Project Cobra

Return of quad shocks

2017-05-22T22:43:00.003-04:00

If you recall, in the beginning there were quad shocks. I selected to use 4 link rear suspension for its toughness. However, there are a lot of flaws with that design. These flaws were patched. One of these patches was the extra set of shocks mounted horizontally to prevent the wheel hop. So why did I remove those shocks if there were there to begin with? Well the coil overs did not clear. Something had to be removed. Horizontal shocks had to give way to vertical ones. But I had an idea.

Yes. I cut the nut off of the mounts and put the shock on the outside of the mount on a long bolt with spacers. It actually gave me enough clearance around the coil over. However the body mount was not mating.

It looks perfect but with about an inch gap. I was thinking of creative ways to put a spacer there but soon realized that the shock would not clear the wheel. The body mount must be closer to the frame.The problem was that as soon as I bring the mount closer the angle of the mount and the shock mount plate were way different. The only option left was to rotate the mount to be parallel with the shock.

Once the mount was gone and after a lot of grinding and prepping, it was time to weld it back in.

The challenge was to weld all around. That includes the inside the mount too. There's not much space there with all the parts on the frame already.

That's after I smothered it with POR15 rust paint. The colour is noticeably off but it is a superb rust paint.

There rest was easy. Once, everything was bolted up, the horizontal shocks had about a finger width clearance from vertical counterparts. The wheel also had enough clearance but less than a finger. It's close but still comfortable. All in all project was success. I'll see how it drives later but it looks good already.

Rear suspension upgrade

2017-05-03T22:45:00.001-04:00

One day I was reading up about the designs used in various Mustang generations. Turns out the four link design is not really a good one. The fact that the bushings in the suspension links must be soft to permit the movement of the suspension is just wrong. The way I understand is that the left to right movement is basically expected. If that's not enough, front to rear movement is happening too. Ford added quad shocks as the patch to solve the so called "problem". It's a set of horizontal shocks to dampen the horizontal movement of the axle. In the end, in 2005, Ford gave up on that design and went with 3 link design that is much more controlled and thus predictable for the drivers.

However, I still have the old 4 link design with the old 4 links. What can I do about it? Enter the aftermarket. Since this old design was around for a while and enough people complained about it, we have an unlimited supply of enhancement parts that patch the problem further.

I came across this post from steeda and got myself a set of lower control arms. These should keep the play to minimum yet be soft enough. At the very least they are aluminum and look much cooler then stock.

The upper control arms are tricky. Due to the design some softness is required. In fact the body roll that occurs during cornering would require the soft bushings in upper control arms. Yeah, I can't understand who thought that would be a good idea neither. Nonetheless, steeda created these heavy duty arms. They are basically stock except for the boxed off bottom part. Rumor has it, Ford Racing used to sell these as performance hop up. Rumor has it, that it was a performance hop up for drag guys. Well, the bushings are still rubber and should be soft enough.

These parts went on the car. Oh, remember that factory sway bar. It looked so good and black. Well, it's on the shelf now. Apparently, there's no traction at the back. We need all the body roll we can get. The sway bar would only make the rear end slide and come out more. I firmly believe that this car has enough oversteer tendency as is.

Next up is the quad shocks. The coil overs are too wide and the horizontal shocks just don't fit. Then, one day reciprocating saw went on sale. :)

No check engine light

2017-01-22T20:13:00.001-05:00

As it stands, there's no check engine light on the car. I did not even think about the mounting spot for that light. However, if I had one and it was connected it would be off. It's a significant milestone in my wiring job!

After getting the engine to run my next big step in my wiring job was to connect all the components and ensure that all systems are operational. On my todo list I had: oxygen sensors, emissions control solenoids and transmission wiring. The trick was to trace all the wires that were too sort and extend them to reach the new location of the component. Some wires had to be pulled of the original wiring loom and rerouted differently. For example, my oxygen sensors are now on the sides of the car instead of the transmission tunnel. Each sensor has 4 wires that needed to be extended to reach the sensor. Luckily, two wires could be shared amongst two sensors, pre and post catalytic converter.

To ensure the good quality connections I used only weatherproofed but connectors. If the join is close or above exhaust I would choose crimp connectors with heat-shrink sleeve. Elsewhere, I would reach for solder filled heat shrinks. Both types of connectors provide good quality join, however, the solder filled ones are easier to do since the crimping step is skipped.

Next up is the dash board.

Turn signal adapter

2017-01-17T21:10:00.004-05:00

I am using the stock Ford wiring harness. It means that I have to replace the modern looking switches with the ones that look vintage. The turn signal had to be replaced. The switch that was provided by Factory Five as part of the kit was a simple toggle. It's supposed to be mounted on the dash. It looks a bit too DIY for me. So I ordered Russ Thompson turn signal. However, Ford's switch is rather complex and the VW part from Ross is very simple. I did not realize how complex it was until I found this ffcars forum link. So I ordered some parts from DigiKey and got to work.

I found a mounting spot just behind the steering wheel. It's perfect size and is accessible from the bottom if I have to replace relays.

Now that replaces the stock turn signal. I can see how Ford is saving money by using their simple switch design.

Hand brake relocation

2016-10-19T21:57:00.000-04:00

I was given a lot of advices during this build. Most of them are simple: plan your build, then build according to that plan. The beauty of this project is that it's possible to build anything and everything. It is also the problem of the build. There's just no end to all the "good" ideas that "need" to be implemented.

However, sometimes things just don't work out. My hand brake was exactly that. I got all the parts out of the box. Then, I bolted everything in place. Then, I realised that it's all horribly busted.

The hand brake assembly was hitting the mounting bracket.

If you were to look inside the transmission tunnel from the top, you'd see the cable rubbing against the frame.

Also the aluminum panels would not let the hand brake move freely.

I checked with others and it was consistent. Lots of trimming and filing would be required to get the assembly working correctly. And then, some creative tricks to help the cable move around the frame. All that meant the modifications had to happen one way or another. I picked up my cutting tools and ...

The cable bracket was not so complicated and was easy to fabricate new.

After some welding in very awkward poses, it looked like this.

Of course, a double coat of rust proof paint made it look like it was meant to be there in the first place.

And all assembled it looks like so

A side from making the hand brake work, there was another added benefit from moving the hand brake from the passenger side of transmission tunnel closer to the driver. Apparently, the driver with all the harness buckles done up cannot rich for the hand brake. If you are like me and put your seat belts on as a first thing getting into the car without even thinking about it, then you'd find yourself undoing the seatbelts to release the hand brake. It sounds like frustration already. Throw in the five point harness without easy release button and the frustration grows to the whole new level. The new location is just between the driver seat and gear shifter. It's very accessible and looks better too.

