Preston's 1967 Mustang [Archive]

preston

07-03-2012, 12:34 AM

I'm tired of Ron Schwarz getting all the credit for crazy home built junk :), so here is my $xxx,xxx budget Mustang. That's as realistic a number as Ron's $5k budget Mustang.

I guess I better whet your appetite to get some thread views - Twin Turbo all aluminum dry sumped 427 Windsor, 335 tires front and rear, flat bottom floor, custom dual a-arm front suspension, 3 link/watts in the rear, bla bla bla. Totally street legal.

Starting with a GT1/Trans Am inspired honeycomb reinforced space frame.
HOnestly I would probably go back to a standard frame rail setup next time but I fell in love with this build style while studying Trans Am cars. The front snout really is only about 10 lbs lighter than standard roll cage reinforced frame rail style car, but perhaps its stiffer, and it makes mounting a flat floor easier not to mention building it on the frame table

I use a combination of heavy cinder blocks and skip welding to keep the main rails from warping. Most of the rest of the structure I just skip weld and constantly check my measurements and adjust accordingly.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/chassis1/frontsnout1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/chassis1/frontsnout3.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/chassis1/enginemockup2.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/chassis1/enginemockup1.jpg

Angle cuts were made with a cold cut chop saw. It was a $500 saw, but it makes very nice quick clean cuts and while the angle finder on it is crude, I use a digital protractor to check the angle of the cuts and sneak up on them. BTW the digital protractor is used constantly on something like this.

Although I was interested in investing in a $45k 1/2" thick surfaced frame table with drilled and tapped holes on 3" centers, I ended up going with MDF boards on my carport floor. The whole surface is angled 0.5 degrees one direction, so I have to keep that in mind but the surface is flat enough. YOu can put a 10ft stick of 2*3 down on it and not see any gaps or air.

Bellhousing tunnel area is formed out of .125 cold rolled, make sure there is enough room to remove the bellhousing with the clutch installed !

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/chassis1/bellhousing.jpg

Here is the pedal box being fabbed. One huge advantage of my chosen frame design is lots of room for firewall mounted junk nice and low. I am using a hydraboost with dual m/c's with an adapter, so I have a 16" long monstrosity sticking out (I wish !) right at the floor level. AT least the COG stays low, despite the 15lb weight penalty of the booster. But I hate manual brakes on a full weight car.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/chassis1/pedalbox.jpg

I built flanges all around the floor, rear firewall, and firewall for epoxying in aluminum honeycomb. I think this hase been very successful on the floor and rear, but was a mistake on the firewall. Doesn't protect against intrusion, and despite my hopes of a "thermos" effect the heat insulation sucks, I had to end up adding stainless shields anyway as well as a crapload of DEI heat shield, so weight savings are zero anyway.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/chassis1/finishedflanges.jpg

Here is some shots of the honeycomb being glued in. I am using Hysol 120HP or something like that. The honeycomb is from Teklam and is $550 for a 4*8 sheet plus shipping. 1" thick, it is as light as a .050 sheet of aluminum but so stiff you can't bend it over your knees. I estimate I saved about 15 lbs on the flooring vs running diaganol tubes and a 0.63 aluminum floor.

COG was important to me in this car so the main rails are all flat on the floor, and the exhaust runs down the rockers. This keeps the floor low, keeps the driver low, which keeps the roof low, which keeps the body and COG low.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/chassis1/honeycombfirewall.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/chassis1/honeycombfloor.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/chassis1/honeycombfloor3.jpg

Here is the dash area being constructed. Yes I am still using the original '67 throttle bell crank. You would think a cable would work better here, but there is very little real estate to make it work and I couldn't really find a good pedal that would fit so i used what I had. also, I am using the original wiper system for the most part, and the body is so low on the chassis that I had 1/2" to spare for the wiper motor, and that was after I cut off the motor arm, reclocked and re-welded it. I probably have 20 hours into making the original wipers work that angled square bracket off the front with the circle in it is where it will mount. What you don't see in this picture is the mockup roof I had placed on the chassis to fab it up. Actually its not a mockup roof, it is my roof ! ( and a-pillars).

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/chassis1/dash%20area%20being%20constructed.jpg

Here are some pictures of the back end coming together. I am using an underslung watts link with the pivot mounted to the underside of the pumpkin, but as Stielow might say I have "package protected" the use of a Panhard bar, thats the square section of tubing on the lower left of the rear stub where a sliding heim joint clamp can be used. This was about a 6 lb penalty and I'm not using it. You can also make out the sway bar brackets. The sway bar will go through the lower frame rails. They were drilled and a 1.5" .120 tube section welded in.

I couldn't seem to find any pictures with the watts link brackets welded in, but they are just two double shear heim joint brackets on that underslung rail. As i get into the suspension you will see how simple it all is.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/chassis1/chassis1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/chassis1/rearstub2.jpg

If you are like me you are a junky for build threads, so I will be adding to this thread as I feel inspired or if there is any interest in my junk.

preston

07-03-2012, 12:41 AM

Some semi-complete pictures of the chassis, note that extra gussetting was added in some places. Total chassis weight without front and rear crush structures was 470 lbs, pretty good considering a Vette frame is 420 with no crossmembers or roll cage.

The lessons learned are

1) the aforementioned firewall should be welded in stainless instead of the honeycomb.

2) I could have used more 2*2 on the lower rail instead of 2*3 for everything (about 8 lbs of weight savings). I used what I had at the time.

3) I would have liked to carry that small tube above the main rails that attaches to the cage side bar all the way from the rear cage post to the front firewall post.

4) there is another 10 lbs I could have whittled out of it in a few places.

Next week I will get into the suspension buildup or the body mounting.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/chassis1/chassis90-1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/chassis1/chassis90-2.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/chassis1/chassis90-3.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/chassis1/chassis90-4.jpg

Payton King

07-03-2012, 06:23 AM

Thanks for finally posting up your build over here. I followed it over at CC and was very inspired and will enjoy watching the repost over here. Kind of like a "greatest hits" album...without the 2 or 3 year wait.

I have to ask since I am about to start another project, what do you think of the square set-up you are running (335 front and rear)? I have had mixed information, some say it is great and you get to rotate the tires, others say a slightly smaller front (305 or 315) help the car turn better. Thoughts?

I will say seeing the pics of your frame this morning has me re-energized to start my build.

Ron in SoCal

07-03-2012, 06:58 AM

VERY impressive Preston! :thumbsup:

How did you model the frame dimensions and suspension design? Look forward to more updates on this one...:cheers:

preston

07-03-2012, 08:21 AM

I have to ask since I am about to start another project, what do you think of the square set-up you are running (335 front and rear)? I have had mixed information, some say it is great and you get to rotate the tires, others say a slightly smaller front (305 or 315) help the car turn better. Thoughts?

I'm a far cry from a driving expert, my only track cred comes from 20 HPDE's over the last 8 years and 7 years of shifter kart racing. But it seemed to turn in just fine to me I didn't notice anything strange. Just from a physics point of view that doesn't make sense to me - you turn the front tires 10 degrees and which tire develops a higher thrust angle? A small tire or a large tire? besides, any large bore racing class eventually moves to the largest front wheels they can package, Trans Am, Grand Am, LeMans. Whether that means the same for a street based car is open to debate, but unless you are going for top speed or are horsepower limited, I can't imagine you would want less tire, especially on our front heavy cars. Again what do they run in LeMan spec Vipers and Vettes ? Or the CP guys in autox ?

How did you model the frame dimensions and suspension design?

In this day and age of CNC laser cut Autocad designed wiper motor brackets, I actually find it kind of refreshing that I am so old school. My first try was a glorified ladder frame, and my 2nd try was all designed on Grape which is a freeware modelling software. Once you play around in something like Grape it doesn't take long to kind of "learn" where the structure needs to go for stiffness, and you are package limited for so much of it. So on the 3rd try I already knew the critical dimensions - firewall to rearwall distance, inside rocker dimensions, dash bar height, wheelbase, etc. So from there I literally design it in my head with a few paper sketches and just make sure I have structure near my suspension pickup points (the suspension is modelled in WinGeo). Ater that the cage superstructure is just built like any car with the roof mocked up in place. Speaking of mockup, i guess thats part of it too - constant and never yielding mockup -seat in & out, engine block in & out , roof on and off. Also the front and rear bodymount/crush structures are added later, so that final "fit" can be done with normal fabrication.

I'll go more into the suspension design later.

preston

07-03-2012, 08:52 AM

One other thing I wanted to add about frame design - with this kind of "square" style space frame, everything is really easy to keep "square", vs a mandrel bent curvy or OEM type replacement chassis or Ironworks round tube piece of art. I don't remember them now, but when I was in the middle of it I could tell you the required measurement from every corner. It was relatively easy to x-measure and keep stuff square, and all the structure is flat or angle cut square tubing. It doesn't look as inspiring as a tube bent Ironworks extravaganza with the laser cut brackets and gussets, but its about 100x simpler to build and probably a touch lighter too.

Payton King

07-05-2012, 09:50 AM

looking forward to future posts

Flash68

07-05-2012, 10:10 AM

I saw some posts of yours on CC too and it's great you posted here. Talk about a refreshing project. :thumbsup:

I too have been struggling with the squared vs staggered setup for the changes to my car.

preston

07-05-2012, 10:16 AM

This car was built with the bigger is better concept. Staggered or non-staggered, I believe in fitting the largest tires you can where you can. If that means 255 on the front and 345 on the back, then try to tune it out with suspension. Use a lot of rear roll stiffness !

Now a pure racer would disagree, might find advantages to lighter wheels and tires. But on our big motor, heavy, pro-touring inspired rides, I just don't see a point in hamstringing the only thing that keeps the car on the ground. I think the wear patterns are different for the front and rear too, so sure you can rotate them, but I find I keep the rear tires on the car a lot longer than the front if I am tracking. Now if you are basing it on economics and/or crash replacement that is something different.

Another idea I have is the car is mostly tuned for the track and the 335 front tires. On the street I mostly leave the suspension alone (because its a lot of work changing stuff around anyay) and my street tires are 285 up front. So that gives me some built in understeer (safety). Not that I ever really push cornering on the street anyway. The downside is that the 285 doesn't fill up the fenders hella flush :)

I realize we are discussing performance, but c'mon these cars need big tires anyway ! And for performance, a front biased front engined car needs more front tire if you can fit it.

frojoe

07-05-2012, 12:23 PM

COG was important to me in this car so the main rails are all flat on the floor, and the exhaust runs down the rockers. This keeps the floor low, keeps the driver low, which keeps the roof low, which keeps the body and COG low.

This is by far the MOST important aspect of any car build, obviously.

skatinjay27

07-05-2012, 12:49 PM

i too recall your car on cc years ago, actually tyler showed it to me when i was first getting into pro-touring and remember him being soo stoked on your car and that you did it all under a carport!:thumbsup:

FETorino

07-05-2012, 04:56 PM

Matt@BOS

07-05-2012, 05:58 PM

The build is inspiring:thumbsup:

I can't wait to see your big little windsor with its twin turbos. You should have more hp than you need.:D

The tire debate is interesting. I hear everything you are saying about our nose heavy street cars and it's all logical. The only thing that makes me think is Vipers and Vetts come with staggered tires in their most potent street forms. This despite the drawbacks of different sized tires for a true street car. Do they go to a square setup for race stuff?

Rob, don't forget that those Vipers and 'Vettes are all engineered to have a safe amount of understeer when braking. I don't know how much that is on a Viper, but I do know Grand Sports like to push a little bit.

I know my big front heavy GT500 performs a lot better with a "square" setup than with a factory 265/285 combo. I don't know if steering feel is slightly more vague though.

I too would be interested to learn more, and hear more feedback about front and rear tire sizing. I suppose you could say I've joined the club of the "more front tire = better crowd" simply because it seems easier to drive and tune that type of set up. I'm not the best driver, or tuner, and I can really benefit from simplicity.

Preston, I want to see more pictures :thumbsup:

Matt

57hemicuda

07-05-2012, 06:31 PM

All right Preston, leave my name out of it.LOL

I told you, the only reason I joined C/C, and took the public flogging was to look at your car. Still amazed it was all built on the car port(definitley get extra style points for that). Love how our cars morph from one design to something totally different, and WAY more expensive.

Can't help but love the fact that we can bounce ideas, and errors(lots of errors) off each other. That is what keeps me reading, and posting on these sites. Hope to see that car in person one day.

preston

08-12-2012, 09:11 PM

You know all those photos we love of the completely gutted car shell sitting on the build table at Troy's or Rodger's place ?

Well we never seem to see any photos of how it got there ! Here's how mine worked, I think this is what they do at Rad Rides (?)

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newBuild/ComingTogether/Roof%20Coming%20Off.jpg

(Note this photo below is the roof coming off my old chassis - see how I kept just the barest bit of metal holding the door jam on ? It saves a lot of time if you can index something like that even roughly)

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newBuild/ComingTogether/Roof1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newBuild/ComingTogether/Roof2.jpg

BTW that roof section with a-pillars, sail panels, and 16 lbs of dynamat permanently stuck on the inside of the roof weighed 120 lbs. OUCH

I started drilling holes in the unibody roof support structure but it was only 22 awg steel and I calculated that if I drilled 2" diameter holes all through the structure it would save like 1.2 lbs. So I gave up on that.. Lightening holes are almost worthless compared to using the correct and lightweight material in the first place when you are building something.

