Post: #1

I've been looking for a place on the interweb to tell a little about this car. Aside from my own blog, I figured here would be the best place to tell the world a little bit about this car.

One of my few childhood memories is when my father bought the car. At the age of 5, my parents showed up to the babysitters house to pick my sister and I up after buying the new family car, a 1968 Ford Mustang 289 fastback. For nearly 20 years the car served as my fathers daily driver and family hauler. Eventually the Rustang's daily driving duties were replaced by a 1993 SHO Taurus.

I acquired the Rustang back in January 2008 when I decided I could do something with the car instead of let it rot in our driveway. This is basically how the car looked at the time. It doesn't look any different on the outside currently:



First thing's first. I'm an electronics nerd. I'm a tuning nerd. I can't stand the thought that a car I own has a carburetor and/or distributor. The first thing I did the car is megasquirt it. This was a very involved project considering that these motors never had an EFI option. At the time I started the project I had very little experience with megasquirt, 3 months prior to acquiring the Rustang I had built my first megasquirt for my RX-7 TurboII.

This is what I started with. A 2V 351 Cleveland with a 4bbl Holley carb and Mallory optical distributor:


Then I made a trip to the junkyard to get some EFI stuffs:


The first consideration I had to take into account was how I was going to trigger the ECU. I chose to get rid of the distributor so another method of triggering was going to be needed. At the time the Ford EDIS ignition system seemed like a good route so my father chucked up a plate of steel in the mill and made a 36-1 trigger wheel that fit on the harmonic balancer:


I wanted to make sure that this trigger wheel was going to be reliable so you'll note in the picture above that I've chucked the trigger wheel in the drill press and clamped the VR sensor the drill press to test the trigger wheel. At this point everything looked like a great success. This also gave me the opportunity to dial in the 3.0 mainboard VR circuit:


The harmonic balancer was machined at the accessory pulley flange to accommodate the trigger wheel between the balancer and the pulley, maintaining belt alignment:


Next was addressing how I was going to get fuel from the tank into the motor. To make use of what I had, my father machined injector bungs out of aluminum bar stock and milled bung holes in the Edelbrock manifold that was already on the engine:


I modified the fuel tank with an AN -10 pickup at the bottom of the tank, fed from the same location as the factory carb pickup. The factory fuel line now serves as the fuel return line. A Bosch Motorsport 044 fuel pump supplies fuel to the engine through a -8 hard line. The fuel filter is a K-Jet Mercedes filter with AN lines adapted to it:



Now for lighting off that fuel. I chose to go with the DSM ignition system mainly because I have enough parts in my garage to make 3 complete DSM's. Four DSM wasted spark coils are fired through two DSM ignition modules. The spark plug wires are a universal kit I bought from Summit Racing for an older Dodge since it had the same ends as the DSM coils:




I didn't feel a glove box was necessary so I made a plate that mounted the MS, fuses, and relays behind the glove box door:


I needed a way control all of this air going into the engine. An Infiniti Q45 throttle body will do the trick. A custom plenum made by my father mates the throttle body to the carburetor manifold. I started putting it all together and this was the result after about a weeks worth of work:


After buttoning up the induction system, making an intake, and a little tidying up, I had an MS'd 351 Cleveland:


For those wondering what's driving the oil pump since there's no more distributor, here's the solution. It's a cut off factory distributor with a bearing mounted on the top to keep the distributor shaft centered. Simple. Works:


Now to toon it all. At the time the JAW had come out and I decided I wanted to try one out:


And that's how the Rustang was MS'd.

To be continued..............

Post: #2

More, more, more!

Post: #3

As of March 2008, the Rustang was running free of the archaic distributor and carburetor. In my free time I began street tuning the Rustang.

Since I didn't mention in the previous post, this is what I was working with at the time:

Engine
1970 H code 351 Cleveland
John Bridges ported 2V heads with stainless valves
Crower Compu-Pro 15241 cam
TRW .030 flat top pistons
Shorty headers
Edelbrock performer intake manifold modified for EFI

Drivetrain
Close ratio T-10 transmission
Stock open 2.79 rear end

Engine management
Megasquirt II running MS2/E 2.0.1 firmware
B&G 3.0 main board
Denso 440cc injectors from NA S4 RX7
DSM wasted spark coils
DSM ignition modules
Bosch Motorsport 044 fuel pump
NA S4 RX7 idle valve
JAW wideband controller

The first year I spent strictly street tuning the car. I had a good idea of what the ignition timing map should have been based on the advance curves in the old electronic distributor. Fuel was tuned using the JAW. This proved to be a bit of a hassle in comparison to the ZT-2 I had in my RX-7. The ZT-2 has a very precise, filtered output comapred to the Jaw. In datalogs where the ZT-2 had a nice stable output representing AFR, the JAW's output represented a really hard techno track as viewed in an oscilloscope. I spent more time paying attention to the JAW display and noting where I was at on the map to tune the car. This worked well, as proved by the first time I put the car on a dyno a year after MS'ing the car:



After putting the car on a dyno, I noticed the sudden loss of power at 5200 RPM. Valve float. The motor was still on stock valve springs. After noticing this, I went straight to replacing the valve springs. I scored a set of Trick-Flow dual valve springs that were brand new, removed from a pair of Trick Flow heads on a project my father was working on at the time. Time to address that issue. Out with the old, in with the new:





After doing the swap the car pulled much harder to the rev limiter. Figured the problem was solved, right? For about a year and a half, I did nothing else to the car. I drove it, but not that often. To be honest, driving this car is a workout. Solid linkage borg and beck clutch makes an ACT 2600 on a DSM look like a stock clutch. Manual steering and brakes requires effort from the rest of my limbs. I like it this way, however. But not for daily driving.

