1965 Mustang Coupe Build...

[Billf67]

Man this thing is sweet and I'm digging all the little details on it! Where'd you found those flush mount hex bolts at?

[digitalsolo]

Thanks!

They're just generic hex bolts with aluminum countersink washers. I think I got the washers from Allstar Performance and the bolts are from McMaster-Carr.

[nmcqueen469]

Well hello there...

[MSTSFabbed]

This is just so good...
That back seat turned out killer!!

I think I may have missed it, but what did you do for blacking out exterior trim? Powdercoat, vinyl, paint? It looks fantastic.

[digitalsolo]

Thanks!

Exterior trim is scuffed/primed/painted.

[windsor]

You, sir, are a savage!

[jaybee]

That is one REALLY sweet early Mustang!

[digitalsolo]

Out at the local cruise in spot:



I've been working on tuning and such, and troubleshooting the "fresh build" issues. So far here's been the biggest problems:

1. Suspension was set a little too low after my tire change (as in above picture). I kissed the skid plate (glad I made that!) on a big/fast dip in the road, though just BARELY. It's now been raised 1/2" up front and 3/4" out back.
2. That low suspension in the rear combined with the sway bar end links disagreed heavily with my fuel lines. End links exactly lined up and on that same dip, flatted both fuel lines. I honestly have no idea how it was even running! Going to relocate them slightly to resolve.
3. Same issue as above, I didn't have axle bumps on the rear to control movement. Ordered a set of poly bumps to put in and resolve the issue.
4. Electric power steering has been acting wonky. It "yanked" to the left once, and was harder to turn one way vs. the other. I'm pretty sure that I had a wire loose/unhappy in it. I tore it down and rebuilt it yesterday with much better quality work on the wiring extensions. Hopefully that clears up the issue. I'll test it this week and see.

Beyond that, it's been pretty well behaved. Tuning has been fun; I chased my tail on a few things with the VE that I couldn't explain, primarily an oscillating AFR between 1 point rich/1 point lean at low load which caused a little bit of temperature creep. Turned out to be VVT activation at that point, so I adjusted/smoothed the roll up of the cam and that cleared that right up. Once I get the fuel lines replaced and the EPAS fixed, I'll get back to tuning.

[digitalsolo]

A little more work on the car:

I got a good deal on a 2018+ intake manifold, which is quite a bit better than my '13 truck piece, so I snagged that and installed it. Charge pipes needed a little rework as it moves the throttle body a bit, so I cut 'em up and redid them some. They'll get re-coated this winter. Strut brace is a little close for comfort on the taller '18+ unit as well, so I'll make some scallops for clearance this winter on that also.



I decided I didn't like my fuel system, so I built a new one. Fuel Safe fuel cell (22 gallon) with a Nuke Performance Fuel Cell Surge Tank (FCST). If you're not familiar it's a surge tank with two pumps in it (and a 3rd lift pump) that's integrated into the fuel cell cover. Pretty trick.

I had some small issues when I got it, with having WAY too much pump. I had a 450lph lift pump and 2x 380lph pumps in the surge, all running at once, and it as heating up my fuel once it got down to 1/2 tank or less. Now I have a 190lph lift pump and I staged the 380lph pumps in the surge tank so that one only turns on at WOT or >3000 RPM. I plan on redoing the hard lines to teflon soft lines in the future as I don't care for the fragility of the hard lines now that I've already made them. Oh well.

[andrewb70]

Blake, remind me again, is this a stock internals engine?

Andrew

[digitalsolo]

Blake, remind me again, is this a stock internals engine?

Andrew

Andrew,

For the moment, yes. I plan on doing a forged bottom end and Boss cams eventually.

[andrewb70]

Thanks!

[digitalsolo]

So, long time no post, but mostly because of other projects.

The car is in storage for the winter at a friend's house, because his car is in my garage (his car being a 1995 Z28 that I'm putting a Toyota 2JZ into, aiming for 1100 RWHP...).

While the car is sleeping, I'm preparing some projects:

1. 3" dual exhaust, car has dual 2.5" right now. This will be all TIG welded stainless with 4x Magnaflow (style) straight through mufflers on it. The current 2.5" setup has 2x resonators, so I'm hoping to quiet it down -AND- improve flow.
2. Faster steering rack. The current rack is a manual rack (since I have EPAS), and I'm going to put a faster power ratio rack in it to reduce the required steering wheel movement.
3. New engine management. I'm going away from the AEM Infinity and moving to a Haltech Elite 2500. This step has a few details related...