The next most important step is of course getting the roof placed right. I probably spent a few weeks mocking that up and testing the door fit before tacking it in place. The first big deal is getting the door pillars in the correct place. So clamping down the a-pillars I attached the doors to index the jams and verify the fit of the roof (thank goodness the top of the door on these cars is perfectly level). I also knew the correct angle of the windshield pillars to help me.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newBuild/ComingTogether/doorpillarpassengersmall.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newBuild/ComingTogether/attachingdoorpillarsmall.jpg

Next finish up the rear filler panel and deck, you can see how the interior panels have been built here, generally .063 aluminum with dynamat on the top side bent in a cheap brake and pop riveted and siliconed together. Sounds cheesy on paper but a large diameter 3/16" pop rivet every inch is pretty secure. A 1ft square of 20 awg steel is almost 2 lbs. A 1 ft square of .063 aluminum is 0.7 lbs, with dynamat its about 1.8 lbs. Of course, I now realize the aluminum is worthless for fire protection compared to the steel. Besides the weight, I use as much aluminum as I can because it doesn't rust. I can't stand seeing rust and I have a very difficult time preventing corrosion working in my carport and without any skill at painting/sealing stuff.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newBuild/ComingTogether/reardeckbeforeattachsmall.jpg

Here you can see the replacement filler panel attached. I used a cheap harbor freight brake, and a cheap Eastwood shrinker/stretcher to build all sorts of these panels and stuff.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newBuild/ComingTogether/reardeckpanelsmall.jpg

I probably should go more into the process of indexing the body and stuff as it took weeks and weeks of configuring and reconfiguring, but its kind of boring. Just make sure you have a good centerline through the whole build, and put on as many body panels as you can mock up to make sure everything lines up. For example my "unibody" still had a place to bolt on the hood hinges to line the hood up, and as seen above I could mount the doors correctly as well.

here is a shot of the seat being mocked (make sure your head and helmet fit the roof). In my case since the floor was so low I actually have a lot of good clearance to the roof and even have pretty good clearance from the cage for street driving without a helmet. In fact my bare head is about the same distance from the high density padding on the upper side bar as it is from the unibody structure when it was a normal car. Note also the big 2*2 bar holding up the sail panels for mockup. By shimming that bar with 1/8" steel pads I could get the perfect alignment. Note also the double shear brackets for the seat belts. The car is setup so I can run shoulder belts and 6 point harnesses at the same time.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newBuild/ComingTogether/seat%20mockup.jpg

preston

08-12-2012, 09:40 PM

Something we don't talk about much is cabin ventilation. After building a couple of these you realize how integrated that is into OEM design and how easy it is to F'up, especially when you no longer have a cowl. Most cars of this era depend on fresh air being prsssured down into the cowl and then routed to the cabin. And don't forget, that air also has to go somewhere, so you need exit vents. I had tried running 3" duct from the front of the car to the cabin before but I knew I didn'th ave room to do that so I built these ducts into the A-pillars and then run 3" brake hose to some fender mounted inlet ducts that you will see later. One duct goes straight to the driver with a manual door to block it off, and one goes straight into my heater box. I don't have pictures handy, but then I also built 3" ducts from the rear interior side panels behind the seats that connect to holes in the door jams. Sort of a crude approximation of the vents you see in GM car door jambs.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newBuild/ComingTogether/Driver%20vent%203.jpg

Here you can see the "HVAC" system such as it is, or maybe I should call it the HV system. Its the smallest cheapest heater you can get form Vintage Air. Like all of their stuff its designed to just breathe in cabin air but I didn't want to circulate stale air and the fan is loud, so I built an aluminum plenum around the intake fan and tied it to my passenger side duct. The unit is small but it produces plenty of heat at least for the NW. You can also see the wiper being built up. I would have loved a nice big vintage air repro A/C heater box, but there was no room behind the firewall for that stuff because of the 15" engine setback. I used the vintage air electronic hot water solenoid though so I at least had a nice smooth modern feeling knob for controlling the heat level rather than some kind of crappy cable. although I still use a cable to open and close the little defrost door. The system has worked well for heat and defrost, but the little squirrel fan is still loud. Its kind of amazing to me how well the original '67 ventilation/heater box system worked, its too bad I couldn't have kept those parts.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newBuild/ComingTogether/innerdash1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newBuild/ComingTogether/heater%20wiper%20being%20mounted.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newBuild/ComingTogether/innerdash2.jpg

here is a shot of the finished insulated firewall (DEI tunnel/heat shield, pretty good stuff). You can also see the hydraboost brake booster adapted to dual M/C's.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newBuild/ComingTogether/fancyfirewall.jpg

I know these photos jump around the build process quite a bit but hey I'm lazy posting all this junk. I work on computers all day so I don't want to spend an inordinate amount of time posting.
In that vein, here is the trunk coming together and one sexy shot to keep you interested perhaps in the final build. The coolers and pumps are for the trans and rear end. I would have preferred an internal mechanicl pump especially in the rear end but couldn't afford it or didn't know about them when I had it built. Also note the fuel filler tube.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newBuild/ComingTogether/trunk2.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newBuild/ComingTogether/trunkjunk.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newBuild/ComingTogether/test4.jpg

WSSix

08-13-2012, 06:27 PM

That last picture is the money shot. Cool build Preston. :thumbsup:

Ron in SoCal

08-13-2012, 07:42 PM

Hey Preston...can't tell you how much fun it is to see/read about this car. The thought, design and execution is a great learning experience. Keep going Sir! :cheers:

Flash68

08-13-2012, 11:21 PM

I love the randomness of the pics. :thumbsup:

The cabin ventilation... that's a new one on this site for me.... see something different everyday.

j-rho

08-13-2012, 11:53 PM

Cool stuff Preston. You definitely did the right thing allowing for big front tires. I've raced Vettes and Vipers (which have static 51% rear weight bias BTW) a bunch in autox, and they just get better and better the more front tire you give them. 335s are definitely not too much!

preston

11-28-2012, 12:23 AM

Suspension design is one of the main things that got me into building my own cars. When I started on my latest design the C5 stuff was fairly new. I agonized a long time between using C5 and the circle track race equipment. At the time there was a lot of complaining on the vette racers forums about spindle flex, pad knockback, and bearings wearing out. THis was before the upgraded SKF and ZR1 bearings were available. I had visions of a super car that could be run on banked race tracks and I'd had pad knockback before and it sucked. Plus I wanted the design freedom to put my pickups and such wherever I wanted and create longer controls and such. I could already see a future where the majority of hot rods would be using the vette stuff too and I wanted something different. Nowadays I'm a litle more inspired by pro-touring and hot rods, at the time I was much more inspired by true racing cars so that also aided my decision. PIctures like this made it more stark - just compare the C5 hub to a real aluminum racing hub (slightly different than the one I used).

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/suspension/hubs.jpg

The downsides were
1) Big hub means big wheel offset to get a good scrub radius, which means I am limited on my wheel choices and have no recourse to buy/sell used wheels.
2) no parts compatibily, all the brakes and steering are custom
3) the biggest downside is weight, a C5 hub is ~8.5 lbs, but the spindle and brake bracket are only 6 lbs with UBJ. My hub is ~6 lbs, but my upright and brake bracket is 13.5 lbs for a 25% increase in weight.

However, it also looks way more hardcore and of course quite different from another me-too vette front end. Also my LCA's are about 1" longer (always good) and my spindle pin is very high, ie my CA mounts are very low allowing me to retain a very low RC without compromising other geometry. I also can use mammoth brakes as I have no issue with wheel clearance, and I use a direct mount hat which is stronger with less deflection than an offset hat. My crappy photography doesn't do it justice but the latest package looks truly awesome when you pull the wheel off. For some reason I don't have that picture.

The first upright you see in the photos is a Coleman modular asphalt spindle with custom dimensions. It is the same basic spindle used on the Agent47 front end and the Schwartz chassis. As you can see I added some further boxing and pin reinforcement at the expense of 1 lb.

Some of things I was striving for in my design were low scrub, low scrub radius, mild camber gain under bump and aggressive caster gain for extra camber gain in turns. In the end I actually copied the layout of the C5 pretty closely (I had a geometry file for the vette). The difference is my design ended up with less RC movement and less scrub and less bumpsteer, with longer IC's and slightly lower RC, while maintaing similar figures for trail, caster gain, and camber gain.
I wanted a high performance suspension, but I also wanted something that felt very stable going down the freeway, my sports cars have always felt darty to me with their big tires. I also tried to set the coilover as upright as possible for maxium motion ratio. Note also the high mounted swaybar, based on the standard circle track splined hollow bar and bendable aluminum arms.

I am running a 450 lb spring and I think it works out to about a 275 lb/in wheel rate. Pretty stiff on the street but then again my daily is a '92 Cadillac.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/suspension/frontsuspensionmockup1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/suspension/FrontSuspensionMockup2.jpg

One regret was not setting the UCA up with a shim style alignment system. THe adjustable length UCA is actually pretty easy to setup and adjust, but not as easy, fast as a shim setup, plus with a shim setup you can instantly go back to previous settings.

The bushings are Currie "JOnny joints' which are basically an articulating polyurethane rode end. They are hard to keep greased and honestly the NVH level doesn't feel that different from when I used QA1 teflon rod ends. And they definitely have more stiction, so that's some thing I might change abck to using rod ends at some point. All of the coilovers also have a poly bushing at one end. I'll be honest though, the NVH in this car is pretty high, despite all my efforts I cannot really say it feels as streetable as I would like.

My street wheel is a 18*10.5" with 9" backspacing and my track wheel is a 18*12 with 9.375" backspacing. In the rear I use 18*13 wheels for both street and track.

Just last year I built my own uprights out of box steel re-using the Coleman aluminum steering arm/BJ mount. My overall design saved about 2lbs from the modified coleman. You can see the new spindle being built below, although I really didn't take enough pictures. Note the double shear mounting bracket for the caliper adapter, with enough room to shim it side to side to make up for welding distortion and tolerances. That system worked pretty well. With machining and fastidiousness you could probably shave another lb out of the whole design, but by the time you are done with everything its like "eh".

These are the original modified and gussetted Coleman spindles based on a Grand National pin.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/suspension/Spindle1.jpg

Here are some of the parts of the one I built

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/suspension/SpindlePart2.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/suspension/SpindlePart1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/suspension/SpindlePart3.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/suspension/SpindlePart4.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/suspension/Upright3.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/suspension/Upright5.jpg

Note the custom built trigger wheel from eMachineShop that will eventually be connected to a Racelogic traction control system.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/suspension/TriggerWheelSmall.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/suspension/RotorWithTriggerWheel2.jpg

You also may note the change in steering rack- I originally had a circle track rack that I had modified to support my wide track that never worked well. My suggestion is if you need any kind of custom steering - go directly to Woodward. This would have saved me a lot of headaches if I had done that originally. This new rack works great, and looks very pretty as well, and was setup with custom width for me. Tony Woodward got the assist just right on the first try too based on my input.

here are some pictures of the rack

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/suspension/Steering1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/suspension/Steering2.jpg

The new uprights helped support an eBay purchase I made of some SERIOUS PFC Endurance racing calipers. These things retail in the Hoerr catalog for $3k apiece. Needless to say I paid no where near that. THey were a lightly used spares package from a Ferrari challenge team that was based in England. NIckel plated mono-block goodness !! Only downside is pads are hard to get, very expensive, and since they are race pads my wheels are permanently dusty. But man do they look cool LOL. I have not even had them on track yet. Remember how I mentioned lots of brake clearance ? I am using a 15" rotor in a 18" wheel with a ~8+" wide caliper that uses 1.25" thick brake pads. Makes all the Baer/Wilwood/Stoptech street based stuff look pretty wimpy (and looks are what we care bout on lateral-g right ?)

The hat is direct mount and uses Brembo floating hardware with anti-rattle clips (as developed for the McLaren F1 !). THe rotors are custom made from Coleman.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/suspension/Calipers1.jpg

I'll have to look on the camera for some other photos, I can't believe I don't have a photo of the mounted caliper on the 15" rotor. The rears are 14" Coleman rotors with the same floating hardware. I am using a racing style dual M/C system driven by a hydraboost. I built the custom adapter to do this i'll show that some other time.

The shocks are nothing to be proud of however, some rebuilt obsolete Bilsteins in the back and some AFCO adjustabl circle track shocks up front. Someday I would like to upgrade those pieces, but I really don't feel like my driving is sophisticated enough to pursue that right now. Mostly I think they could be a little softer for street driving.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed the photos and seeing a suspension design that is quite a bit different from an upgraded '60's era GM or another plain jane vette front end.

preston

11-28-2012, 12:27 AM

The rear suspension is an 3 link with an underslung watts. I love the lightweight and simplicity of this watts, no giant cantilevered brackets hanging off the rear housing. However it is not adjustable, I use the rear sway bar and springs to tune. A low rear RC is highly recommended by Mark Ortiz and other live axle racers, and this is about as low as you can go. I just reinforced and gusseted the housing and pierced it with some threaded rod, also gusseted inside the housing, then added a double shear bracket out of .125 steel. I forget the name of the guy who made my "football" it was kind of a one off deal. In the photo a few things are mismatched, that is a very old photo that was still using mockup pieces.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/suspension/wattslink.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/suspension/rearsuspensionmockup1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/suspension/rearsuspensionbrakebracket.jpg

Oh here I did find the rear caliper mounted, not a good photo as the light doesn't really catch it and you can't really tell how large that caliper really is, plus my older equipment is kind of dirty not like the real sexy build photos of all new parts we're used to seeing here.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/suspension/rearpfccalipermounted.jpg

Note that the link and swaybar and caliper brackets are all bolt on not weldon. I use anti-rotation bolts and I've never had a problem. Heckuva a lot easier than welding them.

The links for the 3 link are 29" long, and use Howe rubber bushings up front.

