Project Unfinished Business: 95PGTTech's 1998 Cobra build...

[95PGTTech]

At the advice of my friend (adam95gt), moved this to StangNet and Corral. My home forum simply doesn't get enough traffic to answer the many questions I have.

original thread - LMAO nice start date

The car is mostly a street car and has seen everything from oval racing to autocross to HPDE's. While my wife and I love the go/stop/brake events more than just the contests of covering 1320 feet from a dead stop as quickly as possible, the reality is world class dragstrips like Atco and Englishtown were where we grew up just due to proximity, so it sees a few launches a year as well. The car is not built to any class, but where possible I follow the latest update of the NASA CCR and in particular AI ruleset, as well as trying to meet NHRA standards.

I have done my best to go back through the thread and chop it down as much as possible, bear with me. I have a bad case of ADD and fabricator's remorse, but I'm trying to get this thing back on the road.

I removed the majority of the non-car related stuff (the real life issues) and the off topic discussion, as well as detours for parts ordered that got returned or resold. Feel free to discuss whatever, ask questions and give comments. Grab a beer, sit back, enjoy the pics and I hope you laugh at a stupid comment or two. In return, the last post has a list of outstanding questions. If you have any input, I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

[95PGTTech]

Back home from the honeymoon, pulled the Cobra in and began working on it today. For those that didn't see my other thread, wife overheated the car, lead to a bunch of diagnosis and replacing small stuff, got it running again. 180 on 7 cylinders, 140 on #8 but pumps up to 200 with a squirt of oil.


Now this is how the garage should always be...

Started removing stuff...

Front end off...

That bit of rust always bothered me...K member too...

Some of the many goodies to go on...

A bit more done after lunch...

The pile of parts that are waterproof...many more piles in the attic and garage now...

 

[95PGTTech]

More disassembly...

And the pile of parts grows...

Found my A/C tool, that really helps...

So the pile grows...

Shifter out, some wiring from the wideband and speedcal I need to clean up...

Suspension is done...

Driveshaft, x pipe, catback, trans wiring, trans mount done...

Ingenuity yields this transmission mount...

It stopped raining so I sprinted outside...

Adam took this gay picture, look at those guns though!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111!!!

The rusty radiator support will make a good sacrificial lamb...

Me pretending to look busy...

Wait a minute, isn't it called an "engine" hoist?

Never doing things the road often traveled...

No, I didn't take the gay picture everyone takes of standing in the empty engine bay with a stupid comment...

Giant piece of ****...

Most of this is going back in...

Out of the rain...

Got one header off, starter, mounts. Even out of the car, the stupid germinating BBK longtubes need to be removed to remove the transmission...wow.

I have two nice engine stands but they are being used at the moment, so it's clear off one of the workbenches and work on the floor not so official looking on this build...

 

[95PGTTech]

Crap under the intake...wtf...I just pulled the lower twice in the last 10000 miles...

Front accessories off...

Taking the trans off safely by myself was an adventure...

Valve covers and the last of the external stuff off...now do you guys see why I'm going LSx?

Some jackass drives this car hard
Not bad, stock clutch held up to 331rwhp on 103 octane + 150 shot and 120,000 miles...

 

[95PGTTech]

Pic to remember where the studs versus bolts go...

Cover off...

Front timing bagged and tagged. Tensioners were in good shape as were guides = big $$$ saved.

#8 appears visually okay...I might get away with just rings...

Head gasket looks fine...

Ridiculously stupid complicated motor...

Freed up an engine stand...

Don't know how this happened. I'll get a price on rewelding it, I'm not terribly concerned.

Impact out, torque wrench in...

Pretty clean for 120K...

Empty...

Old slugs...

Debating how much to spend at the machine shop...wire wheel cleaned up pistons sufficiently enough for me...

 

[95PGTTech]

More parts came in.

AJE 4.6 motor mounts, push/pull battery cut off switch, Spec Stage 3+ clutch, adjustable cable, line lock, throttle body

Aviator valve covers, Powered by Ford coil covers, COPS, and COP wiring harness.

 

[95PGTTech]

Bolted in AJE unit.
I am concerned about the rear mount of the passenger side hitting my LTs - I already had to cut the stock one to clear them the first time, perhaps these mounts may be different.

