smackhead999's 6.0L N/A FC build

[smackhead999]

yeah... its a bitch... i thinks you got less space than me under that hood.

[dream36realms]

I do actually but my radiator is only 13" tall. I fit it in there as to be right in front following the SA body lines.

[smackhead999]

New stuff

I began on a fresh body, stripping and all that shit.  Got a solid 8.8 to go in her.



Biggest issue with this so far, is that from where I have it blocked up at, it needs to go up another 4 inches to get to my desired ride height.  There isnt that much room above the differential case.



The goal is a triangulate 4-link rear.  Going to do the floor frame rails in something bigger and stronger, plate them in front and back.  The rear of the frame rails should be around the right level for lower link mounts.  The uppers, I am not so sure about yet.  Really wanted to avoid cutting out the storage bins and part of the rear storage area to make this fit.  But, it looks like that is whats going to happen.  Mainly the stamped crossmember above the diff case that the factory diff mounted to, is in the way and limiting my ride height.

Other goals for this chassis are a removable front support frame to carry cooling apparatus' and undertray/splitter thing, turbo, nicer body panels than the ugly one I have now.

[digitalsolo]

Looks good so far.   I'll be starting a very similar project very soon.

[smackhead999]

I think I will revive my build thread from the back of the bus and start doing updates again.  I kind of lost track of each step along the way and trying to document each part as I am a little scatterbrained and tend to jump around between interests.

A lot has happened since this build thread began. A lot.  I think I might do a current status, and then try to back fill some of the gaps when I have time.

[smackhead999]

The last update indicates that I was preparing to swap my drive train from the "the old bitch," as we sometimes refer to her as, to another body that was in much better condition.  I really wish that I had chosen to begin this swap and build on a body that was in better condition to begin with.  I also wish that I hadn't stripped the old bitch down to nothing, thinking I would appreciate a miserable ride for the sake of a lightweight street monster.  There is something to be said for ride comfort.  And the old bitch has none.  I won't make that mistake again, I assure you.

Currently sitting as she does, the old bitch has more recently been referred to as "the death trap.". I'll get to that soon enough.  She wears dark gray primer on all but the bumpers, sits on brand new 235/45/17 & 275/40/17 Nitto 555 extremes, on 17x9 mustang wheels, and she has never ridden so well.  Although its still not perfect by any means, its pretty good for the death trap.

Just got some Powered by Max/GT Factory camber adjusters. Gonna install them and get this rear camber acceptable.  As in more positive than the front wheels. 

[smackhead999]

[smackhead999]

[smg id=6528 type=preview align=center caption="IMG 20131113 155224"]

Here are the camber links for comparison.

Haven't measured actual new camber yet. The links I believe we're supposed to correct +1.5* of camber.  For a 25.5" wheel that means the shoulder of the tire would move outward by 3/8", assuming the camber axis bisects the hub level like.  Use the law of cosine for solving the sweep in degrees with the known Radius of the wheel and tie and the change in degrees.

I'm not sure if the fender roll I did last night to fit the 275's will be enough given the 3/8" more tire I just gained.

[smackhead999]

[smg id=6553 type=preview align=center caption="voltagedrop"]

I have dealing with this stumble when my engine tries to switch over to idle.  It doesnt always happen.  It has been happening more since cold weather started.

Someone suggested voltage drop.  I logged a screenshot of the situation.

[smackhead999]

So I went to the tuner that initially tuned my car for some free tweaking.  The idle needed work.  I mentioned above, the annoying behavior.  So I spent about 2 hours with the tuner where he got ride of some codes and worked solely on the idle behavior.  Unfortunately, it isn't fixed, just different behavior that still stumbles and falls and dies.

He thought he had it, and it all seemed pretty good revving it up while parked and seemed to be decent on the test drive.  However, just about every waking moment after that is shitty unless driving.  The relatively consistent idle is now hunting a range of about 300 rpm, and drops low enough to allow the lights to dim.

I did some reading on tuning this engine family to learn more about it.  I'm not sure what all the tuner did.  He is not very interactive.  Don't get me wrong, everything else about the tune seems spot on.  He has a local reputation and has tuned about 100 cars supposedly.  But I think something has him stumped about my idle.

He did ask what cam I had, I told him I didn't know but that it was supposed to be mild, and he responded with... Its bigger than you think it is.  I don't know if that is an excuse or an admission that it is tough to tune a big cam.

Not sure what to do at this point.  I have unlimited tweak sessions included, but I would think he should have gotten it right by now.

There seems to be a relationship with the idle and voltage.  I cleaned up my battery terminals and will be checking my other grounds when I can get an hour without precipitation.