I know that we have a lot of work to get the site complete, but we would be greatful if you could please let us know what you think of the overall site design.
But, I have downloaded all my photos to date. If you follow the link above, you will see all the images of the hood (as of 9AM today).
Also, we just got the car back from the shop doing the dash modifications and I am really pumped. It looks great, but you can voice your opinions tomorrow after I post the photos.
After I get things all situated at the site, I will be able to post links to the photos just as I have done in the past.
We are getting closer and closer to completion. I can hardly wait to fire this sucker up.
In this photo you can see the 1 1/2" rise at the back of the hood. Note how subtle the "bulge" blends into the hood at the edges. I think this is going to look just fantastic. Everyone in the shop was sitting on a egg crate (behind the hood) looking down its length while they pretended to drive the car. It should look pretty impressive from the cockpit while looking pretty tame from the outside of the car.
I have been watching Wayne work on the hood for the past week (He has over 60 hours in it right now) and I am having trouble believing that it has taken this much time to get it in primer. It looks seamless to me. He spent a lot of time working the transition from the bulge to the hood in an attempt to duplicate the transition from the rear glass to the trunk. Once the car is complete, I imagine that people will only give it a passing glance and say “Nice hood.” While this will probably tick Wayne off (He wishes that people would realize just how much work was involved), I keep telling him that the better he does his job, the less people will notice.
This is going to look great once we cover the panels in matching vinyl. I really like the way the fabricated panel curves and undulates as it makes its way from one end of the dash to the other. Right now, I could not be happier. I guess we will truly see once it is covered and reinstalled.
Hopefully the pictures will show up just as they always have. For more detailed shots follow the link below.
I still have a bunch of miscellaneous parts to sand. This has got to be the biggest pain in the butt in regard to the entire project. Just when you finish sanding one part, another has to be sanded. I would much rather prefer assembling, or any other aspect of the project for that matter, than this incessant sanding. WILL IT EVER END??? :-)
With that said, along with sanding our guts out, we plan on finishing up the electrical and plumbing details so that we can fire up the beast by the end of the week. We will be posting a video of the proud event on the website.
Just got the weight figures from "Competition Fabrication" (the people who fabbed up the dash panels).
A drum roll please.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
2,900 lbs as she sits right now. I am not quite sure exactly how much weight we are going to add, but Wayne says figure right about 500 lbs. That should land us in the 3,400 lbs vicinity. Not to bad.
Also, I was talking to them about valuation. They say that the current cars being fabbed in their shop cost their owner’s approx $250K when complete.
They also said that it was fun watching their customer’s expressions as they viewed the SN65 in their shop. Everyone’s expressions were pretty much the same and it would go something like this....
They would glance at the car as they passed by (just a early mustang). They would get about 10 feet past the car, turn around, walk back and look at the engine bay (cool, a early mustang with a blown engine). They would start to walk away, stop, turn around stare at the car and scratch their heads. They would look over at the guys in the shop and say "What year is this mustang anyway?" The guys in the shop wouldn't say a word. They would just watch the guy as he walked around and around the car. It seams that just as they thought they had it all figured out and started to walk away, they would turn around and go look at another area of the car.
They said that they had more fun watching people as they tried to figure out exactly what they were looking at. I only wish I had been there.
Today I downloaded some updates to the site. I spent all last night formatting cells and tables. I have reworked the home page so that, hopefully, it will work with all browsers. Also, I have added a page with amusing tidbits. There is nothing that would be considered radical, just things that I found interesting or brought a smile to my face.
We have things organized and ready to install for the big "turning the key for the first time" ceremony. I just have a few remaining items that should be arriving today. If all goes well, we should be ready to fire it up tomorrow.
All we had to do to get the car fired up was to complete two tasks. First, complete the remote oil filter / cooler plumbing and configure and install the intercooler heat exchanger. No Problem. How hard could those two items be?
First we got all the oil system configured and mounted. We then started to install the hose end fittings. No problem at the engine. Everything is good at the oil cooler. Now, moving on to the remote filter housing. !@#$%^&*() SOAB!!!! The fittings don't fit!!!!
The fittings thread in, but the NPT fitting just does not tighten up. What the???? We look at the housing and can't figure out why. The other housing is NPT, but this housing looks like a straight thread.
A quick call to Maximum Motorsports solves the riddle. Between the time that we received the original kit and the second remote housing (we modified the first housing to fit up to the engine) they had altered the design. The original kit came with a NPT fitting. The newer remote housing came with straight threads designed for use with "O" rings.
The solution??? They are sending me the new fittings ASAP.
With that resolved, we figured we could at least get the heat exchanger fit up and mounted.
WRONG!!!!
We picked up a real slick tubing bender for the project. There are a number of complex bends in the exchanger plumbing and we wanted them all to be just right. Well, we set up the bending station, got the tube ready inserted it in the bender and.... IT DIDN'T FIT!!! The manufacturer had sent us the wrong set of dies and the tube did not fit.
I know what the problem is. It is a giant government conspiracy designed to drive me insane. That’s what it is. The government has decided that our project should be classified. Classified as what, we don't know, but that has to be the answer. What else can it be? I haven’t pissed off any mafia kingpin, well, at least not lately. :-)
Back to the drawing board. We shifted gears and proceeded to mount the fenders and the hood. The hood looks totally killer on the car. It is much nicer than I envisioned with my minds eye. The view from the cockpit is perfect.
Yesterday things went pretty slow. We didn't receive the fittings for the oil cooler / filter relocation kit until the afternoon. That only gave me enough time to mount the oil cooler. I now have to mount the filter relocation housing. I can easily mount the housing, but running the lines is going to be a bit problematic in that the fittings I have to use take up quite a bit of real-estate. I think I have things figured out, but I thought I would review the installation with Wayne and the guys in the shop before I drilled the mounting holes.