Lights on

2016-09-22T22:12:00.001-04:00

Here's the story. The wiring is this scary monster that no one wants to deal with. I know many car guys around here. None of them would advise me to mess with the wiring. Frankly, I am the same.

However, during my planning stage of the build I evaluated my options:

Do it the Factory Five way. Take all the donor wiring and shove it wherever possible. It's easy. It should work. It just does not sound right.
Do it the right way. Take a box. Put all the wires in it. Mail it to Art at wirediet.com. Enjoy your life. But I am cheap and don't know any better. Hence, I ain't doing it this way too.
Do it the hard way. Well, if the guy in US has a business that does it for big money I can do it myself. This is a sort of logical progression of thoughts, no? Too bad you were not there to tell me otherwise. I am going this route.

The idea is simple. The donor car is a complex car that has a lot of electrical systems. Moreover, the donor car has a lot of mechanical systems with additional electrical systems controlling them. Now, my cobra has significantly less mechanical and a fraction of electrical systems. Take air conditioning for example. Obviously, the hardware is not required. That alone means that the clutch and pump wiring is not required. But that's not all, Ford has a monitoring system in place to keep the pressure in check. Also, we have wiring for ECU that ensures that the motor runs well with the additional load and that the cooling fan is operating at proper speed. I did not mention yet that the blower motor is not reused and all the controls and knobs are in the garbage bin too. I think it's clear. There's a bit of unused wires. Extrapolate it to include Ford's fancy sound system, convertible top, day time running lights, air bags and collision detection, power seats, power doors, power windows, and even, wipers and windshield washer. This now sounds like a lot of extra wiring. The wires are heavy and bulky. This is where the diet is required to loose some unwanted weight for the sake of going fast.

This is what I have to start with

It looks manageable from this angle

I also armed my self with the official Ford wiring diagrams. It's amazing how Ford makes it's documentation available to everyone for a small fee. I paid for 3 day subscription to access wiring diagrams on motorcraftservice.com. I basically went through all the diagrams and printed the relevant ones.

Next step was to ensure that I don't mess it up. I wanted to be able to get the engine running. This would mean that all the essentials are there. More importantly, the OBD2 would give me hints at what is broken.

It is not pretty but it does not have to be. It just has to work.

And work it did! Let's tone the hype back. After all, all I did was connect all the plugs together as they were originally in Mustang. If it worked there it'll work here. Time to have a beer anyways.

Cooling system goes live

2016-08-11T13:16:00.001-04:00

The task at hand is to mount the radiator and run some hoses. How hard can that get? There's even a page in the build manual with step by step instructions and illustrations. It reads like this: step 1, take a metal bracket and rivet it to aluminum radiator ... That's where I put the book down. That manual never stops to crack me up. If I were to do exactly as they say, the aluminum radiator will come loose after a few heat cycles. After all, the hot aluminum will expand far more than the mild steel and eventually loosen up all the rivets. I generally avoid dropping vital parts while driving.

Let's look at what Ford had for their radiator support. No surprises here. We have some steel brackets with rubber bushes. I like that. I will use that. Of course they don't fit. Cut, weld, drill, spray paint, bolt it up.

Nice! It looks like it was meant to be there from insertion. Yes, the peg you see is the one that usually holds your kitchen cabinet shelves in place. There was no room for another bolt but that peg will do the job of preventing mount from rotating.

And the radiator is in! It's never that easy. I still need to come up with some sort of lower radiator support. For now, a bunch of zip ties will hold it up.

This is the lower hose with the fill tube build into it. It has to stay but with a small alteration.

Time to connect the dots.

Here all the parts were joined with stainless steel tubing and the cooling system was completely sealed and ready for water, at least in theory. I did fire it up and run it. The system was burped accordingly and eventually the heater joints showed the signs of leaks. It turns out there are some missing o-rings in those fittings. It would be nice if they were included as part of the heater kit or at least mentioned somewhere in the documentation. I found out about their existence after intense googling.

So maybe I was too ambitions to say the system was "going live". However, as with many aspects of this build, is anything ever done or finished? The o-rings will be put in once I do the wiring behind the dash and pull the heater out. The lower rad support will be built once the body is on and the final incline of the radiator is determined. For now, it's done.

A short, 2 year, break

2016-06-07T15:05:00.003-04:00

Some say I am a slacker. Or that I gave up all together. But all we know is that I had to put this sticker on my car.

Yes, Top Gear is back. Well, it's officially called Top Gear but is not the show you might think of.

Anyways, I took a year off from the build when my daughter was born.

And then another year off, when a lady smashed into my Subaru. :( I gave it a lot of thought and consideration and replaced it with the same Subaru but in gray. :) And once again, I had to put all the good things in Subaru that make it my car. Of course, that means putting that sticker on.

However, the Cobra is not forgotten. More to come.

Heater valve trick

2016-06-07T13:15:00.000-04:00

It's never as simple as it looks. Here's my example. Say you want to have a heater in your Cobra. Sure, just add a heater. Vintage Air have a kit for you ready. In the box, you will find everything you need to install it. I am sure you could install it properly following the instructions too. However, it may all go south right after. Small caveat is that Ford is not designing things with logical mind. Apparently, the coolant flow from one cylinder head to the second on the Ford V8 engine is routed via heater core. Wait what!? This would mean that in the summer heat you'd still have the "heat" on. That can't be right. Yeah, I don't fully understand the madness of that engineering decision. Actually, I did not give it much thought. All I know that it's not going to work for me well with the good old shut off valve that comes with Vintage Air. Luckily, it did not work for Ford too. Rumor has it, Ford Ranger the same issue and was equipped with one of these:

It's the heater by pass valve. Back in the day it was cable operated. Then it was blessed with vacuum actuator that is completely useless to me. But extra parts are never a bad thing. Let's get to install all this. Once again, a set back. The heater core has these AN-6 or -8 fittings soldered to the it. These mate with some 90* barbed hose adapters. Long story short, there's no room in the engine bay. The heater bits are literally a quarter of an inch away form the cylinder head. It may work but I am not conformable. If the engine vibrates enough it may come in contact and the hell will cut loose and ... you get the idea. Obviously, I can make it better by breaking it

After a trip to the local Home Depot and some pipe cutting and soldering - voila!

