Found out later that the driver’s side pipe was far tighter than I originally thought, and it was rubbing on the rear axle. It’s now throughly cut up and has a couple of dings in it to get it to clear everything. One day I’ll remake this exhaust, but that’ll be in the far future. The upper torque boxes from Trick Chassis cut a lot of available space out of here for 3 inch pipe.
That covers Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Monday we tackled the front suspension.
That consisted of installing Speedway upper control arms, and cutting half a coil off the front springs:
These were Moog 5660s, and the drop is practically perfect since it now makes me want to drop some 11 inch springs from Landrum in the rear to cut the rake down.
Then the rest of the week after Labor Day was a max effort thrash to get this pig ready for inspection. The hood installed, insured, and the nose put on. And good lord I don’t think I’ve ever worked at such a pace, and adding that on top of the trip to the shop for inspection being the car’s maiden voyage? Nerve wracking doesn’t begin to cut it as a description.
But it made it.
The speedometer reads 25mph too fast at 60 so it reads 85. The ride was horrid because the driver’s tailpipe was acting as an improvised bump stop and the front bump stops need shaved down by half an inch to get some suspension travel. Half the interior wasn’t (and still isn’t) installed and was laying about inside the car. And to cap it all off, the pinion seal I installed was made incorrectly, and didn’t have enough press fit on the yoke to keep it from leaking!
But the damn thing made it. And boy, it moves. Half throttle blasts for fun made my Dad’s old Mustang feel like a Ranger running 2 cylinders.
The last 2 days I’ve been fixing the exhaust and getting the required info to fix the speedo situation, and have a new set of speedo gears on the way. Hopefully I’ll have all the trim installed and the interior finished so I can stop monkeying around with this crate for a minute.
The projector headlights make it look absolutely sinister, even on jackstands.
