Mustang V6 Autocrosser named Mistress

In reply to Mustang50 :

Thanks for checking on us. We are OK. 90% recovered with a few lingering symptoms.  Never hospitalized.  We are.building a house  in Michigan (near to family) because I will finish my career from home so i can live where i want now.

Mistress now has no radio or speakers (about 30# lighter) and I am fabricating a new gauge pod where the radio was. Looks nice. I.will be posting all that In time. 

Supercharger might happen this year, not sure. Spending a lot of money on the house. We will see...

I will get active again soon on the forum. Thanks again for.checking. 

We haven't heard from you since Feb.  How are you doing health wise and with the new house.  I'm hoping to get some work done on my Mustang if some money comes through like I'm expecting.  Our local club has started autocrossing again so I'm hoping to participate again later this summer.

Stay safe and healthy.

Yes, it's been a while, doing okay?

Thank you for checking up on us - we are doing OK. Covid symptoms are all gone except I can still barely smell coffee and beer. But bacon smells great!

We have moved to Michigan near Grand Rapids. Green Bay is a wonderful town but after going a year with no grand kid hugs we felt we needed to be nearer family. Because of Covid I am permanently working from home... So I can live anywhere now as long as I have good internet. 

Living in a used 5th wheel in a camp ground while the new house is built in Hastings, MI (move in mid fall). It is not a big house but it will seem a lot larger after a summer living in a little under 400 square feet. The view out the back window is about a mile of corn field with a big circular irrigator in the middle of it. It is very pretty when it is spraying at sunset.

Mistress has been outside under a fabric car cover for about a month now. I finished a few minor projects on her. Mainly the radio removal and a new gauge pod where it used to be. It has a custom feature you would only need on an autocross car.

So - What are the six unlabeled buttons for? 

I also have a vacuum pump to help the brakes but have not been able to install it yet.

We are heading up for the first event of the season this weekend at the old Kinross AFB in Michigan's UP. Great venue - about 20 acres of concrete B52 parking.  

Man I miss my garage! Man I miss my lift (that car is so damn low)! Every little task is harder and I cannot store many tools in the RV. Drop a bolt - it is in the grass...Will be all set up again this winter.  Now that things are settling down I hope to get writing again. I have a pretty good back log.

Thanks again.  It is good to know someone is out there.  Life has been way too busy. Need to settle it down and get autocrossing and writing again.

Those buttons are going to haunt me until you tell us what's the what there. Glad to hear things are well and that the car is still progressing however slowly. Hope all goes well with the new house!

Good to hear from you again.  My health issues have stabilized also.   Just waiting for some financial decisions and I will be starting on some updates to my Mustang to start running in CAM.

General update and then - Radio & Gauges

Time to do some catching up. As noted above we sold our house in Green Bay and are living in a used 5th wheel. It is in a campground in the country township of Alto, Michigan southeast of Grand Rapids.  When the new house is complete in the fall, we will sell the fifth wheel. I can’t tow it without adding a couple more wheels to the back of my F-150 (not on my project list).

In the meantime, I am watching a mile of corn grow out the back window, puttering on the 5th wheel getting ready to sell it in the fall, getting in the occasional autocross (one so far) and getting lots of grand kid hugs. Life is good.

We are building because the only way to buy a house right now is sight unseen. The new house will be a small ranch we can retire into.  I will build a large studio for my wife in the walk out basement. I get a three-stall garage. It is basically two hobby spaces with a little house in between.  We manage to lock in the cost before lumber prices went crazy. A year and a half to retire…

While Covid made us quite miserable for a couple of months last fall and has damaged my sense of smell (possibly permanently) I figure we got off lucky because it also did us a favor. It changed the way people like me work. I work from home now. Home can be anywhere there is internet. All four boys have married or are connected to Michigan girls and two still live here. So, there is sort of a “vector” back to Michigan from wherever they are. We are now on that vector.

