TwinTorino

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Next onto the driveshaft. Believe it or not, a Crown Vic aluminum driveshaft is the perfect length for our setup. Just had to swap out the slip yoke as the T56 uses the only 27 spline shaft in Ford's trans lineup (since it is a GM based trans). Has just enough clearance to the tunnel as well. Now that it is in.. time to get the tunnel made up. We have the rough shape made up.. just need to get it made out of sheetmetal. Note the difference in length from the Mustang one.

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Slight change in powertrain plans here.. have had one of these engines for a while now, and recently found a second one (both used of course). Could not pass up the deal on them. They are 4.6L 2V engines that use an Eaton M90 supercharger and were designed for use in a 2001-2004 Roush Stage 3 Mustang. Both setups are missing some parts and will require some custom fab to make fit.. but nothing too major. Should be good for over 400hp/400ftlb of torque and will still get great gas mileage (when not under boost at least). The rest of the powertrain is good for 500ish hp so we should be OK there. Two main concerns with this were hood clearance and alternator clearance to framerail. After mocking things up both seem within reason, so I think we are going ahead with it. They will add a bit of weight to the car which is not overly desirable.. but what can you do. The Mach motors will go on the shelf until the next project or sold to offset the cost of these engines. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story...

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Is that one of those new high tec wooden modular blocks I've been hearing about?

Project looks fab by the way.

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Couple more updates. Almost have the firewall ready to go in. Worked on getting the wiring pass throughs sorted out and the drivers side piece is now ready to weld to the center portion. Made up some simple carbboard templates to cut out the holes for the Mustang wiring harnesses. Worked great and was very fast. Note sure what I would have done otherwise. Rolled a couple of beads on the part and also step flanged the ends so everything will look flush from underhood after it is welded.

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A month or two ago we kinda ran into an interesting once in a lifetime situation and had to act fast. Been talking to a Torino guy on and off for several years now trying to find some parts. Just looking for a couple of odds and ends, nothing major though. The other day I got a call and the same guy asked if I was still interested in parts. I said sure and listed off the parts I was looking to get to finish up our projects.

Long story made short, he was moving out of the country with very little notice (moving within the week) and had to get rid of everything he had fast. I thought OK.. here is a good way to get some good parts to finish the car with and go from there. He said he had a lot of parts and could not list everything. I thought sure.. you have some parts.. but everyone says they have a lot of parts. I struck a deal on everything sight unseen. Little did we know what was to come...

Couple of conditions - we only had a couple days to pick up everything (required several long road trips), we had to take everything (and I mean everything), and we had to take a spare car with the deal (which just happens to be in the form of a 1969 Torino GT FB 351 4-speed car). We have more parts now than we know what to do with. Came with enough parts to almost complete the '69 and likely finish several other cars. Not sure what to do with the '69 yet, but it may become the next car to follow the TwinTorino project as I have plans for future cars. I'll let the pictures tell the rest.. and they only show a portion of what was there. Tons of sheetmetal, tons of NOS parts, etc, etc, etc. I am still sitting here pinching myself on this one.

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Back to the suspension once again. We cut the front strut towers out of the wrecked '04 Mustang we had (definitely not up there with the most fun activities to date). After they were out, we needed to drill out spot welds and cut off what we don't need to fit in the Torino. We also cut out the remaining pieces of the stock shock tower in the Torino. The last picture shows a quick mockup. Still need to trim off some material and determine where they have to go exactly. Very pleased with initial fitting - they actually look like they are supposed to be there. Believe it or not, the Torino and Mustang engine compartments are the exact same width (to an 1/8"), and the angle of the sheetmetal in the Torino in front of the strut tower exactly matches the Mustang so they should blend in nicely. The goal it to make it look like they were supposed to be there.

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Wanted to change things up and decided to do something other than suspension and floors. Time to add some lazy man options to the car, in this case power door locks. Since the rest of the car is based of a 2004 Mustang, it only makes sense to use parts we already had from our wrecked cars.

We removed the solenoid that comes on the door latch of a Mustang as you can see below, and bent up some steel brackets to attach them in a way similar to the Mustang (with retention tabs and everything). Also had to make up a tab to weld onto the door lock lever that the solenoid actuates and modified it to move with the geometry of the stock Torino door latch. Was even able to work one of the factory Torino plastic bushings into the mix to keep the steel from cutting the plastic solenoid lever. Plugged it into the Mustang door harness, flicked the switch and it works perfect. Everything fits nicely into the door. Just need to final weld everything, paint it up, grease it up and put it back in the car for good. Could just have easily bought an aftermarket solenoid kit.. but we got the parts basically free with the parts car Mustang. With this you just push the button on a stock Ford remote and the doors will open. They even sound "tinny" like they should.




Got the cruise control module bracket fabbed up and temporarily stuck on the car. Module mounts up great and also started to get the wiring organized and in place.




Also found a set of rear tires for the car with only 10 miles on them. You can still see the stickers and glue on the treads. Lucked out on this one. Size is 315/30ZR18. They should give us some added traction .

