Turbo V6 Mustang

[RC K9]

Power steering is for Nancy Boys.

 

Kidding.

 

While this build isn't really my "thing", I am really enjoying reading this thread, and have to admit, this is an impressive build. I like how you mounted the IC as well.

 

Keep up the good work man.

[Toph6888]

Got some good progress done today tying up some loose ends. I have to work for about 4 hrs tomorrow, but other then that I will have tomorrow night and all day sunday to work on this thing. Hoping to get pretty far with it.

 

Worked on the running the battery positive cable up front and making the connections.

 

Found a grommet already existing that wasn't doing anything so I was able to get the cable through there and still have a decent seal

 

Running it into the engine bay

 

Just gotta cut off the excess and crimp the end

 

Bolted it to the firewall so it won't move around. I also wrapped it up so it would look almost stock coming into the engine bay, or at least hard for people to notice.

 

Bolted this to the firewall as well. I used a bolt down terminal end for the fusebox/starter, and then I bolted that terminal to the crimp end on the power cable. Then I wrapped the shit out of it with electrical tape. Will probably also add some heat tape around it as well since my dump will be on that side, but I mounted it there and a little high so the master cylinder will be between it and the dump tube to hopefully help protect it.

 

Next I worked on painting the parts of the engine bay I couldn't get to when I was painting when the engine was out. Looks much better having everything black now.

 

Intake side primer

 

Intake side black

 

Booster area primer

 

Booster area black

 

Engine bay shot. I have decided to go back to the stock intake for a couple random reasons, but I am thinking that I am actually going to spray it black instead of silver like I was originally planning, I think it will give it a nice contrast. I have some textured paint that I was going to use on the valve covers so I will use that to add some dimension.

 

Finally I worked on getting the seats in for good. When I took mine out the rear bolts all sheared off from being rusted in becuase they bolt into the floorboard instead of being studs like the fronts. I went ahead and center punched them and drilled them out. Just need to stop by the hardware store to grab a couple bolts and they will be in for good. It was nice getting the battery stuff all set because I finally got to test out that power cobra seat, that thing has a lot of motors haha

 

 

And lastly, I have accumulated so many tools over this build from pneumatics to grinders to compressors to vacuums, but the best of all is still the garage lol

[Toph6888]

Got a couple things done today up front since I had a couple hours after I got home from work at 5.

 

First things first, took care of the grounding the old battery location's negative terminal. I just bought another bolt down terminal from autozone, and bolted it to the existing ground.

 

Worked on stuff under the bumper, damn you previous owner and running it into something! Nothing really bent, I've had the frame looked at and its still straight, just a fender bender

 

Got the powersteering cooler on

 

PS lines run for the cooler and ziptied out of the way

 

Worked on the 4th installment of the intercooler bracket to lower it and hide it better so the grille doesn't look so terrible. Lowered it and also added lower brackets to hold it in place

 

I'm just gonna run it like this, it looks cooler wtih that giant intercooler, and being able to see how wide the front tires are

 

Bumper cover back on

 

No bracket = happy mustang

[Fubar231]

Why not take the IC off and paint the brackets Black? Then you really wont see it. Awesome progress as always though.

[Toph6888]

 

Why not take the IC off and paint the brackets Black? Then you really wont see it. Awesome progress as always though.

 

Kinda hard to see (which is good) but I did go ahead and paint the bracket black, looks like it worked perfectly I did paint those top two bolts before I put the bumper cover back on

[Toph6888]

Got some more things done today. Went to the store to get a new sawzall so I will be able to cut the intercooler piping.

 

Fixed up my battery tie down by getting a piece of tube to slip over either end to keep it bolted down properly.

 

Took the windstar intake off so that I can work on getting the wiring for the gauges into the engine bay.

 

Couldn't find a good place I wanted to work on running the wires for the gauges so I said fuck it and ran them through the firewall. I have them ziptied up and out of the way, so shouldn't be any issue.

 

Put my oil pressure sender on in the stock location. I am just going to ground the stock cable so it still reads as pressure so the gauge panel doesn't look wierd.

 

And then I got lazy and didnt connect everything up. Gonna wait till next weekend when I am putting the wiring harness in that way I can wrap it onto the stock loom so that they are hidden and look close to stock

 

Got new bolts for the front seats since the old ones had to be drilled out.