Radio & Gauges

Last fall I drove Mistress to the last event of the season put on by the Fox Valley Sports Car Club at the USA International Raceway in central Wisconsin. It is a kart/motorcycle track that is also great for autocross. On the way  over I tried to listen to the radio. The car is too noisy and with the Sirius/XM moved to the truck there is nothing on anyway but commercials.  So out with the radio. I guess it is a real race car now?  Video of last run at USAIR below. It was cold and not very sticky but lots of fun. FVSCC is a great club. Here is the link again:

US Air Run

Removing the radio was easy. The speaker box in the back was harder and required taking apart the rear of the cabin. The big surprise was the weight!  That speaker box under the rear deck with amps and speakers weighs 25 pounds. Yes, it is the back. But it is also up high well above the center of gravity.

It all went in the dumpster. I have become ruthless with old parts.

I purchased VDO gauges from Summit for Oil Pressure, Temperature and a clock. Well, I tried to. The temperature gauge I wanted was a mechanical version because they should be fairly accurate, and it has a 120-degree sweep on the gauge. However, they are made in India. India was not doing very well last winter and there were none being made. I finally found a returned one on Ebay. I think it was the last gauge of this type on this continent. The clock gauge supposedly matches the other two, but it doesn’t. These are fairly cheap gauges… you get what you pay for…

I fabricated a bezel for the gauges out of steel sheet metal made to match the face of the OEM radio.

I have found that with a good vice, a makeshift brake (heavy angle irons) and a lot of patience and fussing you can make things that look half decent. Key is the patience. Still – don’t look too close, things are not quite lined up perfectly.

I dressed it up with a small buffing pad from HF in the drill patience (more patience required) and then electroplated the final product.

I also purchased a bag of lighted push buttons to mount in the extra space along the bottom of the plate. If you are an autocrosser who often attends events where you get several runs in a heat (not just three) then you have heard this question on many occasions while in grid: “What run is this?” The standard answer is “I don’t know either – ask the grid chief.”  It is important to know because it can affect your strategy for the heat. We all lose track. The buttons don’t do anything except light up blue.

At this first event we had four runs in the morning and five in the afternoon. The grid chief lost track and asked me what run it was because he knew I had a “tracking system” on my dash.

Start the car, check the data logger, check the gauges, turn off the traction control, press the next blue button, visualize the course…  breath….

Check up and Check in - Living in a Camper

Mistress just got a mid-season, mid-summer, middle of nowhere check up so I thought this would be a good time to catch up. She has been running very well. Only issue was a slight brake leak at the right front banjo bolt. I tightened the bolt (was not that tight). I think that fixed it. Bridgestones rotated front to back after two events and about 40 runs or so.

The car is somewhat of a novelty in the campground. I have left the numbers on it so when ever it is uncovered it gets a lot of strange looks (what the heck is that doing here?).

With the new gauges I have noted the oil pressure gets down to just under 30 psig when the car is hot after a run. Normal pressure range for this engine is 40 idling when cold and 60 to 120 psig at speed (no really). It runs about 60 to 80 when hot and the RPM are up.  I was concerned so I wrote Tom at Super Six and posed the question. Tom indicated this was not a problem but also hinted I could switch from 5-20 to 5-30 or even 5-40 Mobil One. Working in stages I switched to 5W-30 and ran the last event at KI Sawyer. It helped a little. I will finish out the season with that and might try the 40 weight next year.

The run counter blue push buttons are great. Why don’t more people do this? Why didn’t I think of it before? I know where we are in the heat and can plan how to attack the last runs. The grid chief was coming to me asking what run we were on.

Vacuum Pump

Last winter I purchased a Hella UP 30 vacuum pump and pigtail from Summit. I have complained about the low vacuum pressure with the stroker and inconsistent brake boost. This solved the problem. I paired it with a “Superior Universal Adjustable Vacuum Switch” from Monster Transmission. It is meant to adjust the shift point of an older non electronic automatic transmission.

The Hella pump is a quiet rotary unit rather than a noisy vibrating diaphragm pump. The switch is currently sent to -14” in-Hg. At idle the engine pulls a little more than that. Check valves and the additional reservoir hold vacuum so the pump only runs when the brakes are used and the engine is up on RPM (most of an autocross run I expect). It recovers back to setpoint in a couple of seconds.

The brakes are much more consistent and require much less force. This is a win.

