Mustang Sally Restoration: Some backstory and parts collection

 With some money in our pockets to burn, we'll take a look at what parts we're buying up to get Sally running better than ever. Here's a quick recap of Sally's story.

Dad picked up this 1994 Mustang GT in Deep Forest Green (Paint code "NA") May 17, 1997 (44th bday) for $13,965.17, while I was in Brazil on my mission. It had about 34k miles and was a lease return found at the "Barber Valley Motors" at the Kern County Fairgrounds. The stang replaced this little copper beauty, a 1975 Porsche 914 that he had for about 4 years. The 914 was one of the cars dad painted in the garage. He also rebuilt the type 4 VW engine, adding some fresh heads and camshaft from Mark Stephens High Performance, which was located in the hills in Tehachapi. I actually worked there for 2 weeks the summer I was 15 or 16. I swept floors, removed valve seals and removed the exhaust manifold from the boss' Jeep Cherokee LOL. I was deep into air cooled Vdubs at the time and this was a dream job, although very short lived. I can remember the stacks and stacks of cylinder heads in the old shop. They used to advertise in the Hot VWs and VW Trends magazines. Sorry, got distracted there.

There's my 1972 Bug (Standard, not Super Beetle) on ramps in the background. This would have been around 1996-97 (bought my Bug in summer of 1996, dad sold the 914 spring 1997).

Here's a beauty shot of dad and Sally in a blossoming field in Tehachapi above Highline Road. Clean machine!

Here's a cool pic of 3 Hechtspeed Mustangs in one shot. Here's Sally, the Legend, front and center. Brent's red 2005 S197 Mustang GT and his grey 2016 S550 V6 Mustang that he was doing some work on for the new owner.

In this pic, you can see Sally's faded green paint on the hood and roof. Koo koo!!! :( She's got the grey and black interior and is sporting a nice set of Bullitt wheels, 17s in front and 18s in the rear. Looks great! She has the Bullitt gas cap mod to go with the Bullitt theme. 

There's a few pics of Sally at the drags. This was at LACR (LA County Raceway) in Palmdale, probably at one of the New Years Bracket racing events dad did. She looks good with the Weld drag wheels and slicks with old 914 "skinnies" up front. haha 

Right, right, back to the story. So, dad began slowly but meticulously upgrading Sally over time to go faster and quicker in the 1/4 mile. The stock GT is a mid/high 15-second car. Not bad for 1994, but not good in today's world. The quickest run she ever made was a 12.85 @ 106.x mph at Bakersfield's Famoso Drag Strip around 2000-2002? How did it drop 3 seconds at the quarter mile? It wasn't with a cam, heads or aftermarket intake manifold. There were dudes who would come up to dad asking where's the nitrous bottle or supercharger. Then they'd find out he had none of that crap and no cam, heads or intake. Whaaaaa???!!! This is why Sally is a Legend! Dad studied out all the DIY mods he could find. He was on a tight budget, so any parts he was going to buy had to make the car faster. Here's the list of mods:

-Ported in the garage stock iron E7TE heads

-Ported Ford Explorer lower and upper Intake Manifold (includes the end cut off to allow access for porting and maybe a little volume increase) with phenolic spacer to increase plenum volume and cooling

-Custom ram-air scoop (home made mold and fiberglass part) and air filter box

-Ported and modified stock MAS sensor housing

-Ford Performance computer add on

-Hi Perf spark module (to increase dwell time) and high perf coil

-Adjustable fuel pressure regulator and 255lph fuel pump

-Underdrive pulleys (short belt used for drag runs to skip power steering)

-Stock modified/bored throttle body and home made aluminum throttle butterfly blade, opened up to about 63-64mm from stock of 60mm.

-1.7 Roller rockers

-MSD ignition

-Long tube headers (shorties are also in inventory when needed for smog set up with stock catted h pipe)

-Off-road H Pipe

-Stock Catback (dare I say best sound exhaust when paired with h pipe and headers?)

-3.73 gears (also tried 3.55s, 3.90s and 4.10s through the years)

-Homemade subframe connectors, reinforced torque boxes, drag shocks in rear, unbolt front struts (seriously), K member brace

-Aluminum driveshaft

-Eaton posi unit (4.10 when he ran the 12.85sec run)

-Short shifter, drag flywheel and King Cobra clutch

Here's the Pre-resto view of the engine bay. Pretty factory looking eh! 

