TwinTorino

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Been a while since I have posted.. project is moving right along..

Too late to turn back now. Firewall is now gone and there is now a large hole in the car . Surprisingly, with only some slight removal of material from the Mustang firewall, the piece started to fit up quite nicely. It will obviously need material added in certain places since the Mustang is a diffrerent size vehicle altogether. Started to install parts to see how they fit into the package and everything is finally falling into place. Pedals, hydroboost, steering shaft and heater box were all installed. Next the trans will be installed so we can see what is going to have the happen to the trans hump if anything. With the engine in, everything also fits nicely. The throttle and clutch cables also worked out quite nicely. The pedal spacing is much better compared to stock as well. Not sure what the pedal pads will look like in the end, but for now they will retain the 2004 SVT Cobra look.

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Finally making some progress on stiffening up the chassis. Since the floors are cut out, we decided to run a full connector from the front torque box / frame rail to the rear one. The goal here is to make it look like the frames connect to one another and make it appear factory installed. First problem with that idea is the front subframe is offset 4" from the rear. We decided to add a 4" jog into the part as shown below. This involves calculating the angle to bend the material, measuring the width of the bandsaw blade, and then making the necessary cuts to get there. Then lots of miles on the TIG to attached everything together again. It is a rather long process in comparison to just notching it out, but looks much cleaner (even though noone will likely notice once installed).

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Well.. I typically run on a tight budget and hate to buy anything new.. but I had to make an exception. I found this set (technically 2 sets I guess) of Roush Alcon brakes at a great price on clearance. I just had to have them. The calipers and rotors and made by Alcon, and the misc hardware and mounting brackets are made by Roush. This kit is made for the Roush Stage 3 Mustangs from 1999-2004 (SN95). The front rotors are 14" (compared to the 13" Cobras) and the rears are 13" (compared to the 11.65" Cobras). The calipers are 4 piston with race/track pads. Can't wait to see how these work. The barely fit within the 18" FR500 wheels. I have had issues in the past with melting the dust boots on the Cobra brakes, so hopefully that problem will go away.

How big are 14" rotors? They are the same size as the rims on a 1969 Camaro..

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Managed to get the powertrain in it's actual position finally. Really starting to feel like a car now. Put the hood on to find that we actually have hood clearance which we were not really sure about it. Have around 15-20mm from the throttle body to the hood. Won't need to modify the hood thankfully. Still detaing on whether to run a shaker. Kinda leaning towards not using it and keeping the stock hood. The engine ended up 4" rearward of the front suspension in comparison to an SN95 Mustang.

Also got the 6-speed in. After struggling with getting it to work with the stock trans tunnel - it was clear that it was not going to fit. The plasma cutter made that go away quickly - A new custom tunnel will be made up. Otherwise, the shifter is in the perfect location and feels great going through the gears. The handle shown is just for mockup - I will likely modify a hurst shifter or something like that and then use a custom boot. Want to make it look somewhat period looking.

The headers are in and they fit surprising well. They are full length headers made by SLP Engineering and came with an engine we bought. The pass side clears everything, but the drivers side could get interesting with the steering shaft. Nothing major.. just will need some tweaking.

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We had custom 2.5" x 1/8 wall tubes CNC mandrel bent for this application to tie the independant rear into the car. They came out great as you can see. They tie into the existing leaf spring mount. We cut a section of 2" OD steel and notched out the 2.5" main tube - worked perfect. Getting closer to getting the car down on the ground. We decided to rigid mount these instead of using rubber bushings like the factory ones.

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I have been trying to figure out what the heck to do with my ignition switch on the dash.. as the electrical portion of the projects is quickly approaching. Since the entire car revolves around a 2004 Mustang's electrical system, I needed to use something that would allow me to use a Mustang key in the dash. Only problem is new Mustangs have their keys on the column, which means the mechanisms are totally different as is the electrical. After looking all over the place.. I found several Lincolns have a key in the dash. I found this 1998 Lincoln Mark VIII lately which fits quite nicely. Once the original ring is in place, should look close to stock. It fits and looks quite nicely. The goal here is to make it look close to stock.

These pics show how the part fits without any mods whatsoever. Just need to modify the part slightly so the stock ring will fit.

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Finally time to start working on the fun part of this project - the powertrain. We have 2 kits to completely rebuild and upgrade the 6-speed transmissions, and the engines will just get a refreshing/upgrade and make sure everything is OK inside. After all, they are only 5 years old.

One of the engines we bought came from a car that was a write-off and have some issues with the front cover being cracked as you can see. We took a risk on this (since we only have pics to go by) and hoped that there was no internal damage from the timing chain coming off. Sure enough when we pulled the head off, all was well inside. Gotta love the 4 valve heads .

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We bought 2 Tremec T56 6-speeds knowing there was some internal damage, and saved a lot of money by doing so. Symptoms were hard to shift into 3/4 gears, and also the transmission was popping out of 3rd and 4th while driving. This is a classic symptom in these transmission of failed stamped steel keys in the trans. This is a faily easy job as long as you have gear pullers available and heavy duty snap ring pliers.

As you can see below - the fragments found in the trans of the stamped steel keys, what the stamped steel keys originally looked like, and the upgraded billet keys. Also the difference between the bronze shift fork pads and the plastic originals (the other ones were in pieces all through the trans). Transmissions will also receive carbon kevlar synchronizer rings and an upgraded steel shift fork (from aluminum). Otherwise all the gears in the trans were in great shape with no noticeable wear.

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That pretty much brings me up to date on progress.

I finished up close to a final rendering of the car as you may have seen in the Artwork section of this site. Figured it belonged here in the thread as well. I like the stock looking C stripe the more I look at it.. glad I pryed myself away from the 2-tone. The background is in Arizona and was taken by a friend of mine.

[OLDFLM]

LOVE the whole concept and the rendering looks GREAT!!