That shortened the pipes by an inch giving more than enough room for engine wiggling. Now back to that valve. Once again, it just does not work the way it is. The vacuum actuator is pushing to open while my cable needs to pull to open. Basically the direction of opening and closing needs to be inverted for the valve to work with Vintage Air knob. This time I went to the local hobby shop. These guys build air plane models of some sorts. But they are friends with anybody how "builds" in general. They gave me some parts that they use for actuating plane bits with radio control servos. I found some piece of plastic in the garage and mocked up valve

I gave it a test run and it proved to be plausible. Out come my grinder and drill to produce this final result.

I then installed this on the car with all the 4 hoses hooked up. Now, when the valve is "shut" all the flow is sent through bypassing the heater core. However, when the valve is in the "open" position the flow is sent completely via heater core. All the positions in between will divide the flow proportionally. Thus, the flow from one head to the second head is never compromised one bit. I have to agree that the spider looking setup does add to the already busy looking engine bay. Oh well..

Ignition switch mod

2014-11-08T09:49:00.001-05:00

As unsophisticated the mustangs were in 1999, they still had a few very interesting electronics on board. One of them is the Passive Anti Theft System (PATS). What that means is the car need to be started with a special key that has a chip inside. This days it's almost a standard for every car to have this feature. In 99, and I am sure Ford introduced it even earlier in some other cars, it was an innovation. The system is not very complicated and does not really have that many parts. The on-board computer ECU has at most 3 keys programmed. The key has a special chip inside. The last link in the chain is the ignition switch closing the circuit. The plan is simple you take the right key, stick that into the ignition switch that reads the chip, the ECU matches the code of the chip in the key to that stored in memory. If everything matches the car fires up!

Most of the time the builders of the custom cars can't be bothered with all this complexity. However, I have it already from my donor car so why throw it away? The donor ignition switch and lock cylinder are actually fairly far apart. There's a linkage that translates the turning action of the key into a sliding action on the switch. This parts are all made to fit on the mustang but would not fit behind cobra's dash. Let's make them fit!

This is how the housing looks like for the lock cylinder.

I have marked the blue line to cut off the excess of the material.

After some grinder action

Here you can see how I reused the linkage to connect to the ignition switch. The angle bracket here is temporarily. It's holding the parts together for now. Once I get closer to the dash mounting I will fabricate a real bracket that mounts to the frame behind the dash.

The pinnacle of my engineering

2014-11-05T12:40:00.003-05:00

Originally, I was looking at the assembled cobra cars and loved the relocated oil filter. It's part of the cool factor. Then I was doing though all the parts and was happy to see the relocation kit included from Factory Five. I even ordered a couple of K&N filters from Summit. However, when it came time to install, I learned that only small blocks and big blocks really need that. My mod 4.6 actually works fine with the original location of the filter. Normally, I would not mess with engine's oil system unless I really have to. In this case, I "really have to" :) For some crazy reason Factory Five includes the oil relocation kit that fits on 302 block as part of my 4.6 package. I had a disappointing chat with them to learn that I don't use that part but have paid for it. Factory Five for you! Oh well, Summit gets a next order for an oil relocation kit for 4.6 motor.

This is where things get a bit tangled. The location I have selected for oil filters is actually near the steering shaft and steering column. However, on the other side of the same location I was thinking of placing the power distribution box. Also just above that I have the coolant reservoir. It may look like all of this are very loosely dependent but you'll see what I had in mind.

First of all, my birthday has just past and apparently for a round number of 30, many people give much more cash then I expected. All that meant, I got a Lincoln Electric welder. It freed up my imagination for new level of parts fabrication.

Well, the welding machine is nice but it's only as effective as my welding skills. Let's see what I can do. This is the coolant reservoir mounting bracket. The reservoir bolts up with two bolts. The problem is the bolts are poorly accessible. The solution is to weld them to the bracket.

First attempt was recorded as a success. The weld is neat and looks good. Here's how the reservouir will look like in final position.

Next one up is the power distribution box bracket. It was intended to fit on the mustang fender. I tried different locations but stopped at under the coolant tank on the x brace.(see above where the red wire is passing through). Let's modify the bracket

Now this is the end of the beginners luck. I present the proper "booger weld".

There's actually an inverse relationship between welding skills and grinding skills. Here's the proof:

Now that bracket is drying up the new coat of paint. Meanwhile I need to crop a new plate that will be the mounting spot for the third coolant reservoir support, the power distribution box bracket and my oil filters. I used a peace of cardboard to create a template for the round tube frame.

The left is shape that the plate on the right should have.

From the front of the car

From the engine bay

Now time to bend the original support rod into the new shape

Cut it off and thread the end

Here's the mock up fitment of all three parts together. The rod above is serving as a mounting bolt for the bracket. I have exceeded my expectations here. :)

See how the dual oil filters look like in the engine bay. They are very accessible from the bottom and are high enough to be away from the dangers of the road.

This is the entire assembly ... assembled. I actually did measure things here. That power distribution box actually has a swing stile lid. That lid will open and follow the curvature of the coolant tank. This fact alone promotes this from a "blog post" to a "success story".

Yeah yeah, I need to clean up my parts, my desk, my garage, my room.

Home for the battery

2014-09-29T23:08:00.007-04:00

It's time to find permanent home for the electrical components. Let's start with an easy one. It's also the biggest. The battery has been resting on a couple of the planks of wood at the front. It's where Mustang had it. My cobra needs it in the trunk. In fact under the trunk floor to save the trunk space. If you recall, I had a funky kit installed from ffmetal.com

It would seem that all I need to do is to actually move the battery to the rear and connect the two big wires. How hard can it get? How about if one of the wires is not provided as part of the kit. ;) Oh good ol' Factory Five. Well, I needed the battery posts relocation anyhow. Since the battery will be installed in a very hard to access compartment it would be priceless to have access for charging and cut off switch for safety. Of course, folks at Breeze Automotive know the troubles the builders go through and have a fix ready.

Now I have all the parts I need: the ground cables for the entire car, charging posts and the high current cut off switch.

The task becomes really straight forward. Clean up the powder coating and bolt up the cables with properly crimped ends. Here's an example

The battery is too big and does not fit inside the box. I will buy the correct size one later but till then it looks like this

I also got a couple of these

One set goes on top of the battery another covers the charging posts

This is the pretty side

And the last bit to complete the circuit is the switch. Remember that it has to go between the battery and the car but not the charging post. The idea is that you should be able to disconnect the battery for charging.

Here's how the switch looks like between the seats in the cabin.

Nothing to write home about. There is a face plate that goes under but I need to finish the carpet before installing it. The pretty side of the switch is the under side

My wife does not share my fascination with the internals looking cute. She claims that nobody would look or care to look at the internal component. She does have a higher level of education then me so I let these silly remarks slide occasionally.

