Toph6888

Long weekend of wedding stuff, but still managed to get stuff done. First a look at the parts room, Only an old exhaust and empty gauge boxes left because everything is now more or less on the car, minus the front bumper cover and passenger fender well (to check for fuel leaks after driving) Engine bay "complete" Off with the training wheels! Been about 6 months since she was on the ground on her own. Road Test: Video: (FYI, speedo is not calibrated, apparently 15-20mph is now 60mph haha) And after road test! Turned out to be a bit of power steering fluid leaking from the hydroboost due to an OEM spring clamp around a not as snug as I would like powersteering drain hose. So I will get a worm gear clamp on there to better tighten it down. Hopefully will get more driving in this week around town and get it out on the highway. So far everything is going very well. Goal is to make UFO autocross for a proper shakedown on 4/23.

Over the past couple days we have gotten a lot done on the car. Fixed up the oil filter relocation leaks by taking everything apart, cleaning it really well, using new fittings/sensors, and then using a good high temp oil resistant RTV. Set that all up and let it cure overnight. Last night we ran the engine, no leaks all the way up to operating temp, so I think we are finally past this bit. Below you can see also the grounds I made for the sensors lol, just clamps around the sensor body. Hard to see but here is the new alternator wiring. Red is the power off of the alternator, and the most forward black line with corrugated cover is connected to the alternator mounting bolt that grounds it so it actually charges the battery. When I have the 3pin connector from the coyote control pack, the alternator charges at 15V, if I leave it off the alternator charges at 13.7-13.8V. A lot of swap guys have had this issue and just leave the connector off and use volt gauges to make sure nothing is going crazy. Installed my 250A breaker between the alternator and control pack fuse box. Right now the battery is in the back, connected up front at a power point. From the power point, there is an individual power wire to both the stock and coyote fuse boxes. The starter and the alternator connect to the coyote fuse box since they are on the passenger side. Biggest update for the week is THE INTERIOR IS ALL IN. Finally. Cut the carpet to fit around the roll bars, rear seat delete panels only needed a small notch, and then got the rest of the panels, weatherstripping, consoles, seats and whatnot all in and the wiring tucked up nicely. Also, a nice overhead shot of the entire engine with everything more or less "working". Plan for sunday is to try to get the exterior panels and whatnot all back on. Should hopefully go faster than the interior. One issue I ran into last night is that my starter isn't getting enough power to turn the engine over. Solenoid works, and the starter tries to turn the engine over, but no go. It will get maybe one crank then nothing. Ultimately, I think the battery is done-zo. Its been through 4-5 full charge to dead cycles in the past couple weeks, not to mention being pretty much dead all winter, so I will confirm the wiring tonight and then go get a new battery hopefully. Thankfully my warranty is still good.

Managed to get the alternator work on the car finally. Turned out that the case wasnt getting a proper ground through the relocation brackets, so I just bolted on a 4 gauge ground wire to the mounting bolt in contact with the alternator case. Fired it up on a very weak battery and it showed 14.9V. A bit high, but I think that was due to the low charged battery. Still have a slight oil leak at the oil filter relocation. Tried taking the senders off and using teflon to take up the gap, but no luck on one of the senders. So I'll take it all of, clean it all, and then use high temp oil resistant RTV to take up the slack. Will let that cure over night and reinstall, and that should be it for all the mechanical/engine running issues. Hopefully have it driving around town this weekend to put some miles on it.

Looking to sell my advantage software tuner as well as my handheld tuner. The software includes USB key so that you can work on tuning your own vehicle. FYI, you will have to call SCT and get the usb key set up for your ECU, which is around $100 (they need to unlock the USB for your vehicle tunes strategy code). I will also include the Lasota SCT tuning software guide for using SCT Advantage software. It works well and was how I tuned my turbo v6 engine. This software normally goes for around $350, plus another $80 for the book. This softward should work for most Fords, but up to you to check compatibility with SCT. Priced at $250 obo. Also looking to sell my SCT X3 handheld tuner. Its a typical handheld tuner for Ford. Use the software to make your tune, load to the handheld, flash the car, then use the handheld to also datalog the engine parameters to dial in your tune. This handheld is UNLOCKED with 4 unlocks left, only used it on my car till I sold the v6. You can also use this with your own tuner and have them send you the tune to upload to your vehicle. Again, should work for most Fords, but up to you to check compatibility with SCT. Priced at $225 OBO. Willing to sell together for $430. Also willing to ship.

