65' Mustang Fastback Project "Racesteed"

[bikefreak600]

8 pt. cage from Alston race cars. this will be modified with removable harness bar & door bars, will tie into the front torque boxes, i also plan to integrate the cage into the firewall bracing and shock towers. lots of planning to do here, mainly focused on making the roll cage safe for street use, keeping things light weight and making the chassy as rigid as possible.

[56rpm]

Any progress on this build? How do you plan on getting sufficient airflow to the radiator?

[bikefreak600]

Wow it has been 4 years since updating this. The car sat abandoned for a few years while i was doing a home addition. Back on the car and making lots of changes ! Car got a 1 piece seatpan. Front suspension built, rear suspension fabricated, shock tower brace. deleted the upper cowl vents.

- - - Updated - - -



Aftermarket export brace

[bikefreak600]

Front suspension got powdercoated black. For anyone interested, this uses CPP mini subframe, modified CPP upper & lower arms. fabricated upper & lower coilover shock brackets, Viking double adjustable shocks, Hellwig 1-1/8'' chromoly swaybar with their hammertone finish.



- - - Updated - - -

[bikefreak600]

A few things still need to be buttoned up, like lower shock mount spacers, sway bar end link spacers need to be cut, also doing the upper control arm shelby drop. Also fabricating a adjustable monte carlo brace.

[bikefreak600]

Any progress on this build? How do you plan on getting sufficient airflow to the radiator?

To answer your question, i will cut the hole in the radiator support after i buy a radiator, and fabricate the mounts. I left the panel solid so i have free range of using any size radiator once i get to that point.

[bikefreak600]

The rear suspension is almost finished, and ready for paint. needs a little finish welding and driveshaft loop finished, and im still saving up $ to buy the viking double adjustable coilovers. Went with a ford 9'' rear end, custom fabricated 3 link, 56'' long torque arm, and a Fays2/homeade mix watts link. Pics will come soon.

[56rpm]

Looks real nice, thanks for the update.

[bikefreak600]

Torque arm teaser

[bikefreak600]

Fitting the 9'' housing brackets for torque arm and coilover / trailing arms. All the brackets are hand fabricated. Everything was squared and fit using an angle finder. I didnt take any pics during the process.

[bikefreak600]

The torque arm is similar styled to the TCP brand torque arm, but upgraded where it needed to be. Arm measures 56'' in length. Front pivot crossmember is made of 1.125 / .120 wall tube, and ties in to the subframe connectors just behind the tailshaft of the transmission right at the front edge of the seat pan riser. The pivot mount has 3 holes for angle adjustment. The crossmember will also have a driveshaft safety loop made of 1'' .090 tube ( thats not pictured yet). Torque arm pivot uses a male & female combo of QA1 X series 5/8 rod ends & solid eye ends at the rear mounts with Allstar chromoly tube ends.

[bikefreak600]

Fabricating trailing arms, they use the stock leaf spring front mounting location. Made of 1.25 .120 wall tube with a bushing & sleeve kit from welderseries.com, Allstar threaded tube ends and QA1 X series 5/8 rod ends. The front bushing width is 3'', the same as the oem leaf spring so they fit right in place snug. I made a jig on my small welding cart so the trailing arms matched perfectly.

[bikefreak600]

My son was getting in on the action. Kid loves musclecars and getting his hands dirty, future hotrodder for sure !

[bikefreak600]

Working on this car with my son makes me extremely proud, I am a single parent and have custody of him. We are building this car on a ridiculously limited budget. Some months i cant even afford to purchase anything for the car. But we do what we can with what we got. The car sat untouched 4 years avoiding selling it due to financial reasons, fortunately we are able to get back on track with the car and hitting it hard ! i made some mock up struts to take place of the coilovers at ride height, I got some steel 1'' reinforcement spacer blocks that mount on the inside of the coilover brackets, the brackets use a 5/8 hardware and 1-3/8'' tapered aluminum spacer mount for the lower end of the coilover. Im going to be saving $ for a while before i can buy the Viking double adjustable shocks.

[bikefreak600]

Upper crossmember is made with 1.50'' .120 wall tube. The coilover mounts double as a gusset for the crossmember & frame mounts. This is very robust design. This picture the crossmember was just tacked together getting fit up. Afterwards the crossmember got modified to use a Fays2 Watts link that i modified to fit this setup.. pics of that will come shortly !



Fays2 watts link teaser pic

[jaybee]

You're making really nice pieces there. Who needs to call 1-800-hot-rods?

[RMMiller]

Love that the boy is involved! My grandfather was a mechanic and I loved hanging out at his service station. Your son is in a great spot to have an in house mentor!

[bikefreak600]

You're making really nice pieces there. Who needs to call 1-800-hot-rods?

Thank you ! My goal was to fabricate as much of the car as possible. I have worked for a handful of fabrication shops. From structural to decoration pieces and everything in-between, having made a massive variety of random made to order stuff helped step up my hot rod game lol. I plan on re-working a lot of previous work i done to the car because my older work is not up to my current standards. Aint being picky a bitch lol. I will end up with a better car, so i guess its worth it.

[bikefreak600]

Love that the boy is involved! My grandfather was a mechanic and I loved hanging out at his service station. Your son is in a great spot to have an in house mentor!

My boy loves getting his hands dirty. He is a Mopar nut, kid eats & breathes mopar. After this car is done i think we will be doing a mopar next for him. to bad they are getting expensive lately lol.

He likes using the blast cabinet. He takes pride in his work, not only is it great bonding time, he is really productive lol

[bikefreak600]

Diving into my watts link, having a custom 3 link setup i did not want to buy a bolt in watts link kit and cut it apart to fit my setup. Talking with Jim @ Fays2 about this build, he kindly sold me a unfinished cradle & propeller w/ bearings + hardware kit . Afco 12'' swaged tubes & Qa1 X series 3/4'' rod ends, bolt-on axle brackets from a shop i found online called southwestspeed.com these brackets are really nice, i would recommend a great product to anyone.
Here are a few pics of the mock up process...