April '16 - Final Upgrades

Final upgrades

With paint out of the way, it was time to do a few final upgrades to improve driveability and durability before putting it all back together. First off, I snagged a set up upgraded halfshafts from a builder on FFCars for a great deal - they're supposed to be rated for 550hp. I already ruined one of the stockers last year...what good is an axle if it can't tolerate a little church parking-lot burnout every now and then? We'll see if these hold up!

To improve fuel delivery, and prepare for going back, I replaced the '85 GT carb pump with a 255-lph unit, and used the excellent new EFI fuel hanger from Pro-M. (Seriously, nobody thought to make a real solution to the tiny little straw return line Ford put in before now)? It's about bloody time. Should improve flow and pressure consistency quite a bit.

To make use of all of that newfound fuel pressure, my Go-EFI system from FiTech finally arrived (Apparently they massively underestimated the demand for a low-buck, no-frills system for street cruisers...they've been backordered for quite a while and Holley is rushing the Sniper system to market to compete). Pleased as punch with the system so far. It has an internal regulator, self-tunes off of an included wide-band sensor, and you just punch in a few variables on a handheld touchscreen to get started. So far it's running better than any other system I've tried and better than my carbs.

I also yanked the throttle cables out and installed a mechanical linkage while I had the body off. No more bind, snagging or breaking cables. Yay!

Here's the startup video using the new system:

And for the final touch - a luxury that will make longer trips a little nicer (almost a must-have for long trips when you have this kind of throttle response). Dakota Digital makes a few systems (actually Rostra) for electronic or cable speedometers. Very simple setup, tap into the speedo signal cable and brake light switch and you're off and cruising, or cruising. You can attach it directly to your throttle pedal or the throttle lever on your carb or throttle body, or directly to your throttle pedal (making it useable for Coyote DBW builds). I attached from the front, pulling forward on the lower side of the throttle lever. Works great, though I had to turn the sensitivity down to the lowest setting for running on a lightweight beast like this.

After that, it was just a matter of slapping the body back on and putting all of the trim back on, lights, bumpers, windshields, etc.