Some time during 2009 I lost the Bosch 044 fuel pump to a battery, in the most interesting way. The car sat in front of my house un-driven for a few weeks while I was out racing time attack. During this time the car was parked the battery strap was cut and the battery knocked over in the trunk. The trunk floor of the Rustang is the fuel tank. When the battery knocked over it poured all of the acid all over the top of the tank, eating away at the top of the tank. The acid eventually found its way into the tank and in the fuel pump pickup. I don't know how long the acid was in there, but it displaced all of the fuel in the pump and basically ate the entire inside of the pump. At this time I could not afford a new 044 pump so I turned to a cost-effective replacement just to get the car running again. I went to the junk yard on 50% off day and obtained an old Mercedes K-jet fuel pump from one of the bigger V8 models. For the record, that fuel pump is still ticking along in the Rustang to this day.

Once I started working in Orange County mid 2010, the Rustang came with me now that I had a shop, dyno, and income to take the car further. First, lets take a look at the baseline on my DynoJet 248 in comparison to the 224 I was using before:



Well, it appears the valve spring change solved the issue of the sudden power drop at 5200 RPM. But, Torque takes a huge dive after 4500 RPM and I'd like to fix that. This is indicative of the anemic camshaft that was in the engine at the time, The Crower 15241 cam, with a rated powerband of 1500-4500 rpm. Time to change that.

Stay tuned. There's more to come.

Post: #4

More, more, more!

Post: #5

I've been hoping for a write up on this for a while. Which trans is in there?

Post: #6

Close ratio T-10

Post: #7

Cool car, that is my favorite body style and year too. I like how you MS'd that 351. I only MS'd one American V8 an olds 350 a few years back.. And of course several Volvii. Awesome writeup!

Post: #8

Nice to see how this is done on an oldscool V8, like your approach on how to get stuff done.

Awesome build thanks for sharing, as Scottyd says: More, more, more!

Post: #9

I brought the Rustang up to Costa Mesa back in September of last year so I can start doing some work to it. I started with the two most important issues that needed to be addressed. First were the tires. Since I had acquired the car, it rolled on 225/50/16 Kumho Ecsta V710's because I'd get them for free. They suck as daily driver tires. Working next to a tire shop I got set up with some cheap 245/50/16 Falkens.

Second was the clutch. The car was on a stock flywheel and borg-and-beck clutch. For those who aren't familiar with a borg-and-beck clutch, here's a cutaway diagram:



Unlike modern diaphragm clutches where the diaphragm applies the pressure, the borg-and-beck clutch used springs similar to valve springs to apply pressure to the disk. They have a heavy feel, inconsistent engagement, and chatter like a multiplate clutch. They suck. I had to change that, mainly to make the car more "comfortable" to drive.

In order to change to a diaphragm style clutch, I had to run a flywheel that supported a diaphragm style pressure plate bolt pattern. Ford Motorsport has an SFI approved billet steel flywheel for the Cleveland made specifically for diaphragm clutches. I chose to go with a Zoom 10.5" Kevlar clutch, mainly because I have come to really like kevlar clutches for higher performance daily drivers. Comparison of the old and new clutch:



While I was at it, I decided to rebuild the 40 year old worn out T-10 transmission with a $100 rebuild kit I bought from a supplier on Ebay. May as well since it was out, ya know?





The clutch and tires were the big things I wanted to get done on the car and I'll say I was so much more satisfied with the way the car drove after addressing those issues. I also did a few other things to the motor such as make a better breather system, and fix a few minor cooling system issues. Basically, I wanted to get the car up to snuff so I could drive it between San Diego and Costa Mesa if need be.

I had a few other big things in the works for the Rustang. But then, October of last year, something unexpected happened. I became a homeowner. My budget for the Rustang disappeared. Luckily, since I took care of the big things I needed to take care of on the car, It was good to go for the time being. I drove it between San Diego and Costa Mesa just to see if the car would do it, and it did it just fine.

Once again the Rustang wouldn't get touched for a while. I put a lot of money into the house and at the beginning of this year brought in two room mates. Once again, I had a budget to put into the Rustang, albeit very limited.