Here is a photo of the installed cooler. We were trying to decide if we need a shield to protect it from rocks thrown off the front wheel. We are going to debate this one a bit before we
Wayne got the fenders and hood mounted. And, as with everything else, he had to do some fine tuning for fit and clearance. The passenger side fender will need some modification to achieve the proper gap at the hood. We also had to modify the caster camber plate setup to gain a little bit more clearance between the strut shaft and hood. Here are some photos of the hood from a couple different angles
We are still waiting for the correct tube bending dies so that we can fab up the heat exchanger plumbing. Maybe they will come in today. I can only hope.
Yesterday things went pretty slow. We didn't receive the fittings for the oil cooler / filter relocation kit until the afternoon. That only gave me enough time to mount the oil cooler. I now have to mount the filter relocation housing. I can easily mount the housing, but running the lines is going to be a bit problematic in that the fittings I have to use take up quite a bit of real-estate. I think I have things figured out, but I thought I would review the installation with Wayne and the guys in the shop before I drilled the mounting holes.
Here is a photo of the installed cooler. We were trying to decide if we need a shield to protect it from rocks thrown off the front wheel. We are going to debate this one a bit before we
Wayne got the fenders and hood mounted. And, as with everything else, he had to do some fine tuning for fit and clearance. The passenger side fender will need some modification to achieve the proper gap at the hood. We also had to modify the caster camber plate setup to gain a little bit more clearance between the strut shaft and hood. Here are some photos of the hood from a couple different angles
We are still waiting for the correct tube bending dies so that we can fab up the heat exchanger plumbing. Maybe they will come in today. I can only hope.
There has been a lot of discussion in regard to the oil cooler installation as far as location goes. Most are concerned with damage and others concerned with air flow. We have reviewed the situation over and over again, but I feel that we have the situation under control. I will be posting photos of the finished installation once complete and then we can all critique it.
Wayne is moving on to the front fenders. He is positioning the flares and working out the design of the leading and trailing edges. Wayne and Dave came into my office yesterday and asked about the lower front valances that were available for the Eleanor kit. They were wondering how that lower valance would look on this car. They said that their jobs would be a whole hell of a lot easier if they could use the molded ends that blended into the front edge of the front fenders.
Well... To make a long story short, we decided not to use the Eleanor front end and to stick with our original plan. Wayne will fab the leading and trailing edges of the flares. We will use the factory front valance (modified with vents for the heat exchanger). Also, to answer a few other questions, we are going to use the factory chrome bumpers front and back. Some argue that a car of this type should have some type of spoiler or a Shelby front valance. I can see their points, but I just can't envision a spoiler that will do the car justice. Also, while I like Shelby clones, I just could not bear to put a Shelby front valance on this car. I know, I know. Using the Shelby "R" style front valance would save me tons of work. No bumper brackets to fab, etc, etc. And we would have plenty of air flow for the radiator and heat exchanger. BUT, I am going to resist the knee jerk reaction to take the easy way out. I think this car should stand on it's own merit. I could not stand it if people walked away from the car thinking It was some altered Shelby clone.
Anyway... It is coming up on 8AM and I have to get to work.
There has been a lot of discussion in regard to the oil cooler installation as far as location goes. Most are concerned with damage and others concerned with air flow. We have reviewed the situation over and over again, but I feel that we have the situation under control. I will be posting photos of the finished installation once complete and then we can all critique it.
Wayne is moving on to the front fenders. He is positioning the flares and working out the design of the leading and trailing edges. Wayne and Dave came into my office yesterday and asked about the lower front valances that were available for the Eleanor kit. They were wondering how that lower valance would look on this car. They said that their jobs would be a whole hell of a lot easier if they could use the molded ends that blended into the front edge of the front fenders.
Well... To make a long story short, we decided not to use the Eleanor front end and to stick with our original plan. Wayne will fab the leading and trailing edges of the flares. We will use the factory front valance (modified with vents for the heat exchanger). Also, to answer a few other questions, we are going to use the factory chrome bumpers front and back. Some argue that a car of this type should have some type of spoiler or a Shelby front valance. I can see their points, but I just can't envision a spoiler that will do the car justice. Also, while I like Shelby clones, I just could not bear to put a Shelby front valance on this car. I know, I know. Using the Shelby "R" style front valance would save me tons of work. No bumper brackets to fab, etc, etc. And we would have plenty of air flow for the radiator and heat exchanger. BUT, I am going to resist the knee jerk reaction to take the easy way out. I think this car should stand on it's own merit. I could not stand it if people walked away from the car thinking It was some altered Shelby clone.
Anyway... It is coming up on 8AM and I have to get to work.
Wayne worked late last night on the drivers side fender flare. Before I left for the night (undedicated part timer that I am :-) ) I helped Wayne set the suspension to get the correct attitude. I also established where I wanted him to position the top of the wheel opening. I had already gone through this exercise once before (when the car was on the frame rack on blocks) so all of the "rough" layout lines were pretty well completed at that time.
In the photos below you can see how we positioned the flare, marked up the panel, segmented it and screwed the flare to the fender with sheet metal screws. The positioning of the flare is quite difficult on the Mustang front fender. The problem area is where the fender intersects the bodyline just above the wheel. The flare has to be trimmed back so that the outside edge of the flare ends up exactly where you want it (in relation to the outside edge of the tire).
All Wayne has to do now is form the metal at the leading and trailing ends of the flare. Then we can bond the flare to the fender, finish off the inside surfaces, undercoat the fender, add a layer of fiberglass to the outside edge of the flare, fill and sand and fill and sand and fill and sand....