It is a full floater of course, but without some of the fancy hubs and hardware that have been showing upfor PT cars in the last year. But again, big beefy circle track hubs and direct mount hat with floating 14" rotors. Aluminum 3rd member case (10 lbs lighter). Trutrac diff with 3.08 gears, 31 spline axles.

I think my Anti-squat percentage is only about 50%, but I'm still not convinced you want greater than that or not for road racing. Never had a problem with brake hop !

I am running 250 lb springs for a wheel rate of about 275 lbs with a 1.1 motion ratio.

Flash68

11-28-2012, 12:53 AM

I was just wondering the other day if there were any updates forthcoming here.

Would love to see a pic of those ridiculous calipers on rotors swallowed up by the 18" wheels... what wheels you running BTW?

I seem to be struggling with the opposite of you... starting with pro touring and getting more and more influenced by race cars lately.

Keep posting!:thumbsup:

Ron in SoCal

11-28-2012, 06:04 AM

You're an animal Preston. Do me a favor and post updates a little more often? :thumbsup:

Payton King

11-28-2012, 06:08 AM

the time to continue your build thread here. Lots of good stuff!

WSSix

11-28-2012, 07:12 AM

Yeah Preston, you're a bada$$. Seriously wicked stuff you're putting together. Good job.

preston

01-10-2013, 07:48 PM

I thought I would post today about my fuel system but I wanted to post just a few more photos of these brakes...because I'm vain. I didn't manage to get one with the wheels on though but I will tell you that right now its not impressive, the CCW wheels ahve a pretty large flange and smaller center section so you can hardly even see the calipers.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/brakes/caliperbigfront.jpg

Note that is 4" ducting hose for scale

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/brakes/frontbrakestop.jpg

Rear brakes:

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/brakes/caliperbigrear.jpg

preston

01-10-2013, 08:02 PM

So my fuel system - nothing too different but a few good ideas I think.

I run dual tanks in front of the rear axle. This allows for better weight distribution, packaging and perhaps safety then a rear mounted tank.

These tanks were originally built for my last chassis otherwise I would have done some things differently. In fact, redoing it today, I would probably use stock Vette twin tanks or even twin tanks off the new Mustang to get all that good OEM engineering.

Although the overall design is sound, I should have built them out of SS not aluminum, and taken the 12 lb weight penalty - For safety reasons obviously.
Even though these tanks are ensconced in the frame, and I have a 3/4" .063 tubing as well as .063 steel protecting them from the driveshaft, they still seem vulnerable to me. The chassis does protect them from major impact, but they are vulnerable to penetration. And obviously a car of this level
should have fuel cells but because of their unique layout, we are talking about $4k+ to build proper fuel cells. Come to think of it I have never really seen if ATL or Fuel Safe makes a drop in Corvette based fuel cell solution, might be something to check into.

Unlike the Vette, I call the passenger side the main tank, which means it is the most likely unit to have fuel in it. This is better for weight distribution than using the drivers as the main tank.

Each tank holds 10 gallons. They are joined in the top middle by a 2.5" crossover tube and at the bottom by a -10 hose. This lower hose may not be necessary but I'm too lazy/chicken to remove it, and it probably does help with fuel fill as it will give a false shutoff signal to the pump as it nears the top as I guess fuel cannot transfer fast enough ( you just wait a few seconds and keep filling). The crossover tube is special fuel filler hose from Coleman is 1/4" thick plastic of some kind.

As you can see I built a fuel "module" with twin in tank Bosch 044 pumps. The 2nd pump is turned on by the Megasquirt ECU under high load. The fuel sender is a standalone VDO unit as often found in
boats. It is a "capacitance" fuel meter with only one moving part and packages better than the usual float arm.

The other "trick" thing going on is that I am using a late model GM/Vette siphon pump to pull fuel from the 2nd tank into the main tank. That is where you see the outputs of the two pumps going to the Y and a 3rd hose is coming off of it.This hose travels through the fuel crossover tube
into the bottom of the drivers tank where I have adapter fittings that connect to the siphon pump, and then returns fuel to the main reservoir in the passenger tank.

The main tank has a half height vertical barrier with a one-way door in the bottom of it, the pumps sit behind that. The fuel return comes into the main tank as well as the return from the siphon pump obviously. Combined with the vertical design of the tanks, I seem to get good fuel supply under all conditions.

All hoses are teflon lined style or OEM in tank fuel hoses, and power for the pumps comes straigh from the battery via trunk mounted relays.

I started out with the little Walbro 155's that a lot of people used, and they were totally in adequate. I bought them from APE so I didn't think they would be counterfeits, but they could not supply enough fuel for even 600rwhp. When I opened up the tank to run some tests, I could actually see them spitting fuel out of the top of their canisters
so they were obviously defective, both of them. I woudl say stay away from these pumps, the 044's are so much stronger and better if you can fit them.

When I found the problems with the pumps on the dyno I spent quite a bit of time testing the flow (dangerously) through the hoses timing how long it took to fill a bucket. With an open -4 spigot obviously I couldn't get the pressure very high but it was still easily measurable that the free flow of the two pump systems was night and day.

The piece of aluminum angle that the pumps are sitting on is welded to the fuel lid, and was the very first aluminum TIG welding I ever did for real. So far so good it has held up.

-8 braided SS/teflong lines to the front and back. One experiment I would like to tryin the future is moving the fuel regulator back
to the tanks and running a deadhead line up to the engine. I haven't had any problems but this would really reduce fuel heating. I know others with big pumps have had issues in extended driving with
fuel heating. But I guess I rarely drive it for hours on end on hot days here in Washington.

If you go back above and look at the photos of the rear suspension, you can clearly see the tanks nestled into the frame in front of the axle.
They were in fact the very first things installed in the brand new painted chassis and I don't want to have any problems because they
are a pain to get in and out ! They do not drop out becaue there is 16awg steel shelves that hold and protect them.

Oh, and I use a standard race car rollover vent to a -8 teflon hose that manages to go up and a few inches higher than I ever fill up the fill tube and then does a loop before exiting into the rear axle area where I cover the end with a piece of pantyhose for a filter......Hmm, maybe I could manage to at least put a K&N on there.

Oh, almost forgot - the tanks are also stuffed with fuel cell foam to reduce slosh and dampen the chances for an explosion.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/fuel%20system/fuelpumps1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/fuel%20system/fuelpumps2.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/fuel%20system/insidedrfueltank.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/newbuild/fuel%20system/insidefueltank.jpg

GregWeld

01-10-2013, 08:16 PM

I gotta say it ---- I like the do it yourself attitude -- I like the engineering...

The welding -- not so much.

Before you go out and start stressing stuff -- I'd have those spindle additions ground out and welded by a professional.

I'm not trying to be critical -- But I'd like you to be safe, for yourself, as well as others that share a track with you.

INTMD8

01-10-2013, 09:41 PM

Wow, crazy amount of fab work here. Very cool build.

Good point on the cabin vents. I thought those GM door jamb vents were to release pressure when doors were closed (and windows shut) but it makes sense that it would work with outside air intake as well.

As for your worries with the fuel cells, have you considered a carbon fiber driveshaft?

And holy hell, those are the thickest brake pads I've ever seen :omg:

itsals1

01-11-2013, 05:00 AM

preston

01-11-2013, 09:07 AM

Your concerns may be wider ranging and I will certainly take it under advisement, but I did want to point out that the brake bracket is connected by two 1.25" .375 wall square tube stanchions that are fully perimeter welded to the main body. That particularly ropey weld running the length of the upright body is just for a 16awg gusset. That doesn't excuse my lapse in quality on that and now that you've called it out I will have to go back and fix it up (it was a bit of an afterthought at the time as it should be plenty strong without it) but I can see how that particular part would look totally unacceptable if you were thinking that was the primary weld for the brake mounting.

preston

12-22-2013, 09:36 PM

I'm pretty lazy about updating my thread I spend all day on the computer and would rather spend my time building the car. Also this is a bit of a weird thread as most of the car is already built and I am only posting old pictures. But at some point I want to bring the thread up to date as I'm very excited about my current wide body project. So what I am posting up tonight is a bunch of "old" photos. however they are good fab photos of some homegrown work and I think some of you may find them interesting, and I wanted to post where I've been before I post where I'm going, so y'all can appreciate the journey a bit more. As you can see giant flares were the only way to encapsulate the monster tires and massive lowering that I wanted in the car, but after awhile the aesthetic compromise always bothered me. But before I reveal any of the wide bodywork I wanted to kind of purge the last of the old build photos. So a lot of these are kind of out of order, some are actually the older chassis and most are from before the brake setup I was posting earlier.

here is one featuer I really like - Undo some wiring and plumbing, and 4 bolts, and the whole front tray comes off. This tray supports the rad, the IC's, the oil cooler, the tow loops, the splitter/undertray and indexes the hood and front fenders, AND serves as a front crush structure. This is the old version with V'ed IC and Rad before moving to twin IC's flanking the rad.

Also, I'm no master TIG welder, but I like to think my alum welding has improved a little bit since these pictures were taken, but then again, none of the welds leak or have cracked.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/bodyworksmall/fronttray.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/bodyworksmall/P1230469.JPG

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/bodyworksmall/frontraw1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/bodyworksmall/intakeplumbed.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/bodyworksmall/heatexchangers.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/bodyworksmall/heatexchangers2.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/bodyworksmall/intakepipe.jpg

One of about 5 versions of giant flares I've built - it really hurt one day when someone called them "dually truck fender flares"

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/bodyworksmall/rearflare.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/bodyworksmall/rearflare2.jpg

air comes in the front end to feed the air filters and also the radiator, each one has its own exit duct. Note also I had teh "window into the engine" idea about 6 months before anyone saw the ZR1 and its hood window.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/bodyworksmall/ducts.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/bodyworksmall/ducts2.jpg

one iteration of the bodywork

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/bodyworksmall/oldalumbodywork.jpg

rear diffuser/undertray a la Porsche GT2 RSR
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/bodyworksmall/P1011170.JPG

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/bodyworksmall/frontopen.JPG

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/bodyworksmall/frontbusy.JPG

preston

12-22-2013, 09:43 PM

Also one of the more innovative parts of my build IMO - You've seen side exhaust before but have you ever seen it carried all the way out to the tailpipes ? Yeah it costs 50 lbs and probably drives some heat into the tire, but I like it somewhat quiet. Note I now wrap those pipes in Aerogel and exhaust wrap and you can hold that assembly in your hand during a hot idle.
(these are very old photos)

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/bodyworksmall/exhaust1.JPG

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/bodyworksmall/exhaust2.JPG

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/bodyworksmall/front34withtrim.JPG

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/bodyworksmall/frontwithtrim.jpg

Well, sometime later I will be motivated to post my wide bodywork photos. I really like the way it is coming out - I'm kind of following something I read from the Roadster Shop - one trend is going back away from the super smooth pro-touring modernize them look and re-captue some vintage appearance in these cars, like the "Boss 429 Falcon" they built. I also notice I used to love scoops, flares, wings, etc (as long as they were functional) but the older I get the more I appreciate the classic lines of these cars. After all if we like old cars why are we trying to make them look like new cars ? So I am building a wide body but trying to move back to a much more "vintage" appearance, at least as vintage as an old mustang that's 50" tall and 76" wide can be. And I will still have aero management too. It should be a pretty unique take on the genre.

palmsprings

12-23-2013, 01:05 AM

Thats a staunch looking Mustang, great work

WSSix

12-23-2013, 02:54 AM

This car is so badass. Good job Preston!

MSTSFabbed

12-23-2013, 09:54 AM

Well, sometime later TODAY I will be motivated to post my wide bodywork photos. I really like the way it is coming out - I'm kind of following something I read from the Roadster Shop - one trend is going back away from the super smooth pro-touring modernize them look and re-captue some vintage appearance in these cars, like the "Boss 429 Falcon" they built. I also notice I used to love scoops, flares, wings, etc (as long as they were functional) but the older I get the more I appreciate the classic lines of these cars. After all if we like old cars why are we trying to make them look like new cars ? So I am building a wide body but trying to move back to a much more "vintage" appearance, at least as vintage as an old mustang that's 50" tall and 76" wide can be. And I will still have aero management too. It should be a pretty unique take on the genre.

There I fixed it for you! :thumbsup:

12-23-2013, 03:30 PM

[QUOTE=preston;524460]

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/bodyworksmall/front34withtrim.JPG

QUOTE]

Looks pretty tough! Any more pics of the complete car?

preston

03-30-2014, 09:35 PM

First of all I apologize for being a poor photographer. I know when I look at the pro build threads
there is a massive impression of quality because the best shops put forward a totally clean work environment,
excellent fabrication - but also clear, well lit quality photography.
So while I've never been prouder of the fabrication work I'm doing, I admit it always looks a bit ghetto
after i take a picture of it.

I had an extra door, so the first thing I did was cut that in length, space it out 2", and mounted it on
the car to see what it would look like.
(doorsplit.jpg)
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/WideBodywork/doorsplit.jpg

(doorsplitmounted.jpg)
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/WideBodywork/doorsplitmounted.jpg

Not bad I thought.