Disassembling stock junk.

One side done.

Rack reinstalled. MM solid steering rack bushings only work with MM or stock style K members
Damnit, I loved that upgrade.
Note: Install both sides of suspension before rack, had to remove rack again to do pass. side.

Adam really likes to take pictures of me :o
No, I don't give a **** what I look like when I'm working on cars.

And she is a roller again!
I'm going to need another alignment.
I put my tires on in the correct direction for you vaginas who care how I push my **** around my driveway.

And then the surgery began.
Stripping away the wiring.
I took like 30 pictures of where everything goes to try and prevent stupidity.

Drilling out the spot welds.

One support off.

Other one off.

Two hours later...

Winner winner, chicken Parmesan dinner.

Donde esta mi radiator support?

Test fitting new one.
Very curiously, it is much lighter.

 

[95PGTTech]

Test fit one of the AJE motor mounts, fit pretty good just slotted the holes a ****hair bigger.

 

[95PGTTech]

Did 3/4 of the welding with my MIG. Ran out of wire and gas and wanted to finish so just flipped to my ARC welder that I keep on hand for emergencies. Most of the welds that are visible look acceptable. More importantly, they all hold and I can stand on the radiator support and it looks clean and straight. I'm considering picking up some chrome yellow paint to shoot quickly tomorrow before reattaching the wiring.

Yes, my wife can generate stacks of dimes better than the US Treasury in Philly.

Got those two little upper corner panels mounted and welded as well. Passenger side fender fitted and installed (as best as can be fitted sans hood. I broke one of the fender mounting bolts so I need to pull it out of the way quickly and drill it out and retap it, shouldn't be that big of a deal.

 

[95PGTTech]

Disassembled the heads trying to save myself some coin from the cylinder head shop. Putting them back together is the real fun, but as you can see my anal organization if you keep stuff organized it's much easier to figure out what goes where. Honestly the only difficult part is getting the keepers back into the retainers, I only had 24 to deal with on my Probe heads, I've got 32 doubles of fun now.

I picked up these goods from Kimberle.

Showin' off the guns again!

Finished the other head.

Fit the other motor mount. For "bolt on" motor mounts, they sure require a lot of grinding and drilling to fit.

Honed my block and cleaned up all the gasket surfaces with senor pneumatic wire wheel.

 

[95PGTTech]

Today's progress is self explanatory...

There are two runs with it from where I was too heavy on my first coat, but I don't care, it's on and sealed. I doubt either will be visible anyhow. If I was nitpicking, I have a lot of grinding to do on some welds before I worry about a paint run. It needs to set overnight so that was the end of the day. A customer tomorrow morning until lunch, then I'm going to try and get the line lock in and the body panels back on.

 

[95PGTTech]

painted block

Worked on the pins

Passenger side fender on after drilling out that bolt I broke. Tough aligning to the door and then later the hood and header panel - takes 10x longer going back on than coming off! I got the gaps a lot better than they were before, I'm happy with my OCD...

HID ballasts mounted to front crash beam, crash beam and Styrofoam mounted. I did later push those ends in I had them backwards.

Moved my 9005/9006 and HID harnesses to hide them.

Mounted hood and driver fender, but broke another bolt down below . I'll take care of that and finish the HIDs tomorrow.

Grew nuts and drilled my hood. I like how it turned out, I need some more spacers to move the bump stop higher up on the pin.

 

[95PGTTech]

JB welded and tapped the tab on the block that was broken, I figured that was better than leaving it completely off.

Finished the pins, driver side headlight and corner lens, hiding the HID wiring, etc.

Front bumper on again, looks like a car. I'm pretty happy with all the gaps, even though the same fender spacers and washers did not go back in I think they are better than before. I'm still apprehensive about spraying my hood and front bumper, the new color seems a little off (probably due to my 122K stock paint fading). I need to paint the side skirts regardless so that will be a good test for how close the color match will be.

Stock driver seat back in. Wife really hurt her back and can't drive with the full race seat, so it's up for sale.

Wiring finished up, A/C condensor all set (new one!), and radiator cover installed.

Hood latch cable removed, finishing up some small details.

Tapped all the holes for the transmission bolts and chased the threads on all the bolts, then installed the block into the car. New AJE mounts fit pretty good.

