Jan '14 - More suspension, chassis work

January

I've been very delinquent all month - much of it was spent changing my mind on motor and getting a new one. After looking more and more and the modifications that would be needed to shoehorn a modular Ford motor and still keep decent access for maintenance, header bolts, etc, I decided to bag that idea and go for a good ol' small block Ford. Even the 351 blocks I've put in my previous builds were a pain to install headers, change plugs, etc. So, a 302-based stroker 347 it would be. I ended up snagging one from a local Fox Mustang drag racer who was moving on to other projects. Went to hear it run before he pulled it. He had an old 4-speed toploader behind it, but he gave me the original T5, bellhousing, clutch, etc. to go along with it. Great deal for all of that. Then it got weird, which I'll get to in a minute.

Anyway, here's a nice shot once I got the motor back to the house a few days later. Nice side-by-side shot of the 4.6L 3v and the 302-block motor. Newer tech can make up for some of the smaller displacement, but overall physical size is still a factor in a small two-seater. Doing all the mods to fit a modular motor would have been worth it for Coyote power levels, but not for the 350ish I might have gotten out of a stockish 4.6.

I also snagged a MassFlo fuel injection system for the 302, so I'll have a somewhat old-school look to the motor as well, along with EFI driveability and efficiency. Best of both worlds. Anyway, this is where things got weird. I took a few measurements and figured out that the nice Moroso oil pan meant for a Fox chassis Mustang would hang way too low for the FFR, so I flipped the motor upside-down and pulled the pan off. Turns out the 347 was not a 347 after all, just a stock 302. (310 actually - it was already bored .060 over). Nice running motor, but not what I was after. Factory Ford crank, too. Not at all what I, or the previous owner, thought it was at all. Needless to say I had a chat with him after that. Vouched for by some friends I trust, and it turns out the guy is just blown away as I was. Normally a chebbie guy, this was his first Mustang and trusted the motor was as the seller described and never actually opened it up to verify, and didn't feel the need to based on how it performed on the track. Anyway, it turns out he is a very cool, stand-up guy and is working with my usual builder locally to get me exactly what I was after - a 347 using a newer block. There are still some really straight shooters out there!

The bellhousing he had for it was a Lakewood for his 4-speed, which it turns out also fits a TKO transmission, so that gave me a good excuse to get one of those instead of messing with a T-5 again and doing a midshift conversion, although I might do that mod to the TKO...we'll see. Using a TKO-600 means I'll have a nearly bullet-proof tranny with a great 2.87 first gear. With 3.55's I'll be blasting almost to 70mph with just one shift.

In the meantime I did get some work done here and there on the suspension and chassis. I had a shop swap out the middle shafts of the IRS axles for me with the longer ones FFR shipped out as a fix for an issue some where having. Turns out the sidegear swap on the differential was just the ticket, and they clicked into place perfectly. I still have to rent a deep 36mm socket to torque the hub nuts, but other than that the rear suspension is now ready to roll.

I skipped ahead a bit on the manual build order and started on the passenger footbox measured out and riveted together. The previous builder used a wider spacing on the rivets than I like, so I added a some in between in a few places. Since I replaced some of the chassis aluminum panels with new ones, I wasn't able to transfer all of the holes exactly and had to oval a few holes here and then. The rivets I'm using compensate for that nicely, so I probably didn't need to put the extras in, but what the hell.

Another side benefit of going with a small-block Ford is I could now use the Firewall Forward kit from FFMetal.com. I already have their battery box. This means I will have room for a heater/defroster and possibly a glovebox depending on how creative I get. This left a whole bunch of holes in the front of the 2x2 frame tube, so I filled those in with some of the larger rivets.

That wrapped it up for January. More chassis aluminum, fuel/brake lines, clutch setup, basic electrical, and other stuff to get ready to drop in the drivetrain. Stay tuned!