The next step was to figure out what the fenders would look like pushed out. The fit great, but I had to cut
out the windshield corner and move it in so it would still mate up with the windshield.
honestly there is enough "variation" in these $150 Tawain fenders that that kind of bodywork is halfway needed
anyway ha ha.

fendercorner1.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/WideBodywork/fendercorner1.jpg

After that I had the confidence to get going. I added metal to the door jamb

doorjamb.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/WideBodywork/doorjamb.jpg

Then the next step was welding a 2" string all around the door. I had one good Ford door and I bought one replacement
door from NPD, which was of excellent quality btw, only flaw is maybe the window slot is about 3/16" too wide, but
it fit the car good. Note I also had to weld in a 2" strip of .120 on the front where the hings mount.
I also found out the hard way that I needed to space the front hinges out 2". Unfortunately I
don't have any pictures of that I will get some, but I just bolted and then welded on some sections of 2"*3".
it sounds "rough" but it actually looks really good (when the door is open and you are inspecting the hinges).
I don't know why I only have pictures of the end of the door instead of the important part (the top).
The way I approached teh welding is where I had excellent fit up, I TIG'ed it for superior cleanup and to
keep the metal soft for hammer and dolly, but where I had a gap I MIG'ed it for sanity sake. The combination
of the 2 techniques worked for me.

door.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/WideBodywork/door.jpg

doorjamb2 .jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/WideBodywork/doorjamb2.jpg

preston

03-30-2014, 09:42 PM

Next I had to cut the quarter panels off and space them out 2".
Even though my flares were being reduced tremndously, I still had to build new flares, for about the 8th time in
the history of this car.

rearflarebuild2.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/WideBodywork/rearflarebuild2.jpg

rearflarebuild1.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/WideBodywork/rearflarebuild1.jpg

The flares were a nightmare even with all that "experience" behind me. Now I know why the pros always build a wire
frame or equivalent. When you look at the wheel from the side, you want the "inner circle" of the flare to
follow the wheel radius ata fixed value until it drops below the hubline. You want the horizontal incline fo the
flare to stay even around its radius as well. Now, the "outer circle" of the flare where it hits the sheet metal
....The radius of this varies as the sheet metal bows in and out from the front/rear view. And one aspect of a '67
Mustang is that there is a LOT of roundness from this view. In addition to that, from the front and
rear view the flare is sweeping into the body. There is no math or "circle" template that can help you here,
its all obsesive-compulsive mad artist to get it done. Especially 4 times. But they are by far the best
flares I have ever built. I finished them off by using a 5/8*5/8 angle of 20 awg and using the shrinker/stretcher
to match it to the outer radius of the flare.

flarebuild1.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/WideBodywork/flarebuild1.jpg

rearflarebuild1.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/WideBodywork/rearflarebuild1.jpg
finishedflare1.jpg
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/42/bxm0.jpg (https://imageshack.com/i/16bxm0j)

Obviously I had to build a custom wider rear valence, and cut a stock tailpanel in 2 places and widen it 2".
I split a fiberglass bumper (because its 6 lbs ligher and because chroming a new one would cost an arm and a leg
and I'm not sure my metal fab is good enough).

I don't have pictures but I also built some new quarter caps to match the Shelby style deck lid and they came
out awesome I will post them later.

unfinishedrear.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/WideBodywork/unfinishedrear.jpg

I finished up the top of the quarter panels (note I had previously lowered the bottom rear of the quarter panels to match
a properly angled diffuser)

At this point I finished the top fo the quarters. I left a lot of bodywork raw and just primered it, but I did body work
the tops fo the quarters so they would look nice. I also sent the fincd $ished doors out to a local shop
Fenders and fins and they cambe back looking perfect. I swear they looked like doors you had just pulled out of
the box from the UPS truck excep they were 2" wider. I will continue to have them do parts for me. Price was
very reasonable as well. What is so amazing about this is how well it integrates intot he Mustang body line.
I swear a casual observer (ie not a MCA concours judge) will really not even be aware what was done.
I heard one of the Ring bros talking about their widened mustang and said something like "I think all Mustangs
out of our shop will now be widened. Its just the right look and gets us the tires we need".

I should also mention I put hours into getting all the gaps right. That's something that didn't even cross my mind a few years ago, but now they are 18-3/32 everywhere on the car. Pretty psyched about that too, that detail
makes a big difference.

finished1.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/WideBodywork/finished1.jpg
finished2.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/WideBodywork/finished2.jpg
finished3.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/WideBodywork/finished3.jpg
finishedrearside.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/WideBodywork/finishedrearside.jpg

After that I build some rocker panels out of aluminum. Part of the gist of this build is even though its a wide
body and runs 285/335 tires and is only 4" off the ground, I want it to look as "stock" and vintage as possible.
SO i was done with race car style or "body kit" style rockers. I was super happy with how these came out, they roll under
the car just like stock (well, they are about 1" taller overall).

rocker1.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/WideBodywork/rocker1.jpg
rocker2.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/WideBodywork/rocker2.jpg

preston

03-30-2014, 09:46 PM

I'm not a huge fan of Shelby's. But it turns out the only year I like is the '68. Even before I knew my
Mustangs and they all look different with a mish mash of user customs and factory models, I remember
seeing a '67 Shelby front end and thinking how aggressive and cool it looked. My previous iteration as you
saw above used late model Shelby headlights in a unique way and while I appreciated the aerodynamics and
modern tech, as I said I'm going in a much different direction now. One example of this is I know
have to leave some front tire exposed by teh in curve of the front end which is horribly aerodynamically but
essential to pulling off the vintage look.

Also i was just simply blown away by this picture and have it on my wall as my "rendering". I don't know, I"ve
always loved coupes (convertivble obviously here) and I just think this looks so tough and so '60's

shelbymustang.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/WideBodywork/shelbymustang.jpg

Just imagine that car 7" lower and 4" wider ! and Acapulco Blue instead of green. I've even though about getting
a vinyl top even though i've always thought they were hideous until now. But on a muscle car they are so 60's !

I'll probably just paint the top matte black along with the top surfaces or something. Ring Bros did this and
it just so totally hides the width.

Anyway I got shelby headlights from NPD and built my own nose piecees using my new Harbor Freight english
wheel. These came out nice too, the "curvature" on myh nose piece matches the original fiberglass piece perfectly.

shelbynosebuild1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/WideBodywork/shelbynosebuild1.jpg

You'll notice the early mustang valence is several inches above teh ground place. Most "racy" builds fill this
space with an air dam or one of those cow catcher style front pieces. I did not like either of these solutions,
so I custom built a lower valnce from aluminum. Now I have obviously shaped a lot of metal but its all been
"rolled", or bent or manipulated in straightforward ways. I haven't done a lot of shot bag work but I finally
picked up an English wheel and so this was my first "compound curve" metal shaping but I was very happy with
the way it came out. You may notice a little wiggle in the upper "bar" of the valence but this is okay
as it will be covered by a bumper (vintage !). I will continue to run a splitter tray underneath the valence
but it matches the ground place exactly. I tried to cover as much front tire as I could but like I said
I had to curve it in to make it look factory.

valencebuild3.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/WideBodywork/valencebuild3.jpg
valencebuild2.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/WideBodywork/valencebuild2.jpg

finishednose.jpg
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/WideBodywork/finishednose.jpg

So that's where I'm at now, I'm getting ready to send th front fenders to the sandblaster,but I'm messing
around with some louver vents in the tops of the fenders (right above the turbos). They would match the style
of the hood vents on the '68 Shelby hood, so they're not totally out of line, but they would take me a step back
to "race car" rather than fool your eye performance vintage muscle. But they would be very functional, the heat
off the turbos will almost blister the paint otherwise I'm afraid. Also, the hood will be louver vented
(think Mach '69 style) so its not like I'm gonna look too pedestrian. This is another issue, not sure
how to use the '68 shelby hood with its big aggressive nostriles and also implenment a cowl rise and
big radiator vents out the top. it might be too much. Can't decide whether to be sane and buy a nice quality
FG hood and widen or build one from scratch out of aluminum. Lots of work either way.

Vince@Meanstreets

03-30-2014, 10:20 PM

I'm not a huge fan of Shelby's. But it turns out the only year I like is the '68. Even before I knew my
Mustangs and they all look different with a mish mash of user customs and factory models, I remember
seeing a '67 Shelby front end and thinking how aggressive and cool it looked. My previous iteration as you
saw above used late model Shelby headlights in a unique way and while I appreciated the aerodynamics and
modern tech, as I said I'm going in a much different direction now. One example of this is I know
have to leave some front tire exposed by teh in curve of the front end which is horribly aerodynamically but
essential to pulling off the vintage look.

Also i was just simply blown away by this picture and have it on my wall as my "rendering". I don't know, I"ve
always loved coupes (convertivble obviously here) and I just think this looks so tough and so '60's

shelbymustang.jpg
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/34/lbxb.jpg (https://imageshack.com/i/0ylbxbj)

Just imagine that car 7" lower and 4" wider ! and Acapulco Blue instead of green. I've even though about getting
a vinyl top even though i've always thought they were hideous until now. But on a muscle car they are so 60's !

I'll probably just paint the top matte black along with the top surfaces or something. Ring Bros did this and
it just so totally hides the width.

Anyway I got shelby headlights from NPD and built my own nose piecees using my new Harbor Freight english
wheel. These came out nice too, the "curvature" on myh nose piece matches the original fiberglass piece perfectly.

shelbynosebuild1.jpg

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/203/8qi6.jpg (https://imageshack.com/i/5n8qi6j)

You'll notice the early mustang valence is several inches above teh ground place. Most "racy" builds fill this
space with an air dam or one of those cow catcher style front pieces. I did not like either of these solutions,
so I custom built a lower valnce from aluminum. Now I have obviously shaped a lot of metal but its all been
"rolled", or bent or manipulated in straightforward ways. I haven't done a lot of shot bag work but I finally
picked up an English wheel and so this was my first "compound curve" metal shaping but I was very happy with
the way it came out. You may notice a little wiggle in the upper "bar" of the valence but this is okay
as it will be covered by a bumper (vintage !). I will continue to run a splitter tray underneath the valence
but it matches the ground place exactly. I tried to cover as much front tire as I could but like I said
I had to curve it in to make it look factory.

valencebuild3.jpg
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/20/14o0.jpg (https://imageshack.com/i/0k14o0j)
valencebuild2.jpg
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/812/vny9.jpg (https://imageshack.com/i/mkvny9j)

finishednose.jpg
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/823/b8e9s.jpg (https://imageshack.com/i/mvb8e9sj)

So that's where I'm at now, I'm getting ready to send th front fenders to the sandblaster,but I'm messing
around with some louver vents in the tops of the fenders (right above the turbos). They would match the style
of the hood vents on the '68 Shelby hood, so they're not totally out of line, but they would take me a step back
to "race car" rather than fool your eye performance vintage muscle. But they would be very functional, the heat
off the turbos will almost blister the paint otherwise I'm afraid. Also, the hood will be louver vented
(think Mach '69 style) so its not like I'm gonna look too pedestrian. This is another issue, not sure
how to use the '68 shelby hood with its big aggressive nostriles and also implenment a cowl rise and
big radiator vents out the top. it might be too much. Can't decide whether to be sane and buy a nice quality
FG hood and widen or build one from scratch out of aluminum. Lots of work either way.

looking great preston.

Damn True

03-30-2014, 10:25 PM

MOAR Preston flare porn!

Payton King

03-31-2014, 07:43 AM

Love the new direction. Great job on the fab work.

MSTSFabbed

03-31-2014, 09:46 AM

Dang man! 180 degree turn from previous!

But I gotta say the new look is a 1000 times better! The previous flares just never flowed with the car well enough. You could always see a stock 67 sitting in a ring of flares. (That's probably also because I DD a 67 coupe!)

I'm pumped for you and excited to see this move along! Keep us posted!

67zo6Camaro

03-31-2014, 09:50 AM

Agreed, great body mods. Looks cool.

57hemicuda

03-31-2014, 03:42 PM

Diggin the new design, flows really well. I'm sure you saw the Ring Brothers car (2+2) where they added the material 2" on each side hence the name. That car travelled to Vegas on top of my car in the stacker trailer, I couldn't help standing back and looking at there's and mine over and over to see two different directions to achieve the same tire coverage goals.

I think you have kind of split the difference between the two, and think it looks really good. It is hard to believe how hard it is cover that much tire and have it come out looking good. And inch here and a half an inch there can make or break the look of the car. Sooner or later I've found, you have to just say I'm done. I could keep tweeking my stuff forever, and 99% of the changes nobody notices but me. You noticed how many new Mustang builds there are?

Matt@BOS

03-31-2014, 05:30 PM

GregWeld

03-31-2014, 05:43 PM

I'm with Ron on the new direction that you've taken. It looks much integrated, which I'm a fan of.

It is fun watching everyone get creative with Mustangs, with different approaches and designs. I don't know why but there seem to be more people chopping up Mustang fenders than Camaro fenders.

'cause people with Mustangs are just kooler......

preston

03-31-2014, 09:39 PM

Flash68

03-31-2014, 10:29 PM

Damn True

03-31-2014, 11:30 PM

This does appear to be on the way to an aesthetically cleaner design. That said, I dug the FU vibe of the old look too.

...and Preston, I did get a chuckle when reading those posts thinking, "oh, he's gonna catch some grief if he reposts this on the island." :thumbsup:

Ron in SoCal

03-31-2014, 11:50 PM

Trust me on this Preston, no one but the Brits on this site speak the Queen's English. Just the way it is.

And your posts/progress are both awesome :cheers:

Evan Iroc-Z

04-01-2014, 06:19 AM

Or maybe Mustangs are just narrower.

BTW I went back and read my last post and just wanted to say that I generally consider myself an erudite wielder of the written word. But these posts are a stream of consciousness dump complete with voluminous typos. I wouldn't want you guys to think I'm some kind of troglodyte who builds muscle cars in a carport and can't express the Queen's English properly.

I understood two words in this post and that doesn't include erudite, voluminous, and troglodyte. :lol:

You keep posting work like that and you could type in pig Latin for all I care. The car looks amazing and is headed in an awesome direction.