Worked on cleaning up a couple things on the car last night. Redid the power wires for the gauges to switched power taht way they aren't on all the time. Fixed the clutch switch issue by getting a new plug and touching up the wiring. Fixed my issues with the oil pressure gauge pegging when on. The metal bracket that holds it in was contacting the grounding screw, so it was grounding out early. Also had to put "ground straps" on the oil temp and oil pressure senders to get them to work. If it looks stupid, but works, it isn't stupid (FYI, not my gauges, but its how I grounded them) We had a bad hose clamp on the return of the powersteering, so it had a small leak. Fixed that with a new hose clamp. Friend came over and we installed the roll bar and the rear interior. Went in super easy with the two of us. I had painted the backing plates that go under the car and I also put RTV all over the bottom of it to hopefully keep everything out from those holes we drilled/painted. Started the car up to check the alternator, and its still only showing 12V on the gauge. Checked the battery, 12V. Checked the alternator post to ground, 12V. I also tried unplugging the 3 pin connector as some control pack guys have said that can cause issues, but still 12V at all locations. So I'm thinking now its a bad alternator. Easy enough to pull it off and then get it checked down the street. Otherwise, I'll order another pigtail off of amazon and hardwire the alternator myself instead of going through the control pack. Any other thoughts I am open to. After all that, we started up the engine and tried to burp the coolant a bit. Noticed there was a small oil leak at the oil filter relocation, so turned it off. Turns out the oil temp sender backed out a touch when I was putting the wire on for the sender. Tightened it up and it was good till the oil got warm and thinned out enough to still leak past it, so I will have to put some sealant on those senders. Joy. Anyways, heres a sound clip at "warm" idle and some 2500 - 3500rpm sweeps, maybe 1/3-1/2 throttle.

Didn't really take any photos of the last weekend because honestly its all boring stuff. I got the roll bar welded up at a buddies place who has been welding for 40+ years. Looks awesome. Then got the roll bar and base plates all painted up for final install. Mounted the gauges in the glove box with some new gauge pods/screws. Good enough for ones that I only really need at the track. Also got the key ignition wires done up and then steering wheel back in. Then I finished up the wiring for the fuel pump and after 9 days the wiring is FINALLY done. Sunday we got the car in the air and then started working on fluids. Got the coolant in fine enough even though my vacuum filler didn't want to work with the style of the overflow tank since its pressurized. It still took around 4 gallons, so it shouldn't have any issues. Then we filled up the gallon of trans fluid in the T56, then topped off the ps reservoir. Drained the engine oil, and used a -8 to -10 fitting, a -8 hose end, some left over -8 hose, and a garden sprayer to make an improptu oil priming jug. It worked well enough. Pulled the coils / plugs, put about 4 quarts into the engine with that and topped the rest off through the valve cover. And it took 9 QUARTS. Gonna be fun doing oil changes in the future, bah. Put the battery on, checked voltages between all the grounds and battery terminal and everything looked great, no crazy sounds of anything doing anything weird and everything acting like it should, other than the fact that the auxillary wires I used to power the gauges off of the control pack fuse box were hot at all time (HAAT) so they were always on. Will reroute those to be on fuses that are only powered with key on. Anyways, finally said F it, lets try it. Turn the key, NOTHING. FUCK. SPent 3 hours figuring out that the key ignition wires I tapped into were backwards due to a bad wiring diagram online. The control pack needs to know "run" position vs "start" position, so I got that all figured out. Then I realized one of the clutch position switches (there are two, one at top travel and one at bottom) was wrong, so it didn't know the clutch was down. Took the two wires and tied them together to bypass haha. At this time it was right when all those alarms were going off for the tornado. We set the fuel pressure real quick at 55psi (engine off) and then said FUCK THE TORNADO, we gonna light this up. Turned the key quickly and back off and heard the starter fire. FINALLY. Turned the key and held it to actually start and it fired right up, running really nice and smooth, and LOUD. We set off my buddies car alarm that was about 20ft away haha. Cold starts are gonna be exciting. Went inside to escape the potential tornados, then after it cleared up we came out and checked it all again. Everything is running, but we have some odds and ends to figure out. 1) alternator doesn't seem to be charging. Only showing about 12volts at the battery, so that will take some doing. 2) oil pressure and oil temp gauges don't read anything bc it looks like they aren't grounded. Easy fix. 3) Like I said earlier, gauges need to be switched from hot at all times to key switch power, easy fix. 4) the frustrating one, all the lights work as they should except the brights and the rear passenger brake light when braking/turn signal. Front signal works fine, and with the lights on the three bulbs light up, just not when pressing the brake pedal. So it probably is the switch on the panel. IDK, not the biggest issue right now. Will fix the other three things first, then see if its an issue wiht the switch on the column or somewhere else down the line. I shouldn't have interrupted anything else on the car. Anyways, will spend the next couple days fixing these couple small items then hopefully get the thing on the road and get some miles on it before the autox on the 23rd with UFO.