It comes alive!

2014-09-29T23:08:00.006-04:00

Let's recap: engine and transmission are in and the rear axle has been bolted in for a while now. The missing link is the drive shaft. With that hint in mind, guess what I got for my birthday? Well, I dropped off the original mustang part at Pat's driveline for shortening since the cobra requires about a foot long drive shaft. My dad agreed to pick it up for me once it's done. When it arrived to my house it was wrapped in a box and a bow stuck on. Thanks! What a thoughtful gift. Just what I needed. :) For some reason I did not take a picture of it. Honestly, the drive shaft looks like a drive shaft.

However, this means that I was able to complete my puzzle. The drive line was finished. I filled up the transmission with Mobil 1 ATM fluid. The engine got filled with some dino oil filled with various cleansing agents. Topped with a K&N oil filter it made up my breakin setup. The thinking was to play around with this oil and filter combo and once the car is ready to roll to fill her up with proper oil and the standard white K&N filter. Of course, I took it to the next level but that's for later.

Now, let's get to the exciting part: does it run? After all, a lot of parts were touched by me and that does not always produces desired outcome. I pulled out the box of wires and started to wrap them around the frame. I this time I just wanted to make sure that the connectors click and there is current in the necessary circuits. It does not look pretty but it does not have to yet.

This is what I am looking for:

As my friend said to me: "this was my Christmas tree this year". He was right. I was just as glad and indeed this was last Christmas time. I am horrible at keeping my blog current.

If you expect to hear that the engine fired right up and there was fairy dust in the air I have a disappointment for you. In fact, it was very dead. The only signs of life I got was the cranking of the starter by manually supplying 12v to the trigger. To me that means that the starter is fine but that's about all. The reason for the silence in the garage was Ford's PATS(Passive Anti Theft System). I must have triggered it some how. That means I had sit on my hands until this arrived:

It may sound unexpected but I did not own a generic OBD2 scanner at that time. On the other side, I just got myself an X3. This usually bring up a bunch of questions. I'll try to nail as much as I can right of the bat. No, this thing does not come with canned tunes. Of course, I will be tuning this car. No, I do it myself using SCT's Pro Racer software. I may have Steeda guys or some other tuner look it over once I am done. Returning back to topic, this small scanner allowed me to reset PATS and present you with this video:

He he. I also expected an engine start. As you can see, nope, it did not happen. That's the time when I detected a faulty fuel line. I am glad I took those videos. It made me think more about safety. I am thankful to be report that everything is fine after the fact that the fuel was pouring down next to the sparkling loose wire on the starter. However, my wife made me buy one of this for my garage:

Moving on back to my non cooperating engine. I went on to seek the wisdom on the internet. As usually, ffcars guys helped me out. I did a lot of simple test but in the end I missed the crank position sensor. It was simply not plugged in. Once that connector clicked on I was able to film another video

This is when I reached the first but very fulfilling milestone. I think I'll go have another beer to re-celebrate this event. In retrospect, I think I had a bit too few that night.

Engine goes in. Take 2

2014-09-18T08:13:00.001-04:00

Previously on "Engine goes in", just before the engine was mated to the tranny, I realized that my clutch is not worthy to be installed. After a ferocious search in my local parts counters, I realized the only things that are "available" are Chinese made OEM replacements. And it would be a 2 days special order. At 10 o'clock at night I threw my hands up and dropped the engine in as is. No tranny.

Two days later, the mail man dropped off this:

As usually, Summit has what I need in stock and will ship it now. Even if it means at 11:00 pm in the evening. This guys make Amazon look bad.

Now, in this episode of "Engine goes in": engine comes out, clutch slides on, tranny bolts on, and ... engine goes in. Let's begin.

Cast it in

and reel it out

Let's jump onto the clutch install. Don't forget the clutch alignment tool. Ford Racing clutch did not come with the tool so I had to buy ACT one separately.

The clutch slides on the alignment tool.

The pressure plate come on next and simply bolts up to flywheel.

As soon as you pull on the plastic ring on the alignment tool, the ring snaps and breaks off. After realizing why this tool is so cheap and pulling the rest of it out with pliers, replace the throw out bearing on the transmission shaft.

The mate the tranny to the motor

At this time, we are ready to go back into the engine bay

We are still missing the tranny mount. It actually needs some tender love and care. This is what Ford has made for Mustang.

And this is what it got transformed into

After a fresh coat of paint

The mount was installed with the special Factory Five frame that attaches to the main 4" tube frame. It was a long night but very productive.

Tying down the loose ends with engine installed

2014-09-12T08:56:00.001-04:00

Now, with the engine installed, there are a few odd jobs here and there that need to be done. First the fuel line need to be finished. With the engine in place, it's now apparent where it should lead to.

I actually liked the routing. It's far enough from the exhaust manifolds. My fuel is staying cold. However, this time I messed up my flare and caused a fuel leak. I had to buy a new line and a new hose barb. The repair resulted in even further damage:

The new line was pre-flared and the new fitting came in from www.thewrenchmonkey.ca. The result is similar to the above sans the leak.

The next task was to please everyone. My wife being a tree huger would never forgive me for not running all of the possible emissions control systems. On the other hand, any car person would agree that the engine bay should look "clean" and free of "useless junk". Naturally, the vapors purge valve needs to be hidden well.

This is actually the spot between the passenger foot box and the engine. It's very close to the bottom 4" frame. Obviously, it's well out of sight. I did however screw it up on the first go. The starter was too close to the valve for my comfort. I had to move it up about an inch and a bit and plug the holes.

One more thing I've noticed is the ground clearance of the oil pan.

Never-mind the hanging power steering bits but notice the silver oil pan hanging just bellow the frame. I could give up and forget about this but I would not be able to clear a speed bump without skipping a heartbeat later. This time again I had to deal with Jeff from Whitby Motorcars. They had the motor mount spacers in about the right height to raise the engine just enough. I send the payment in and after about two month the spacer were home. I was not really in a big rush to install them either. About two more month later, they were installed and in fact did their job. The parts are extremely simple to fabricate but I am glad I purchased them. The thickness of the spacers was spot on. If they were just a notch thicker the steering column would not clear the exhaust manifold. On the other hand, any thinner would leave the pan hanging lower 4" frame.

Summit as usually ensured that I don't sit still for long.

Seems like it's the time to yank the engine back out!!!

Engine goes in. Take 1

2014-08-07T08:11:00.000-04:00

I realize that I am about 8 month behind on my writing now. However, I have a lot of progress and have taken pictures all along. Hopefully, I'll be able to catch up one day. In my defense, my wife and I just had our first baby. :) Now I have another "project" to work on too.