Installation is not up to my normal standards. I wanted to make a manifold block and better plate for mounting. The wiring is just jammed in under the pump. That is all I can do in “shade tree mechanic” mode. Will be better when I get into the new garage. Vaccum pump on the left. PVC pump on the right in the photo below.

Next weekend we are up at KI Sawyer near Marquette Mi. This is likely the best venue for autocross in the upper Midwest. It is only a seven-hour drive. 1/3 of which is two lane road. Ahh, but there will be whitefish for lunch at the Bay View Inn in Epoufette overlooking Lake Michigan from 100 feet up on the bluff.  

And I can finally smell coffee again! Life is good.

You're using 5w20!?!  Yeah, I would definitely swap that out.  0w40 or 5w50 would be my choice. 

I spent hours of work time yesterday and today absorbing this thread. I found it while searching for info on antisquat for my autocross/track day 1995 Mustang. I LOVE what you've done here. I created an account here just to say how much I love what you've done here. 

I WILL be ripping off your camber alignment tool. I love that. I had the same idea, adjust camber to -3.0* and a slight toe out for autocross, then just readjust camber to street drive and let the toe fall in slightly. But I definitely didn't have a tool in mind for it. I was planning to rip off your threaded rod method, but the lever is even better and easier, so I am glad I kept reading. 

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with in the future! 

I somehow missed this thread.  I'm in GR, speak Mustang and have a lift if you need one.

Carry on.

In reply to akylekoz :

Thank you!  As you can see from the posts above my life has been somewhat upended this year (mostly in a good way). When we are finally settled later this year I hope to be more active with the build log. One last event this year - Barstow Airport in Midland on Oct 10 with my old club SVR. Bringing the grand kids! 

In reply to GimpyHSHS :

Thank you for you kind words. I like to learn and I like to teach what I have learned. It helps me learn it better to try to formulate an actual lesson. Also, knowing that I will write about a project causes me to think it through in more detail than I might do otherwise.  Therefore, the projects finish better.

Some of these vehicle dynamics issues (like squat) are pretty darned complex and hard to wrap your head around. One more way of explaining it might help someone. 

There are a lot of good threads on GRM. Some of them regularly comment on this one. I hope you can get your work done now that you have an account here. This might not end well...

Quick update: We were not able to attend the last event at Barstow in Midland Michigan because my truck had issues and we could not tow the Mustang. I was very disappointed because my grand kids were going to come along now that they are old enough to ride along. Mistress has now been sitting out under the tarp by the camper for a month and a half. Big dead patch of grass underneath. Kind of sad...

But not much longer! We move into the new house on Nov 8. Mistress will have her own berth in the new garage. Several new projects are planned including, finally, after years now... the #$%&@ supercharger!

Oh - And on good advice I switched to 5W-30 for the last event up north. Did not make a visible difference on oil pressures. Probably will go to 5W-40 for next spring then.

Good to hear from you!  I've been looking forward to your updates, especially the supercharger.

Kent:  Hope you are all doing well.   Do you have any updates for 2022?  I always look forward to your posts.

In reply to Mustang50 :

Heavy sigh... Hi Mustang50 - Thanks for checking up. It has been a long couple of years and I am really off my game. We have moved into the new house in Michigan. New houses are a lot of work and a lot of expense. Been too busy to write much. However, we finally just unpacked my personal computer a few weeks ago... Need to get to it.

Mistress is tucked away in the garage waiting for spring.  Most of my car tools are still in boxes because there is no place to unpack them - BUT - I did just buy some cabinets at the Re-Store. The garage shop will come back to life soon.

We had some warm days above freezing last week and I finally gave her a quick spray wax removing a lot of the grime from the last autocross in September (it rained). I have a few minor mods and repairs to write about  and some philosophy about living in a non mobile 5th wheel for six months. 

I autocrossed an RX8 last fall. My truck broke and we could not tow Mistress up north so  friend loaned me his car. Redline on those things is somewhere around forever +2. It took some getting used to (Must shift! Must shift! - No, no shift, no shift). My brain was doing that all day. Fun little car though! Goes like snot once the RPMs get high enough.

A highlight last summer was removing the power steering pump with my 11 year old granddaughter to fix an oil leak. She is right in there busting bolts loose and getting dirty. Really cool. That is one of the reasons we moved back to Michigan, right there.