It's alive. :lolguy:

So remember when I planned on doing all the wiring in like one day? So far we are at day 8 of wiring haha. Got all the internal gauges done, and most of the signal wires done for the new control pack. While I did that my friends put the new lower door hinge on the drivers door since the old one has sagged for the past year or two, its much nicer having a proper hinge back in it. The wiring that remains is 3 signal wires for key position (the green, blue, and yellow lines in the picture above, so those go on when the wheel goes back in) and then a couple splices for the fuel pump, and the wiring will FINALLY be done. After those couple connections, its just a matter of fluids, checking a couple voltages here and there when we put the battery in, and then turning the key. Will take the roll bar up to my welder on saturday to get that set up, so probably will work on the car again on Sunday.

Unfortunately there just isn't any place in Columbus to do it. Super frustrating, especially with CMS being closed down/sold. There are just no open lots on weekends that businesses/insurance companies are willing to let people sling their car around some cones for a day. MVSCC just hasn't updated their website yet, but they did update their FB page. 2017 scheduled May 6th-7th test&tune/points #1 June 4th points #2 June 25th points #3 July 16th points #4 August 6th points #5 August 27th points #6 September 17th points #7 October 15th points #8 all events are scheduled to be held at the Upper Valley Mall 1457 Upper Valley Pike Springfield, Ohio 45504 these dates are subject to change, the location is also subject to change. there may also be some additions/reductions to this scheduled.

Spent a lot of time on the car this weekend. Still not quite finished, but we are getting close. Wiring takes a LONG time haha. First up we finished the air intake real quick. I had busted some of the vacuum tabs off accidentally before, so I bought some brass, drilled out the plastic base (thick nylon) and then threaded in the brass fittings and sealed with silicone. Also bought a K&N air filter and made a quick bracket which WILL get changed in the future for less jankiness. Then spent a lot of time doing wiring. Like A LONG time. Sat we started 1pm and finished at 12:30am, then Sun we started at 1pm and ended at 9pm. Tach Box installed (this picks up the coil firing signal and puts into an rpm signal wire for my autometer tach). Also installed my t56 reverse lock out solenoid box in the footwell where the original ecu used to be, fits in nicely. But not easy to get pictures of. I also finished off the transmission harness. Finally finished all the power wires for the new fuse box that goes to the batter, alternator to fuse box, and the other miscellaneous harness thats needed for all the external sensors and whatnot. This crows nest is what will ultimately be under the passenger fender. Lots of ground in stock location on either side (engine, starter, coyote ecu ground, 2x original harness grounds, etc): And then finally last night we got the dash back in and started making all the connections. I have two pigtails to finish off for wiring in here which will be quick now that I have a proper seat to sit in, and then finish off the wiring for the fuel pump and the wiring will FINALLY be done. We also got the roll bar final mounted, interior panels cut, and rollbar back out for me to take to my welder to weld the rear supports onto the main hoop and then I can final assemble that back into the car. Still need fluids and to prime the engine, and the little bit of wiring left. Then we can voltage check connections, set the fuel regulator, and finally start this thing.

