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Old 11-07-2019, 03:11 PM
Fair Fair is offline
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continued from above

TAKING A CLOSER LOOK & NUMBERS

At this stage we have not committed to anything other than taking a closer look at the car, then making some upgrade suggestions (powertrain, braking, safety), putting together some price estimates, and then seeing where it goes from here.



A number of potential projects stall out here, after we've spent a couple dozen hours taking pictures and measurements, doing research on the parts in place as well as an upgrade path, and putting together estimates.



Once we had the car on the lift we could see some things we liked, and some things we didn't. The Wilwood brand of brakes always gives me the shivers, as do the small spindles we noticed on the front. The brakes, front wheel bearings and the front spindle design were going to be questionable if we added a lot more tire width - which we always try to do if lap times are of even the slightest import. This customer had modern Boss302 and GT350 Mustangs in the past, so we had a target we needed to beat.




I've owned a couple of 1965-73 "classic" Mustangs but they were way before I started Vorshlag. On my 69 Mustang we changed the entire front suspension, added a modern rack and pinion, so when he said it had a Woodward rack conversion I held some hope... right until I saw the actual installation. The front crossmember was simply gone - it gets removed in this brand's version of a rack conversion. Yikes, yikes, yikes... to be track worthy in my eyes, all of this had to go.




Out back I breathed a sigh of relief. The "Street or Track" brand Watts Link + 3-link rear suspension conversion was a big step up from the leaf springs, so I felt we wouldn't need to "burn budget" back here. A modern style 3 link is the best way to manage a solid axle RWD chassis, and the Currie 9" rear looked beefy - it should easily withstand the modern V8 power we want to install.



This style of "chassis mounted Watts" axle clamps can be problematic (we've seen them slip - a lot) but we can mitigate that. The axle side control arm mounts might get some additional welding, but overall it looked like a nice setup with some inverted Bilstein monotubes.



The radiator was upgrade but the front grill opening is limited by the radiator support on these cars - which is setup for a narrow radiator and blocks off about 1/2 of the engine bay opening for airflow. For the modest horsepower targets we talked about (something north of 400 whp) this shouldn't be a limitation. We will likely add an oil cooler right where Shelby did - in the lower grill opening shown above left. The customer wants to ditch the air con and interior - which we warned him would be a negative come resell time - but he wants to keep this as a forever car, and a real cage was higher on his list than street driving.

CAN WE FIT A LOT MORE TIRE?

The tire is the ONLY thing connecting your car the track surface. Period. There is NO BIGGER improvement we can make on a track car than increasing tread width on the ground + compound. So this is often the first thing we push customers to look at, whether or not they understand or want this.



Most of the time the most room available for adding tire is inboard. On the rear we saw a little room, but the front was massively limited inboard. The car is 17x9" rear and 17x8" front tires with a 245/40ZR17 Michelin Pilot Sport (300TW) tires. While these are light years better than the tires in 1967, the diminutive size and 300 treadwear are definitely the "low hanging fruit" we can improve lap times - and fun levels - drastically.



"But I have fun sliding!" Look, I get it - skinny tires can be fun to push to the limits, but being the rolling chicane that has to constantly give point-bys to Miatas at a track day is both frustrating and nerve racking for fast drivers. Watch the video linked above of this Fox Mustang with 375 whp on 275mm tires. He is having fun because he can pick off modern ZL1 1LEs and other $50-75K pony cars on this lighter, LS powered, 275mm tire clad fun buggy. another example of "wider is faster and more fun" was my wife's '13 FR-S, which we ran for 2 years on 215mm rubber - then switched to 315mm Rival-S tires. WOW! The biggest single lap time drop (2.6 sec on 90 sec road course) in 7 different track tests there using the stock 2.0L engine. And it was FUN AF on the wider rubber. #BigTiresMatter


continued below

Last edited by Fair; 11-07-2019 at 03:18 PM.
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