I bought a second Wide Band Gauge because I realized there should be one on each side (and it will look cool). This spring I plan to get the #$%& supercharger even if I have to pull some retirement money out. Enough waiting - dammit! Too much "but first syndrome".  I have to switch that to "Right now syndrome". The car is ready!

Good to hear from you again.  I am hoping to start autocrossing again this spring with NEOhio region SCCA.  I have some work to do on my Mustang including replacing my old race tires with some 200 tw for CAM class.  I'm waiting for about a year now on the VA to decide if I rate a disability (agent orange).  If I get it I'll be able to do more on the car.  Keep me in the loop about a supercharger, I've been giving that some serious consideration.  

I understand how you feel about working with the granddaughter.  My oldest daughter used to help me when she was young.

Keep in touch!

Please post some garage pictures (and wife studio pictures) if you are willing to share!

In reply to Mustang50 :

Mustang50 - If your disability claim isn't moving fast enough for you, get an attorney. I had great luck with the Schneider Kerr legal firm out here in Oregon in resolving mine. (Not an ad or endorsement, btw). They're really good at shaking the trees....:)  Good luck going forward.

I just got done catching up from where I left off a couple years ago.  I love this thread!  Your story about showing your neighbor what you do with the car really makes me want to try an autocross event.  Watching you build that underdog engine is entertaining as well.

Does the electric PCV pump still seem pretty effective?  Right now I just have no PCV, but a vented catch can plumbed off the valve cover.  It catches a lot of junk (mostly water because I'm on E85) and needs to be emptied a lot.  You think putting one of those pumps between the cover and the catch can would help me out?

I think that yes it would help.

But should you do it? – That is a harder question. So much free advice on the interblag come from people who do not know your situation. They only know what they did. Advice from an autocrosser does not necessarily play well for road track or drag cars or cruisers. “I used the Flowmasters and they sound great!” Of course if you drive your car any distance earplugs might be necessary.

Your Camaro looks like it has something similar to the ‘80s Grand National set up (Damn, I loved those cars. Did not really understand what was going on under that long hood back then but… just… Damn! ).  

So I assume you have read the PVC article on Page 3. If you drive this car sporadically, push it hard on a drag track once in a while and change the oil often I would guess the old vent and catch can system is just fine. It is simple and, up to a point, it works.

But if you autocross that car, take it on road trips, put some miles on it each year (it is what they are for isn’t it?) then you may want to upgrade to something that vents positively. The PVC system actively "sweeps" the crankcase. Putting a little fan in the existing vent circuit (and adding an inlet on the other side) will do the same thing except it won’t put the gasses back into the intake. It will sweep the fumes and water out of the engine.

Think of it this way – Every time you shut the engine down and it cools the remaining stuff in the crankcase (the stuff that did not yet blow out to the catch can) condenses and settles into your oil. So if it sees some miles in relation to oil changes that drives toward putting a little blower on it.

A little air pump would not have to keep up with the blow by at higher RPM. It would just have to move air through at idle and purge much of the gunk out.

I could not find a system to do what I wanted so I bought a pump that would come apart and went through a couple of iterations. I have a catch can on the air intake on the passenger side for when the little pump is overwhelmed although with the faster motor running at 6000 RPM on 24 volts that does not seem to happen as much. Most of the gunk goes to the downstream can (and it is nasty looking stuff).

It was some fussy, fiddly work to get the little plastic rotor off the motor shaft without breaking it. You have to remove it to get the motor out (original motor was variable speed and wrong voltage). It was basically an experiment but I think it is helping keep the engine clean.

I am really surprised someone does not make this. There are a lot of people who have cobbled together something like this. There is a need... Summit Racing where are you?

I hope all that is helpful to you. Need more photos of your car. Do you have a build log for that beast?

In reply to KentF :

Thanks for the compliments and awesome explanation!  I do have a build log.  I'll link it at the end of this response.  The whole point of my car is to have a fake Grand National that I can drive hard and put away wet.  I have the real deal too, but I'm always scared of paint chips, putting too many miles on it, breaking stuff, ect.  The Camaro kinda fills all the voids, so I drive it to work, park it wherever I want, and never feel any remorse.  It sounds like a blower/vacuum pump of sorts could help some of my milky oil issues given how often it sees the highway.  It actually rarely goes WOT.   I'll have to revisit this system whenever I get my actual oil leaks fixed!  Thanks again.