Got the wiring for some more of the gauges done last night. New deutsch connectors are taking a bit of time to wire but they make it a lot cleaner and a lot easier to deal with assembly/disassembly in the future. Also looked at multiple tuning options. Lund canned tune would be $350 for a control pack/coyote swap car, bleh. Talked to Brian at DTM, and while his price is good, its a bit much right now to just get the car rolling. My main issue with needing tuning was because the stock 15-17 mustang airbox that came with the control pack kit is way too big to fit in the car. I had purchased a JLT air intake, which is roughly 4.5" diameter at the maf instead of the stock 3.5" diameter, so I needed the tuning to account for the maf readings. I took a better look at the stock air intake pipe, and with a lot of dremmel work I was able to get a nice tube section to hold the maf but also allow me to fit a 3.5" K&N air filter on the end, so I will do that for the time being and run teh stock tune from the control pack, then get the car dyno tuned later on down the line for maximum power. I'm sure I will have little things I need to adjust here and there once the car is running, and I don't want to put it on the dyno until the car is tried and true. Top of stock box Bottom of stock box. Here you can see the tube molded in for the airflow direction to the maf. Lots of dremmel work later Stock-ish set up for the time being: Will be working on it tomorrow, so will pick up a filter and the couple fittings/plugs I need to make the stock pipe work. After that just more wiring and reinstalling the dash/fuel tank/finish wiring/fluids. Hoping for startup on Sunday.

Looking for the stock air intake tube for a 15-17 gt, looking to buy this weekend. Lots of guys go to cold air intakes so help me find someone that has a stock one sitting around. Not willing to pay a lot, New can be had online for $50, but i'll toss someone some cash for one this weekend. This is the part I need: http://www.americanmuscle.com/ford-air-inlet-tube-1516gt.html http://s7d4.scene7.com/is/image/Turn5/384612?obj=car&wid=1200&size=1200,900

Started working on more of the interior wiring last night for the gauges and the pigtail harness from the control pack (starter control, auxillaries, ac request, fuel pump, etc etc). Its nice having the dash out of the car so that I can throw it up on the dining room table to do the wiring. Overall I was able to find the wiring diagrams that I needed pretty easily, so hopefully everything goes well. I made up my own wiring diagram for everything. I will have a couple of deutsch connectors throughout that way if I have to remove the dash again I don't have to go in and cut wires/resplice. A bit longer and more planning involved, but a much cleaner install in the end. The battle is figuring out where all I need connectors, and what is "dash side" vs "body side". Diagram Pinouts Hoping to finish up this part and the transmission harness on Thursday, then finish all the little things (final fuel tank install, reinstall dash, install steering, prime engine oil, fill radiator/transmission, refinish rotors, blah blah blah) and actually fire it up this weekend. Fingers crossed.