I've always wanted to play with nitrous and figured the Rustang would be a perfect candidate. However, the 600 some-odd dollar cost for a kit was out of my range as I could do better things with that amount of money into the car. My lucky day came a few months back when I scored a kit from a customer who wanted me to remove the kit from a car he bought. Without delay, I installed the kit on the Rustang:





The MS has full control over nitrous delivery. I'm starting off at a 50shot just to get the hang of jetting and tuning on the stuff. Immediately after installing the kit, I had to take the car out for a drive. What a blast! I fell in love with nitrous the moment I used it. I had so much fun that I went through a bottle the first two days of having it on the car. If you're thinking about running nitrous, do it.

But what good does nitrous do when my cam shuts down at 4500 RPM? The next big project I took on was putting a different cam in the motor that had a powerband more desirable for making a good number. After countless hours of modeling different cam profiles on my motor I settled with the Lunati Voodoo 62503 cam. The cam had a basic operating range of 2000-6000 rpm and according to my models made the broadest powerband with the highest peak output over any other cam for my specific engine combination. After placing an order to Jegs I had my new toys:



Once the new cam was installed, time to tune it all and see the results! I decided to shoot some video while I was on the dyno to send up to my father in Oregon. I also put a quick dyno clip on youtube:



The results of the dyno tuning session weren't quite what I had expected. The best I managed was only about 10whp more than the last cam. WTF is going on? The dyno sheet shows a problem:



There's that cursed sudden drop in power again! It happens around the same RPM as it did on the last cam, about 5200 rpm. Valve springs? Don't think so, the springs in there currently are well within what the cam requires. What else could be the problem?

The current theory is the intake manifold. The Performer manifold that's currently installed on the car has a rated operating range of idle-5500 rpm, exactly where the car stops making power at. The plot of the curve is identical to my models, which showed that with my current setup should be making between 293-297whp.

So that's where I'm at now. Just driving the car until I can figure out what direction I want to go with the intake manifold.

More to come as I do more to the car........

Post: #10

I loved the sound that thing makes when I last saw it a few years ago. Nice note.

PJ

Post: #11

Jegs?!

There are two things friends don't let friend buy. Fram, and Jegs.

Post: #12

Jegs had the cam I wanted in stock. Summit had to special order directly from Lunati. I was pretty impatient so I ordered from Jegs. No difference in cost and I had the cam in my hand in 2 days. No complaints.

Post: #13

K I guess I can excuse you. Just don't buy a Fram filter.

Post: #14

As gay as this story is, I have a soft spot in my heart for rusted out Mustangs that make just over 200 HP.

Post: #15

Bahahaha

Post: #16

That's fine, nobody has a soft spot for 500whp DSM's that run mid 13's and trap 109

Post: #17

Funny how a mid 13 at 109 is quicker and faster than that rust bucket will ever go because:

A. You're a horrible driver and don't have the skill it takes to get a car down the track, which I have many times and
B. You wouldn't even pass tech due to the big rusted Flintstones holes you have in your floorboards.

Post: #18

He just has to go MMP where any and everything passes tech!

Post: #19

(06-02-2011 05:25 PM)WindowsBreakerG4 Wrote:  He just has to go MMP where any and everything passes tech!

Good luck getting him to try and race it. He fears the embarrassment of lining up against my race car. I don't blame him to be honest. When I can get it to run without a issue, I have no doubts I can click off a low 10.

Post: #20

Here at BS we tend to build each other up, rather than tear each other down.

I for one think he's done a fantastic job of bringing a '70's classic up to date mechanically, work like that reflects not only great ingenuity and resource but the fact that he did it with his dad also reflects a ton of great father-son bonding that can't be bought at any price.

Good luck getting your race car to run without a issue...

Post: #21

(06-02-2011 08:42 PM)Shifted Wrote:  Here at BS we tend to build each other up, rather than tear each other down.

Don't worry about Tony, he can't troll that well. Amongst my Mustang, I've done the vast majority of the work to date on his own car(s) as well.

Post: #22

Should make his run like crap and then race him

He's just mad his volvo is cooler than his DSM

Post: #23

(06-02-2011 08:42 PM)Shifted Wrote:  Here at BS we tend to build each other up, rather than tear each other down.

I for one think he's done a fantastic job of bringing a '70's classic up to date mechanically, work like that reflects not only great ingenuity and resource but the fact that he did it with his dad also reflects a ton of great father-son bonding that can't be bought at any price.

Good luck getting your race car to run without a issue...

I agree completely. Nick's 1968 Mustang is a quintessential '70's classic.

---

(06-02-2011 09:36 PM)Gross Polluter Wrote:  

(06-02-2011 08:42 PM)Shifted Wrote:  Here at BS we tend to build each other up, rather than tear each other down.

Don't worry about Tony, he can't troll that well. Amongst my Mustang, I've done the vast majority of the work to date on his own car(s) as well.

I agree, Tony can't troll that well.

Anywho, I've got this nice growler of barrel-aged Piper Down from Ballast Point and I'll be over at your house on Saturday when you finally cut your lawn.

Until then.

Post: #24

Sounds good, Dave!

Post: #25

Excellent.

Let's see some pics of the 600hp Mitsu, sounds interesting.

And any spare flagons of that Scottish ale you run across can be dispatched to Japan, I will gladly dispose of them for you.