Wow! What a wild couple of days. I really didn't think we'd pull this one together, but we started Saturday morning and got the car wrapped up by 10 pm yesterday and home by 11.
Shirley and my dad busted ass (and knuckles lol) with me all weekend to get the new wheels and tires mounted, the DSS pro axles in, and the headers installed. I didn't think about needing O2 extensions so I drove the car home an hour in open loop mode lol. My tune wasn't half bad. The car leaned out a lot in PE which is always a good sign.
The headers sound wild! It is just as quiet if not quieter than before at light load which is a big surprise to me. I thought it was going to get obnoxious. It doesn't drone either. Getting on it, the thing is vicious. It sounds amazing and I can't wait to be able to get a closed loop tune flashed into it and start playing around with it for real. I also need to add some fuel in decel so I can get some fire going again
Once it is ready I'm going to take it to Church here in Socal for a dyno and street tune. He did my buddy's C5 with an LS3 and it ran great. I've always done all the tuning myself, even the couple times I've had it on a dyno. I'm really looking forward to the dyno day.
Got my co-pilot
The new mom car was packed full of 275's and Weds haha
When we were doing the trans I found a ton of grease in the right rear of the car. I had already snatched up previously some Cobra style DSS pro axles on clearance from J-Auto. I guess everyone is using explorers now so they make the inner stubs with the larger sealing surface. The splines however are the same as the Cobra, and with a simple seal swap you can run mustang axles in the explorer housing. Saved 40% on these guys brand new which is awesome. I was seeing a future scenario where I had axles with FD outer CV's and Mustang inner tripods, and potentially no way to get new ones of either if I had a problem. I've also always hated the sloppy Ford tripods. Just lame engineering. These Porsche CV's are super nice.
New wheel bearings installed with the larger hubs and fresh ARP lugs to work with the new axles.
They look damn good in there! Sexy with all the upgraded suspension arms too. Never thought I'd go down that route, but now I'm a diehard advocate. Bushings suck - heim joints for the win.
Listed the old wheels and tires for sale and they were gone in less than 24 hours. Years of driving and not even a scratch. Pretty proud of that haha.
The new wheels are just ridiculously awesome. Had them machine road force balanced which is not a cheap exercise, but they're glass smooth. Two of the tires needed to be dismounted and rotated 20* and 30* to better match the wheels. Definitely feels ready for 200 mph
Out with the old, in with the new. I got the final set of 1 7/8" merge headers from Spoolin' on his close-out sale. They've been sitting under a bed for years lol. If I didn't have these I'd have a set of Ronin's for sure. They do fit nice though - didn't need to clearance anything. I have a solid 1/4" to the nearest interference anywhere. They're beautiful now, but I am 100% positive I will be banging them off the ground at some point in the near future. Hell, my oilpan has scrapes and the headers are about an inch lower than that.. At least the new tires raised the car up a bit.
I'm really proud of the little garage that we've setup at our condo, but I had to call in the big guns for this project.
Aaaand when you finish super late and there's no light left you don't get sexy pictures of the finished product.
We got home, shared a beer, and then all but collapsed. I am very grateful for having the day off today. These pics of the car in the garage represent so much work over the past month or so that I can't even keep track of all that was done.
These past weeks pale in comparison to guys like Blake building entire cars seemingly overnight with custom electronics, custom interior and fabricated parts out of thin air, but as you can tell from the dates in the build thread things tend to take a little extra time around here lol. This has been literal years of parts piling up and I'm just incredibly proud of what has been accomplished so quickly. This car has become an absolute monster of a performance car. It is nothing I'd ever be able to replicate starting over from scratch. It has taken over 10 years to get here. I can't express how happy I am to be able to own this car, and continue building my ever changing dream car out of it with some incredibly awesome people in my life.
And I mean, can we talk about that fitment? 275 slicks on a street car?
