?)

The hat is direct mount and uses Brembo floating hardware with anti-rattle clips (as developed for the McLaren F1 !). THe rotors are custom made from Coleman.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr.../Calipers1.jpg

I'll have to look on the camera for some other photos, I can't believe I don't have a photo of the mounted caliper on the 15" rotor. The rears are 14" Coleman rotors with the same floating hardware. I am using a racing style dual M/C system driven by a hydraboost. I built the custom adapter to do this i'll show that some other time.


The shocks are nothing to be proud of however, some rebuilt obsolete Bilsteins in the back and some AFCO adjustabl circle track shocks up front. Someday I would like to upgrade those pieces, but I really don't feel like my driving is sophisticated enough to pursue that right now. Mostly I think they could be a little softer for street driving.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed the photos and seeing a suspension design that is quite a bit different from an upgraded '60's era GM or another plain jane vette front end.

The rear suspension is an 3 link with an underslung watts. I love the lightweight and simplicity of this watts, no giant cantilevered brackets hanging off the rear housing. However it is not adjustable, I use the rear sway bar and springs to tune. A low rear RC is highly recommended by Mark Ortiz and other live axle racers, and this is about as low as you can go. I just reinforced and gusseted the housing and pierced it with some threaded rod, also gusseted inside the housing, then added a double shear bracket out of .125 steel. I forget the name of the guy who made my "football" it was kind of a one off deal. In the photo a few things are mismatched, that is a very old photo that was still using mockup pieces.

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

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...ionmockup1.jpg

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

Oh here I did find the rear caliper mounted, not a good photo as the light doesn't really catch it and you can't really tell how large that caliper really is, plus my older equipment is kind of dirty not like the real sexy build photos of all new parts we're used to seeing here.

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


Note that the link and swaybar and caliper brackets are all bolt on not weldon. I use anti-rotation bolts and I've never had a problem. Heckuva a lot easier than welding them.



The links for the 3 link are 29" long, and use Howe rubber bushings up front.

It is a full floater of course, but without some of the fancy hubs and hardware that have been showing upfor PT cars in the last year. But again, big beefy circle track hubs and direct mount hat with floating 14" rotors. Aluminum 3rd member case (10 lbs lighter). Trutrac diff with 3.08 gears, 31 spline axles.

I think my Anti-squat percentage is only about 50%, but I'm still not convinced you want greater than that or not for road racing. Never had a problem with brake hop !

I am running 250 lb springs for a wheel rate of about 275 lbs with a 1.1 motion ratio.

I was just wondering the other day if there were any updates forthcoming here.

Would love to see a pic of those ridiculous calipers on rotors swallowed up by the 18" wheels... what wheels you running BTW?

I seem to be struggling with the opposite of you... starting with pro touring and getting more and more influenced by race cars lately.

Keep posting!:thumbsup:

You're an animal Preston. Do me a favor and post updates a little more often? :thumbsup:

Glad to see you have found
 

the time to continue your build thread here. Lots of good stuff!

Yeah Preston, you're a bada$$. Seriously wicked stuff you're putting together. Good job.

I thought I would post today about my fuel system but I wanted to post just a few more photos of these brakes...because I'm vain. I didn't manage to get one with the wheels on though but I will tell you that right now its not impressive, the CCW wheels ahve a pretty large flange and smaller center section so you can hardly even see the calipers.

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

Note that is 4" ducting hose for scale

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

Rear brakes:

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

So my fuel system - nothing too different but a few good ideas I think.

I run dual tanks in front of the rear axle. This allows for better weight distribution, packaging and perhaps safety then a rear mounted tank.

These tanks were originally built for my last chassis otherwise I would have done some things differently. In fact, redoing it today, I would probably use stock Vette twin tanks or even twin tanks off the new Mustang to get all that good OEM engineering.

Although the overall design is sound, I should have built them out of SS not aluminum, and taken the 12 lb weight penalty - For safety reasons obviously.
Even though these tanks are ensconced in the frame, and I have a 3/4" .063 tubing as well as .063 steel protecting them from the driveshaft, they still seem vulnerable to me. The chassis does protect them from major impact, but they are vulnerable to penetration. And obviously a car of this level
should have fuel cells but because of their unique layout, we are talking about $4k+ to build proper fuel cells. Come to think of it I have never really seen if ATL or Fuel Safe makes a drop in Corvette based fuel cell solution, might be something to check into.

Unlike the Vette, I call the passenger side the main tank, which means it is the most likely unit to have fuel in it. This is better for weight distribution than using the drivers as the main tank.