Vince@Meanstreets

04-01-2014, 01:02 PM

WSSix

04-01-2014, 06:25 PM

Great work, Preston. Keep it up!

gt1guy

04-10-2014, 06:45 PM

I like the new direction with the wide body. Great job as always buddy.

Kevin

preston

12-09-2014, 09:48 PM

A little bit of a weak update but great things are on the way. Other than a couple of low key car shows I didn't work on the car all summer because mountain biking (and children) but I got back on things this Autumn.

The first thing I finished was the custom tail caps. I built them out of steel because its just a little easier and they're small enough the weight difference was negligible. And being about the worst thread builder photographer there is, I seem to have absolutely no raw metal or half finished photos of them even though they sat around the shop for 6 months before I finished them. I also got the fiberglass bumpers completed. The rear one remember was widened 4". The stock style bumpers were so oversized that with just a little trimming I was able to mount the front one with no other work, and in fact it now looks like an ultra custom tight fitted bumper ! I don't have a picture of that yet though (again, good things are coming). Another shout out to Fenders & Fins in Woodinville WA, he has been great about taking my pieces in and doing the bodywork and primer.

As usual my photos suck and the car is dirty, but look how nicely these end caps came out, how closely all of the angles and curves match and how tight the gaps fit. Remember these were built entirely from scratch, I'm a bit proud of them actually as it was tricky to make them look right from - behind, front, side, top , and bottom !
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/TailCapsAndHood/rearcorner.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/TailCapsAndHood/rearcorner2.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/TailCapsAndHood/siderear.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/TailCapsAndHood/turnklid.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/TailCapsAndHood/rearend.jpg

I also finished widening the cowl 2" on either side to match the fenders.

Now something that has really been engaging me - building my own '68 Shelby'esque hood from scratch - out of aluminum !

First I put some .063 angle in the shrinker and curved it to match the fender. One thing that helped enormously is that the fender edge is perfectly straight front to rear which surprised me (once you work on car bodies you start to realize that almost nothing on a car is really straight, they all have small curves in them).I then formed out some understructure pieces. I wish I had a 50" long brake but I don't so I had to do it the hard way and use a tipping die on the bead roller and then hammer the flange into the piece. Then back to the shrinker/stretcher to curve it, and then the previous angle and the "girder" get cleco'ed together. The hood skin will wrap around the flange. Although I'm getting really proud of my aluminum TIG welding skills, the substructure will all be panel adhesived together because there would just be too much warpage otherwise.

Note how I use the little tabs spaced up one thickness up so that the flange is .063" below the fender surface. And the 1/4" thick plate to space it out from the fender.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/TailCapsAndHood/hood1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/TailCapsAndHood/hood2.jpg

Finally here is a crappy photo of the outer border complete. The idea is that now that the outer border matches up with the fender and nose and the curves match and the gaps are good, I can build the center section using the Shelby nostrils to form the start of the "cowl rise" section to get the height I need, and the beauty of it is this can be a bit free form as it sits "on top" of the surface. It would look better without the white piece of cardboard but I was mocking up the inlet scoop of the '68 Shelby nostrils.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/TailCapsAndHood/hood3.jpg

Speaking of the nostrils, this was a bit of a struggle for me because I hate "faux" stuff, and the nostrils are totally for looks as the air will go straight to the duct hole in the center of the hood, so their only purpose will be to add drag ! But, I need a raised cowl section anyway, and since I'm really trying to capture that vintage flavor, I feel like the closer I hew to the '68 look the better. And, they do add a very aggressive look, especially combined with the outlet duct and louvers in the hood.One reason I love to fabricate this stuff is because I want to see what it will look like myself ! I don't really ever make drawings or computer renderings, so its all a mystery to me until it gets created. Its almost magical in a way.

Anyway, one design element I am struggling with is I want them to be very subtle, barely 1" high inlets. If you go back up and look at the green '68 Shelby above, you will note that the nostrils are actually quite large. I am going to tone them down so they come out more like this:

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/TailCapsAndHood/shelbysupersnake.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/TailCapsAndHood/muscle67.jpg

the struggle being trying to keep something subtle and sexy vs trying to emulate the '68 Shelby as closely as possible. But I just can't see putting thsoe giant parachutes on the front so we'll see. Sometime I think I just want to make a normal low key cowl rise hood without nostrils, but like I said before they do add a very aggressive look and its nice to keep teh design continuity. Your thoughts welcome, but either way there will still be a giant duct in the front center of the hood although I will make it look more finished this time.

also excited because i ordered a new wilson manifold.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/TailCapsAndHood/wilsonmanifold.jpg

All said and done it wasn't that far off from buying a complete sheet metal manifold, but that would require sending them my heads and this should fit my needs. For such a big engine, I haven't been quite happy with the low rpm performance by which I mean lugging around town below 2000rpms. Most people would be fine with it, but the combination of low CR, small cam, tall gears, and big heads and big intake just made it a little balky so I'm hoping these long runners and good distribution help.
Anyway I can't finish the hood until I get this in and see what clearance I need. so I'll be shifting gears to that, should be here this week. Should be interesting adapting everything including the cruise control cable ! I'm really excited to see if it makes a big, small , or not even noticeable difference int he driving experience. The Wilson guy raved about it though, said it was Robby Gordon's favorite of all the intakes they tried on his race truck bla bla bla but of course the salesman would say that !

glassman

12-10-2014, 06:59 PM

Subtle, hmmm, no. Sexy? Yes, waaay yes. Man, if it comes out anything close to that rendering that will be one of the baddest fastbacks out there imo. I like the looks of that one better than "Eleanor", and i wouldn't kick here outa bed for eatin crackers lol....

preston

12-10-2014, 09:35 PM

That's not my rendering, that was some project I saw on 6speedonline, I was just using it to demonstrate hood designs. That is supposed to be a somewhat widened body too, and at one point he did post a twin turbo NRE 427 showing up, but I haven't seen any updates on it in at least a year.

WSSix

12-11-2014, 05:10 PM

awesome updates, Preston. You should be proud of those end caps they look great. I think you're hood design is going to work out well, too. Keep up the good work!

MSTSFabbed

12-12-2014, 07:01 AM

Looking good man! I about pooped my pants the first time I saw your car however many years ago! Glad you're still at it!

GregWeld

12-12-2014, 08:07 AM

Preston - you mention doing a "low key" cowl hood... here's the one on my Mustang. At first I thought - wow - that's a bit "Camaroish"... but I've grown to like it and it works well to clear the air cleaner.

It's not nearly as aggressive as the "parachute" nostrils you like (and I like too!) but it does work.

http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad33/gregweld/65%20Mustang%20Track%20car/DSC_4738.jpg (http://s919.photobucket.com/user/gregweld/media/65%20Mustang%20Track%20car/DSC_4738.jpg.html)

http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad33/gregweld/65%20Mustang%20Track%20car/DSC_4739.jpg (http://s919.photobucket.com/user/gregweld/media/65%20Mustang%20Track%20car/DSC_4739.jpg.html)

http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad33/gregweld/65%20Mustang%20Track%20car/4TR_3349.jpg (http://s919.photobucket.com/user/gregweld/media/65%20Mustang%20Track%20car/4TR_3349.jpg.html)

preston

03-31-2015, 09:35 PM

I started building my hood Thanksgiving weekend, and its 50% done. It looks like its 80% done, but you know how that goes.

Of course "building the hood" also includes the time necessary to install a new manifold. Which meant cutting open my firewall, fishing out the wiper linkage to cut it and re-weld it up a little bit, and then closing the firewall back up without lighting all the dynamat on fire inside. I had to cut open the firewal just for manifold clearance, and the reason the firewall bulged out there was for the wiper linkage, and I really didn't want to take the whole dashboard off too. I also had to build a new throttle pedal and cable system to replace the old OEM Mustang bellcrank I was still using. I had a lot of problems getting the cable to work and clocking the new throttle body and I used two different lokar pedal assemblies to build a dual bearing pedal setup to make up for the offset of the pedal, and of course I also had to cut and weld both ends of the standard lokar setup to get the ratio I wanted - approximately 3.58" of pedal travel. I should have taken a picture of my new throttle pdeal.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/Hood/manifold2.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/Hood/manifoldfirewall.jpg

anyway it was all worth it because this manifold did exactly what I wanted it to do - I can lug it up the hills around my neighborhood in 4th gear now, and low end throttle response is vastly improved, In fact it comes on almost too hard now ! So it lived up to everything Wilson promised in my mind. Even on the first cold startup in the driveway the motor seemed happier, and later on driving around the auto tune was taking out fuel everywhere, indicating a much more efficient setup. Very happy with this purchase, even though it was quite spendy.
(On the photo of the back of the manifold by the firewall, those notches are to get an allen wrench into the attachment bolts. Normally this will be covered by the removeable cowl).

for the hood I started with the foundation of course, some bent up pieces of 0.063 3003 aluminum. My brake is only 36" long, so I had to these the hard way, using a tipping wheel in my roller, and then clamp it down and hammer the flange by hand. Then its into the shrinker/stretcher to make the curves. Note how you can use little tabls of aluminum to make sure you have exactly .063 of clearance to the top of the fender.

I don't know if you can tell from the photos but I started with a 3/4" *3/4" angle of aluminum and attached it to the main piece that connects to the hinge. That makes a double width of alumimun along that crucial curved vertical.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/Hood/hoodfoundation.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/Hood/hoodfoundation2.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/Hood/hoodfoundationcorner.jpg

I built it from the outside in. Its hard to pick it out in the photos, but I'm pretty proud of the character line going down the center. Its more prominent that it looks in the photo and really helps break up the hood as well as match the OEM style which has a similar crease.

Of course I hate that the nostrils create a massive aerodynamic fail, but 85% of that air is going straight intot he open vent, and at this point looks are more important than some theoretical aero tip on a car with a huge amount of front end drag anyway. And what you cant' see here is how the gaps are tight and even all the way around and level panels etc. The stop skin btw is properly folded all along the base structure. I used Fusor to attach the substructure to the skin, no need to get that all distorted trying to weld it.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/Hood/halfhoodconstruction.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/Hood/hoodmockup1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/Hood/hoodmissingside.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/Hood/hoodtopview.jpg

Ready to weld -

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/Hood/hoodreadytoweld3.jpg

gotta admit, at this point I'm pretty proud of this hood. I knew it would be a stretch for my skills, but its coming out pretty nice. Although final welding is always a bit dismaying, it hasn't been anything my hammer and dolly can't handle. After 3 or 4 years of hobby work, I actually feel 100% with my TIG welding.

Still a lot of work to do including aerocatch hood latches, but I hope to get it to the painter in another 6 weeks and when it comes back, i will take some full car photos somewhere besides the carport and the 1968 Mustang Shelby replica wide body project metalwork will be complete ! I don't know where I will drive it though, just the valence and hood represent a full year of leisure time I bet. It looks pretty awesome when you put all the front end pieces together, which I have deliberately not shown here. I mean, it will look cool if you're into wide body '68 shelby look mustangs.

Vince@Meanstreets

03-31-2015, 11:45 PM

nice work Preston.

Payton King

04-01-2015, 06:26 AM

I like it!

Matt@BOS

04-01-2015, 06:51 AM

Great job on that hood. That's a ton of work, and you have to be happy because it looks pretty cool to boot!

Sieg

04-01-2015, 07:16 AM

Very nice Preston! :thumbsup:

DavidBoren

04-01-2015, 08:11 AM

I think you nailed it with that hood. The drag penalty for the GT500-esque nostrils will be worth it. I love that you have separate extraction vents for the radiator and filters. Very well thought out, and your fabrication skills are very commendable, as well.

I don't even like Mustangs, but you have my attention, for sure.

Graham08

04-01-2015, 08:17 AM

gotta admit, at this point I'm pretty proud of this hood. I knew it would be a stretch for my skills, but its coming out pretty nice.

Nice work! If you never stretch your skills, you never improve them.

WSSix

04-01-2015, 05:10 PM

Looking good, Preston! Glad the manifold is working well for you also. Keep up the good work.

no go nova

04-01-2015, 09:15 PM

Just went thru this whole thread amazing work your performing outside and not in a shop.

Justin@EntropyRad

04-02-2015, 07:53 AM

The hood is going to be epic

67Fastback

04-02-2015, 06:37 PM

Whenever I see this car, I think about:

http://www.madmaxmovies.com/cars/Replica/Black/images/StreetMachineFront.JPG

Walker Built

04-08-2015, 02:09 PM

Im loving it!:thumbsup:

waynieZ

04-09-2015, 09:15 AM

Nice Work! You've got skills!

preston

07-07-2015, 10:26 PM

Hood is finished, out getting painted right now. Here is a couple of bad photos of the car outside the carport if you can believe that

I wish I had some more and better photos of the complete car, but I'm waiting until it gets back "painted" one color. Of course black paint jobs look like hell in photos too.

But when you see this thing on the street, I think what amazes me the most is of course it looks low and bad and mean, but even if you know Mustangs it never once crosses your mind that its been widened. What I mean is that the proportions look perfect, there is no weirdness and because it splits along the character line, your eye just doesn't even pick it up. It just looks right. Well to me anyway !

here are some photos of the finished hood:

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/Hood/FinishedHoodSmall.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/Hood/FinishedHoodFRontSmall.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/Hood/FRontSmall.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/Hood/fRont34Small.jpg

Vince@Meanstreets

07-07-2015, 11:13 PM

looking good Preston.

DBasher

07-08-2015, 05:00 AM

Looks great Preston!

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

WSSix

07-08-2015, 09:41 AM

Oh man does it look good, Preston. I can't wait to see painted pictures. I love this car!