Long weekend working on wiring over the past two days. Started by working on ripping apart the stock harness to find the back up lights so I can splice in the new connector for the T56 harness. Also was working on figuring out which wires I needed and which ones I could get rid of. Honestly, I lost about 80% of the stock harness. Then got it more or less routed under the fender. I ultimately had three power wires that went into the bay that I needed to have power to. I had a wire with 12V during key on/start so I used that as a trigger wire for a relay to a fused power wire from the main fuse box. I'm hoping that will be the only adjustment needed and that the harness works out as planned. Otherwise I will be going to a scrapyard to pick up another harness. Thankfully v6 mustangs frequent them plenty haha. One sacrifice I had to make was mounting the engine harness fuse box underneath the front fender. Hopefully I don't have any issues here as to get to it I'll have to jack the car up, take off the wheel, remove the fender liner then drop it down just to check fuses. Plenty of clearance though to the fender. After all that I was able to get it tidied up and ended up with this. Should work pretty well. Hoping to get the gauge wires done up on Tuesday, then the transmission and tach adapter wires/boxes set up on Thursday. After that all that remains is priming the engine oil, filling the coolant, trans and powersteering and installing the interior. Crossing fingers to actually have everything in place to fire it up next weekend.

Last night was pretty productive. We pulled the exhaust off to make a couple small adjustments as one end was just a bit longer than the other. Dropped the fuel tank again so that I could preflush the fuel lines to make sure there wasn't any crud in the lines from when I was making them. Worked on mounting the ECU. This took a lot of time in terms of measuring, fitting, figuring out where it was gonna go, making sure there was enough clearance for the fender, wheel liner and the headlights, etc. Ran out of rivet nuts, so those are on order, but I have most of the bolts to hold it in for now so that I can start running the wiring loom for the control pack for the coyote. We also mounted up the rear supports on the rollbar and got the holes drilled through the body and also got the backing plates lined up, drilled, and set up so that the roll bar is fully bolted. Now I need to just cut the interior panels to allow the roll bar through, then I can take the cage back out to get finish welded (rear supports are currently seperate/bolted to the main hoop). Once that is finish welded we can put it back in the car for good. Tomorrow I have the whole day to work on the car so we are gonna see how far on the wiring we can get and try to bust it all out.

Last night was pretty productive. We pulled the exhaust off to make a couple small adjustments as one end was just a bit longer than the other. Dropped the fuel tank again so that I could preflush the fuel lines to make sure there wasn't any crud in the lines from when I was making them. Worked on mounting the ECU. This took a lot of time in terms of measuring, fitting, figuring out where it was gonna go, making sure there was enough clearance for the fender, wheel liner and the headlights, etc. Ran out of rivet nuts, so those are on order, but I have most of the bolts to hold it in for now so that I can start running the wiring loom for the control pack for the coyote. We also mounted up the rear supports on the rollbar and got the holes drilled through the body and also got the backing plates lined up, drilled, and set up so that the roll bar is fully bolted. Now I need to just cut the interior panels to allow the roll bar through, then I can take the cage back out to get finish welded (rear supports are currently seperate/bolted to the main hoop). Once that is finish welded we can put it back in the car for good. Tomorrow I have the whole day to work on the car so we are gonna see how far on the wiring we can get and try to bust it all out.

God I want this. maybe if its still around after april I can find a way to snag it. Damn wedding is taking away all my fun money...

MVSCC also has some events planned for out by Springfield at the mall there. Apparently Wilmington airport changed their insurance so now they don't allow car racing on the skid pad at the airport anymore... Still waiting on OVR SCCA to release their dates. Anyone have any info on them if they were able to score Ackerman this year? Or still just NTR? Fiance and I will be at quite a few of these events this year. Also, Dragway 42 up by Lodi will be having some autocross events once a month as well. Works out for us cause our parents live in Akron, so we can drive up Friday for test and tune, hang out with family on Saturday, then autocross on Sunday on the way back to Columbus.

Yup, that's it. Picked it up in Toledo from a guy who bought it a couple years again and never put it in. Went and got it when I was going up to Detroit for work for I think $225 if my memory serves me right. Needed some cleaning up, but nothing a wire wheel on my grinder and some primer and paint couldn't fix.

Been a busy past week or so, so didn't get much time to work on the car lately. Had the day off from work so we started mocking up the roll bar setup. We got the seam sealer out of the way that we needed to to have it sit smooth, as well as cleaning out some of the insulation. Then got the main hoop plate holes drilled and set up. Just need to drill the holes for the rear mounts and sandwhich plates, then get the rear supports welded onto the main hoop. Then final install.