 

All thats left for the interior is to hook up the brake/clutch/throttle cables for the pedals. Put the floormats in so it feels done haha

 

I'm gonna order my pushrods this week so hopefully I will finish up the engine next weekend. Still working on getting ahold of the tuner to have him ship me my tuner, hopefully start up in a couple weeks (like I haven't said that before!)

[RC K9]

just FYI, I have been using a chain type tailpipe cutter for my IC piping and find it makes for a much cleaner cut that sawzall. Just my $.02.

 

Also, I stole you angle iron idea for mounting my IC. This new IC is twice the size of my old one and the angle iron worked perfectly as a mounting solution. Thanks for posting that.

[Toph6888]

just FYI, I have been using a chain type tailpipe cutter for my IC piping and find it makes for a much cleaner cut that sawzall. Just my $.02.

 

Also, I stole you angle iron idea for mounting my IC. This new IC is twice the size of my old one and the angle iron worked perfectly as a mounting solution. Thanks for posting that.

 

I had never thought of a tailpipe cutter, I might go with that (lot cheaper then the sawzall which I can still return). Thanks for that.

 

Glad to hear the angle iron worked, its pretty nice having the holes already in it and its realively inexpensive.

 

Looks like we are even :dumb:

[Reed44]

Nice build.

[RC K9]

I had never thought of a tailpipe cutter, I might go with that (lot cheaper then the sawzall which I can still return). Thanks for that.

 

Glad to hear the angle iron worked, its pretty nice having the holes already in it and its realively inexpensive.

 

Looks like we are even :dumb:

 

The best part is, you shouldn't even have to buy the tailpipe chain cutter. Autozone and Oreilly here both rent them out for $50 deposit. Rent. Use for 2wks. Return. Profit.

 

I had originally rented it to cut my strut housings for some Koni inserts, then realized I should give it a whirl on my IC piping I needed to make.

[Green Bastard]

Careful with oreilly here (the one on morse rd.), they told me if you have the tool for more than 48 hours then you own it.

[RC K9]

Autozone here gives me like 30 days. Either way, unless he paid less than $50 for that sawzall, he makes out even if he has to buy the cutter, especially considering his cuts will be cleaner.

[Toph6888]

Got a little bit done today because I got back a bit early from my buisness trip.

 

Got my pushrods in. I love living close to summit racing (<2 hrs). I ordered these yesterday at noon. I got them today, 7.150" chromoly hardened rods. It was buy 12 individual for $98, or get a set of 16 for $99. And the $99 had free shipping lol, so looks like I will have a couple spares

 

It was pretty nice out so I did a light porting job on my stock intake. I didn't go too in depth because I was running low on sand rolls and was having a hard time getting in the tight spaces, but it will be better then stock.

 

Went ahead and painted it with a crinkle black paint (in the photo it is still wet). Hopefully once it dries and wrinkles it will add some dimension to the intake and make it look a little nicer. First time trying this paint, figure why the hell not, it will match the valve covers when I paint them this weekend after installing my pushrods.

 

Gonna be busy the next couple nights, but this weekend I plan on getting the intercooler piping put together, getting the pushrods in, getting the coolant over flow painted an on, getting the valve covers painted and on, and getting the upper intake and maf and what not on. Also plan on hopefully getting the powersteering bracket on at least (hopefully the PS and alternator too) so I can run the belt and put the turbo on for good (the bracket has to come off to run the belt )

[Toph6888]

Made some good progress on the engine today. Started with tearing out the turbo stuff so I had access to all the accesories, then worked on getting things cleaned up.

 

Taking apart the alternator:

 

Got the alternator casing off for painting

 

Painting the alternator casing, valve covers and coolant pipes. Coolant pipes are ok, the paint didn't really stick to them since they are stainless steel (even after sanding them a bunch lol)

 

Was able to get the oil pressure sender from autometer to fit behind the PS/alternator bracket. Its gonna suck if that thing goes bad but it should be pretty protected from everything there.

 

Its the shiny thing in the middle haha

 

Checked my pushrods again and they appear to be the correct length, I have enough clearance on teh springs so run em! The lifter obviously didn't have oil pressure behind it, but I have about 0.070" clearance between coils, and five coils, so I will have plenty of clearance before the springs bottom out. They are the same length as when I measure with the pushrod checker, so I ordered them correclty, and when I was measuring with the solid lifters they had a good contact patch, so I am glad this is all done with haha.

 

Passenger side going on:

 

Passenger side done:

 

Drivers side done:

 

All in all it took a crap ton of time to put these in, prob about an hr or so, just to make sure everything was torqued correctly and making sure everything was on the base circle of the cam while torquing.

