DeFazio's Pro-Touring 1969 Mustang Fastback

[bdefazio]

This is the start of a high end pro-touring style 1969 Mustang Fastback. Project started back in October of 2012 and I will be uploading pictures and new posts of the build and different aspects of the project leading up to its first debut in March or April of this year (2016). The pictures shown are the first stages in the build such as the last picture of the car before the build started, deconstruction and metal/body repair.

Original state of the mustang before the build started. Copper/bronze paint with flat black stripes, 1989 mustang 5.0 fuel injected engine swap, stock interior and 18 inch bullit wheels with drilled front/rear cobra brakes:

[1970 TT Rustang]

More pics lol

[Mach1_Ron]

Loving what I'm seeing.....

[bdefazio]

Cutting the drip rails on the mustang was one of my must haves when starting the build. I had to convince my dad that it would be worth it since it is/was not an easy thing to do. However, after the time spent and frustration while doing it, shaving the drip rails makes the car and is something most people wont even notice, unless your a mustang enthusiast. Below is the drip rail before being cut and you can see the chrome trim that slides across the seem of the drip rail:



Drip Rails:

Drip rails after being cut, welded and partially shaped. We started by cutting 6-8 inches of the drip rail seem at a time, welding the cut area to keep the metal from separating before cutting the next 6-8 inches, and continuing until they were cut completely off. We then ground the welds smooth and filed the edges to get them perfectly straight and flat to eliminate body work later on:









Doors:


The door gaps on most classic cars are not very tight and body pieces don’t normally have the best fitment. After replacing both doors on the mustang, the gaps had to be tightened and since we shaved the drip rails, we had to fit the top part of the doors to the body since the quarter window trim is no longer being used. Once we mounted the doors and got them fitted to perfectly match the lines of the fenders and body, we used welding rod to close the gaps, tacking it in place then shaping it before fully welding. Although we would like even tighter gap than what we ended with, we did not want to risk having clearance issues once the car was painted since the paint would add to the gap.

[bdefazio]

The next phase of the build consisted of fitting the rear bumper, installing and fabricating a custom gas filler, fabricating the rear valance, and fitting the deck lid. Fitting the rear bumper was a must, since the stock bumper was not a flush fit against the body of the car. We purchased the rear bumper from Anvil Auto which is a carbon fiber bumper that is made to fit flush against the body without having to cut up or fabricate the car to get the flush fit. However, since all cars are different and nothing ever seems to fit, a lot of work had to be done to get the look we wanted.

To start, we cut into the rear of the car where the quarter panel and rear taillight panel meet, removing the sheet metal that bulges out in order to make clearance for the bumper.









The bumper had an ok fit, but work still had to be done in order to get the perfectly flush fit we were going for. By cutting into the rear quarter panel along the body line edge above the wheel well, we were able to pull the quarter panel in and get a much better fit. The rest of the work was done on the bumper, cutting into the backside of the bumper which is hidden, allowing for more flexibility to pull the bumper and get the flush fit. By cutting into the back side we were able to pull the edges of the bumper out, hold it in place with spacers, and re-fiberglass the cuts to bring back the strength and hold the shape.

Next was the gas filler. The original gas filler did not fit flush against the rear taillight panel and we wanted to create a custom, flush fitting gas filler, but still make it look like it came that way from the factory.



The hardest part was finding a gas filler that had a similar curvature to the slight curve in the taillight panel. We came across a 2012 challenger gas filler and used that along with part of the challenger quarter panel that the gas filler goes into. By fabricating the challenger quarter panel piece into the rear taillight panel of the mustang, we were able to get the look we wanted without taking away from the originality of the car.

















To finish off the rear of the car, the valance and deck lid were the next parts of the build. The deck lid needed a little bit of work to get a perfect fit and to lay flush against the quarter trim pieces. By cutting the rear of the deck lid where it meets the quarter pieces and taillight panel, we were able to pull the rear of it inward and shorten the length.





Lastly, the rear valance had to be fitted along with the exhaust pieces. Starting with a stock valance with no exhaust cuts, we used the exhaust tips from once again, a 2012 challenger. We cut into the valance, shaping the cuts to allow for the exhaust tips to sit perfectly flush along the bottom of the valance and the opening. We then formed a slight lip around the cutouts, giving it a better look and eliminating the sharp edge. We also added to the bottom side of the valance and the back side of the exhaust cutouts to give it more depth and to clean up the edges.

[fordsbyjay]

Nice.

[bdefazio]

The next part of the build consisted of extending the rocker panels to give the car a lower looking stance along with covering up the seem where the body and frame rail meet. We did not want to take away from the look of the car and wanted to make it look factory. We extended the rocker panels 2 inches, keeping the same shape as the factory rockers and welding them to inner part of the body seem under the car.

