OLD CROW 3V Mustang: Pypes X Pipe, MGW Short shifter and Billetworkz Shift Knob

 Ok, a few more mods to share. Last Friday I installed the Pypes after cat X pipe. This is a $190 piece that actually replaces the back half of the OEM cat pipe. It essentially replaces the H section with an X section. It's the same 2.5" diameter piping but has a better flowing X pipe connection which takes advantage of the exhaust pulses for improved flow. 

Measure twice, or 6 times and cut once. The marker lines were to tell me where the new X pipe will meet up with the cat pipe (the right line) and the other mark is where I was intending to cut the stock pipe. I gave myself 2" and really wanted some good overlap. This was the first pipe I cut. I missed the mark more than I wanted to. I blame the tight quarters under the car while trying to have a solid grip on the sawzall. haha

Here's the post cut comparison. The Pypes X pipe came with these exhaust hangers. I don't know what for as the stock car doesn't have anything to hang it to. I guess you could add hangers to the car somehow. These hangers are right near the transmission support bracket. 

Here's the X pipe installed and clamped in. LMR.com forgot to include a clamp with my SVE axle back mufflers. I told them about it and they shipped me 2 new clamps. That worked out well because the clamps that came with the Pypes X pipe were not very good at all. I didn't even try and use them. 

The MGW shifter arrived on Saturday while I was at 4 baseball games! LOL I was able to install it tonight (the following Monday). Here is a comparison of the OEM shifter vs the MGW Shifter for the 2005-10 Mustang GT.

First up was to remove the center console and gain access to the shifter boot and sound deadening material.

There were a few pain in the butt moments on this install. The biggest tip is to follow MGW's instruction to lower the transmission support bracket about an inch or so. If you don't do that step, I don't know how you remove or re-install the shifter unit. It's a tight fit in there and the shifter is an odd shape. 

I think the entire install took about 3 hours, including jacking up the car and putting everything away. Here's a picture of the front support bolt. This took some time but fairly simple step. Getting the bolt started with the tight squeeze for my hand took a few attempts.

Here's a view of the MGW shifter before I lowered the trans bracket. It was not going. I had to go under the car so I could better see how to maneuver it through the hole. 

Here's a view of the rear bracket and alignment pins. You can see the blue bracket has slots in the mounting holes. When I was inside the car, the shifter was wanting to sit toward the driver side more and I felt like it was going to be tight so I moved the shifter to the passenger side all the way. You can see the slot peeking through as I pushed the bracket/shifter to the one side for more clearance.

Once the shifter was all bolted in underneath, I moved back into the interior to reassemble the finishing touches. Here's the important boot which seals off the gaping hole in the trans tunnel. The earlier models don't have a sound deadening piece so MGW provides some dynamat and a NVH pad. Mine, being a 2008, did have the OEM sound deadening piece and I also installed the pad but not the dynamat. 

The finishing touch was the matt black "lightbulb" shaped Billetworkz shift knob and gloss black boot retainer. The instructions say to flip the shifter boot around 180 degrees since the shifter locates the shift knob further back than stock apparently.

I think it looks really sharp!

I put all the tools away and went for a test drive. The first time I went to shift into 2nd gear, I put it in 4th. The shifter is tighter and takes more effort to select the gears. It feels solid and the weighted knob feels good in the hand. I adjusted the throw about 5 turns out of the max of 10 turns allowed. If you put the shifter at its longest, its about 15% shorter than stock. So, its probably about 40-50% shorter than stock. 

I leave you with this photo at the parking lot at Viewmont High School from Saturday where I watched Josh play baseball. I can't help myself from taking pictures every time I get out of the car! It looks killer! I am loving the car! I have modified every aspect of the car so far, Interior, Exterior, Suspension, Wheels/tires, brakes and engine. It's been a very satisfying process! That's it for now! I need to find an autox event to sign up for!

OLD CROW 3V Mustang: Rear Suspension and Wheels and Tires installed!