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/late-to-the-party-turbo-v6-camaro/163210/page1/

In reply to V6Buicks : 

I like the "fake" Grand National as well as the real. one I always had a soft spot for the GN cars as noted above. I like your taking the F body Camero and making it into something cool. More than just another pretty face.  Keep it going! I can see where the GN would be a bit of a chore to keep up. Those cars are now quite old even if they are well kept. And your right, it was well ahead of its time and cutting edge. Everything was pushed to the max. Failure is an option if you flog it much! But, damn, that is a pretty car.

400 to 450 Horsepower??

That is what Mistress should make with the new supercharger.  No, it is not ordered yet, but we are getting close. After years of delay I am finally there. First it was slow at work with concerns about layoffs and money. Then some health issues and other delays with life. Then it was too busy at work…  Then lockdowns and more uncertainty. Then we moved, lived in a stationary camper for six months (don't do that) while our new house was built. Finally moving into the new house and building a basement studio for my wife…

Enough waiting. I want that horsepower. Will it actually make the car go faster on course? Perhaps. Will it make the car harder to drive? Perhaps. Will those two things balance out? I’m not counting on it. The slowest part of the car is still me. These changes will make it all the harder to keep up with the car.

Will it make the car more fun and a little more unusual? Oh, hell yeah! More four wheeled drifts and spin outs on deck!

But it really is time. It is the next thing… The car has basically been ready since 2017. I rebuilt the engine with this speciffically in mind right down to the 9.5:1 compression ratio. The problem has been that life in general won’t leave me alone. But that is life.

Procharger makes the only kit for SN95 V6 cars. Tom at Supersix Motorsports is getting a price for me. That said, the Procharger complete kit is only for a stock 3.8 ltr car. Mistress is no longer even remotely stock. She is a 4.2 ltr stroker with all forged internals, custom heads, and a whole slew of other changes.

This engine is late 1970’s technology, stolen from Buick, updated over the years by Ford, and then upgraded about as far as it can be without changing the overall configuration. Let’s give it that final tweak.

For this situation Procharger has a High Output “Tuner” kit. It is missing the higher flow fuel pump, injectors and the “tune”. It includes the supercharger, mounting hardware, tubes and intercooler.

So – Working through some online calculators for that HP range:  450 HP with a Brake Specific Fuel Consumption of 0.6 (typical for forced induction) and an 80% duty cycle (also typical they say) I get an injector flow rate of 591 CC/min. 

For the fuel pump: 450 HP at 90 psi baseline pressure and 11 psi boost (standard for the Procharger HO option) begets 231 LPH at 101 psi. All this from a site called Raceworks.com.au.

Some Saturday night hunting on Summit yielded these results:  DeatschWerks Fuel Injectors DWK-18U0000606 rated at 630 CC/min. Also, a DeatschWerks Fuel Pump DWK-9-305-1032 rated at 340 LPH and 100 psi. Both are compatible with this car.  That should do it -Yes?

I will probably go back to VPN for the tune. They have done this before with this engine although this a bit of a throwback for them.

Lead times will put the kit out into June. First event is in late May (SVR, Oscoda, MI I think). So, I will be running NA for an few events yet.  I am now a member of Saginaw Valley Region again. That is where I started Autocrossing in 2011. Also, still a member of the Lake Superior Region. I will be running with both this summer.

Lots to do: Mistress needs two wide band units installed (they will go in the center vents). She needs a complete work over of suspension, brakes, etc. Last year she was run hard and put away wet (No really. It rained at the last event and I just washed her a few weeks ago. She was filthy with ghosts of the numbers still in the grime). Tires need to be rotated (I will replace them mid-season this year).

Now that my wife’s studio is finally finished I can sort out the garage. Most tools are still in boxes. I hate moving. Can’t find anything. Hopefully we will never do it again. This is intended to be our last home before “the home”.  So far, so good. We really like it here.