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Moved back to the suspension side of things. Making some good progress up front. The main thing with the suspension was making sure the upper strut mount point on the Torino is the same relative to the lower control arms points as the Mustang. This way the geometry is retained, and the strut travel is maintained for both jounce and rebound. We went back and forth on this one and figured since we have a Mustang front clip, we may as well put it to good use. We made up a jig using some extra material we had, and also used the stock strut retainer braces from the Mustang for positioning the towers. We used sockets as dowel pins to line the jig up with the motor mount plates. Worked like a charm. Once we got this in.. we realized we had some issues with front tire clearance as we new we would. The suspension needs to be adjusted down about 1/2 an inch relative to the body and things should work out great. The tires touch the fender when under full lock and on their way up to full jounce. A combination of moving the suspension a bit, rolling the fenders and getting the correct offset should make things work out perfect. This will also buy us some much needed hood clearance for the supercharger. Shock towers will look nice and clean by the time we are done with everything.

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Been way too long since I posted an update on this site. Make lots of progress in the past months.. here goes:

Had my first issue with Ebay.. thankfully it turned out OK in the end. I bought a set of Fox body tubular front control arms which I thought were made by Maximumum Motorsports (one of the highest quality Mustang tubular control arms you can buy). Got them in and they did not look right or fit right. Sitting 5 feet away they looked like the real deal. Turns out in the end they were knock-offs from another company. Once I convinced the seller they were not legit (he was not aware either), I got my money back and send them back. In the meantime I was able to convince someone to trade me straight up for the ones I had already. As you can see, they are much shorter which works out perfect. I now have lots of tire clearance and should be able to fit 275's up front which was the original goal (2004 Cobra used this size).



First problem after installing new arms - tire rods are too long. Solution - 1993 Taurus outer rod ends. Works great now.



Also aborted mission for now on the tubular k-member. Too much time and money for the time being. The stock k-member is likely stronger regardless. In that case - started to work on getting the motor mount brackets modified to get the engine shifted back as far as possible.



Unfortunately with the Fox control arms being used, this also means the upper strut mount needs to move inboard to be able to get the alignment settings right. This meant we needed to cut up the jig and make it adjustable using threaded rods and nuts.

The goal here is to be able to set the front wheels to 2-3° of neg camber for the track, and then adjust them back to 0.5° neg camber for the street. The caster is also being increased relative to stock. Looks like 275's will fit up front when using the 0.5° setting which is great news.

All that is needed to set things into position is to flip the camber plates upside down and swap side to side. This way they can be bolted to the jig. Next max the camber setting inboard and then take suspension measurements. Keep adjusting the fixture outboard until the max neg camber is achieved. After this, unbolt and put on shock towers. Lots more sheetmetal work ahead, but it should hopefully work out in the end. Turns out the inner surface of the shock towers is almost flush with the origional fram rail which make things easier fab wise.

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Got the point where we finalized the front strut mounts and achieved the desired caster and camber targets (took a lot more time than planned to manipulate everything to get it perfect). Now it is time to bridge the gap between the Mustang strut towers and the Torino. Went out and bought half a sheet of 16 gauge steel (same as the Mustang towers) and made up templates using cardboard. Just need to bend these up in steel, cut and weld into position.




Also landed a couple of good deals in the past week or two. Bought a set of tires for the track for $100 - Michelin Pilot Sport Cups. These come new on the Porsche GT3 and the Viper ACR. These ones are 265/35 18's and have lots of life left on them. Will use these as fronts and track down a wider set of rears (or just use them all the way around around so they can be rotated). Also picked up a set of Rebco corner weight scales for setting up and weighing the cars. I bought them as non-functional for only $25. After and hour of troubleshooting and fixing as issue with the circuit board, I had them up and running. I always wanted a set, but could never justify the $1500 cost. Now I can weigh anything and everything on the car, and the car itself. Will be interesting to see the weight difference between the motors etc.




We made up the filler pieces for the strut towers this week. 16 gauge sheetmetal is definitely not as easy to work with as 20 gauge. Hope to get everything in and fit up this week and ready to weld in next week. Actually feels like I am getting somewhere now. The only pain with making these up was that none of the angles were 90 deg and each face of the strut tower has a slight crown - looks the like the stretcher/shrinker is going to get a good workout.



Finally found another set of Konis for the front of the car. They almost never come up used as they are not very common since they are double adjustables (likely because they retail for close to $1k for a pair). Since we can't afford that.. or even close we just have to wait to get them for 20% of that. Easy way to pick out a double adjustable Koni is to look for the screw for adjustment on the bottom which both sets have. Single adjustables (rebound only) only have have sdjustments on the top of the strut rod.



Dusted off the stretcher/shrinker and formed the sides and top of the strut towers. Also cut the bottom piece to fit and trimmed the shock tower to mate with the bottom piece. They should look factory stamped by the time we are done with them. Also made the filler panel for the section that was cut of from the original shock towers. Just need to trim things to fit and we will be ready to weld.