DavidBoren

07-08-2015, 09:45 AM

So f'ing boss! Excellent work, brother. Keep it up.

PS. You're right, car looks like it was meant to be. Great job widening it. And I love the hood. Killer.

syborg tt

07-08-2015, 11:18 AM

Honestly I didn't think it was possible to make a Coupe look this good and then you go an do it !!

This has to be the best "Stanced Mustang Coupe" ever !!!

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/Hood/fRont34Small.jpg

Ron in SoCal

07-08-2015, 02:28 PM

Awesome Preston! :thumbsup:

waynieZ

07-08-2015, 03:06 PM

Very Nice Preston! It looks angry!!

Flash68

07-08-2015, 03:57 PM

What a frickin monster... I have been waiting for even the ****tiest of flip phone sound clips of this thing for awhile. I'll bet its bite matches its bark.

Preston, what is the "tread width" outside of tire to outside of tire on it?

preston

07-09-2015, 10:55 PM

Wow I appreciate the positive feedback guys. I need it because to be honest with you in the last year my enthusiasm for fancy cars and hot rods has been going through a major recalibration. I'd even go so far as to say if the right person were to make an offer...

That being said there is nothing like that king of the world feeling you get driving it around.

>Preston, what is the "tread width" outside of tire to outside of tire on it?

74" rear, 74.5" front.
If it still had a pinch weld, it would be 4" off the ground, which is about 7" lower than a stock Mustang body. It has a completely flat bottom front to rear and the street splitter is not prominent so GC is pretty good.

Matt@BOS

07-10-2015, 07:08 AM

Looks Awesome all put back together, and sitting by the curb! It looks... Understated, for what you've done. Never thought I would say that about your car.

Flash68

07-10-2015, 09:46 AM

That being said there is nothing like that king of the world feeling you get driving it around.

This honestly just says it all. The end.

>Preston, what is the "tread width" outside of tire to outside of tire on it?

74" rear, 74.5" front.

Gotta be a handling handful.

It looks... Understated, for what you've done. Never thought I would say that about your car.

Agreed on understated in that photo... probably because we have seen many pics of the previous ginormous flares, which I really liked too.

MSTSFabbed

01-05-2016, 09:04 AM

I've seen you popping up in a couple other places, so we know you're still alive. :)

Any updates or latest goings-ons with this bad mutha?

Flash68

01-05-2016, 11:48 AM

Preston, is there any video of this car you can share or point to?

preston

01-05-2016, 02:16 PM

Funny you should ask I do have some more material. As usual I was waiting until I had "some good photos" but that never happens. Hope you guys want to read all this crap -

Its the first winter I can remember when I didn't have overwhelming giant projects on the car, like "building a widebody" or "building a hood from scratch", and in fact it has been really fun to work on smaller bites that have a nice return on investment and don't put the car on jack stands for months on end.

First thing I did was disassemble ever Jonny Joint in the suspension. I bought these several years ago and they didn't have grease zerks and man did they need them, so I added zerks, rebuilt all ten of them and greased them with a poly specific grease. In addition I greased all the swaybar bushings and the poly side of the shocks, and oh man what a difference in ride quality. And for the first time the car doesn't squeak when it comes down off the jacks.

I also "just decided" to rebuild my LCA's for more turning clearance. Now, the truning radius wasn't bad, it was okay, not great. I think I calculated I gained about 6-8% per side of turning radius, but it was a HUGE improvement. The car actually turns tighter than my daily now, in fact it turns so tight you can feel the front wheels crabbing. I was driving the car around quite a bit in the early Fall and you know once you get over the novelty of driving your muscle car around and goosing the throttle these little driveability things make a big difference, and this update made me SO happy.

Do I have any pictures of my new LCA's ? No, no I don't :)
But its the same basic design, I just moved the strut side of the arm closer towards the car and then gusseted the ball joint for support. I thought about making part of it aluminum or this and that, but decided safety and no worries about aluminum fatigue was the better way to go rather than 1-2 lbs of weight on a 100+ lb corner assembly.

The next thing I added that I also dont' have any photos of was a Racelogic Traction Control system I have had sitting ont he shelf for 2+ years. If you look back through this thread I think I have some photos of the custom trigger wheels I had built through eMachine Shop again like 2 years ago. So for almost 2 years I've had this worry in the back of my head that the wheels or sensors wouldn't work. It was a very painful wiring job, but I finally got it hooked up and they work perfectly. I haven't had a chance to go nuts with the T/C yet but I did drive it around on rainy streets and it worked really, really well. I can't wait to put the hit on it and not have to worry about things coming around on me at 50+ mph. It also added a cool little control unit in the cabin, again no pics.

My biggest project was heat control. Because I lost some side vents in the fenders and opened up the distance between the firewall and the outer fender, the cabin was getting really hot if the air temp was > 75. Its kind of binary in a funny way, if its not too hot out you don't really notice, but once it gets "nice" it would get really hot in the cabin, worse than before. So I built some 18awg SS heat shields that cover the entire firewall on each sideand then extend to the outer fenders where they mate up with a large flange. Then behind the SS is a 5/16 thick blanket of aerogel insulation (supposedly the best). To finish off the inner fender I also sandwiched the aerogel with a .063 sheet of aluminum. In addition, while I didn't make it air tight I really made an effort to just block any heat path so I boxed in any open spaced between the rocker and the heat shield with more SS and aerogel. I also slapped some DEI heat shield on top of the SS for extra credit

The aerogel I have is a very thick blanket and its chalky, thick, and difficult to use. But I said F' it and cut it into strips and used safety wire to wrap both of my down pipes with it, and then used header wrap to encapsulate everything. The down pipes look about 5" in diameter now. I did this a year ago on one of my side pipes and here is my scientific test - after driving during a hot idle, you can just barely slap the wrapped only passenger side with your hand. The dirver side with the aerogel and wrap, you can actually rest your hand on the pipe for a quarter to half second. By the way a little trick I learned was whenever I wrap a pipe, I then put on the rubber gloves and smear the whole assembly with clear silicone (make sure to use low odor Silicone II). It really helps to encapsulate and protect the wrap which otherwise makes fiberglass dust everytime you brush up against it.

So finally here is a picture:

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/LouversHeatShieldsSmall/HeatShield.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/LouversHeatShieldsSmall/HeatShield2.jpg

That air hose is fresh air from the cowl, and for some reason there is absolutely no positive pressure at the cowl I get no air flow whatsoever through that. Oh that's right I also built air ducts into the removeable cowl panel for the heater box and fresh air.

I also built some louvers for the he sides of the fenders to release heat. I could have welded them in directly but the method I used disturbed the bodywork much less, and I like how it came out and let me use aluminum for the louvers. I copied the design from a thread I saw on Lat-g, some pro in Australia who was posting up some cool things at one point.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/LouversHeatShieldsSmall/LouverConst.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/LouversHeatShieldsSmall/LouverConst3.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/LouversHeatShieldsSmall/LougverConst2.jpg

You can see I also opted to build some hood louvers to cover the big vent. I kind of like the "open vent" look but because I had 2 ducts I had a divider in there anyway, so once I started I just louvered teh whole thing. It actually looks a bit too aggressive for what I'm going for but it came out well and it has been growing on me. As usual I don't have any pictures of fabrication or assembly !

I didn't want to post this photo because it makes the louvers look totally obnoxious. In real life they are much flatter like 50 degrees and not vertical looking at all, something with the light this photo does NOT do them justice at all but since I had it I will post it, they flow much much better in real life.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/LouversHeatShieldsSmall/HoodLouver.jpg

Since these photos were taken, I have added running horse emblems on the side of the fenders and FINALLY got windshield and backglass chrome trim on the car which has been a 5-10 year goal for me, and it is absolutely AMAZING how much it improves the look. That was the real reason I was waiting to have a decent photo session. I wanted to put the stock chrome rocker strips on the side of the car but because the rocker is extended and some other reasons they just didn't look right.

Check out these photos and I have a styling question at the bottom -

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/LouversHeatShieldsSmall/rear.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/LouversHeatShieldsSmall/rearquarter.jpg

I love this view, but note the rear behind the wheels. I've learned recently about how much car designers try to angle the rear side view upwards and "bob" the back of the car to create a better profile, and I do notice sometimes how the rear has a bit of a full diaper look to it. My goal at the time was to have the sheet metal match the actual angle of the diffuser. I care less about that now but I have also read that while on paper diffuser angles > 7 deg don't work and stall the air, actual race car experimentaion has shown that steeper angles are actually quite effective due to vortices or something, especially on higher ride heigh vehciles. if you look at a stock Mustang, the rear quater actually starts 1-2" higher than mine and then angles much more sharply at the valence. So I am thinking of rebuilding the lower quarter with an OEM style angle and using a stock valence as my starting point (obviouslh has to be widened and massaged).

What do you guys think ? leave it alone or what ? Starting back with a stock valence would also allow me to continue pursuing the "looks stock" vintage theme, and it would actually look more badass revealing more of the big tires.
Here is a pic of a killer widebody mustang from Aussie I just love the rear end on this car.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/LouversHeatShieldsSmall/image.jpeg

Here is my crappy photo of my car:

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/LouversHeatShieldsSmall/sideshot.jpg

And some paint shop alterations:

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/LouversHeatShieldsSmall/sideshotmod1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/LouversHeatShieldsSmall/sideshotmod2.jpg

I did take one walk around idle video but it sucked so bad I'm not posting it.

Currently I'm building some custom grill trim for the front (1/8 aluminum trim, gonan have it chromed). It will emulate the stock '68 Shelby grille trim and it will look SO killer to outline the incoming snout in chrome.

After that I think its time to get back to the interior and finally put a stereo in it. I am big into mobile audio in my other rigs, so I am trying to walk a fine line between my desire to put in a "real" system vs just some good speakers and good power, as its a waste to do any more than that. (seriously I'm like thinking "well the sound stage wont' image very well because of bla bla bla).

So anyways, I haven't really been up to too much on the car.

DBasher

01-05-2016, 03:44 PM

MSTSFabbed

01-06-2016, 08:18 AM

Sweet! Its looking good! That hood turned out really nice.

Huh. I agree with DBasher, I might not have noticed it as much before, but the last picture with quarters matching back up to the bumper looks much more trim and a little more lean. I like it!

The chrome around the grill will look nice and help show that Shelby front end better too. Thanks for sharing!

markaaron80

01-06-2016, 09:46 AM

how do you like the aerolatches?

rustomatic

01-06-2016, 09:58 AM

preston

01-06-2016, 10:02 AM

the aero latches are great. I've left the pins out on old style hood pins more than once and almost had a disaster, these are much more obviousl from the driver's seat when they are unlatched. They can also be locked with a key, and are easy to adjust. YOu seem them used all the time on big time race cars they are the real deal.

Its funny, the more I look at the first photo (ie the current car) the more it has grown on me actually. It gives visual weight to the back of the car and gives it more "rake", like a pointed missile. I will still probably tweak it though because that's what I do.

The rear wheelhouses were designed to accept a 20" 335/345/355 size wheel and the chassis can be adjusted to keep the same ride height and I think it would be absolutely boss to have even bigger meats on the back.. I desperately need new tires in the Spring but I just can't see springing for new rear wheels and gears for the sake of vanity. I'd like to say I"m growing up but really I just would rather spend that money on mountain bikes.

preston

01-06-2016, 02:26 PM

The concept of driveability is such an underrated concept with our hotrods. It's why I ripped my Falcon apart again last summer, and it sounds like why you're analyzing components of this car that most would never even consider, given the monumental quantity of engineering and re-engineering you've put into the Mustang over the years. As ridiculous as it sounds, while great track performance is a real thing, a quick trip to Safeway can be the greatest judge of all the sweat and blood you've poured into the thing . . .

That said, consider this another vote for (the need for) some sound and video of the legendary "Preston's Mustang.":king:

IMO streetability is harder to engineer than performance. I'm still not there. I have never ridden in any other pro tour cars nor really ridden in any other classics or even modern sports car in 15 years. In fact I haven't driven anything but rentals and our 2004 and 1992 Cadillacs (my daily). My car has never been more streetable and yet its still a total beast. When I see these super high dollar pro tour cars I sometimes wonder how they really feel after 2 hours of driving and a little traffic etc. I've got poly/rubber bushings on at least one end of every link, rubber engine and trans mounts, enough dynamat and pad to choke a horse, quiet mufflers and its still not remotely comparable to a factory car. Not to say I can't sit in traffic or creep around a parking lot or drive down the road for 2 hours (with cruise control no less !) but I sure as hell wouldn't want to drive it daily like when I first bought it. Oh yeah I was 18 years younger then too.

GregWeld

01-06-2016, 02:51 PM

I've driven or ridden in dozens of these PT cars --- and NONE of them are anywhere near what Stielow builds. His builds are truly streetable while also more than track capable.

I only wish more people could drive one of his builds because then they'd truly understand what the best of PT can be.

Flash68

01-06-2016, 03:18 PM

I love the car and think it looks really, really good. I may not have noticed it....but since you brought it up and used some mad photo editing skills to show the change, I do think it would look better with the changes on the back.

The hood and fender vents turned out nice and I agree, once you get some chrome for the front surround it'll pull it all together.

:thumbsup:

Totally agree with the Basher.... especially on the photochop skillz. :goggles:

But seriously I like the look of the tapered up rear too. Really would bring that part of the car all together. So start cutting. :)

57hemicuda

01-06-2016, 04:24 PM

I added to the bottom of quarters on my Mustang also, I do think it helps the lines on the car. We are just plastic surgeons on the original lines that Ford came up with.

https://57hemicuda.smugmug.com/Cars/Mustang/i-L2dPP7d/0/O/DSC02129.jpg

https://57hemicuda.smugmug.com/Cars/Mustang/i-TqTJ3Qb/0/L/DSC_0770-L.jpg

preston

01-06-2016, 04:38 PM

I added to the bottom of quarters on my Mustang also, I do think it helps the lines on the car. We are just plastic surgeons on the original lines that Ford came up with.