Removed trunk back panel and carpet, they won't stay with the way I want to install the bottle and battery box and cutoff this time. I did Raamat a long time ago, still looks decent enough.

 

[95PGTTech]

Line lock fitting kit hath arrived! :thumbsup:

...and I only bought one 3/16" brake line because I didn't read the directions...


Drove to Hanlon Motorsports today...glad to see another shop out of a house like mine doing honest hard work with a few guys and their wives running the show...Bob is a really down to Earth guy and knew a lot of the same racers I know. Complete T45 rebuild kit, Viper carbon fiber blocker rings, upgraded 1-2 fork, and he's shipping me a prototype 3-4 shift fork he wants me to try out. I'm really excited.

New license plate bracket came in, as did my NHRA rulebook finally. No, I won't be leaving it black...

I don't have EGR or smog and the fittings on the headers look like **** so I cut them off. Got one done and the camera died, have to finish the other tomorrow. My wife started stripping down the one header and make angle grinder took a dump, wonderful.

 

[95PGTTech]

Cleaning up the headers...

So I go to try to install that "direct bolt in" line lock kit.
Both Summit and Hurst have no clue as to why the kit is not direct bolt in.

Trial #2 on the fiberglass. This time I added hardener, and magic! It hardened!

Drove 11 hours to pick up these puppies.

 

[95PGTTech]

Got a second and final layer of fiberglass on the skirts today, I have a few questions for the auto body guys to answer before I paint them.

Found some more parts for the line lock and ordered the rest of the stuff up, I should be able to finish the supply side as it sits now.

Hanlon's prototype 3-4 shift fork that Bob wanted me to test out. I'm not one of the ten million powershifting drag race retards, so I'm not sure how much of a 'test' I am.

Rotors. Adam, cry your eyeballs out with your pathetic GT rotors. Can't wait to get a big brake kit on this sheep skin.

My new 14" billet black antenna came in from UPR. One of two products I have from them (Cobra emblem is other). I wouldn't trust that ****ty company with anything important.

Ford parts Many of which are wrong since I went C heads

Cleaned off my table and set up to start in on the trans.

Need to pick up the adapter tube.

 

[95PGTTech]

SHM DVD came in - watched the 4V degreeing procedure, still confused.
View attachment 230555


Brought my upper harness and the Aviator one home for disassembly where I can think quietly.

BBK FPR came in, had to bend the fuel rail inputs/outputs a bit but was careful and it worked out. Previous owner of this part has some hodge-podge setup on this thing to clear the intake and what not. Yeah, that's gotta go. Called into a polishing service to get a price and timeframe on getting these done, they are god awful ugly.

 

[95PGTTech]

Old.

New.

Arrived.

Since someone is occupying all my engine stands, I was forced to improvise.

A handful of the Ford parts.

Out.

Back in.

New o-ring arrived. Installed. With very helpful tool (notice the hexagon allen ends so you can put them in on an angle).

I do has a question.

This is the crankshaft thrust washer.

Seeing the piece has two different sides, I consulted the FSM.

"Make sure the coated side of the crankshaft thrust washer with three 5 mm wide oil grooves faces the crankshaft thrust surface." This is how I interpreted/installed.

Can anyone confirm or deny the installation as being correct?

 

[95PGTTech]

Removed #5 main cap.

Torqued the other four, then you have to pry the crankshaft fully forward while torquing #5. My replacement dial indicator is not here yet so I'm going to keep assembling and measure crankshaft endplay later and hope it's within spec, otherwise I have a lot of stuff to do over.

When everything is torqued remove the prybars and the crank should spin EASILY by hand. Installed the rear support and rear main oil seal, I hate rear main seals.

Not bad for 122K.

Someone at Ford was thinking.

Make sure you have a FSM on hand. The ring ends are to be put in specific locations, even the 3 separate rings of the oil control.

Two bullets in the hole, three more cleaned up for tomorrow before I ran out of time.

Almost looks like I know what I'm doing.

 

[95PGTTech]

Got everybody cleaned up and ready to go home.

A little trick - put some ATF onto a rag or cloth and wipe out the bores with it after machining - it is naturally high in detergents and it will get the last little bit of crap out after machining, even if hot tanked (check out the rag).