All of them in:

 

Valve covers on:

 

And most of the accessories on

 

I am just waiting on my PS pump to get here, I decided it wasn't worth not spending the $45 since I am in here and I will now be having my power brakes rely on them. Goodbye 145k miles PS pump, you were good till the last push.

 

Tomorrow I plan on getting all the accessories finished up and the AC compressor painted, then getting the last two or three header bolts in, get the wiring harness all in, finish up the gauge wiring, and put the turbo stuff back on. Also hoping to get the upper intake finished up (cleaned and a couple spots painted that I missed) and the intercooler piping all done. If I can get all this stuff together the only things remaining will be the brakes, the timing sensor, and then the exhaust. Woot woot getting close.

[Stretch]

Looking good!

[Toph6888]

got another decent chunk done today.

 

Started off cleaning and painting the AC compressor. Looks much better now.

 

 

Got the new power steering pump on, brackets all on, alternator on, and started putting the turbo kit back on. all the accessories are finally on haha that took way too long.

 

Put the downpipe back on for now. I have a much better idea of how much room I have now with the PS pump back on, and I think I have a pretty good idea with how I will be working on getting the exhaust around the engine, I don't think it will be too bad so long as everything goes according to plan.

 

 

Roommate is powder coating my front brakes for me since when I tried to paint them red they just peeled the previous paint off :/ He has sent me some pics of the process, first is of the calipers as he got them, the right one is the one I started painting red but stopped because the paint was cracking

 

after paint stripper dip

 

And finished sandblasting. He is hoping to get the powdercoating done this week.

 

Things remaining:

Put power booster/master cylinder on

Put on all the calipers/bleed brakes

Put on the oil feed line for the turbo

Put the rest of the wiring harness on

bolt the upper intake on once its been cleaned up a bit more

Run the intercooler piping

Reflash the computer (tuner is in the mail!)

Finish wiring two gauges

Fill with oil/coolant

install coolant bypass tube

install timing position sensor

Install powersteering lines

Exhaust shenanigans

 

So all mostly small stuff that I will try to get finished up as the week goes by. I am getting a cobra IRS catback this week, so after we finish the dump pipe we will work on making a mid pipe to connect the two together.

[Toph6888]

No big updates right now, but hoping to get 1-2 nights this weekend to work on the car, plus I have the whole weekend off to work on it coming up. Been getting a lot of the last couple miscellaneous parts in:

Stock Cobra IRS Catback

Coolant Overflow bottle

Oil/Air separator/catch can

2000 Throttle Cable

PS Pump to hydroboost steering fluid line

New firewall adjuster (mine was all sorts of messed up)

 

I also got a nice goodie from Dave Dalke, SCT X3 with custom tune

 

Got my front calipers back from my buddy who was powdercoating them

 

Getting the red on them before bake:

 

and after bake:

 

I'll have the brakes put back together and on the car later this weekend.

 

Things left to do:

I am ordering exhaust tubing, I have a friend coming over Thursday or Friday hopefully so we can tack the exhaust all together (dump around the engine and midpipe to adapt to the IRS catback)

Put the brake booster/master cylinder on

Put the calipers on/bleed brakes

Put on the clutch cable and throttle cable

Block off some ports on the upper intake, finish painting it, and put the IAC and throttle body together

Route my intercooler piping

connect all the PS line hoses.

Finish wiring my Wideband and Boost controller

reflash the ecu

Prime the engine, install the cam timing sensor

Make sure all my bolts are tight/fill fluids

 

So the list has gotten very short and I am hopeing that if we can get the exhaust stuff tacked this week, he can take it home to his tig welder and finish weld everything. Hoping to get all the other stuff done this weekend, and if so start up isn't too far off (I told you only two weeks...)

[Toph6888]

Got a decent bit done tonight. Started off with putting the cobra brakes on since I was able to put them back together last night with the pistons/pads.

 

cobra/mach 1 brakes on the left, stock on the right

 

Rotor size difference

 

And on the car. Looks much better then the stock brakes behind that wheel

 

Then worked on getting all the intake piping done. I was happy that I was able to fit the filter up top and still get the upper intake piping through the existing fenderwell hole without having to cut anything to make it fit.

 

 

 

 

I need to get another couple tclamps and one 45* coupler and it will be all finished. One step closer...

[DKilbourne]

Very nice. I'm excited to see the results once it's turned up.