 Big update in this post! PanteraCorey and I spent 5 hours Friday night and 3 more hours Saturday morning underneath the Old Crow to install all the rear suspension. Everything went pretty smoothly except for the removal of the upper control arm. When I watched a YouTube video the guy made it look like the upper arm would just come out once unbolted. False! haha After fiddling with it for awhile, we began slowly lowering the gas tank. I found another YouTube video and that guy said you're going to have to lower the tank. So, once we lowered the tank, boom! it came right out and the new Kenny Brown piece went in. 

Big shout out to Corey for allowing me to use his lift, tools and himself! I don't know how long it would have taken me to do that on my own or with my own tools. I know I don't have all the tools so I would have needed to borrow them or go buy some. 

Here it is up on Corey's lift Friday night

Here it is at my house today as I put my new wheels and tires on the rears. I adjusted the lower control arms because the pinion angle was -3 degrees. I adjusted it to -1 degree with shortening up of the LCAs. Corey and I had adjusted them to be longer than OEM on initial install. That was the wrong direction. 

When I test drove the car after initial install I could hear some rear end gear noise. I think that was due to too much angle. After a very brief test drive today, I didn't hear the rear end noise! Boom!

I still need to adjust the panhard bar a little. It's about 1/4" to the driver side. Brent says shortening the panhard bar will move it to the passenger side. I need an 18mm socket to unbolt the panhard bar so that will wait until Corey and I get it up on the lift next week, hopefully. 

Today I went to Harbor Freight and bought a 1/2" drive 50-150 ft-lbs torque wrench, some 1/2" drive extension and some bigger adjustable crescent wrenches so I could adjust control arms and panhard bar.

Luckily I had bought a slimmer 13/16" socket because the oem lug wrench doesn't fit my wheels lug hole openings. I've always tighten lug nuts by feel. I've never torqued them. I'm feeling official!

This is a great beauty shot! I'm purposely not showing the front end because its stock ride height and wheels LOL

This is a cool pic with it jacked up! I think the 2" MM lowering springs will be great for the street and a big improvement over the stock stuff when driving it hard.

And here's the Mullet Mustang shot! LOL 

Overall I'm really loving the look of the car with the new wheels and tires! The blacked out rear trunk panel, the rear spoiler, front lip and future canards look killer!!! I'm loving it so much!!!

I ordered a couple more parts. Corey convinced me to order the control arms and install them with the rest of the suspension. He's 100% right for saying so. I was fully planning on buying them in the future. I guess I was trying to keep the budget down but it just makes more sense to install these while everything, and I mean everything, is apart up front.

And, while I was at it, I threw in these matte black OEM+ looking headlights from LMR.com. I had a 6% discount from reviewing my other parts so I figured I'd get these ordered so they're here and ready when I do the front fender and rear bumper paint.

Stay tuned...

RED BARON 3V S197 Mustang Track Car: 315/30/19 Square mounted!

 Another update on Red Baron! The new Continental ECF in 315/30/19 showed up and were installed yesterday. New/used 14" Giro Disc rotors installed up front and paint stripped from the calipers. Here's some beauty shots Brent shared last night that I had to put up. The wider tires are noticable in the look of the car. It was too cold to push the car to get a feel so that will have to wait.

Also installed were some adjustable front sway bar end links by Shelby. The 400lbs rear springs were also installed, replacing the 300lbs springs. With the big rear wing and wider tires, this change should suit the car nicely on track.

To fit the wider tires, Brent went with a 20mm spacer, up from 19mm. The camber plates were maxed out at about -3 degrees, which necessitated grinding the opening on the strut tower to allow the top of the strut to move inward a little more. The alignment was straightened out and a test drive confirmed all was ready to rock. The bigger 13.5" GT500 sized rear rotors using the stock calipers with a bracket to make it all work will be installed today since the rotors were arriving today instead of yesterday.

Enjoy the pics! Brent is hoping that these latest changes can get the car down to a low 1:57 lap time at CW13 in a couple weeks.

OLD CROW 3V Mustang: Bolognas Arrive and Wheel Test Fit!

