Another Mustang, LS3 power

In reply to Patientzero :

Clever overflow tank mods.  thanks for posting.

I've been meaning to ask how you're liking the AR5 in  your car. I've thought of trying one in my 5.3 Caprice project. The gearing seems odd but that may actually work in my favor in a much heavier car.

In reply to Daylan C :

I'm honestly pretty happy with it.  Since I switched to the 3.55 gears it is much better.  I've thought about grabbing another one just to have as a spare but I haven't had any issues with the one in it so far.  I believe the Solstice/Slingshot version has more friendly gear ratios but there is some work involved in changing them over to a slip yoke.  I don't know the specifics on that.

In reply to Patientzero :

Good to hear on the AR5. Might be an option I take more seriously when my current HM290 gives up. I've been following your stuff on Instagram and it's cool that you're putting all the Mustang stuff here in one place now.

Are you going to make a fan shroud for the radiator?  That'll help with cooling quite a bit

In reply to docwyte :

No.  The shroud would help at low speeds and street driving but above ~40mph or so it actually becomes a restriction.  Even your factory fan will shut off at highway speeds.

Holy crap what a great build thread. Love your attention to detail. Whenever I see stuff like this I realize how cobbled together my junk really is 

Sunday night update on what I've been working on the last few days.

I did lots of measuring and started drilling holes in the bumper.

I made some tabs out of 1/8" x 1" steel and got them welded to the bumper support to attach the support rods.

This washer happened to be the same diameter as my bumper support.

Now I have 4 identical tabs.

More measuring then got them tacked in place.

Finish welded.

Then I had to enlarge the holes in the bumper for them to peek through.

No matter how nice I make the holes it never going to look that pretty so I drew up some trim rings and 3d printed them.

Screwed in place.  I think this looks 100x better than just having a hole there.

Started working on a way to attach the splitter.  I just sandwiched the wood with a piece of 1/8" aluminum strap on bottom and 1/8" aluminum angle on top.  

I countersunk the bolts into the the bottom to give the most ground clearance possible.

I had a couple scraps of 1x2" aluminum that I cut down to make the splitter rod brackets.

I cut off a couple pieces of stainless tubing to make spacers to keep the heim joint center in the bracket.

Here is the front of the splitter bolted up.  Next I need to work on attaching the back side.

I really appreciate your attention to detail.  It's very good methodical work.  If you need any help with the wrap, hit me up.  I have done 3 vehicles so far, and am working on my 4th (Fox coupe, Chevy Avalanche, Chevy Suburban, and now onto a Fox hatchback).  The bumpers will be the hardest parts of the car, the rest is pretty flat in comparison. 

This is a fantastic build thread, as a fellow laser pink New Edge owner, I can't wait to check out your vinyl wrap thread!

Bravo on the support surrounds.  Very nice!

One of my limitations for the splitter is that it absolutely had to be quickly detachable.  I don't want to mess with bolts, I don't want to have to jack the car up, I don't want to remove wheels, etc.  The support rods outside the bumper were easy, they will just have pin rather than a bolt.  The back side was more tricky.  There are a dozen ways to do this but this is what I decided on to give me maximum strength with minimal added weight.

I happened to have some 3/4" solid rod and some 1" .120" wall tubing that gave me a perfect slip fit.

I welded the pins into some 3/16" plate with 1/8" sticking out the back so I could weld both sides. 

#tigtuesday

I welded the 1" tubing to some 1/8" strap for the hangers.  I plan to add some additional support to these later with more mounting points.

The pins are just tack welded to the core support.  I have to drill a couple holes in the core support to make room for the 1/8" I left sticking out the back side of the plate.

After making sure the pins were level and square to each other I could go ahead and weld them in completely.

Now the splitter is hanging completely by the pins and support rods.  It is surprisingly strudy like this but I am going to add more support on the sides and possibly another support in the middle so it will pass the standing test(probably not by me, but somebody will stand on it. haha)  Then I will seal the bottom edge of the bumper to the splitter either with aluminum or garden edging.  I'm undecided on that.

I cut a couple more pieces of 1/8" and triangulated the mounts.

Tacked in place and then TIG welded.

Bolt holes drilled and mounted back on the car.