Alright, at this time, everything looks ready for the engine to go in. I have spray painted the motor mounts and bolted them on.

I also installed the AC delete idler pulley. I had to use Ford Racing part instead of the Factory Five supplied one.

The main reason was that I was missing the inserts that go into the engine block and are part of the AC compressor. Unfortunately, I did not know at the time of the donor tear down that I needed to pull those inserts out. Oh well, now I have a cool part. It looks much better than the Factory Five counter piece.

I think we are ready.

Up it goes

And down it goes

If you know what needs to be done between those picture you'd think that there's a transmission bolted up behind. Well, it was the plan but was not meant to be. As I was pulling parts off the self, I've noticed that the clutch was on its way out. It had some meat left but not enough to be installed. So this turned out to be a mock engine install. Summit Racing has my new clutch on the way.

EGR puzzle solved

2014-07-31T07:30:00.000-04:00

The engine is almost ready to go in but there are some small details to take care of. One of those is the EGR tube. This engine has EGR system and, therefore, has a metal tube going from the exhaust to the intake. If I were to flip the exhaust manifolds 180 deg to make them point forward, the original EGR tube would not be aligned with its fitting any more. The simple way out would be to remove the EGR system all together and forget about its existence. However, after some reading on Wikipedia, I learned that EGR system has its place in my car. Mainly, I'll try to reduce the fuel consumption whenever possible. EGR allows to inject some of the exhaust gas back into the intake charge. At low loads this translates into a smaller effective engine size. Sounds good if you ask me.

Let's start with the hard part: how do I extend the EGR tubing. The original tube is stainless steel. I would need to get more tubing and bend it into the shape to run along the head. Then, it would need to be flared for the compression fitting. Sounds easy enough but I cannot weld SS and have no means for bending and flaring. The other thought would be to relocate the fitting. If i were to relocate it closer to the tube's end I would have less fabrication to do. I wanted to weld on the fitting right to the header in the desired location but was told that the cast iron might crack later. Threading a new hole also did not promise much durability since the walls of the headers are thin and would not provide enough threaded surface. Also finding the 18mm tap would be a fun hunt on it's own. So I have resorted to maintaining the current positions of all the involved parts and running the flexible tubing.

This is 5/8 ID stainless steel flexible tubing that I got from B & B Specialties. Originally I thought it could be welded right on to the current tube. The trick would be to use a thick enough washer that would fit around the thin tubing and would allow for the proper weld to form. I even got myself a few of the large size lock washers. However, my friend was not confident in the weld being quality to have a proper seal. He offered to braze it with brass. I have never heard of the technique but he assured me that it's the best quality seal and will withstand the heat of exhaust gases.

This is how the finished product looks like. Mean while I had a chance to spray paint the headers too.

They look absolutely horrible but are not so bad parts. Apparently they flow as good as some of the shorties out there. In addition, I did some work to port them. But the reality is, since I am sticking to cats, my entire exhaust looks like ... ( i could only put a "bad" word here). Let's make it's best.

I did the same for the cats too.

After all was done, the parts went back onto the motor. Here's the shot of the head with the original bracket holding holding the tube in place.

The routing of the tube was a bit hard. I could not find enough space to make it clear everything.

So now the oil filter is in the way. Oh well, I was planning on relocating it anyways. Note that it's not necessary and FactoryFive does not relocate the oil filters on 4.6 motors. I am doing so because I want to and I have some cheesy excuses too: EGR tube is touching it, easier access for oil changes, relocation kit looks cool, blah blah blah.

For now I left the tube unsupported but I will be using steel wire to secure it to the exhaust header. Later I am planing to wrap the exhaust blanket around all this ugly to ensure that (a) I never have to see it again and (b) to keep the heat from slow roasting our legs in the foot boxes. I got these from Jegs in the mail.

Hmm. what's next?

Oil pan swap

2014-03-01T14:26:00.000-05:00

The original oil pan that is used on the engine is flawless but does not work for my cobra. The reason being is that it's too tall. The engine sits much lower in cobra and the tall oil pan protrudes way too low. The risk of puncturing the oil pan and loosing all the oil is unacceptably high. Therefore the oil pan needs to be replaced with something that works for my application. The Factory Five was supposed to include the oil pan with my kit but they choose not too. Shame on them. After long arguments with them I did not get the part nor the money. I am disappointed how they handled this but what can you do. Luckily, there are other sources. I placed an order with North Racecars and got a Camp oil pan. It's supposed to be great in almost every condition: street, strip or circle track. To save on shipping I sent my parts to CBI. Now that I had a trip to US in my future, I decided to make it worth while. After some time on Summit Racing and Jegs a rather noticeable dent was made on my credit card. A few weeks later, I got the fruits of my investment.

So onto the oil pan replacement. Flip the engine.

Grab a wrench and take the original off. So we have this

This is not the end yet, the oil pick up must go too. This one is designed for the deeper original pan.

You can see how much shorter the right side is on the one on the top. The original is the bottom one on the picture.

The new oil pick up in place. It's probably safe to reuse the old gasket. It's a well made gasket with rubber insert. However, I wanted to go extra mile and got new one by Fel-Pro. Remember to apply bead of gasket maker on the spots where block joins with various covers.

At last, the oil pan comes on. I had to shorten the mounting bolts a bit so they fit. The new oil pan design does no allow the bolts to go in some locations.

It's very important for the uniform seal to follow Ford's instruction on the tightening order of the bolts.

Flip the engine over, pull the deep stick out. It too needs to be adjusted. Measure and clip the end off to ensure it fits the new oil pan. The markings on the deep stick are correct but the length is a bit too long. The new pan is 8 quarts in capacity. Fill up the engine with oil and have a beer. :)

Engine prep

2014-03-01T13:46:00.001-05:00

At this time I had the fuel lines positioned all the way up to the engine. I needed the engine dropped in to make sure I have the line ending at the right spot. This is where the adventure begins.

Before the engine goes in it needs to be "refreshed". The thing was in the mustang for over 10 years so it's not looking shiny enough for me. Moreover, the engine has to go through a series of small modifications to make it work in the new home.

The engine has spend the longest time on the stand now. It has collected some dust and needed a basic clean up job. I did not go overboard with this and gave up after a quick Simple Green MAX degreasing. It was good enough for me at this time. The next part was to get collectors off. They will be turned 180* to face forward to work with the side pipes. These things are not pretty by any means but apparently (and a bit sadly for me) are well designed and don't impede the flow. So no headers for me. I did, however, spend time to gasket match the ports on them.