Hmm, interesting, you say you "added" to the quarters and I think I see what you did by adding to the wheel area it increases the angle towards the rear. Your rear valence actually looks very pinched like you shortened that area as well.

I'm actually trying (at this point) to do the opposite of being a plastic surgeon, I want to go back to the original lines as much as possible without compromising anything.

There is a good scene in the Birdcage - the two main characters are very out homosexuals that run a gay cabaret, but they have to pass as straight roommates because their daughter is bringing her boyfriend's parents to visit. So they have to totally redecorate their apartment. A group of their fabulous friends are helping remove all the Miami Gay Kitsch (tm). One of them brings in some butch looking item and says "this will be perfect" and Robin Williams says "Subtract....don't add....subtract".

So whenever I start thinking hey maybe a fender vent or mesh here or a wing there would look good I tell myself "Don't add....subtract".

Because my Mustang is a bit like a gay couple's apartment in Miami, or something.

Panteracer

01-06-2016, 04:46 PM

I have to agree with adding a little to the lower rear

Pro touring drivablilty
I take my Pantera on 100-300 mile drives all the time
Hell I drove it to Vegas and back on Dot hoosiers years back
It is very streetable... but the Bird just does not seem to
ride the same... maybe 50-80 milers.. in traffic neither of them
are an issue

Bob

57hemicuda

01-06-2016, 05:01 PM

I am a big believer in less is more, but when I look at these cars, for some reason my eyes only see what the factory did wrong. My brain immediately decides what it would take to fix it, its a curse.

Other then the mid year Vette's their isn't a car built that I don't see flaws in, that is what makes the hobby so fun. Everybody can make each car into what they think is right. Love them or hate them, each car built (ours included) aren't going to be liked by everyone. I know, you and I, could not care less!!!

rustomatic

01-06-2016, 05:14 PM

On the aesthetic front, one of the design elements that really shouts out modernity on both Preston's and Ron S.'s Mustangs is how the ride height and the wheel opening heights have moved proportionately. While this is something you can't do all that effectively with a stock-framed car, it is definitely a huge benefit of building a new frame and putting the shell where you want it.

To clarify, I'm talking about how the wheel kind of eats the side of the car--I'm sure there's a design/engineering term for this that I'm unaware of, but it has to do with minimizing the slab between the top of the wheel and the top of the fender/quarterpanel (while generally avoiding "tuck", which is really no good for cars without a ton of axle droop or those that have rather large wheels). Both of these cars just kill from the side (and pretty much every other angle).

(In the distance, hear the masses clamoring to build tube chassis and cut fender openings in order to achieve the new perfect stance . . .)

67turbostang

01-06-2016, 06:03 PM

Looking good!!

lebowski

01-06-2016, 06:45 PM

Looking good Preston! Flattered you posted a pic of my car too.
James Godbolt
http://www.pro-touring.com/threads/113897-1967-Mustang-Fastback

Vince@Meanstreets

01-06-2016, 08:51 PM

Looking good Preston! Flattered you posted a pic of my car too.
James Godbolt
http://www.pro-touring.com/threads/113897-1967-Mustang-Fastback

awesome built james!

Jay Hilliard

01-07-2016, 04:59 AM

Awesome job Preston!

preston

09-20-2016, 10:11 PM

God I am the worst photographer ever !
If you read above I was thinking about bobbing the rear end, and I did. When I started in on it I was pissed at myself for starting another idiotic time consuming project but it actually came out great and looks much better I think.
I really like the simplicity of the rear end now, although I no longer have back up lights. At some point maybe I will hide some LED's somewhere or whatever. And even though I just said I like the simplicity, I have some urge to put the
M U S T A N G
letters on the trunk like at some point.
It also mimics the original Mustang rear valence and appearance much better than before, if you remember I've been striving for something that looks "vintage" but super built.

The other thing that really got me excited was getting all the window chrome back on and the running horse emblems. Really makes everything look much better especially in primer black. And the other thing I really liked was emulating the front nose chrome of the Shelby Mustang. I actually hand built the trim out of aluminum and had it chromed. It came out really really nice, even I was surprised. Of course it cost almost $500 to chrome the 4 small strips of aluminum and took 8 weeks but I had it done at Queen City plating which does cars for Pebble Beach and stuff. The quality is superb, especially considering I hand built it out of 1/2" key stock aluminum bar.

59949

59950

59951

The other big news is I changed to elecrically assisted steering. I have a high end Woodward rack in the car and its a beautiful piece and the rack itself is smooth as silk. But the servo they provided seems to me to have an enormous amount of stiction. No problem on the race track or when turning in earnest, but trying to keep the car straight on the road and make micro-corrections was incredibly annoying. I talked to Tony Woodward about it and even had some long conversations with their main tech and sent it in for "reduced drag" seals, but it still felt super stiff to me. I mean on the bench you could just barely turn it back and forth with your bare hands. In the car you could definitely feel it "sticky" when driving. I've always hated the way this car steers from stock through my own custom Pontiac X-car rack conversion through the TCP rack through stock car racks to this rack. None of them felt anything like OEM steering to me. So i bought a Saturn Vue EPAS unit and column for $300 and installed itunder the dash and setup the rack as a manual unit. Its still not as perfectly OEM as my daily drivers, but its much much improved and has a nice power assist.And if I didn't have hydraulic brakes I could even get rid of the hydro pump.

Do I have a bunch of pictures of the unit installed under my dash or build photos of how I adapted my Ididit column to the unit ? No, no I don't. HOwever it was all pretty basic fabrication and the original Vue unit had a sliding shaft that was very easy to adapt to a Borgeson coupler and I even built it to have 1" of collapse in the upper shaft (although I've never understood how this helps you when you still have the 1.75" diameter steel column around the shaft).

Anyway I was very happy with the improvement to the smoothness of the steering after that.

----------------------

I have to admit though, my passion for this hobby has sadly detiorated. I've loved hot rod cars my whole life yet in the last couple of years I can hardly get excited at all. Its a combination of the money drain, the kids draining my hobby time, the fact that I live in a heavy suburban area where I can sometimes hit a fun freeway ramp but for the most part just drive around in heavy traffic, I have no real place to "go" in the car since it can't carry my family and the traffic around here most of the time is abysmal. I really can't afford the time, money, effort, and frankly, the danger, of taking the car to the track. I don't seem to enjoy fabricating on the car anymore either and am just getting too damn old to lay on the concrete etc all night long.

IOW, I'm kind of contemplating the exit ramp. Not there yet, but contemplating it.

I would like to ask some honest car guy opinions on what you think this thing is worth or what it might sell for ? Please PM me rather than post a number.

Here are some highlights of the car just to refresh:
(see the next post)

preston

09-20-2016, 10:19 PM

Chassis:
-GT/TransAm inspired aluminum honeycomb reinforced space frame with integrated roll cage and front and rear crush structures.
- Total bare chassis weight 420 lbs (compare to Corvette C5 at 450+ with no floor, suspension crossmembers, or roll cage)
-Removable front tray (in less than 30 minutes the complete front end including intercoolers, radiator, plumbing, wiring, and headlights unbolts from the main chassis).
-Goal was low Center of Gravity (CG):
15” engine setback from “stock”, 10” driver setback.
Turbos are behind front axle centerline.
Fuel tanks in front of rear axle centerline.
Exhaust is routed through rockers so that the floor and therefore driver and therefore car body could be mounted as low as possible
Suspension:
-GT/TransAm inspired dual A-arm front suspension using heavy duty but lightweight aluminum stock car hubs and custom uprights. Design goals were low roll center, long control arms for low scrub and stable roll center, low (3/4”) scrub radius, low side scrub, combined with high caster and high caster gain for dynamic camber gain increases during steering to allow for mild camber gain in straight line bounce.
-Interchangeable front sway bar, Afco double adjustable coil over shocks.
-Custom Woodward steering rack with electric power assist
-360 degree articulating polyurethane “Jonny joints” for the best compromise of ride comfort and suspension accuracy. Coil overs have also been poly bushed on one end. All bushings could be converted to heim joints.
-Full floating live axle with ½ degree camber.
-Adjustable three link suspension with very long (30”) links.
-Underslung Watts link for low roll center.
-Adjustable rear sway bar.
-Bilstein double adjustable coil over shocks (one end poly bushed).
-Rear bushings are a combination of rubber stock car race bushings, Jonny joints, and heim joints.
-CCW 3 piece aluminum wheels (2 sets)
Street
18*11 285/35/18
18*13 335/30/18
Track
18*12 315/30/18
18*13 335/30/18

Brakes:
Not your typical big brake package out of a catalog!
- PFC Professional Sports Car Endurance racing 4 piston nickel plated calipers, purchased from a Ferrari Challenge team spares package. I have a Hoerr catalog from 2000 where these calipers were being sold for $3k apiece.
- 4” brake ducting with spindle ducts.
-15”/14” fully floating Coleman rotors with Brembo/McLaren anti-rattle clips. Bolt on aluminum mounting rings (not slip on hats).
-Hydraulic booster with custom dual master cylinder balance bar racing setup.
-Hydraulic shutoff valve parking brake
Engine:
Twin Turbo all aluminum dry sumped 427” Ford Small Block, built Spring 2011 by C&D Machine Kirkland WA
Dart aluminum block, 4.125” bore and 4” stroke
Eagle forged crank and H-beam rods with ARP bolts
AFR 225 heads with upgraded valvetrain and stud girdle (New Spring 2011)
Mild Cam Motion hydraulic roller cam, idles at 19” vacuum at 900 rpms. (230/224 .59 lift with 1.7 rockers)
3 stage dry sump with trunk mounted tank (pump rebuilt Fall 2010)
Custom Wilson intake manifold with front mounted 90mm throttle body
Twin Precision Turbo GT35 with 0.68 A/R with twin intercoolers fully ducted (never seen IAT’s over 110). Dual Tial 44mm wastegates. Insulation blankets
Tubular turbo manifolds, Swain ceramic coated
MegaSquirt 3 Electronic Fuel Injection – includes on board data logging,boost control, self tuning wide band O2, PWM and digital outputs, CAN bus, and all other features of modern EFI. USB port in cockpit.
Fully sequential Injector Dynamics 1000cc injectors
Coil on plug ignition with 36-1 crank trigger (LS Truck coils)
Vapor recovery system
620 rwhp @ 7 psi on pump gas on a load bearing “Mustang” brand dyno. A couple of keystrokes to the boost control would net 850rwhp very easily.
The hydraulic roller cam is very mild, with a larger cam or going to a solid roller the sky’s the limit.
There is also plenty of room for bigger turbos.
Frankly, I still find 600whp to be plenty.
Fuel System
Twin saddle tanks in front of rear axle for weight distribution and safety. Uses Corvette siphon pump to transfer fuel to pump side reservoir (passenger). Pump tank has trap door sump, both tanks stuffed with fuel cell foam.
Dual Bosch 044 pumps, 2nd pump triggered from ECU. Should support 1000+ flyhweel hp.
Aeromotive regulator and filters.
Exhaust:
Full v-banded 304 stainless steel 3” exhaust system all the way to the rear bumper.
Down pipes and headers Swain ceramic coated.
Drivetrain:
Centerforce DYAD dual disc clutch rated to 1200 hp (new), hydraulic throw out bearing
Quicktime reduction gear starter
Quicktime scattershield/bellhousing
Rockland Standard Gear “Son of Tranzilla” T56 Magnum transmission.
Aluminum driveshaft (new 1350 u-joints Summer 2011)
3.5 ring and pinion, Detroit Tru-Trac differential, 31 spline (fresh rebuild Winter 2016)
Transmission and differential coolers and electric pumps
Moser Aluminum pumpkin

Racelogic adjustable traction control system using custom 40 tooth trigger wheels. This system works really really well, very happy with it.

Aero:
Flat bottom floor with removable undertrays from front splitter to rear diffuser
Rear diffuser at a mild 7 degree angle so its actually functional, not cosmetic
Front splitter mounting system such that race splitter of large size can be accomodated.
90% of the air going through the grille will be routed right back through the hood duct including all radiator outlet air to reduce drag and increase downforce.
Interior (looked nice at one time but needs a refresh)
Fully dynamatted
Lightweight German short weave cut loop carpet
Cup holder, storage trays, glovebox
Heater/defrost with fresh air supply
Variable wipers
Cruise Control (works excellent)
Excellent heel/toe throttle/brake setup
Kirkey deluxe road racing seats
Removable steering wheel
Standard 3 point retracting seatbelts as well as 5 point harnesses
Nu-relics Power Windows
Full suite of gauges including wideband O2 display and trans/diff temperature
Warning lights – Oil pressure, temp, water temp, overboost, A/F ratio, 2nd fuel pump
SFI padding on roll cage
Excellent helmet clearance
Miscellaneous:
10 lb fire system
Custom alum radiator and Lincoln Mark VIII fan with PWM fan speed control (car has never overheated (210 degrees) street or track).
Setrab water/oil cooler
200 amp alternator
Cockpit switch for high boost (pre-mapped)
3 gallon water/meth injection tank in trunk ready to be plumbed.
Body:
Widened 2” each side thruogh the character line, 74” tread width
Custom flares, all steel
1968 Shelby inspired styling
Front noise piece, rocker panels front and rear valence handbuilt from aluminum
Rear tail caps hand built from steel
Hood scratch build from aluminum
Fiberglass front bumper
Despite the Shelby theme I chose to stay with the classic triple tail lights as I’ve never liked the Shelby style.
Maier FG trunklid and rear bumper (widened)
All factory glass with factory seals.
Basic bodywork complete
4.5” ride height with nothing hanging below the ground plane
3300 lbs

If I sold it I would have the bodywork on the rear end touched up where I kissed a fence post and finish off the roof. The gaps are all great, all the main bodywork is done, it might not be SEMA quality but is very presentable.

