Project OCD (I bought a car to build tools???) - '67 Mustang Coupe

[modmotor46]

So I've spent a fair amount of time over the past several months looking at various posts on this site and can say nothing less than - Awesome! There are some extremely talented gear-heads out there!

And I must apologize for my previous lack of contributing to these posts, time is always a hard to find resource. I've taken away some really good ideas of directions to go and ways to achieve what's in my head. Thanks to all!!! Anyway, no more excuses; I'm sitting down and starting this thread...

My journey started with my first car a 1967 Chevelle. Man that was a fun car as a late teen! Actually, my journey first started with my Dad. He was the kind of guy that would always resort to fixing something himself because he couldn't fathom paying someone else for what he himself could do. I owe a lot to him for nurturing my mechanical inclination and curiosity and allowing me to "assist" him in working on cars. I learned quite a bit from him (and even learned a few choice words along the way – LOL). I restored that entire car just short of painting it by 19. Fast forward a number of cars, a few bottles of nitrous, a supercharger and years later I decided to build an actual shop behind my house. That itself became a yearlong project. I ended up building a 30' x 40' steel frame building with a 14' eave on a 6" concrete slab and spent a solid year wiring, building and tooling this thing. Once it was complete enough (because it's never really "complete"!) I found my first project for the new shop, a 1967 Mustang coupe. It seems a lot of early Mustang projects are with fastbacks and although I had actually lost a bid on one by $100 I'm glad I ended up going the coupe direction.

At this point I'm still not really sure which direction I'm trying to take this car other than it has to perform! Street-rod? Pro-Touring? It has to be fast and it has to handle!!!

My major plans so far are the following:

• TCI IFS front suspension – installed
• 2003 Cobra IRS rearend – currently in progress
• Either a Coyote crate motor (the forged 9:1 version) or a 408ci stroker with either a twin-screw (love the whine) or a turbo, looking for 15+ lbs.
• Tremec TKO 600 5-speed

I’ve been working on this car on and off, as time allows, for about 3 years now. I have three beautiful daughters (and pounds of powder, primers, bullets and brass) and they keep us pretty busy between school, sports and music. Anyway, I’ll post a few pic’s to show the progress and bring it to current state.

Ok…on to the pic’s

Here’s the day I picked up the coupe.



I built some supports to hold, what would be left of, the car square.



After firing up the plasma cutter here is what was left :-) That plasma cutter is way too easy to use!



The front clip back together. However, I wish I would have been looking at this forum prior to replacing all of this sheet metal! I tubular front end would have been the way to go.



The TCI front suspension installed.





On to the rear suspension and what has taken longer than I had hoped. I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out exactly how I wanted the Cobra IRS to fit. Maximum Motorsports ultimately provided the most technical information that helped me position the rear end with respect to anti-squat, etc. I also decided that a hard-tail approach would be the best to eliminate those ****y stock rubber mounts. My design is to basically build brackets that will be welded to the four mount points of a modified IRS cradle. I cut all four of the stock rubber bushing mounts off and will weld these brackets to the IRS cradle itself. Those brackets will then slip over the existing Mustang rear frame rails and I’ll bolt through them. I also plan on modifying some rectangular tube steel to insert into the existing frame rails to provide additional support for the brackets. This whole process is allowing me to set the entire IRS up higher into the car, about 1.5 - 2 inches, and achieve a lower overall stance for the car without changing the suspension geometry of the control arms themselves with respect to the IRS cradle.

I fabbed up some cardboard templates for the brackets and began cutting out my bracket pieces from ¼” plate steel (probably overkill but wanted something very rigid). The brackets will be made up of 90 degree bends wherever possible (thanks to Swag Offroad’s metal bender) and the rest of the pieces will be TIG welded together.




20 ton press I built to use with Swag Offroad's metal bender





Rear driver side bracket mocked up










Mock up of the front bracket. I still have to cut the rubber mount off of the remaining cradle piece and TIG weld it back to the cradle. The cradle will then be welded to the bracket shown in the pic.



so...that's it for now.