I also ensure that the inside is polished too. The casting left the surface full of mini bumps. It took me way too much time and effort to level it out and bore out the ports. It is cast iron after all. The things went significantly faster on the other side of the gasket. The heads are aluminum and are much softer. Here are some pictures of before. If you look close enough you'll notice that the gasket is about 1-2 mm larger than the port.

Here it's more obvious with the carbon deposit marks. See what happens when the gasket does not fully seal the exhaust system? The left port here exposes the blow by the gasket visible by the black deposits.

And now the "after"

Now that collectors needed some make over too

and now comes some header paint from VHT

While at it, the cats get the same treatment.

Ah, the things I do for my wife. These stupid things have a brick inside that chocks the exhaust system and robs me of the valuable horse power. But I have to make sure my loved one is not deafened by the roar of the V8. On the plus side, she cannot complain anymore that my cars are not environmentally friendly gas guzzlers. Maybe one day the turbos will replace these pesky catalytic converters. However, till that day comes they will be pretty.

Since I am on the painting spree, the engine block got a coat of VHT metallic paint

The trick is to use aluminum foil for masking. It's way easier than any kind of masking tape and paper. Here's the result.

It's not in your face colour popping paint job but I like it. While the engine mounts where off the block they too got sprayed.

I will take a break here and continue in a next post. The next little mods are a bit involved and deserve individual posts.

Give me fuel! give me .... anything but fire.

2014-02-09T17:36:00.001-05:00

I was moving on to complete the fuel system. There were a few tasks remaining. One was to complete the filling neck. The second was to run the supply and evap lines to the engine. The strange thing is that I did not take any pictures making the filler neck. Therefore, I am not going to spend much time on it. It was basically cut at the right spot. Insert the hose between the two cut off parts. And have a cold one.

Of course, it was a bit more involved but really nothing to write home about.

The fuel lines were a bit more interesting. First of all, I did some planing. I am quite proud. I rarely do planning. Due to the location of the lines, the fuel filter could not be easily mounted. That was one of the reasons for the battery relocation box. That box will also act as a fuel filter support bracket.

I replaced the old mustang filter with the fresh one. I got this thing from Part Source and, unlike the old filter, it did not have the flow direction arrows. I had to put them on myself to avoid placing the filter on backwards.This location worked out really well. The hoses were not forced into place but maintained their original bends for most of the time. The hard fuel line was bent to work with this location of the filter and therefore worked perfectly.

Taking pictures from under the car with the light above does not work well.

Here you can see the thicker metal line routed along the brake lines. The hose is the evaporation line that I got from NAPA. Both, the supply fuel line and the evap line are running along with the brake lines. In fact, I used some of the funky mustang plastic mounts that hold all the lines together.

In order to know the required position of the fuel lines at the front I had to put the motor in to see where the lines should be.

At this time, it was just a dry run the motor would have to be pulled out later.

It was a good exercise and as you can see the perfect location for the fuel line was found. The supply line come up from under passenger foot box and goes up along the bend. This location actually moves the fuel line far enough from the exhaust manifold and the associated heat.

The evap line ends into some control valve. I did not want to expose the evap system unnecessarily and chose to hide it here.

It's actually right by the bottom of the passenger foot box, near the 4" frame tubing. Here you can see the fuel supply line come up too. The location for this purge valve looked good. I used some nutserts to mount the valve to the sheet aluminum.

From here on things went a bit sour. Too start, the picture above does not show starter motor. Once the starter motor was in placed the purge valve was awfully close to it. I haven't looked into that problem yet. My attention was concentrated on the fuel leak that was happening at the only custom made flare between the hard line and the hose that links to the engine.

My attempt to repair the flare only ruined the line further. The above pic clearly shows how the flaring tool slipped stripping the top level of metal. This resulted in a purchase of a 30" fuel line with the flares done on both ends at the factory. The new line was a bit too long. I would love to have something around 24-26".

The new line above is a bit long and had to curve to the front a bit. The tissue on the junctions is there to see if there are any new leaks. And there were sadly. I was not out of the woods yet. This time I could only blame the barb fitting. I was using the Factory Five supplied Edelmann fitting. Till now I have two theories, either the fitting was defective or it was damaged during my first installation against my hand made flare. I found it a bit challenging to find the fitting. I could easily order it form Summit racing but the shipping would cost me dearly. Luckly, I found out that WrenchMonkey had the fitting and would not cost me too too much for shipping. They are actually located very close and were able to deliver my part next business day. Once the fitting was replaced I was back on track with no more fuel leaks. However, all these fuel leaks had ruined my black rubber coating on the foot box. I'll have to fix that up one day. On the bright side, nothing caught fire. I have a video of the car cranking with fuel dripping and sparks flying but that's material for next posts. For now, I have bought one of these

Charcoal canister and say goodbye to gas smell

2014-01-09T22:11:00.000-05:00

It's time to start on the fuel system. I kind of already did by installing the fuel tank earlier but there are more components to that system. One of them is charcoal canister. This thing acts as a filter for gas fumes. Actually, this component is part of evaporation control system but who cares about the semantics. Most custom cars would skip this entire system for the sake of simplicity. I'll install as much stuff as I can especially since the parts are on my shelf anyways.

Here's the beast:

First things first - cleaning it up. Then, we need to find the good location for it and mount it. The mounting bracket was designed for mustang and, therefore, needed some modifications to work on my car.

The changes include: cutting of the original mounting points, drilling new mounting holes and making that 1.25" hole for rerouted hoses. Of course, the bracket needs a fresh coat of rust paint.

The location is on the driver side under the rear fender. I did not have the aluminum installed there at the time yet. Thus, it was my next step. After some time I had this as the result

It was the time to bolt on the mount. It's held in position with three bolts and spaced out with 1/8" washers to avoid any rattling.

Here's the canister in position. The hose would come from behind throw the pre-cut hole with a grommet. The other hose was simply routed under the aluminum panel. You can barely spot them run behind the bend up flap on the fuel tank.

That's it. No gasoline smell is expected. I get bonus points for being environmentally friendly too.

Brakes routing and plumbing.

2014-01-05T19:59:00.001-05:00

The time has come to make sure that the snake will stop. It's not going far for now but let's hope for the best for later. The brakes need to be done rather early. The main reason is that running brake lines is much easier when there are less parts in the way.