 The bolognas have arrived! Arby's, we have the meats! The Hecht boys have called big tires meats or bolognas (pronouced boh-log-nuhs) for decades! These are the biggest wheels and tires I have ever had on a car. The tires showed up today and so of course, we had to unbox them and check them out, make sure they're all the right size, etc.

Ok, the first money shot of this blog post is 2 of the Conti meats stacked with the iPhone wide angle lens!!! So sick!!!! Grippy bois!!!

Here I am with a pic of my tires. Big smile! I did weigh the Continental ECFs and they measured 27.6lbs. With the SVE R357 wheels weighing 22.8lbs, that brings us to a combined weight of 50.4lbs. I did weigh the stock 17s and oem tire size and they weighed 48.6lbs. So, that is a 1.8lbs increase with the new bigger/wider setup. 

SVE R357 19x11 +50mm / Continental ECF 295/30/19 = 50.4lbs

OEM 17x8 / Michelin all season 235/55/17 = 48.6lbs

Here's a couple pics when they arrived from the FedEx truck today.

Tight fit in there!

Of course, I had to set one next to the stockies! That's a sizeable increase in width! Love it! The tread pattern looks so aggressive too! I've always cheesed out and bought the cheapest all seasons I could find on eBay. I think the most I had spent on tires before this was like $650 for the bimmers set of Accelera 265/35/18 and 245/35/18 tires on 18x9.5 and 18x8.5s. The last Suby had 18x9.5 with 255/35/18 Falken FK510s but I didn't buy those.

So, after I picked up the last of the fall leaves (24 bags give or take this year yikes!), I decided to jack the Crow up and test fit the wheels.

Here's a not so great view of the rear wheel fitment. It has maybe 3/8" of an inch clear with the oem strut. Crazy how the lower control arm mounting structure fits inside the wheel. 

Had to get this shot with this angle of the rear spoiler!

Front quarter view!

At first I was just gonna put this one on the rear. But the stock 17" was looking so lame I had to go get another one to put on the front.

This view is my new desktop background for my laptop! haha It looks killer guys!!! The front wheel is resting on the studs, not fully seated. The inner lip of the wheel is sitting on the front strut. LOL I knew that would be the case. 

I love the color combination of the Vapor Silver Ford color with the Gloss Graphite wheel color! I will honestly say, before I finalized my color choice on the wheels, I was wondering if it would be too much silver color. As you can see, the color is a nice contrast. The wheels are dark enough to give good contrast but the gloss and metallic in the wheel really highlights the spokes in different angles and lighting. It looks awesome!!!

While I was at it, I detailed with the car after dusting it with my "California duster" I've had for 22 years or so.

My last comment here is I really love this Vapor Silver color on the 2005-2009 Mustang. Every body panel and feature pops with a different shade of silver. It really highlights the body shapes and design. With Brent's buff job the other week, she's looking great!

OLD CROW 3V Mustang orders up Wheels (19x11 SVE R357) and Tires (Continental ECF 295/30/19)

When you get a new car, we all know first things first, you get some wheels and tires. I did some research for which wheels and tires I wanted to do. I won't say I spent hours and hours. It helps to have a brother who you are simply copying to know what parts to buy. I did end up buying the same exact set up that Brent has on his RED BARON 3v Mustang. The goal for the car is to be a fun street car that can do Autox and HDPE track days. I've purchased many sets of wheels in my car history. This is the 7th set of wheels I've bought. That doesn't include the aftermarket wheels that my first Mustang had or the 2 sets my last WRX had. 

Before I get to some pictures, I'll give some insight into why I copied Brent. 

I did talk to other 3v/S197 "stick axle gang" members about their wheel and tire set ups and their opinions. One comment that I heard more than once was that 18's have better tire options and are typically lighter weight. While I would normally agree with both of those concepts, what I found was not quite that clear cut when comparing to the 19's I bought.

The wheels I ordered are the SVE R357 in 19x11 and +50mm offset in the Gloss Graphite color. Here's some pics.