Each tank holds 10 gallons. They are joined in the top middle by a 2.5" crossover tube and at the bottom by a -10 hose. This lower hose may not be necessary but I'm too lazy/chicken to remove it, and it probably does help with fuel fill as it will give a false shutoff signal to the pump as it nears the top as I guess fuel cannot transfer fast enough ( you just wait a few seconds and keep filling). The crossover tube is special fuel filler hose from Coleman is 1/4" thick plastic of some kind.


As you can see I built a fuel "module" with twin in tank Bosch 044 pumps. The 2nd pump is turned on by the Megasquirt ECU under high load. The fuel sender is a standalone VDO unit as often found in
boats. It is a "capacitance" fuel meter with only one moving part and packages better than the usual float arm.

The other "trick" thing going on is that I am using a late model GM/Vette siphon pump to pull fuel from the 2nd tank into the main tank. That is where you see the outputs of the two pumps going to the Y and a 3rd hose is coming off of it.This hose travels through the fuel crossover tube
into the bottom of the drivers tank where I have adapter fittings that connect to the siphon pump, and then returns fuel to the main reservoir in the passenger tank.

The main tank has a half height vertical barrier with a one-way door in the bottom of it, the pumps sit behind that. The fuel return comes into the main tank as well as the return from the siphon pump obviously. Combined with the vertical design of the tanks, I seem to get good fuel supply under all conditions.

All hoses are teflon lined style or OEM in tank fuel hoses, and power for the pumps comes straigh from the battery via trunk mounted relays.

I started out with the little Walbro 155's that a lot of people used, and they were totally in adequate. I bought them from APE so I didn't think they would be counterfeits, but they could not supply enough fuel for even 600rwhp. When I opened up the tank to run some tests, I could actually see them spitting fuel out of the top of their canisters
so they were obviously defective, both of them. I woudl say stay away from these pumps, the 044's are so much stronger and better if you can fit them.

When I found the problems with the pumps on the dyno I spent quite a bit of time testing the flow (dangerously) through the hoses timing how long it took to fill a bucket. With an open -4 spigot obviously I couldn't get the pressure very high but it was still easily measurable that the free flow of the two pump systems was night and day.

The piece of aluminum angle that the pumps are sitting on is welded to the fuel lid, and was the very first aluminum TIG welding I ever did for real. So far so good it has held up.

-8 braided SS/teflong lines to the front and back. One experiment I would like to tryin the future is moving the fuel regulator back
to the tanks and running a deadhead line up to the engine. I haven't had any problems but this would really reduce fuel heating. I know others with big pumps have had issues in extended driving with
fuel heating. But I guess I rarely drive it for hours on end on hot days here in Washington.

If you go back above and look at the photos of the rear suspension, you can clearly see the tanks nestled into the frame in front of the axle.
They were in fact the very first things installed in the brand new painted chassis and I don't want to have any problems because they
are a pain to get in and out ! They do not drop out becaue there is 16awg steel shelves that hold and protect them.

Oh, and I use a standard race car rollover vent to a -8 teflon hose that manages to go up and a few inches higher than I ever fill up the fill tube and then does a loop before exiting into the rear axle area where I cover the end with a piece of pantyhose for a filter......Hmm, maybe I could manage to at least put a K&N on there.

Oh, almost forgot - the tanks are also stuffed with fuel cell foam to reduce slosh and dampen the chances for an explosion.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...fuelpumps1.jpg


http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...fuelpumps2.jpg


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


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

I gotta say it ---- I like the do it yourself attitude -- I like the engineering...

The welding -- not so much.

Before you go out and start stressing stuff -- I'd have those spindle additions ground out and welded by a professional.


I'm not trying to be critical -- But I'd like you to be safe, for yourself, as well as others that share a track with you.

Wow, crazy amount of fab work here. Very cool build.

Good point on the cabin vents. I thought those GM door jamb vents were to release pressure when doors were closed (and windows shut) but it makes sense that it would work with outside air intake as well.

As for your worries with the fuel cells, have you considered a carbon fiber driveshaft?

And holy hell, those are the thickest brake pads I've ever seen :omg:

I'm with Greg, those welds scare the hell out me!

Travis

Your concerns may be wider ranging and I will certainly take it under advisement, but I did want to point out that the brake bracket is connected by two 1.25" .375 wall square tube stanchions that are fully perimeter welded to the main body. That particularly ropey weld running the length of the upright body is just for a 16awg gusset. That doesn't excuse my lapse in quality on that and now that you've called it out I will have to go back and fix it up (it was a bit of an afterthought at the time as it should be plenty strong without it) but I can see how that particular part would look totally unacceptable if you were thinking that was the primary weld for the brake mounting.