I'm 245lbs and I can stand on it at this point.  I still want to add more support to the sides though.

I cut a couple shorter pieces of the angle and flat just like the main mounts.

Mounted in place

The plan was to attach support rods to these spots too but they would be hidden behind the bumper rather than exposed.  I had some 6" square plates of 3/16" steel that I used to make brackets that mount to the factory bumper support bolts.

I don't have a torch so I thought maybe my propane torch would get hot enough to bend this stuff.  I was absolutely wrong.

I ended up scoring a line with a cutoff wheel and then welded it back up.

I used some bushings and welded into the holes to help distribute the weight and keep the holes from getting wallowed out. 

Bolted up to the car.

With the support rod attached.  I'm waiting on some more heim joints and this portion will be wrapped up.  Then I need to waterproof and wrap the wood.  Tomorrow I'm going to start on the tow hooks for the front and rear.  

If the side supports are behind the bumper cover, are they still quick to connect/disconnect?

and is the bumper high enough off the ground to get the splitter and brackets under without jacking the car up?

In reply to jfryjfry :

Yes.  The bumper is already quick detach, it's held on with dzus fasteners.

The bumper and splitter will both come off in under a minute.

With the splitter wrapped up it was time to start on some tow hooks.  Cars are required to have a front and rear tow hook for some of the events I plan on going to so I started on the front.

I started by finding the center on the bumper again because I already took my tape off like a dummy.  Then I drilled a little hold through the bumper and into the bumper support so it would match perfectly.

Then I pulled the bumper support off the car and drilled it out to 1" to accept a piece of pipe.

I cut down a piece of 1" tube so that it would stick out of the bumper far enough for a cotter pin so this would be quick detachable too.

I 3D printed a drill jig a couple days ago and used it to make sure I drilled through the center of my tubing for the cotter pin.

After welding it in.

Then I made a pin out of 3/4" solid stock to fit inside of the receiver so the hook can be removed easily.

Test fit in the receiver to measure length before cutting.

Cut to length then I welded a cut down bolt to the end to give the hook something to screw on to.  Not my first choice on how I wanted to do this but the hook is aluminum so without a custom machined adapter this gave my the cleanest look(at least that I thought of).

Hook installed on the car.

Next will be getting one installed on the back of the car too.

The FedEx man also dropped off a couple goodies from Trackspec Motorsports for the hood.

The rest of the heim joints came in so I could finish the splitter rods.

Here is a video of how the splitter goes on.  To put the bumper on too would probably take an extra minute, it attaches with Dzus fasteners.  I'll take a video of that at some point when I get stuff finished up.

And here is me standing on it.  I'm 245lbs in my birthday suit.

For the rear tow hook I used another one of the cheapies from Amazon.  This is the same hook I used for the front. These are designed to screw in to the factory tow point in the bumpers of newer cars.

The Mustang is a little old to have the tow point in the bumpers so I needed to make a mount.  I started by getting a bolt that screwed into the hook.  It ended up being 12mm x 1.75.

I used a piece of 1" tube and welded a nut to the end.  The head of the bolt fits inside this tubing almost perfect.

I changed my mine halfway through on where I wanted the hook mounted so I had to add an additional piece to lengthen it out.

I made a plate out of 3/16" and used rivnuts to attached it to the factory bumper support.

Then I just needed to weld them together.  The plan is to get all this stuff powdercoated.

Beautiful build. You're obviously a craftsman and I wish I had a fraction of your fabrication skills. Our 01 Cobra could use that front bumper rebuild like you've done.  We cheated and bought our splitter from Carter's Custom. http://carterscustoms04.com/99-01-cobra-front-splitter-race-version/. The pic is from our car. Love the way you did everything for quick release. We didn't and I regret it. 

We will have to get together sometime and compare mustangs before race season starts, my welds aren't as pretty as yours though ;-)

In reply to Cobra86 :

I had talked to Adam about getting a splitter for the Roush bumper and he said he was in the process of making one but didn't have one available yet so I went ahead and made my own.  I suspect mine is a bit more substantial than the ones he offers but I don't know that for fact.  My rear spoiler came from him but I made the new aluminum brackets for it.