The brake system is very primitive. We have one pedal that causes pressure in one the cylinder. In turn, this pressure causes the pistons in brake calipers to press brake pads against rotors. That is it! No magic here. In fact, that's exactly how Factory Five wants us to build brakes. That's what they have in the build manual. And that's how cars were build back in a day. Moreover, some new race cars are still build this way. As a matter of fact, NASCAR racers still have this setup. However, there has been some modernization done to the bare bone brake systems over the past 50+ years. Some of it is nice and some of it may be argued endlessly depending on various perspectives.

Let's start with simple stuff. Today cars have dual piston master cylinders. That part connected to the pedal. The main motivation is safety. Say you were unlucky and hit something big with the bottom of your car and one of your brake lines developed a small leak. This would be the end of your brakes normally. But if you have two cylinders, it would be only the end of the half of your brakes. :) You would still have one completely functional system that operates, usually, half of your car. Here's the modern car trick demystified. We have two cylinders. Each controls one front wheel and one diagonally opposite rear wheel. This adds some redundancy and increases safety.

The next major difference between older cars is the comfort. Today, most of the R&D goes into the refinement of the cars. We don't really see any new innovation in cars drive train. The story is very different when it comes to everything else: ride quality, interior finishes, electronics, etc. The brakes are on that list too. The major enhancement that was done is called "power brake" or "brake booster". The motivation was to make the actuation possible with least amount of effort from the driver. If you want to experience the "manual" brakes in your everyday car, just let it roll down the hill in neutral with out engine running and step on the brakes. (Be prepared to REALLY step on the brakes and if anybody asks: it was YOUR idea :))

Of course there must be the infamous ABS. I'm not even sure many people know what it is but they all want it anyway. This is where things turn 20th century. We have electronic sensors on each wheel connected to a computer that is controlling the brake pressure at individual wheel. The truth is I don't know exactly what witchcraft is happening inside this actuation box so let's just call it "the box of tricks". :)

One more thing that was recently added to the brakes is "traction control". Surprised? Well the reality is that cars loose traction when the driver has the right foot a bit too heavy. The brakes come to the rescue in such events. The computer on board, the same thing that controls ABS, applies the same witchcraft using the same "box of tricks" to, basically, apply the brakes. So, really, the traction control is just a piece of software that help us restrain those crazy drivers out there. Luckily for those crazy drivers, there's an override button :)

Enough with the theory. My plan is to retain all of the features mentioned above. The power brakes, ABS, traction control, all of it. There's a remote possibility my wife would want to drive this car. Let's eliminate as many excuses "not to drive" as possible.

Onto the mounting of the components. You have already seen the pedals. The thing on the other side is the master cylinder.

Notice that there are two metal lines are coming down from the dual master cylinder. There are also two bleeders with back rubber caps for bleeding each cylinder. The interesting part here is that the fluid reservoir is on the other side of the 3/4" tubing and would be inaccessible with the body on. Thus, the problem needs to be addressed but later. Now we need to mount that "box of tricks". I modified the mustang part and found a new home.

It was originally mounted like so but it turned out too low

Later I relocated it a bit higher but in the same spot. The bottom had to be inline with the frame. Here's the final assembly

Now onto the fun part: connecting all the components together. This is usually done by running steel brake line between components. The lines need to have a perfect seal to withstand thousands of psi of pressure. To do so the lines are flared on each end and are pressed in place by end nuts. Since the lines are custom formed for each application some tools are required to complete the job. Here's what I've got.

The cheap flare tool. The reviews are true. It does suck.

And this bender. Tricky to use but no complains.

Here's what it all turned into

The start was the hardest but once I got the hang of it it was a blast.

The rear end got a bit busy but not tricky. I think it was harder to take the proper picture rather.

Now back to that reservoir accessibility problem. Do you remember these on the road?

Well that bad boy had the brake fluid reservoir mounted on firewall. That means I can do following using the parts form that car.

The only catch is that that car is out of the production for some years and the parts are not available anymore. So be friends with your local junk yard. ;)

Once the lines were all affixed to the frame the system had to be complete with those red shiny calipers.

And there you have it! I dragged my wife out to help me bleed the system. It took some time and effort but in the end the brakes are done and functional. The brake booster is not connected yet but it's in place. The same goes for ABS electronics. All the sensors are there but no wires yet. That's it for now.

Coilovers are here!

2014-01-02T21:54:00.003-05:00

I come home and find out a mail delivery notice. After a quick trip to the post office, I have this:

This is somewhat special delivery for many many reasons. Let's start with saying that I have ordered it about 3-4 months ago. I have no clue why it takes so long to ship a box of parts. It came from Whitby Motorsports. The people there were pleasant but it took forever to complete the order. They are the only vendor that works with Factory Five to supply all parts for Canadian customers. I really had no choice this time but I hope there will not be a second order.

Oh, the second reason is quite simple: it's coilovers! These shocks and springs have been tuned by Koni on their testing track, on Factory Five Roadster for Factory Five Roadster. My expectations of ride quality are high.

Obviously I would not waste time. A short while later:

And I noticed that the snap rings that retain the spring seats are not in the box. :( This brings me back to my endless communications with Whitby. However, it was less painful this time. They had the rings in stock and mailed them over acceptably quick. In the mean time, I went on to assemble the coilovers and proceeded with the installation.

I had a lot of the front suspension done but was missing the control arms. The arrival of coilovers took away all the guessing about required modifications to the stock mustang arms. Yes, I am using the stock ugly arms. It's part of my plan build now, upgrade later.

Nothing special really but clean.

And now painted and shiny.

The installations of the control arms is trivial: stick them in and tighten the bolts. The only thing i really had to "modify" was to drill 2 holes per arm. The trick here is to install the rear shock mount from the live axle into the spring seat recess in the control arm. I straightened out the small piece of metal that is intended to keep the mount from rotating around the single mounting bolt. In the original location, this piece would be going into the hole on the same plane as the mounting hole. In the new location, I had the hole drilled right in the spring seat and directly under the mount. It took a bit of some wiggling around to get the mounting bolt in the hole but it was not impossible. I should have taken a picture of the final product but I was so happy with it I forgot. Now the only piece missing from the puzzle was the spring and shock combo. After putting a small fight ...

the thing was bolted in.

Here you could actually see how the bottom is assembled. The trick here is to first bolt on the live axle mount to the shock and only then the the mount to the control arm. Otherwise, there would not be enough clearance for the bolt to pass through.

The rear was a walk in the park compared to the front. Take the parts. Add some nuts and bolts and there you have it.

When the snap rings came in, I installed them right in with out any problems. Remember to zip tie the springs to the seats. This would prevent them from becoming unseated in a highly improbable situation.