I'm pretty lazy about updating my thread I spend all day on the computer and would rather spend my time building the car. Also this is a bit of a weird thread as most of the car is already built and I am only posting old pictures. But at some point I want to bring the thread up to date as I'm very excited about my current wide body project. So what I am posting up tonight is a bunch of "old" photos. however they are good fab photos of some homegrown work and I think some of you may find them interesting, and I wanted to post where I've been before I post where I'm going, so y'all can appreciate the journey a bit more. As you can see giant flares were the only way to encapsulate the monster tires and massive lowering that I wanted in the car, but after awhile the aesthetic compromise always bothered me. But before I reveal any of the wide bodywork I wanted to kind of purge the last of the old build photos. So a lot of these are kind of out of order, some are actually the older chassis and most are from before the brake setup I was posting earlier.

here is one featuer I really like - Undo some wiring and plumbing, and 4 bolts, and the whole front tray comes off. This tray supports the rad, the IC's, the oil cooler, the tow loops, the splitter/undertray and indexes the hood and front fenders, AND serves as a front crush structure. This is the old version with V'ed IC and Rad before moving to twin IC's flanking the rad.

Also, I'm no master TIG welder, but I like to think my alum welding has improved a little bit since these pictures were taken, but then again, none of the welds leak or have cracked.

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

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...l/P1230469.JPG

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr.../frontraw1.jpg

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

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

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...xchangers2.jpg

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

One of about 5 versions of giant flares I've built - it really hurt one day when someone called them "dually truck fender flares"

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

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...rearflare2.jpg

air comes in the front end to feed the air filters and also the radiator, each one has its own exit duct. Note also I had teh "window into the engine" idea about 6 months before anyone saw the ZR1 and its hood window.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...mall/ducts.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...all/ducts2.jpg

one iteration of the bodywork

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

rear diffuser/undertray a la Porsche GT2 RSR
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...l/P1011170.JPG

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr.../frontopen.JPG

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr.../frontbusy.JPG

Also one of the more innovative parts of my build IMO - You've seen side exhaust before but have you ever seen it carried all the way out to the tailpipes ? Yeah it costs 50 lbs and probably drives some heat into the tire, but I like it somewhat quiet. Note I now wrap those pipes in Aerogel and exhaust wrap and you can hold that assembly in your hand during a hot idle.
(these are very old photos)

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...l/exhaust1.JPG

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...l/exhaust2.JPG


http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...34withtrim.JPG

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


Well, sometime later I will be motivated to post my wide bodywork photos. I really like the way it is coming out - I'm kind of following something I read from the Roadster Shop - one trend is going back away from the super smooth pro-touring modernize them look and re-captue some vintage appearance in these cars, like the "Boss 429 Falcon" they built. I also notice I used to love scoops, flares, wings, etc (as long as they were functional) but the older I get the more I appreciate the classic lines of these cars. After all if we like old cars why are we trying to make them look like new cars ? So I am building a wide body but trying to move back to a much more "vintage" appearance, at least as vintage as an old mustang that's 50" tall and 76" wide can be. And I will still have aero management too. It should be a pretty unique take on the genre.

Thats a staunch looking Mustang, great work

This car is so badass. Good job Preston!

Well, sometime later TODAY I will be motivated to post my wide bodywork photos. I really like the way it is coming out - I'm kind of following something I read from the Roadster Shop - one trend is going back away from the super smooth pro-touring modernize them look and re-captue some vintage appearance in these cars, like the "Boss 429 Falcon" they built. I also notice I used to love scoops, flares, wings, etc (as long as they were functional) but the older I get the more I appreciate the classic lines of these cars. After all if we like old cars why are we trying to make them look like new cars ? So I am building a wide body but trying to move back to a much more "vintage" appearance, at least as vintage as an old mustang that's 50" tall and 76" wide can be. And I will still have aero management too. It should be a pretty unique take on the genre.

There I fixed it for you! :thumbsup:

[QUOTE=preston;524460]




http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...34withtrim.JPG




QUOTE]

Looks pretty tough! Any more pics of the complete car?

First of all I apologize for being a poor photographer. I know when I look at the pro build threads
there is a massive impression of quality because the best shops put forward a totally clean work environment,
excellent fabrication - but also clear, well lit quality photography.
So while I've never been prouder of the fabrication work I'm doing, I admit it always looks a bit ghetto
after i take a picture of it.

I had an extra door, so the first thing I did was cut that in length, space it out 2", and mounted it on
the car to see what it would look like.
(doorsplit.jpg)
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr.../doorsplit.jpg


(doorsplitmounted.jpg)
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...litmounted.jpg


Not bad I thought.

