3 ½ years ago my back was messed up from an accident which made me think that my days of wrenching was over and it was time to hang it up. Well April this year I got my second wind when Casey sent me an e-mail saying that my name was going to be on a feature article in June issues MM&FF. I’ve had a few cars that have made it on MM&FF but this was the first time my name was actually given credit for the work that was done.
Originally the plan was to do a ’93 Cobra clone with a Termi swap. How cool would that be to have done a Mach 1 rendition in a notchback and to do a ’93 Terminator? Been there, done that, should be a quick swap. Done in 3 months tops. Well looking for available 1993 Mustang GTs or LX proved to be very difficult, at least something worthy of a transplant. After being stranded by my wife in the middle of Stockton with $3500 cash in my pocket, I got to do some real soul searching. Craigslist had a couple 4 banger coupes for sale and thought I’d give it a try again and open up to do another notch. A couple days later I picked up my Notch, paid the back fee and started disassembling the car. I also started searching for a terminator.
May 2014- Picked up my 1990 4 banger notch
June 2014- I thought with the introductory of the GT500 and the 420hp GTs that the price of the terminators would simmer down from what they were 4 years ago. Boy was I wrong. It really didn’t make any sense. 2 months had gone by and countless times being out bid at the last minute. I even sold my Birel Racing shifter kart to free up more money so I could bid with the big dogs. Then a talk with Lee (racerX), steered me in a direction that I was on the fence before about, but he convinced me that the money is in a coyote swap. I think he meant ”my money is going into” a coyote swap. Plus reading up on Jason Hall’s FoxGT500, I felt I have enough information to commit to a Jason Hall type Coyote swap, but mine will be CA smog legal.
July 2014- My bid for a 2013 Mustang GT won and was delivered. The car initially ran like crap. The car was hit in the rear, so not sure why it was running as rough as it did. After a week of trouble shooting, I finally decided to get a hand held tuner mainly do read codes. While waiting on delivery of the tuner I thought I should start labeling all the wire harnesses. This is were I found a wire connector with no home. Oh looky here, there's a sensor missing. Went to the local Ford dealership and picked up a sensor. Installed it and the harness and vaaaaarrrrrroooommm! Took a trip around the sub-division. Everything checked out fine. Now I'm confident that everything truely is working fine and the engine and driveline works as it should. The next day my tuner came in. It still in the box it came in. Haven't opened it yet.
August 2014- started removing the interior and engine/tranny/driveline. Wow didn't realize how huge the elecric assist steering rack was. My plan was to incorporate it into the Sn95 K-memeber.
September 2014- Trying to make this steering rack fit is much like trying fit a cube into a round hole. Lets just say I test fitted the k-member 4 times before it was perfect.
This is a picture after my 2nd test fit.
In this picture you'll see that I've modified the oil pan for clearance and what you don't see is that I've also bent the oil pick up tube to allow for that clearance.
As of now I will put the actual dates of my progress.
9/23/2014- Started clearing out the engine compartment so I have better access to the firewall and will allow me to see better what I'm up against as far as how much of the firewall need to be transplanted and where to make my cuts to keep things dimesionally correct.
Originally the plan was to do a ’93 Cobra clone with a Termi swap. How cool would that be to have done a Mach 1 rendition in a notchback and to do a ’93 Terminator? Been there, done that, should be a quick swap. Done in 3 months tops. Well looking for available 1993 Mustang GTs or LX proved to be very difficult, at least something worthy of a transplant. After being stranded by my wife in the middle of Stockton with $3500 cash in my pocket, I got to do some real soul searching. Craigslist had a couple 4 banger coupes for sale and thought I’d give it a try again and open up to do another notch. A couple days later I picked up my Notch, paid the back fee and started disassembling the car. I also started searching for a terminator.
May 2014- Picked up my 1990 4 banger notch
June 2014- I thought with the introductory of the GT500 and the 420hp GTs that the price of the terminators would simmer down from what they were 4 years ago. Boy was I wrong. It really didn’t make any sense. 2 months had gone by and countless times being out bid at the last minute. I even sold my Birel Racing shifter kart to free up more money so I could bid with the big dogs. Then a talk with Lee (racerX), steered me in a direction that I was on the fence before about, but he convinced me that the money is in a coyote swap. I think he meant ”my money is going into” a coyote swap. Plus reading up on Jason Hall’s FoxGT500, I felt I have enough information to commit to a Jason Hall type Coyote swap, but mine will be CA smog legal.
July 2014- My bid for a 2013 Mustang GT won and was delivered. The car initially ran like crap. The car was hit in the rear, so not sure why it was running as rough as it did. After a week of trouble shooting, I finally decided to get a hand held tuner mainly do read codes. While waiting on delivery of the tuner I thought I should start labeling all the wire harnesses. This is were I found a wire connector with no home. Oh looky here, there's a sensor missing. Went to the local Ford dealership and picked up a sensor. Installed it and the harness and vaaaaarrrrrroooommm! Took a trip around the sub-division. Everything checked out fine. Now I'm confident that everything truely is working fine and the engine and driveline works as it should. The next day my tuner came in. It still in the box it came in. Haven't opened it yet.
August 2014- started removing the interior and engine/tranny/driveline. Wow didn't realize how huge the elecric assist steering rack was. My plan was to incorporate it into the Sn95 K-memeber.
September 2014- Trying to make this steering rack fit is much like trying fit a cube into a round hole. Lets just say I test fitted the k-member 4 times before it was perfect.
This is a picture after my 2nd test fit.
In this picture you'll see that I've modified the oil pan for clearance and what you don't see is that I've also bent the oil pick up tube to allow for that clearance.
As of now I will put the actual dates of my progress.
9/23/2014- Started clearing out the engine compartment so I have better access to the firewall and will allow me to see better what I'm up against as far as how much of the firewall need to be transplanted and where to make my cuts to keep things dimesionally correct.
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