Hi everyone,
Thanks for the kind words on the car. It's been a long (and difficult) journey with that thing. I thought it was finally done, but as usual my luck turned bad. To answer a few questions:
ENGINE - I blew the motor last September on the way back from a local car show. The engine just simply started running bad, so after limping home I took it apart and found that my billet steel roller cam had busted in two right at the 4/8 cylinder bank. The engine only had about 2k miles, so I spoke with the shop that did the motor and they said it was either a defect from the cam manufacturer (Ultradyne custom grind) or bad harmonics from the gear drive which they warned me not to use! Either way the motor has to be rebuilt. I was originally shooting for more horsepower (600-700), so I might try and do more cubes but stay with a 302 based block and cleveland style heads - just like the original Boss motor (which I still have).
IRS - Ford had the guy who designed the Cobra IRS do a design for the early Mustang. I think his name was Klaus Arning. Anyway, they never put it into production because it was expensive and did not offer much improvement (sounds unbelieveable). A guy in Utah found the blueprints and began remanufacturing them under CTM Engineering. The whole story can be found on
http://www.geocities.com/ctmengineering/mustanghome.htm. The short story is that I screwed around with this thing for 4 years before I got it to work right. It is a fairly complicated multi-link, reverse A-arm setup with leading and trailing links. In defense of CTM, I did have them narrow the thing an inch on each side for my big tires and I swapped the original Dana center section for an all aluminum unit. So these changes probably added to my woes. But I learned a lot along the way and after much money and pain, I swore that if I ever did the car over I would put a double A-arm IRS in it if I could find one that would work.
SHIFTER knob - came from Billet Balls (
www.billetballs.com) and I had the center painted.
What's next, well in the course of getting the IRS to work, I found out that the rear frame rails on the car are slightly off due to years of smoky burnouts and racing abuse. I did put an 8 pt.roll cage and subframe connectors in the car, but apparently too late. So between needing a new motor, having a questionable IRS and rear frame geometry. I stepped up and ordered a full sheet-metal frame from Darryl Schroeder race cars in Oregon. He's the guy who built the frame for Chris Titus' 56 Speedster and the 55 Newmad Chevy wagon that was famous a few years ago. It will use Corvette C5 aluminum A-arms (Henry - forgive me!) but will have a Ford/Dutchman center section. I'll pull everything else from my current suspension. I've got a few other idea's lined up, but don't want to ramble on here or bore you with the details until I am close.
I've got a few other projects that I'm working on right now, so the Boss won't be back until next year. You'll appreciate the other rides, so I'll figure out how to post some pics.
Thanks, Mike
Brian Hobaugh SCCA National Tour June 2014
First Hemi 'Cuda Convertible Ever Built
Short clips: Goodguys Pleasanton autocross and pit videos
But shaved doorhandles never look right on muscle cars... 
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