The next step was to figure out what the fenders would look like pushed out. The fit great, but I had to cut
out the windshield corner and move it in so it would still mate up with the windshield.
honestly there is enough "variation" in these $150 Tawain fenders that that kind of bodywork is halfway needed
anyway ha ha.

fendercorner1.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...dercorner1.jpg

After that I had the confidence to get going. I added metal to the door jamb

doorjamb.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...k/doorjamb.jpg

Then the next step was welding a 2" string all around the door. I had one good Ford door and I bought one replacement
door from NPD, which was of excellent quality btw, only flaw is maybe the window slot is about 3/16" too wide, but
it fit the car good. Note I also had to weld in a 2" strip of .120 on the front where the hings mount.
I also found out the hard way that I needed to space the front hinges out 2". Unfortunately I
don't have any pictures of that I will get some, but I just bolted and then welded on some sections of 2"*3".
it sounds "rough" but it actually looks really good (when the door is open and you are inspecting the hinges).
I don't know why I only have pictures of the end of the door instead of the important part (the top).
The way I approached teh welding is where I had excellent fit up, I TIG'ed it for superior cleanup and to
keep the metal soft for hammer and dolly, but where I had a gap I MIG'ed it for sanity sake. The combination
of the 2 techniques worked for me.

door.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...ywork/door.jpg

doorjamb2 .jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr.../doorjamb2.jpg

Next I had to cut the quarter panels off and space them out 2".
Even though my flares were being reduced tremndously, I still had to build new flares, for about the 8th time in
the history of this car.

rearflarebuild2.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...larebuild2.jpg

rearflarebuild1.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...larebuild1.jpg



The flares were a nightmare even with all that "experience" behind me. Now I know why the pros always build a wire
frame or equivalent. When you look at the wheel from the side, you want the "inner circle" of the flare to
follow the wheel radius ata fixed value until it drops below the hubline. You want the horizontal incline fo the
flare to stay even around its radius as well. Now, the "outer circle" of the flare where it hits the sheet metal
....The radius of this varies as the sheet metal bows in and out from the front/rear view. And one aspect of a '67
Mustang is that there is a LOT of roundness from this view. In addition to that, from the front and
rear view the flare is sweeping into the body. There is no math or "circle" template that can help you here,
its all obsesive-compulsive mad artist to get it done. Especially 4 times. But they are by far the best
flares I have ever built. I finished them off by using a 5/8*5/8 angle of 20 awg and using the shrinker/stretcher
to match it to the outer radius of the flare.

flarebuild1.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...larebuild1.jpg

rearflarebuild1.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...larebuild1.jpg
finishedflare1.jpg
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/42/bxm0.jpg


Obviously I had to build a custom wider rear valence, and cut a stock tailpanel in 2 places and widen it 2".
I split a fiberglass bumper (because its 6 lbs ligher and because chroming a new one would cost an arm and a leg
and I'm not sure my metal fab is good enough).

I don't have pictures but I also built some new quarter caps to match the Shelby style deck lid and they came
out awesome I will post them later.

unfinishedrear.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...nishedrear.jpg

I finished up the top of the quarter panels (note I had previously lowered the bottom rear of the quarter panels to match
a properly angled diffuser)

At this point I finished the top fo the quarters. I left a lot of bodywork raw and just primered it, but I did body work
the tops fo the quarters so they would look nice. I also sent the fincd $ished doors out to a local shop
Fenders and fins and they cambe back looking perfect. I swear they looked like doors you had just pulled out of
the box from the UPS truck excep they were 2" wider. I will continue to have them do parts for me. Price was
very reasonable as well. What is so amazing about this is how well it integrates intot he Mustang body line.
I swear a casual observer (ie not a MCA concours judge) will really not even be aware what was done.
I heard one of the Ring bros talking about their widened mustang and said something like "I think all Mustangs
out of our shop will now be widened. Its just the right look and gets us the tires we need".

I should also mention I put hours into getting all the gaps right. That's something that didn't even cross my mind a few years ago, but now they are 18-3/32 everywhere on the car. Pretty psyched about that too, that detail
makes a big difference.

finished1.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr.../finished1.jpg
finished2.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr.../finished2.jpg
finished3.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr.../finished3.jpg
finishedrearside.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...edrearside.jpg

After that I build some rocker panels out of aluminum. Part of the gist of this build is even though its a wide
body and runs 285/335 tires and is only 4" off the ground, I want it to look as "stock" and vintage as possible.
SO i was done with race car style or "body kit" style rockers. I was super happy with how these came out, they roll under
the car just like stock (well, they are about 1" taller overall).

rocker1.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...rk/rocker1.jpg
rocker2.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...rk/rocker2.jpg