Some of yall might have seen hoopty5.0 share an album I posted on reddit. I was encouraged to post a build thread here. I'm going to be a little brief on some details and try and hit the high points. Here we go!
This was my first car. I got it with a 4 speed 2.3. I drove this for a couple years till the timing belt snapped. At this point I wanted to do a v8 swap. A couple years, a cheap truck v8, a used t-5, and a remarkably ok paint job later and it was running. Just not DD worthy which sucked because I was in school at the time. My dad actually drove it for a bit until the t-5 crapped out. As soon as I had graduated from school and got a job we towed it to my house and this is where the madness begins.
Some specs:
96 explorer GT40 5.0 w/ head studs, late 90's mustang gt cam
~67mm turbo aiming for 400+ hp
M5od-R2 transmission (outputshaft is from an 80's bronco but everything else uses upgraded bits from an '04 upgraded version)
Borg Warner 4404 full time awd transfercase
Dana 35 front diff regeared for 3.55
03 cobra irs with poly body bushings (also 3.55 gears)
13" 96 cobra front brakes
11.65" 03 cobra rear brakes
A couple pics I could find before full disassembly. This monster truck stance is the car without the transmission only, never again!
I started scheming, figuring out what I wanted to do with the car. It was about a year or two before this when I started watching more and more car related channels on youtube, mighty car mods, project binky, B is for Build etc. Seeing their work, gymkhana 7 and a 1982 awd cutlass swap I got some pretty good ideas of what I wanted and felt I could do.
I gutted the car. Pulled everything out of it and began to prep it. I knew I'd need to stiffen the chassis so I welded in thru floor sub-frame connectors. For a rear end I found an 03 cobra IRS on craigslist for 800 bucks (that is a steal) and a 96 Explorer XLT. I would have the complete awd system to gut and a source to copy mounting points from.
I made a jig using the mounting points in the explorer. lower control arms, differential, steering rack, sway bar, upper control arms. I got em. And then I pulled the jig and built around it. And it looked like crap. No biggie.
This is still a WIP shot but it shows that a good bit of the design changed. And that a bunch of work was done that got poorly documented. Eh it happens. But with the k-member mostly together I could start bolting things together and setting it in the car. The car was back on four wheels for the first time in a while.
This was my first car. I got it with a 4 speed 2.3. I drove this for a couple years till the timing belt snapped. At this point I wanted to do a v8 swap. A couple years, a cheap truck v8, a used t-5, and a remarkably ok paint job later and it was running. Just not DD worthy which sucked because I was in school at the time. My dad actually drove it for a bit until the t-5 crapped out. As soon as I had graduated from school and got a job we towed it to my house and this is where the madness begins.
Some specs:
96 explorer GT40 5.0 w/ head studs, late 90's mustang gt cam
~67mm turbo aiming for 400+ hp
M5od-R2 transmission (outputshaft is from an 80's bronco but everything else uses upgraded bits from an '04 upgraded version)
Borg Warner 4404 full time awd transfercase
Dana 35 front diff regeared for 3.55
03 cobra irs with poly body bushings (also 3.55 gears)
13" 96 cobra front brakes
11.65" 03 cobra rear brakes
A couple pics I could find before full disassembly. This monster truck stance is the car without the transmission only, never again!
I started scheming, figuring out what I wanted to do with the car. It was about a year or two before this when I started watching more and more car related channels on youtube, mighty car mods, project binky, B is for Build etc. Seeing their work, gymkhana 7 and a 1982 awd cutlass swap I got some pretty good ideas of what I wanted and felt I could do.
I gutted the car. Pulled everything out of it and began to prep it. I knew I'd need to stiffen the chassis so I welded in thru floor sub-frame connectors. For a rear end I found an 03 cobra IRS on craigslist for 800 bucks (that is a steal) and a 96 Explorer XLT. I would have the complete awd system to gut and a source to copy mounting points from.
I made a jig using the mounting points in the explorer. lower control arms, differential, steering rack, sway bar, upper control arms. I got em. And then I pulled the jig and built around it. And it looked like crap. No biggie.
This is still a WIP shot but it shows that a good bit of the design changed. And that a bunch of work was done that got poorly documented. Eh it happens. But with the k-member mostly together I could start bolting things together and setting it in the car. The car was back on four wheels for the first time in a while.
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