Rocker Panels before 2 inch extension:







Rocker Panels after 2 inch extension:













Next, we wanted to do something to the door handles on the car, but did not want to go with the shaved look. We liked the look of the Ring Brothers door handles that they make for the late 60's camaro, so we decided to go with those, even though a lot of work had to be done to get them to fit right and look right since they are meant to be recessed into the door. The other issue was that the Ring Brothers door handles are not meant to work with the mustang door latch to open the door mechanically. To make them work, we used electronic solenoids that trigger a door popper inside the door. Rather then pushing the door handle button to mechanically pop to the door latch, pressing the door handle button triggers the door popper and opens the door. To use electronic door handles with the solenoid, we had to wire in custom door poppers that are triggered by a relay board in order to get the doors to open.





Once the wiring was figured out, we had to cut out the section where the stock door handles go in order to get the Ring Brothers door handles to work. Once the stock door handle area was cut out, we used parts of the camaro door skin, taking the mounting spots of both sides of the door handle and welding it into the mustang door panel. We recessed the door handles as well, giving a flush fit look and eliminating the bulge from the stock door handles. A lot of work had to be done especially during the body work phase of the build, in order to get the right look and to make the door handles look like nothing had been done to them.

[bdefazio]

Being that the build is a pro-touring style build, we wanted to stiffen up the frame and chassis of the car to go with the suspension that we were going to use. The roll cage, sub-frames, and suspension was all manufactured and designed by Mike Maier Racing along with the install. We went with a half cage design that allowed for an easy entry and exit from the car along with a cross bar for harness mounting. The front and rear suspension is all designed by Mike Maier Racing and JRI coil-overs are being ran front and rear. The rear suspension is a cantilever suspension that is inside the car and will be visible from inside the car or by looking through the rear window.

Roll Cage:










Sub-frame/Chassis Support and Rear End:




Speedway Full Floating with Detroit Locker 3rd Member:







Suspension:






Attachment 123343

[BlackMachOne]

Awesome build so far!

[bdefazio]

Getting the right stance and look with the wheels is what makes any car stand out and was our top priority. The wider the wheel the better and we did not want to settle for anything smaller than a 12 inch wide wheel in the back and a 10 inch wide wheel in the front. The biggest issue was figuring out how to get a massive wheel and tire to fit in the rear of the car without any heavy modification while also making sure there were no clearance issues or tire rub. To start, we mini tubed the rear wheel wells using tubs from a local company Restoration Parts Source. We drilled out and ground the spot welds on the stock inner tubs and cut the remaining to get them out. Once cut out, we cut into the frame rail and notched it in about a half inch to meet with the new tubs and gain more clearance inwards to eliminate any rubbing. We then welded the new tubs back in adding a significant increase for clearance, without having to do any serious fabrication.



















With the mini tubs installed in the rear, we now had the clearance that was needed. We also cut off the the inner fender lip where most people use a fender roller to roll the lip and create more clearance towards the outer fender. By cutting the lip off we gained more clearance than if we were to have rolled the fender and we also used various tools to pull the fenders outward, slightly flaring them without cutting into the body and extending them with additional sheet metal. We gained roughly a half inch to an inch by pulling and tugging on the rear fenders and front fenders. We also shortened the rear axle to pull the wheel in and allow for the back spacing that we wanted. Once the metal work was done, the tires were ordered, using Michelin Pilot Super Sports, with a 315 x 30 in the rear. and a 285 x 35 in the front. We knew it was going to be a tight fit and had not seen that large of a tire on 69 mustang at least not without having to do heavy modification with the frame rail and or flaring the fenders. Using a wheel fitting tool, we were able to measure the size of the rim we needed, the backspacing, and the wheel lip.












The wheels that we decided to go with were the Forgeline RB3C wheel with 18'' x 10.5'' in the front and 19'' x 12.5'' in the rear. The color combination was hard to decide on since there are so many colors and looks that would have looked good, but we did not want to choose something that was trending and would be out of style a couple years down the road. We decided to go with the Titanium center with tinted brushed outer lip and exposed hardware.

[Jeff70]

With the mini tub do you plan to keep the functional folding back seat?

[bdefazio]

With the mini tub do you plan to keep the functional folding back seat?

With the cantilever suspension in the rear we eliminated the rear seat completely since the suspension is one of the highlights of the car. Also, the car never had the fold down rear seats so that was never an issue for us and we planned on eliminating the seats once the suspension was in the car. Not sure if the fold down would still work with the mini tubs but im sure there is a way to make it work.

[813Demon340]

Impressive build! Can't wait to see more.

[bdefazio]

Beginning the build we were unsure of what we wanted to do for the hood. The original plan was to use the standard 69/70 hood and fit the boss 429 hood scoop to it. When messing around with that look and figuring out how we wanted to mount it and the work that was going to be needed to get it to fit right, we ended up changing the plan and scrapped that look. We decided to go with the Anvil Auto Extractor hood along with the cowl panel. Both pieces are completely carbon fiber and weigh less than 10lbs, so not only did we get a hood that fits the look we are going for, but we also shaved off a significant amount of weight.