The car actually drives very nice, easy powerful brakes, good clutch feel, good turning radius, a bit loud inside but eh its a hot rod.

ON the negative side, I am 5'11" with longer legs and torso and it fits me perfect, however there is no room to move the seat back or put in a cushy padded style OEM seat. There is a lot of head room though, the seat could move up but not back. Also this is a 15" Kirkey seat, a 16" would fit but probably not a lot wider, although other seats without big side bolsters would fit.

DBasher

09-21-2016, 10:31 AM

I love it, Preston! I think you've done a great job over the years building something exactly the way you wanted, think of everything you've learned doing all of this. Nice job!

:thumbsup:

preston

09-21-2016, 10:55 AM

Yeah I've always figured when the economy collapses I'll be in a much better position knowing how to weld and fabricate and fix things than relying on my ability to manipulate abstract symbols on a computer screen.

So I've got that going for me....I've always thought maybe I could do some part time fab work for a car shop as a semi-retirement plan too.

Flash68

09-28-2016, 01:33 AM

Preston, your skills are in the right place man.... building and designing and rebuilding your car pretty much everything touched by you best I can tell.... that's better than just being able to post crap on the interwebs. :sieg:

Your car -- to me -- is like a winning USCA car in 2020 -- but was built a decade before. A man (and car) ahead of its time.

That thing has to be a hoot everytime you get it in. Hope you keep it.

:thumbsup:

WSSix

09-28-2016, 09:38 AM

Looks great Preston. Don't be afraid to take some time off from the car. I wouldn't sell it though. It sounds almost like you'd be doing it out of spite or confusion/indecision. Just tuck it away for a bit and focus on something else.

preston

09-28-2016, 01:14 PM

Thanks guys.

So yeah after some heavy thought I'm gonna keep it through another season, more than anything just to have some projects to work on during the cold, dark winter.

If someone walked into my driveway with an open checkbook I'd have no qualms about moving on with my life, but the actual act of cleaning it up, taking a bunch of pro photos and listing it for sale is just too much, I don't think I can do it.

I'd sure like to know some kind of ballpark value though, it would be interesting to list it on BAT or ebay with a high reserve. I mean if you had a shop build something even remotely like this it would start at 1/4 million dollars and yet some days I think christ you can buy a super nice C6 for $30k or less how could I expect to even get that much out of it ?

Plans for the winter include some Ron Sutton spec'ed springs and shocks and possibly a new upright to provide some tweaks to the front end geometry, a new round of soundproofing on the interior, and possibly, maybe, adding A/C. Because when do you want to drive it ? In the summer, when its hot d'uh. That would be a major major job though and there is literally no place to put the evaporator without major surgery and probably re-wiring the whole car to move the ECU And fuse boxes to the trunk.

Oh, and finally adding a radio. My daily drivers have very high end mobile audio installations, so I'm like the plumber who has leaky pipes at home, I could never decide whether to do something bare bones or something quality. I guess that depends on my sound proofing efforts. LIttle hint for people, dynamat is not a sound reducing element, it only reduces metal panel resonance.

preston

03-05-2017, 08:23 PM

Like an alcoholic or drug addict I thought I could go out and just have a few beers with the guys, but as usual I ended up waking up in the alleyway with a massive hangover and no idea how I got there. We've had our ups and downs but I always end up in the same place - "I can't quit you"

It started with just getting some decent shocks on the car. I've been extremely impressed with what Ron Sutton is doing for our types of vehicles so I thought I would hire him to spec them out. Now the original reason I started on this project in 1997 was because the stock based vintage Mustang front end was so crappy, and I've always been interested in suspension theory and design. So the more I looked through Ron's offerings the more excited I got.

Bottom line is instead of putting in a new set of shocks/bars/springs, I ended up cutting off most of the back and front of my chassis and building an all new setup using Ron's expertise and many of his parts.

I want to be clear that although I engaged Ron's services and gave him a fair amount of design freedom, I still had budget and legacy constraints and of course I am building most of it myself which means this is NOT a "Ron Sutton suspension" product.

Originally I wasn't even going to touch the rear end, but I ended up doing the following -

cutting out and rebuilding 90% of the subframe
removing my non-bladder aluminum saddle fuel tanks and going with a standard trunk mounted fuel cell
moving the dry sump tank and battery and drivetrain coolers from the trunk to under the car
adding a new x-bar to from the shock mounts to the upper cage (refitting a roll cage in a completed car sucks btw).
moving to weight jacker screw mounts for the rear shocks (and changed pickup location)
Moving the front LCA mounts from a fixed non-ideal position to slider adjustments
offset the upper 3 link (completely new adjustable front slider mount)
Put a 2-way torque absorber in the top link.
moving from an underslung axle mounted non-adjustable watts link to a Ron Sutton frame mounted adjustable watts link
larger tubular rear roll bar with new mounts, arms, and pillow blocks
new Ridetech single adjustable Ron Sutton valved coil over shocks
Replaced the aluminum honeycomb rear package tray with steel panelling for safety, and took the time to cut out new dynamat and MLV to improve the sound deadening.

Everything measured, x-measured, aligned, levelled, etc. in situ under my carport. Well technically on my frame table, which consists of 3 large MDF boards...sitting in my carport.

whew I got tired just writing that.

Here are my usual crappy pictures that do any justice to what I've accomplished this Winter:

I started out cutting a notch in the rear subframe rail to splice in a mount for the watts link, and by the time I turned off the sawzall I ended up here. I later took another 6" off of those rails.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/Sep2016Small/cutoutrear.jpg

Initial install of the watts mount:

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/Sep2016Small/wattsmount2.jpg

Working on the axle, building the new upper mount. I went with the Sutton strategy of re-using one of the shock pickup points for the Watts link. I braced mine for extra insurance as its a bolt on mount. I'm afraid of welding on the housing so I use bolt on mounts, no time or budget to have a new housing made up.
http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/Sep2016Small/axle.jpg

Here is a picture of the right side watts pickup point, it uses the two of the bolts for the clamp on trailing link/shock bracket and is triangulated to the backside half of the clamp that mounts the brakes.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/Sep2016Small/wattsmount.jpg

Under the rear of the car, note the shocks aren't mounted but you can see the jacker mount coming through the upper rail. There will be a trans fluid pump mounted there by the battery, the diff pump is on the other side. Not looking forward to having the oil tank and battery grimy, at some point I'll have to put in some shielding. At least the undertray helps a lot.

When I built the car I originally put in the x-bars from the main hoop down to the shock mounts and rear landing pads but took them out so I could fit my bicycle wheels in the back ha ha. Well it turned out my bike wheels don't fit anyway, so I painstakingly put the x-bars back in. Anyway, my point is that I"m really happy with the way the low mounted sway bar pickups are triangulated right up to the main rail where the new x-bars and main cage down bars connect.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/preston/NewBuild/Sep2016Small/rearsuspension.jpg

I'm currently working on the front end - again a total rebuild using a
Ron Sutton inspired/designed super long arm front suspension. I'll be running 315's on a 12" rim under my current sheet metal and will have almost 4" of suspension travel.

I'll cover that in a future post

rustomatic

03-06-2017, 04:52 PM

After spending most of my fake work day (if I start later in the day, I can begin with beer) staring at the cage forum on C-C, and seeing many pictures of this car's chassis, it's funny that I show up here and see its latest iteration being introduced. I think I can speak for many in saying that it's awesome, even if it is against your best intentions. Inspiration, like hope, can be so much worse than crack . . .

gerno

03-06-2017, 05:11 PM

Your story sounds far too familiar. Quite a slippery slope but should be killer once its complete

gofastwclass

03-06-2017, 08:50 PM

Cool progress on the chassis Preston and I feel your pain.

Inspiration, like hope, can be so much worse than crack . . .

Quite funny you mention drugs. I have often wondered if this hobby is cheaper or more expensive than a drug habit. I'm beginning to think drugs would have been cheaper!

Flash68

03-07-2017, 06:10 PM

Glad you're sticking with it Preston.

The new Suttonization I am guessing will work out quite well.

What made you pick the single Ridetechs I wonder? They do seem like a great value before stepping into the high priced world of double and triple adj.

"SLA"... super. :D

preston

03-07-2017, 07:13 PM

>What made you pick the single Ridetechs I wonder? They do seem like a great value before stepping into the high priced world of double and triple adj.

Yeah that's 100% a budget decision. My butt's not that sensitive anyway. 7 years of shifter kart racing gave me a glimpse into what a competitive program entails so I just go out there to have fun. The rest of this show is costing me too much already.

Besides they're the easiest component in the whole car to swap out later if the red mist starts to show up. Or someone will make me an offer before that happens. Ha. A little black humor there.

With the start of biking season (not to mention the boy's flag football season) though, this project will probably slow down enough that I'm beginning to wonder if it will even be running this summer.

I love the designing and welding up of chassis and suspension components, what kills me is then having to re-engineer my P/S mount (belt hits the rack), rebuild the up-pipes, re-do the steering column/shaft, modify the M/C's, on and on an on.

preston

01-05-2018, 01:45 PM

I finished building the Ron Sutton style front suspension and a new front frame stub.

But that was the easy part. I also had to -

Buy and install a new steering column and shaft.
Rebuild ALL the turbo piping (air inlet, discharge, I/C discharge, merge snout, bypass valve)
Rebuild the upper and lower water pipes.
(I am still recovering from a stress injury to my shoulder from all the TIG welding).
Design and build new brake brackets and route new brake plumbing.
Build new mount points for the front tray.

Hmm, well that list doesn't seem so long but I basically had to re-engineer the front half of the car, and it took forever.

Highlights of the changes are:

Ron Sutton blessed geometry
Very long control arms - front inner pivot points are only 9" wide
Sweet R&P with a lot of ackermann from rearward rack placement
Ron Sutton valved Ridetech single adjustable shocks
draco 9000 series springs
screw adjustable shock mounts
1.75" Nascar Sway bar with 15" long cro-moly arms, mounted down low insted of up top Trans Am style like my last suspension.
JOe's racing dual bearing bolt on upper a-arms all slug adjustable for camber and caster
5 degree SAI custom uprights from Coleman with high ackermann steering arms
RE-used my GN 5*5 aluminum hubs, Howe adjustable low friction racing ball joints and braking system
everything is heim jointed now and very smooth. My previous jonny joints had a lot of friction and I"m not convinced they knocked out that much NVH anyway.
"soft spring, big bar" setup with 4" of compression travel
315/30/18 tire on a 12" wide rim with full clearance of sheet metal and excellent (virtually OEM) turning radius

I also increased the size of my turbo discharge piping from 2" to 2.5" heh heh (I don't actually expect it to matter but I had to rebuild it anyway and the old pipes just seemed so small for a 427")

As you can see in the posts above I also put in a whole new rear suspension and so I added a little more sound proofing and interior touches as well for all that matters.

I drove it around this weekend sans sheetmetal and it ran and felt good..great actually, so fun to be King of the Road again. Should have it all back together for road testing in a week or two, as I was running around the neighborhood on old Hoosier A7's that have sat outside for 5 years. I couldn't believe how hard it was to find 315/335/18 tires, Rival S and some Pirelli's were the only options. I really wanted some Michelin's but I would need 19" wheels at least on the back to work it out and that' snot in the budget. So I ordered the Rival S and they should be here next week. They are not supposed to be exposed to <40 degrees, so I might have to take the wheels on and off every time I drive the car until march or so. And goddamn are these big tires expensive.

I'm still planning on trying to sell the car this Spring at least in a test the waters manner, it really is time to move on with my life, but at this point its like losing a child. I have absolutely no idea what the market is for it but I don't want to give it away either. My ad will say "unmotivated seller" ha ha.

Obviously that means I won't be hitting the big track and I would need to put in another $2000 for harnesses, HANS, helmet and fire system. But we have a local group that autocrosses on a pretty fast course and you can run all day without shagging cones, so I'm looking forward to that at least.

After I get my Rival tires and do an autox I'll let you know how it all feels.

Hm, when you attach photos rather than hosting them its hard to put captions on them so I willl list it here

1) building a frame jig on the old chassis to maintain alignment. You can see I am using my $35k blanchard ground 1" thick tool steel chassis table.

2) Starting work on building the new frame stub. One trick I learned when butting tubes together is to "cap" one of the tubes so you have a solid internal gusset and a good seam for really getting good weld penetration. You can't see that cap in the photo I'm just calling it out.

3) A good picture of how long the arms are and how close the pivots are. To my eye it would look better if that sway bar tube was gusseted at the ends but I need that real estate for turbo piping, and the DOM tube should be plenty stiff.

4) Sway bar attachment - that main plate is 3/16" with 1/8" gussets.

5) A picture of my upright with the wheel sensor attached (RaceLogic traction control). Be careful with those sensors they are $130 apiece and I managed to damage two of them while rebuilding hte front and rear

6) A couple shots of the car before the body goes back on. Hard to believe how much turning radius I have, I was amazed when I drove it I thought it would be pretty limited which is very annoying for a daily driver (ha).

God it felt good to get it back on the road though even if I am going to try selling it. I guess these long projects over the years have taught me I don't really need a car like this if I can live for years at a time without it running!