[PRD2BDF]

I may have missed it back at the beginning but what is the expected hp?

[Toph6888]

I may have missed it back at the beginning but what is the expected hp?

 

My current goal is to hit 400rwtq, haven't really cared too much about top end hp bc I won't be doing a ton of racing to start off with. I imagine my first tune with it will be pretty tame (timing low, etc, I don't want it to blow up haha) but I guess if I had to pick numbers I'm shooting for 400rwtq, and 425rwhp. I'm thinking I should be able to hit that at around 10-12psi of boost.

[Fubar231]

My current goal is to hit 400rwtq, haven't really cared too much about top end hp bc I won't be doing a ton of racing to start off with. I imagine my first tune with it will be pretty tame (timing low, etc, I don't want it to blow up haha) but I guess if I had to pick numbers I'm shooting for 400rwtq, and 425rwhp. I'm thinking I should be able to hit that at around 10-12psi of boost.

 

 

Have you tuned a car before? Honestly id just take it to Dyno Brian and get a good tune, that way you know its done right the first time. Would hate to see you finish this up and have your tune be off and cause issues after everything youve done.

 

Can't wait to see a finished product and a dyno chart. Been following this for some time now and really like it. At first i wasnt sure of the v6, but hey its your car and its lookin good. You can still make plenty of power out of a v6 too.

[Toph6888]

Have you tuned a car before? Honestly id just take it to Dyno Brian and get a good tune, that way you know its done right the first time. Would hate to see you finish this up and have your tune be off and cause issues after everything youve done.

 

Can't wait to see a finished product and a dyno chart. Been following this for some time now and really like it. At first i wasnt sure of the v6, but hey its your car and its lookin good. You can still make plenty of power out of a v6 too.

 

I am having the car tuned by David Dalke from supercoupes unlimited up by Cleveland, he tunes mostly these 3.8L ford engines, supercharged and turbocharged, and he has been helping a lot along the way with random questions I had for him while putting the engine together. I already have the X3/email tune from him, so I will break the engine in, and then drive up there and have him dyno tune it.

 

This car has snowballed quite a bit, it was originally just supposed to be a basic engine rebuild and put the turbo kit on. most of the gauges/trans/rear axle/wheels/brakes/interior, etc all came out because I kept finding good deals. To do a v8 I still would have been paying a good 3-4 grand more for one that I would want and it would have made more power then I was shooting for anyways lol. With the parts I have now I still have a good base if my v6 blows, and put a pushrod 5.0 in it or something with a turbo.

[Toph6888]

Got a good number of little things done this weekend. I was having a hell of a time finding a 45* bend silicone coupler for the intake piping, and I had a bit of angled piping left so I just bought two straight couplers and used the tube for the bend.

 

Got the wiring harness on the car. The fuel injectors don't have the clip on them, so I will have to ziptie the connectors down. And I managed to get the oxygen sensors to connect up with my extenders. Just need to get a few more things on to have all the sensors hooked up, and ground the old oil pressure sensor since I have the aftermarket sensor where teh stock one used to go.

 

Was painting my coolant overflow tube and ran out of black, again, so I will have to pick up another can of that.

 

Finished paiting the rear calipers for the rear brakes, got them all set to go with new hardware, but I need to compress the piston so I have to go and rent that tool from autozone to do it. Also gotta get a little bit of brake line for the master cylinder, I was able to bend my stock lines to fit, but then I couldn't flare them, so I will have to get something softer then what ford orginally used.

 

Finally said fuck it I'm tired of not having one and bought a welder. It should be here tomorrow/tuesday. Its a 120V 130A mig welder running off of a normal house socket. Got the welder, regulator, helmet, wire, and cart for $410, so I think I came out with a pretty decent welder for what I spent. We will see how it does, I'll most likely spend tomorrow doing some practice welds.

 

I have a buddy coming down on tuesday to help me with the exhaust piping for getting it around the engine, so I am hoping to finish up my mid pipe (mild steel) by myself tomorrow, and then when he comes over we can tack the stainless portions of it (hes bringing a gas cylinder) and then he is gonna take it back to his place to TIG weld it all together. Hopefully by next week after labor day I should have all my exhaust in! After that it will only be a couple little things till we start putting fluids in it and get ready to fire it up.

[ShoMeSomeFun]

Good progress. Should be able to dial this thing in before winter comes, then you got a whole winter of thinking about what else you want to do to the car.