Here's a screenshot from LMR.com's website. The SVE brand of wheels is an exclusive brand only through Late Model Restoration, or LMR.

 

The R357 costs $305/ea and the 19x11 size weighs in at 22.8lbs. This is the biggest wheel I've ever owned! The last set of wheels I bought myself was the 15x7" wheels for my Civic which weighed just under 12 lbs each haha

The biggest wheel I've had in my past was the 18x9.5" Enkei NT-03M+ wheels that are on the WRX that I just sold. I think those weighed about 18-19lbs per wheel. They are a fairly light wheel for that size.

Hot off the press pic here of Red Baron and its new big track wing! Here's a view looking into the sun of the R357 wheel. Looks killer!

Again, here is the wheel on Brent's 2005 REB BARON. One cool thing about this wheel is the way it can look bright or dark depending on light and angle. I did initially think about getting either the black or bronze color. Black has always been a no for me because you just can't see the spoke design. Bronze would be cool and I did consider it for a bit. The only small hesitation on the Gloss Graphite color is that it could be too much grey with the Vapor Silver color of my Mustang. But, it comes off much darker than the silver so it should give a nice contrast with a dark wheel. The gloss finish on the Graphite color really shows off the spoke design in different ways depending on light. I'm happy with the choice and think it will look great on the car!

The only other wheel I was seriously considering was the APEX EC7 in 18x11 or 19x11. The 18x11 weighs 22.6lbs, only 0.2lbs lighter. The 18x11 cost was $414/ea. That's over $100 more per wheel. APEX has a nice deal where you can get a replacement wheel for 50% the cost if damaged on track. By going with the SVE wheel though, I saved $400 total for the set, which would cover the purchase of another wheel if damaged.

For tires, I ordered the Continental Extreme Contact Force (ECF) in 295/30/19 from trackdaytire.com. Thanks to Nico for the discount code! Buy 3, get 1 free is a W!

What a great looking tire! Some may not consider the tire tread design part of the look of a performance car but you are Oh So Wrong! They most certainly are part of the look and I think these look aggressive!

The Continental ECF is a 200 treadwear tire meant for track duty. The description details actually say it was designed for endurance racing. So, this will make this tire longer lasting, which for a street car and a 200tw tire is one of my biggest priorities. Without the discount code, I'm not sure I would have done this tire or any 200tw tire, but it was too hard to pass up. I did research quite a few other tire options and sizes. I really want to run a 305 wide tire, but Continental doesn't make a 305 for the ECF. They have a 295 or a 315. Brent and I weren't sure 315 would fit well enough up front to be worth the step up. As it is, to get this 295 to fit will require longer wheel studs with a 19mm spacer and big camber, at least about 2.5-2.7 degrees. The pics of Brent's car above also have this same tire, so it gives me an idea of fitment and look. 

Due to living in Utah and that this is my "daily driver", I will end up getting some stock wheels with all season tires for next winter. For this winter, I can run the stock 17's with the all seasons on it until I put the big brakes on it. 

I'm stoked for these to get on the car! Next up, we'll talk suspension modifications! 

Red Baron S197: Runs 2:00 at CW13 and sports some Boss livery

 Cool update for the Red Baron S197 Mustang GT. After the front aero was added, Brent bought a Boss Mustang vinyl pack. Check it out!!!!

The car looks amazing in the black S197 Boss Mustang graphics! It totally looks the part with the aero bits and 19x11 SVE wheels wrapped in 295/30/19 Contis!

I point your attention to the brake dust flowing out of the front driver's side wheel! LOL There are brake ducts in the lower grille and the newly added canards are getting plenty of airflow through the S197 GT500 big front brakes! 

Here's the cool red, white and blue 'Murica tribute here with the "S197 Mustang Club" representing at Buttonwillow this past weekend! Brent cracked an oil filter during the first session (front sway bar rubbing on filter) and the support crew came in big time with a run to the nearest Autozone to grab some oil and another filter. Luckily know 3v's were harmed during the day! Yikes! That could have been bad! 