With the coil overs in, I still had one regret. If you noticed, my quad shocks are out from the rear end. They did not clear the spring on the coilover. With the stock mustang setup the spring would be situated on the trailing arm just before the axle and would not interfere. Well, I'll just have to figure out how to make this work but that would be later.

The heater endeavour

2013-10-23T21:21:00.002-04:00

I've started to work on the sheet aluminium. Assembling foot boxes, I soon came to a realization that I need to have the firewall in place to continue further. It's no big deal really. There are two possible routs here. Take the firewall and rivet it in place. Alternatively, that is if you have a heater, pre-drill the firewall for heater and rivet it in place. Here's the catch: if heater is installed as per instructions the space that could normally be used for glove box would be completely consumed by the heater. In other words, there was a simple choice the heater or the glove box. I saw a few pictures of the dash with the glove box and think that the glove box is rather necessary, at least for the looks. This ultimately led to some modifications that could be done to regain some of the space for the glove box even with the heater installed.

My idea was simple and straight forward: push the heater further into the engine bay. After taking some measurements it was clear that about 2 inches could be had. The next step would be to prototype the solution to see how it would look like in real life. I used a cardboard box to design my modified firewall.

Here I outlined the firewall and placed the stencil for heater openings. The line at the bottom of the stencil is the location of 2x2 that holds the firewall. Thus, it's apparent that there is not much space below or above the heater.

My goal was to use the least amount of new sheet aluminum and reuse as much as possible. The motivation was simple: less cuts = less rivets = less work. Above you see that I literally split the new opening across at the center and bend it out. It gave me the desired depth for the heater and the leftovers made nice flaps for rivets.

This is the other piece that would make the extension complete. It would make up the back wall and the sides.

Here you can see the same stencil on the extension assembled. I had to provision some space on the sides and the top for the heater core to fit in. All in all it looked promising.

The next step is to try it out with the actual heater. Here, I have the heater core installed on the inside.

This is how it would look like from the other side. This is the passenger compartment side. The goal is to keep the side outlets as close as possible to the firewall (cardboard). I only have to provision some space for the ducting but that's really all I need there.

The next would be to see how it works on the car. So far looks promising.

Here's the other side. All systems go!

Some time later, with a bleeding finger, the parts were cut and bent. Notice this is not the design I had originally with cardboard. I actually missed some provisions with my prototype. The problem was mainly the missing flaps to join the bottom to the sides and the top to the sides. Here you see sides made separately with the top flap only. The back wall has the side flaps to join the sides. This part was done mainly to simplify my fabrication. What else you notice is the corner strips. I have came up with a clever approach to add rigidity to the firewall. The longer pieces would be running on the engine side along the firewall. They will join the sides and the firewall as well as overlap on the 2x2 vertically. The shorter pieces are going at the bottom corners and are joining the bottom to the side and too overlap the same 2x2 but horizontally. It would be more apparent once it all comes down as one assembly.

As with all of my aluminum parts, I sprayed the panels with rubberized coating to prevent oxidation.

The next step is to relax under a tree and rivet the pieces together. And voila!

Here's one more angle. You can see what I meant about those corner strips along the sides. Notice the two holes at the bottom. Those holes would be used to rivet the firewall to frame's 2x2 for rigidity.

Once in the firewall is in it's new permanent home, the heater was installed.

This is how it looks from the passenger compartment side. Here you can spot the shorter corner strips that lie on the top of the 2x2 and, again, add rigidity.

Mission is success!!! If I were to do it again: firstly, I'd rather not cut my finger with an angle grinder and, secondly, I'd add about a quarter inch of space to the sides and the top of the opening. The fit was a bit tight so the extra space would make the heater install step much smoother.

Cool! Let's do that 1200 times!

2013-08-28T06:49:00.002-04:00

At this point I have a lot of things done. Wait, I am fooling myself. I have some things kind of taking their intended locations. The fact of the matter is that none of the suspension components are actually "done done". I am still waiting for my coilovers to come in from Whitby. It's taking way too long. It is only after the coilovers are fitted I can torque all the bolts and call the job complete.

In the meantime, I could work on the brakes but I am waiting for the pads to come in. It's not taking long but I am too lazy to go and and pick them up from TougeTuning. A friend of mine was planning on going there anyways and would grab my pads for me at the same time. Whenever that will be. There are a lot of the work involved with running the brake lines from the master cylinder to each wheel. But again, Whitby got the lines as part of the kit and are still not at my door step. :(

So while the parts are making their way, the real building can take place. A normal car these days is based on unibody design. That means that the frame is baked into the shell. The shell would have many other panels included. For example, firewall, floors, roof, etc. In my case, the frame is nothing more than just a frame and everything else comes separate. In fact, everything else is made of sheet aluminum panels which need to be installed together to form firewall, floors, etc.

Again, to prevent the oxidation and weakening of the aluminum I coated it with rubberized paint. Here's my paint booth, sort of:

The sun was of much help to me. I found out that the paint dries much faster in the sun, especially, being mate black. Each panel needs to be sprayed on the side that would not be otherwise covered. For instance, all the passenger compartment panels will be covered with sound deadening from the inside and don't need to be painted on that side.

The next steps are simple but laborious. First, the panel needs to be fitted to it's original spot. Then, I would trace all the supports with a sharpie. The panel is then removed and ready for mock up of the holes. The holes should be about two inches apart. I would measure the distance along one of the supports and do the math to figure out the even hole spacing. Once the holes are marked on the panel, I use a punch to ensure that drill bit does not wonder off. The next step is to drill the hole and clean the rough edges. Now the panel is ready for installation and would go back to the frame. This time I use clamps and self tapping screws to hold the panel in it's soon to be permanent position. I use the drill once again to drill the supports through the holes in the panel. The panel needs to come off one last time to allow for cleaning out the files. Also this is the time when I apply the silicone. I used Permatex clear silicone to prevent any noise from possible vibrations and to ensure that the joints are water tight. At this point the panel is ready for riveting.

Riveting is the easiest part of the job. It's kind of fun too unless the pin breaks loose and the rivet gun cannot take a grip on it. In such cases, it becomes a bit tricky but luckily it's does not happen often.

Here's the passenger foot box all done! There are in fact 1200 rivets in the supplied box. So I'd have to spend more time doing this. I did some rough math: say I spend 5 minutes on every rivet including measuring, drilling and gluing, that means I can only do 12 in an hour. Looking at the picture above you can see it takes a bit of time.

To tell the truth, I prepared a few more panels and thought that I would be able to complete the drivers side too but I realized that the firewall needs to be installed before the driver side foot box. Therefore, I need to figure out what to do with my heater which installs onto the firewall. Well, that's my next task then.