Blake's 1965 Mustang Project

[digitalsolo]

Pulled the driver side control arm off.    Looks like the forward bushing was pretty well thrashed, and found a small point of impact with the coilover shock.    I have replacement bushings already, and I'll clearance it for the shock, then we should be good to go.

Most of the plan for this winter is just finding the issues from the original build that need massaged a little bit to take it from good to great.     Oh, I bought some Tesla electric parking brake calipers, because I have mental problems.

[digitalsolo]

Oh, and:

[wickedrx7]

Absolutely sick!!! Fitment looks spot on. Nice work.

[FC3S Murray]

Man that looks so clean and subtle!

Spot on Blake. Thing is a sleeper!!

[digitalsolo]

Okay, front suspension is mostly sorted out, just need to put a ball joint boot on one that's missing (? WTF Blake from 2 years ago).

Turbos are back in and the new drains are done, minus the AN fittings I need to weld on, if USPS chooses to deliver them someday.

In the interim, I'm working on the forged carbon center console lid.    I welded plates in where the old holes were then cut new holes for everything.   Redid the power window setup with a 3d printed bracket to hold 4 switches instead of 5 as I'm not going to get the "all 4" working any time soon so this way is fine.    I put the first layer of epoxy down, and then the carbon and epoxied over that.   Once it FULLY sets I'll sand it flat and see how it looks.   Plan is to probably do one more coat of epoxy, sand that, then do a 2K flat clear.    BTW, I've said this before, but this is NOT real forged carbon, insomuch as it's just for looks.  It -is- real carbon fiber shred, but that's it.

I also ordered some electrical connectors for the Tesla brakes;   the units I bought were cheap as the connectors were broken, but that's fine, I'll just pot them in epoxy and use Deutsch connectors anyway.   I also ordered a 4 pin pass through to pass connection out of the trunk in an OEM manner.

[digitalsolo]

Man that looks so clean and subtle!

Spot on Blake. Thing is a sleeper!!

Thank ya sir.   It's really closing in on exactly the look I had in mind when I started the project.  I would like to do a subtle front chin spoiler and tweak the rear exhaust a little, and probably tint the windows.    That's about it though.

I do want to do flat bottom panels on it, mostly just because it seems like a fun project, but those won't be visible so. 

[digitalsolo]

Arts and crafts while I wait on USPS to someday deliver the fittings to finish my oil drains.





This isn't finished yet.   I need to black out the aluminum edge, final sand this top coat of epoxy then shoot it with a satin 2k top coat to mute it all a bit.   I think with the window switches and CAN keypad in place, plus the billet consolidated HVAC and ECU map selector plate, it'll really tie together nicely.    I'm pretty happy for my first time playing with composites like this.     It's 100% for looks, but hey, it looks cool. 

[Cobranut]

Wow Blake, that is a really cool visual effect. 

[Speedfab]

Can we drive it now? 

[digitalsolo]

Yep.

[digitalsolo]

Center console basically finished up:





New longer front wheel studs (old ones didn't have enough engagement for my liking:



And new oil scavenge setup:

[tai-lun]

Wicked progress, those turbos look awesome tucked up there so close. Interior is chopped carbon? looks similar to the chopped look that has been showing up more as a nice alternative the the typical weave.

Have more pics of the completed rear? The blacked out bumper and tail light surrounds look mean from that angle already.

[digitalsolo]

Thanks!

The center console is the only chopped carbon on the car;  I wanted it to kind of stand out but only a little, which I think it will as it won't really be noticeable most of the time.

I'll get a picture of the rear as soon as I put the car down off the lift again when I get back to work on the interior stuff (finishing oiling and suspension work currently).

[digitalsolo]

Ordered a new, more narrow, front torsion/sway bar.    Going to put it fully between the rails and snake the arms in behind the tires so I don’t jack up my turning radius like the original setup.    At least that’s the plan anyway.   .     Hoping to sort this shortly as it’s the last part of the suspension overhaul prior to doing the alignment work and moving on to electronics work and prepping for window tint.

Oh, also hoping to get the Tesla parking brakes on shortly.   It looks pretty easy to accomplish but time will tell.

[digitalsolo]

I'm far more entertained by this than I have any right to be...



3d printed brackets in place:



CNC'd brackets:





Installed!



The Tesla calipers have crappy OEM connectors that seem to crack constantly (all the ones on eBay have that issue anyway), so I soldered some 18 AWG mil spec wiring to the drive pins, then potted them in epoxy and sealed/strain relieved it with SCL/Raychem shrink, then put a Deutch DT connector on the end.     Should solve that issue.    The calipers stock have some type of end stop sensor I think, but I'm not using them.  Instead I'm driving them with an ECUMaster Dual H-Bridge (1 caliper per channel).   This will let me activate them via CANbus (not sure yet if I can do this with one button or need a "set" and "release" button separately).

The H bridge box will track amp draw by the motor and can cut them when they go all spikey at the end of travel (motors bottom out and stall).   This means I can press one button and the H-Bridge will drive the caliper to the intended point automatically.    This is superior to the old linear actuator I had setup where I had to hold it and basically listen for the tone change.

I'm about 50% done with the wiring/setup.  I have it passed into the trunk with a DT 4 pin bulkhead (sealed properly) and wired up to the H-Bridge box, but I still need to setup the CAN keypad and do the programming for it all.   I did test the calipers by hooking the wires right to battery and they lock/release as expected, so that's pretty cool.   The programming shouldn't be too bad to sort out (I think anyway, it's all designed to do stuff like this).

Next up is wring the driver side front wheel speed sensor and testing that a bit, then getting the final touches on the oil scavenge setup, followed by the new swaybar setup, and alignment work.