You can see from the pictures that the overall fit of the hood was not great, and although we were hoping that it would fit perfectly without having to do any work, luck never seemed to come our way throughout this entire build. Since the hood is carbon fiber, there is very little room for error and we did not want to cut into the carbon fiber because that would require painting the hood and we wanted to expose the carbon fiber. To get it to fit, we did similar things that had been done to get the rear bumper to fit. We cut into the under side of the hood, applied clamps with wood 2x4's, heated the hood and that allowed us to reduce the bow that the hood had. We then fiber-glassed the cuts to keep the shape and strength and continued doing so until we had a flush and perfect fit. Anvil Auto was extremely helpful and had great customer service throughout this entire build, helping us get exactly what we needed and giving insight during the build on how to go about getting the pieces to fit right.

Next we fitted the headlight buckets. Probably one of the more difficult and frustrating parts of the build. Since the original buckets on the car were broken, new ones had to be ordered, and the new buckets we got were absolutely terrible. So, we ended up only using one of the new buckets since one of the original buckets was such a better fit. We then shaped the edges and modified the mounting holes to get the buckets to fit.

[blade]

Awesome build so far! What front spindles are you using? They look shorter than stock.

[bdefazio]

Awesome build so far! What front spindles are you using? They look shorter than stock.

The spindles are from chassis work and we had them shortened by a relative who does very good fabrication/welding work through his company VRS Metal Fabrication.

[rwcstang]

nice project, lovin' the wheels.

[bdefazio]

The side marker lights on the mustang normally have a chrome trim piece that mounts on the outside of the fender. Rather than eliminating the side marker lights completely, we decided to get them to fit flush against the body of the car. Finding the right side marker light for this was nearly impossible since most flush fitting side marker lights are either too long or the wrong shape. We decided to use a late model 2010 mustang side marker light that was tinted. We then cut the light to the size we wanted and shaved down the edges to get them to fit flush.



The front valance on the mustangs are one of the more difficult pieces of the car to get to look right. A lot of builds have completely remade the front valance from fiberglass or sheet metal, but we did not want to take away from the originality of the car. To start, we used the front valance of a 1970 mustang, almost the same look, but the 70 has two small holes cutout for blinkers/fog lights, the 69 does not. We used metal tubing and welded it to the back of each hole to recess the blinker lights back into the valance. The valance was then cut in half and lengthened 2 inches . We then added a small inch and a half lip to the valance opening to get rid of the sharp edge.

[bdefazio]

The next stage of the build before paint was cleaning up the engine compartment and installing the ac/heater box along with the master cylinder. The plan was to hide all the lines to and from the ac/heater box that normally come through the passenger side firewall. We started by cutting out the original opening on the firewall that the heater and ac hoses go through and welded in a piece of sheet metal. We also had to create brackets to support the heater box since we were not going to be using the original mounting spots.













Once the opening was closed up, we fit the heater box from Restomod Air, and moved on to fill all the holes in the engine compartment and fit the master cylinder. We decided to go with the clutch and brake pedal assembly from Wilwood brakes along with Jamar performance's reservoirs. We had to fit the aluminum assembly that the reservoirs mount to by cutting out the existing master cylinder opening and adding brackets to the fire wall.

[bdefazio]

The engine that we had originally put into the car was a Ford GT40 Crate engine out of a 89 Mustang Foxbody. We swapped the engine and fuel injection harness/ECU. When we started the build, there was never a plan to change the engine until the build turned into what it is. We decided to go with 427 cubic inch MME Titus engine built by Titus Performance. Its an all aluminum block with aluminum 2V heads, Ford Motorsports valve covers with integral griddle, and the FAST EZ-EFI 2.0 fuel injection system. We used the March Pulley system but decided to change the look of it, using the March pulley accessory bracket as a template to design our own look. We also machined our own pulley covers and brushed the accessories to get rid of the chrome and follow the look of the car. The engine is designed for 600+ HP and is shown running in the video link below along with engine details.

Engine Specs:

351Cleveland based 427
Aluminum block is very hard to get and with the heads took over 150 lbs off the front of the car
This block uses priority main oiling unlike cast iron Cleveland blocks which oil the camshaft first and because of this have main bearing problems
Valve covers are very rare designed for Nascar valve covers
CHI 2V heads with titanium valves
Trick Flow Intake
4 1/8 bore
4” stroke
11:1 compression ratio
Comp cams hydraulic roller camshaft
Naturally Aspirated made 610 HP at 6200 RPM with 575 ft lbs of torque at 4600 RPM
The engine has a very broad torque curve making over 500 ft lbs of torque all the way from 3000 RPM to 6500 RPM