Spent last night prepping the interior for the roll bar install as well as ripping out the dash to make setting up the wiring for the coyote control pack easier. Lucked out on the clutch switches. The coyote control pack requires two clutch switches. One for bottom travel so that the ecu knows when the clutch is fully depressed and it can apply power to the starter motor upon request. The second is a top of travel engagement, basically when youre just starting to release the clutch. The ecu needs to know this so that it can see that the load is coming off of the engine and it can adjust the ecu parameters so it doesn't over rev or bog out. So since I already have both, I just need to cut the ends off of the new wiring harness and splice into my old connectors. Easy peasy. Hoping to get a lot of the wiring run and done up this coming week, and hoping to get an engine fire up in the books by first week of march. Will see how things keep to that schedule. Rear interior removal: Dash Removal: Parts Storage (thankfully my buddy doesn't mind me storing my stuff at his house for the time being)

If I could actually find one that wasn't rediculous (going price is usually around $600+) then I would look into it lol. I will probably end up just getting a new bumper off ebay that is still the gt style, just no letters.

I am in the market for a GT bumper. All the aftermarket ones with the cutout's done have "MUSTANG" in the bumper, but I'm back and forth on if I like that shaved look or not. Essentially this: http://www.allfordmustangs.com/forums/attachments/v6-talk/140273d1317324502-exterior-upgrades-2001-silver-mustang-what-should-i-get-rear-mustang-black.jpg VS. This: http://i1240.photobucket.com/albums/gg498/desmondwilson58/MustangBumper3.jpg

Another big weekend on the car. Friday night I got the vacuum lines for the engine figured out. Hard to see, but pretty got the interior vacuum controls for the HVAC, the signal for the fuel regulator, and the pneumatic control for the CMCV in the intakes all plumbed up. 3/8" vacuum line is stupid expensive, around $4 a foot. Also redid the hard line of the PCV breather with some flex hose so it wouldn't try to pull the insert out of the intake Saturday we got the oil filter relocation set up on the back of the bumper beam, as well as got the oil lines made up from the block to the filter. Also made up a new hydrboost to steering rack an line. It took forever to find the teflon o rings for the power steering an fitting adapters (apparently they are known as seals, not o rings). Then started setting up the exhaust. First the mid pipe, then the catback. Apparently someone didn't want them to touch thought. Exhaust tips are kinda Ehh. So I will probably end up changing them / tucking them back into the bumper a bit later on. Today I had to pick up a couple odds and ends and ended up finding the perfect sound tube delete block off for the intake pipe from Advance Auto. Its an expansion plug rubber expander, so it fits in nice and snug, and then you can tighten it down to hold in the intake. Also, we spent a lot of time with some bends, 3" pipe, and grinding / welding, but finally ended up with the exhaust completed under the car. That exhaust is I think 1-5/8" primaries to dual 3" collectors, 3" x pipe and 3" dual exhaust around the IRS, with straight through perforated mufflers. Its gonna be loud. Honestly, thats pretty much it for the mechanical side of things. Engine, IN Transmission, IN Drivetrain, IN Exhaust, DONE Cooling, DONE Powersteering, DONE Fuel system, DONE I have one AC line that we test fit tonight and will get welded up tomorrow/this week. Also need a cap for the top of the power steering reservoir. Now we get to start focusing on the wiring. Will start with the interior wiring, like the gauges, clutch switches, and transmission reverse lock out controller, then run the wiring out of the interior and the wiring from the engine inside in one focal point. Pretty much have the old harness figured out, just need to finish ripping out the wires I don't need.

Not sure yet. I'm still just focused on trying to get everything up and running first. The nice part is I technically don't need a tune right away as the ecu is set up for the coyote from Ford. The only main thing I need is the MAF file for the JLT intake to at least be close. I will probably reach out to Brian by end of Feb if I get the car running by then.