Looking good, Daniel
Looking good, Daniel
Thank you kindly my friends!
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Got some work done over the weekend...
Soooo, yes those are new rotors. No, I'm not keeping them. They are Cobra rotors, but I wanted drilled/slotted to match the rears. Waiting on those to arrive before we can officially call the front end done. Definitely needs an alignment, but holy geebees does this thing stop now. Like, crazy stopping power. And I can feel what people were saying about the road transfer into the car from the poly bushings. Is it different, oh yes. Is it unbearable, not for this application. I'll gladly give up a bit of that cushy ride for this go kart handling.
Ordered new sway bar bushings too. Was thinking of replacing the sway bars, but a lot of other Stang owners say with all these upgrades, stiffer sway bars could actually hinder performance, making her want to understeer instead of oversteer. So I'll keep them factory for now. The front bar is actually the largest one offered on the SN95 platform, and can always upgrade the rear to a factory Cobra bar if desired later. They say those are prone to snapping though... so the GT bar may just stay. We'll see if there is any more desire for that after replacing the rear axle soon.
Can't wait to get on the interior and back into the audio upgrades too!
Last edited by chithead; 10-04-2021 at 08:50 AM.
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That's intense
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Welp. Still not much audio wise to report. Did order a circuit breaker as the fuse holder with that Stinger kit is ginormous and doesn't really fit well next to the battery and fuse box. Plus it's rough to stay motivated on audio when the car keeps having issues to prevent from driving.
Not long after getting the front end together, the thermostat housing decided to blow out from the intake manifold. Normally, not too bad of an issue. But on the 4.6 2V - the bolts that hold the housing, are also two of the intake manifold bolts into the cylinder head. So yup, you guessed it - that means the cylinder head was stripped. How in the heck do we fix that. Two words, heli coil. The torque rating on these really wasn't much at all, so after pulling the intake (AGAIN) it really wasn't bad at all to drill, tap, and insert the heli coil. Has held up great ever since.
Finally had some time and motivation to swap the rear axle. What a beyotch. I'm not sure which was worse, that entire front end rebuild, or just swapping the rear. Did all poly bushings again in the control arms, kept the lowering springs, differential cover, and Koni shocks. Did use the new rotors, calipers, and hoses. Had to get some Cobra specific brake pads as apparently the GT pads are too thick for the Cobra rotor. Still not sure why Cobra pads cost twice as much and are almost half as thick. Oh well. It's all under the car now. Also ordered an exhaust - SLP Loudmouth II for a 99-04 Cobra. It is meant for an independent rear suspension from the 99-04 Cobra, but fits the solid axle cars with some slight modifications. I rigged it for now, but will do a much better setup to securely hold the pipes and mufflers soon.
Here she is all put back together:
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Looking good Daniel! I've always liked those chrome SVT wheels...
Thank you sir! Was lucky to snag them for such a great deal.
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Started messing around with some ideas/placement:
Thinking IB for simplicity and some weight savings. Mostly simplicity:
Now to figure out where to place the power producers:
Idea is to still use the head unit active on the four channel to the ID XS57 components - then run the sub amp at 4 ohms to both subs since IB shouldn't require gobs of go go juice.
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Can't wait to see this shake down. I'm switching to IB myself....likely going with Dayton Reference HEs
A man cannot become a hero until he can see the root of his downfall