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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/pr...lbymustang.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/pr...nosebuild1.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/pr...encebuild3.jpg valencebuild2.jpg http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...encebuild2.jpg finishednose.jpg http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...nishednose.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. |
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MOAR Preston flare porn!
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Love the new direction. Great job on the fab work.
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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! |
Agreed, great body mods. Looks cool.
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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? |
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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. |
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'cause people with Mustangs are just kooler...... |
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. |
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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: |
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: |
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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. |
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Great work, Preston. Keep it up!
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I like the new direction with the wide body. Great job as always buddy.
Kevin |
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/pr...rearcorner.jpg http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...earcorner2.jpg http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...d/siderear.jpg http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...d/turnklid.jpg http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...od/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/pr...Hood/hood1.jpg http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...Hood/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/pr...Hood/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/pr...supersnake.jpg http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...d/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/pr...onmanifold.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 ! |
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....
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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.
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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!
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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!
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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/a...r/DSC_4738.jpg http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/a...r/DSC_4739.jpg http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/a...r/4TR_3349.jpg |
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/pr.../manifold2.jpg http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...ldfirewall.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/pr...foundation.jpg http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...oundation2.jpg http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...tioncorner.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/pr...nstruction.jpg http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...oodmockup1.jpg http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...issingside.jpg http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...oodtopview.jpg Ready to weld - http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...adytoweld3.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. |
nice work Preston.
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I like it!
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Great job on that hood. That's a ton of work, and you have to be happy because it looks pretty cool to boot!
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Very nice Preston! :thumbsup:
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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. |
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Looking good, Preston! Glad the manifold is working well for you also. Keep up the good work.
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Just went thru this whole thread amazing work your performing outside and not in a shop.
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pretty sweet
The hood is going to be epic
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Im loving it!:thumbsup:
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Nice Work! You've got skills!
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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/pr...dHoodSmall.jpg http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...FRontSmall.jpg http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...FRontSmall.jpg http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...ont34Small.jpg |
looking good Preston.
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Looks great Preston!
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Oh man does it look good, Preston. I can't wait to see painted pictures. I love this car!
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