So, the plan for Sally 2.0 is to totally upgrade and rebuild the engine and replace the already rebuilt and tired T5 transmission. The car now has 271k miles with lots of desert commuting and maybe about 100 drag launches, plus all the practice runs on Stuber Road (shhhhh!!!!). There is a set of GT40P heads from a Ford Explorer dad bought years ago from Central Coast Mustang. They're for sale on FB Marketplace, currently asking $500. ;) The P heads are iron (read: heavy) and are not a significant upgrade (maybe a down grade?) compared to the ported stock iron heads that are on the car. So, they're up for sale to help fund some AFR165 aluminum Renegade 20 degree, 58cc combustion chamber volume, 165cc intake runner and 68cc exhaust runner volumes, 1.900" intake valves and 1.600" exhaust valves with stud mounted rockers, p/n 1402, which are smog legal (Carb EO #D-250-3). Replacing the stock camshaft will be a Comp Cams XE264HR (p/n 35-349-8) hydraulic roller cam with 212/218 duration (Int/exh), 264 and 270 advertised duration and 0.512" valve lift on both Int and Exh and 114 degrees of lobe separation. Pair this with some 1.7 roller rockers and the lift should be about 0.541"-ish. This is a mildish cam. Compared to the smog legal, very mild Ford E303 cam, with 1.7 rockers would be at about 0.529" lift. Stock cam lift is .444 and with 1.7 rockers, about .473". So, getting .541" lift will be a nice upgrade, especially when paired with the AFR165 heads and supporting int and exh mods.

Here are some parts he's been collecting up for the restoration that will support the planned combination:

BBK 76mm mas air meter calibrated for 24lb injectors replaces the stock modified unit. You can see its longer than the stock piece so the customer cold air pipe has to be modified to fit the BBK unit. This cost $284.

Here are the Remanufactured LMR (Late Model Restoration), part number LRS-37263, we picked up for $214.

 Below is a picture of the stock 19lb OEM injector (almost 300k miles) and its single exit spray nozzle vs the multi-point nozzle of the LMR reman'd 24lb pink injector. This should make for better performance with improved atomization (??).

Here is the engine bay with the new BBK 76mm mas meter and injectors. After the computer was reset and some learning of the ECU could figure things out, its running well. It's ready for more air!!!

The Comp Cams XE264HR .512" lift cam has already arrived and is ready to rock! This was purchased from Summit Racing for $420 shipped. It has a "basic operating RPM range" of 1500-5500.

Also arrived are these Ford Performance roller lifters, M-6500-R302H, which are direct replacements and are a higher RPM, "severe-duty" version. Bring on the revs!

Look what else has showed up! This is a T5z, close ratio 5 speed transmission which will replace the abused and used T5, which was previously rebuilt a couple decades ago. We ordered this from moderndriveline.com. 

Their site says the following: 

"The 94-95 SN95 Mustang/Cobra Super Duty T-5z is a step up from the T5’s used in the 1994-95 Mustangs.
The gear sets in the earlier t5’s were built with a 3.35 first gear with a .68 overdrive.
The Super Duty T-5z is built with a 2.95 first and a .63 overdrive idea for 3.55:1 axle ratio"

In addition to the revised gear ratios, it has carbon fiber syncho rings and the Cobra pocket bearing mod. Nothing bums out a hot engine more than a grinding, worn out transmission. The trans is what brings that engine to life and gives the car its character! Especially the way dad power shifts, Sally needs a trans that is up to the task. This baby is listed at $2,505, but after shipping and some new AMSOIL gear oil it ends up being about $3000.

Dad is looking for his 4.10 gear set again knowing the T5z has the higher ratio 1st gear so that the launch can carry him out further down the track and not have to shift quite so soon. haha The longer 5th gear will help keep the Rs down when cruising on the freeway to the track or car show!

AMSOIL lubrication is ready to be put to work!

Here's the GT40P heads from an Explorer. Dang things need specific headers to clearance the spark plug and this turns some people away. The original owner of the heads had them on his Foxbody and within a few hundred miles and only running on 7 cylinders due to shorting out the plug he had them pulled off. All he needed to do was buy the P headers and he would have been golden, but I guess it was less work? to remove cylinder heads? haha Whatevs!

Here is what we ordered up, the AFR165 p/n 1402 stud mount aluminum cylinder heads! These are on a truck in the midwest heading to Tehachapi as I type. Summit Racing was so great to work with. I called on the phone to order these and I'll say that the whole order process was smooth. They even have a "beat-a-price" price match agreement and they honored it on the heads. CJPony.com had the same heads listed at $1947.42. The person on the phone taking the order looked at the cjpony.com site, confirmed the price and beat it by $1. So, that was $118 saved! The Summit Racing app is pretty nice too and has an easy link to the shipment tracking info, which I keep refreshing LOL. They're still in Illinois... hhhhhh