The big news of the day wasn't the near catastrophic engine failure but a 2:00.613" personal best lap time, over 4 seconds faster than the last time due to tires, aero and probably some other odds and ends since the last time at CW13. 2 flat is a very fast time and tells us this is a very capable street car and driver! Congrats Brent on an awesome build and drive!

Look out for a big boi wing coming soon? Gotta get that 1:5x lap time!

S197 2005 Mustang GT "Red Baron" gets custom fabricated front splitter and canards for track use

 While in T-town for the Sally engine install, of course I took advantage of the chance to check out and even drive Brent's S197 Mustang GT modified for aggressive street and track driving. Once we got Sally driving, we went to Autozone to pick up something and on our way there went by Brent gassing up the Red Baron. So, he followed us over to Autozone and I snapped this pic.

Brent was finishing up his home fabricated front splitter and canards made of a fiberglass covered foam core that he designed himself during the week while I was there.

Here's a pic of the finished product with all the aero bits installed! Everything about this hot rod is cool! The bright red paint is great! Adding to the "stealth mode" appearance are the #005 race number decals, inspired by the "Red Baron" P-51 Reno Racer's # as well as a very loud exhaust. heh heh

The SVE 19x11 flow formed wheels are wrapped in 295/30/19 Continental track tires with 200 treadwear. It's rocking Roush 427R coilovers (mfg'd by KW) with 300lbs springs (instead of the stiff 400lbs) in the rear and GT500 big front brake calipers and rotors which bolt right in. 

I got to drive this thing for about an hour, at least half of that was on our favorite Keene Touge mountain road. It's hard to pick which parts of the car are my favorite. Towards the top of the list are the Corbeau race bucket and Ford Performance Sparco steering wheel wrapped in suede which is noticeably smaller than stock diameter. The uber short shifter and smooth light clutch pedal feel make this car so easy to drive hard. No offense Gary, but after driving your late model GTO back to back with the Red Baron, it was such a night and day difference and really made me love the Mustang even more. 

The aero parts that Brent fabricated himself really add to the track focused look of the car. It's a totally different car with these parts. The hood vents are (faux CF, right?) add function and form as well!

Last but not least is the approximately 400hp on tap from the fairly modified (at least the top end) 4.6L 3-valve V8. It is a perfect amount of power for a 3350lbs car. Sure, lots of dudes are making crazy power, 500hp and up with built engines or forced induction, but this thing rips with 400hp. I'm not sure what you would do with more (I mean, I am willing to find out...heh heh). 

I figured I'd add a quick pic of the P-51 racer called "Red Baron" that is Brent's inspiration. 

Here's some "work in progress" pics during the fabrication of the splitter and canards.

In this pic, it was in barely cured up bondo for smoothing the surface over the fiberglass. It's built around a cheap eBay plastic front lip and thus hooks right up nicely on the bumper.

Here's a test fit of a canard.

Here was a mock up once it was primed.

Brent is applying the satin black paint.

With the paint barely dry, we did the final fit. It took some drilling through the bumper to get the fastening rods mounted to the bumper beam structure and through the plywood inserts that are inside the splitter. 

A few shots late that night of the splitter and canards installed and ready for the track. The parts were installed with sticky double sided tape. Brent cleaned off the surfaces before applying the tape. The tape was really on there for solidly. 

While Brent had the front wheels off for installing the splitter, he took advantage and raised up the front coilovers maybe 1/2" or so to give some clearance and a little more suspension travel for the track.

I think the splitter looks best from a high front corner angle shot. The car is ready to rock at Buttonwillow in a couple weeks where he'll be shooting for a new PB, hopefully right around the 2:00 mark, maybe even a 1:59:xx laptime at the CW13 configuration. A 2:00 lap time is known for being a very fast street car. With the aero parts, the sticky Continentals and some other odds and ends since the last time he ran the car, he's hoping for a big drop in lap times. I'll try and report back later how it goes...

Stay tuned...