Regarding the new engine management:

The Haltech will move me to LSU 4.9 sensors (minor thing) and some (IMHO) improved ECU functions. One of the nice things is it outputs OBDII CAN data, so I can simply send that directly to my RealDash gauges instead of having to custom code a translation application for it. It's a minor thing, but it saves me some effort, which is nice. Along with this, I'm going to be building a brand new engine harness with a full race-spec build. So all Tefzel wiring, concentric twist, potting all the OE sensors and moving to Deutsch DTM for those, DR25, yada yada. I'll break out the engine harness into a few subharnesses to make later work easier, but hopefully this will mark the last engine harness rebuild on the car, haha. It'll also give me a chance to clean up the under dash stuff a little, as I have a few systems there that grew "organically" as the system was fleshed out, so I'll be able to improve integration and remove some complexity there.

I'll have updates as things go along and I plan to share some of my design documentation and methods for those that are interested.

[andrewb70]

Big plans. Please take tons of pictures of the upgrades!

Andrew

[digitalsolo]

The forum keeps choking on my posts... weird.

Anway, here's the list of goodies from Haltech:

Haltech Elite 2500
2x CAN I/O Expansion Modules (A and B)
CAN Dual Wideband
CAN Hub
IC7 Digital Dashboard
DTM IAT Sensors (pre and post intercooler)
DTM Oil Temp Sensor

Also converting my previous single wire temperature and can style resistance pressure Speedhut gauges to dual wire and transducer.

Here's the ECU:



The dash:



And a whole bunch of wiring stuff:



The CAN expander and wideband O2 stuff isn't here yet.

The harness will be bulkheads (like before) at the firewall, all m22759/32 wiring (18/20/22 gauge) with fully shielded runs for all VR and Hall sensors, plus knock, and any OE sensors will either be potted and converted to DTM or Deutsch Autosport or have subharnesses made that tie the stock plugs to those for future servicability. I'm also breaking the ignition coils and injectors into separate harnesses per bank to make them easy to modify in the future if needed. Finally, I'm adding a few more sensors like radiator pressure, turbo outlet temperature and oil temperature (for ECU). I'm also prepping it for 8 channel EGT in the future.

Along with the wiring work, I'm going to redo the exhaust, and get the front swaybar installed properly (old setup took too much steering angle away). I'm planning to move the swaybar back and just fabricate some arms that clear everything since they'll have to snake around a bit of stuff. I also want to get wheel sensors in the front wheels for traction control and maybe do some prep work to put an MK60 ABS system on the car next winter. Oh, and get the A/C working! And maybe change to a variable speed sensing setup for the EPAS. Oh, and I want to get an S1 Sequential shifter conversion on the TR6060. This is an expensive hobby. LOL

[andrewb70]

Wow...I see a lot of money just in the wiring stuff from ProWire!

Looking forward to more updates!

Andrew

[digitalsolo]

Since I'm not using my homemade CANbus system to control the electrical system anymore (I have an ECUmaster PMU16 if you recall), I have an empty mounting cage under the dash that was used for those boxes previously. Well I have some Haltech I/O expander boxes that need a place to live, so I re-purposed the old bracket to hold them:





These are 2x (A and B) CAN I/O Expanders and a CAN hub from Haltech. I'm starting work on the various adapter harnesses that interconnect from my main engine bay harness to the sensors that can't be terminated with proper race-spec sealing and that I don't feel like potting right now. I'm making progress on the 2JZ Camaro Z28 I'm building for my friend, which will hopefully be out of my possession soon enough and I can get my car back and get started on the full rewire.

[JayinMI]

All this electronics stuff is what really does it for me. It seems like nowadays any 12 year old can swap an LS into some non-GM based car,
but what really sets some of these swaps apart (for me anyway) are things like data integration and factory gauge retention type stuff.
I was really interested in your homemade BCM project, I'll be watching this "upgrade" with great interest.

Jay

[digitalsolo]

Reworking the gauges for new oil pressure and coolant temp units:







Should have a ton more progress over the next 8-10 weeks.

[digitalsolo]

Working on the wiring harness.

First layer is shielded 2/3 pair stuff for VR and hall sensors:



Then 18 gauge for injector/coils/etc. Red is 12v IGN, black is ground, blue is control signals and violet is filler.





Then all the 22 gauge for sensors, various control leads, etc. White is signals, green is sensor ground, gray is 5V ref.



And finally wrapped/sealed in DR25/SCL/Raychem boots/epoxy:





This is the main harness for the driver side. Passenger side has a similar one then this breaks out into small harnesses that do various things. The idea is to make future changes easier to deal with by using the sub harness layout. It also allows this main harness to be 100% sealed up, since some of the sub harnesses use OEM connectors that I can't easily boot unless I want to pot/convert the sensors to DTM or AS connectors (and I'm not going to do that now, other than the DBW throttle body).