Thanks bud, this weekend I should be able to get pics of it sitting on the ground. I'm not going to have all of the parts, but I should get to see its new stance

Some new pics...

 

Upper 4 link body mounts are done with reinforcement plates inside the car, watts link bars are welded on the axle, relocated fuel harness to the center of the car, upper 4 link bars are all fabbed up. Also got a new head unit from my buddy this weekend for $100 Finally get to get rid of the factory tape player again haha

I didn't get an pictures, a friend of mine got into an accident on his raptor after I finished welding my watts link stands on the axle. Hes wasn't doing very good last I heard hopefully everything turns around for him soon. He was unconscious and having trouble breathing when he was Med Flighted

 

Hope your friend is ok

 

Unfortunately not he passed away yesterday morning. Severe head trama, sad deal. He was a friend of a friend, but its still a horrible feeling. He would have been 22 this week. Its just hard to wrap my mind around, I've never been in a situation like this


But I'm going to take thursday and friday off this week, one for the funeral, and two to finish my car up. And the wife wants me to spend some time with her for a change. I need to weld on the axle side upper 4 link tabs, build the exhaust, bend up some brake lines, run some fuel lines, hook up the wiring, weld in the battery box, install the power steering resivor and lines, and fire her up

Its been down since the beginning of november for the suspension rebuild + some other upgrades. Its getting really close, and i can't wait to drive it again

 

HAHA my spending time with the wife turns out to be at a local 1/3 mile oval track. They are having super late model races as well as some sprint cars on Friday night And best of all it was her idea, great date night if you ask me

 

Tomorrow I'm going to finish welding up my axle tabs and repaint the axle where I welded. Assemble the axle completely, put the air bags in, roll the fenders, tighten down the front suspension, and maybe lower it down to its own 4 feet again. I'm also going to order the rear calipers and brake hoses. I'm just going to get the rubber hoses for the SN95 and see if they work before I drop the extra money for the braided hoses. I may have to get some braided sections and build my own.

I don't have to go back to work until Tuesday, so I'm hoping I can get alot of work done in the mean time.

 

Axle is back in, we had a heat index of 110* today and it was humid as hell. Just standing in the garage would make you sweat. Tomorrow I'm going to weld on the axle tabs. I also got my rear calipers and ordered the brackets and hoses. I'm slowly getting closer. Heres some pics of the new rear stance. It may change a little, but once its on the ground I will know for sure, and I need to center the axle a little better

 

Well I made alot of progress on my little vacation. All of the fabrication on the rear axle is finished The only thing that I have to build is the exhaust. I got the wiring on the motor all hooked back up except for the O2 sensors, MAF, IAT, and starter. I also welded in the battery tray and tightened down all of the front suspension parts to get it ready to set down on the ground. But then, of course, I had to run into a problem. The Alloy USA axles won't let the cross pin go in. The c clips are seated correctly, but the "button" on the end of the axle sticks into the cross pin area about 3/32" I couldn't call anyone today because of the holiday. So no pics of the car on the ground for the first time since November

So the typical 3 steps forward and 1 step back. And the worst part IMO is that the axles are suppose to be a direct bolt in, and I had to get the ones that don't bolt in. So if you have any pointers for me please let me know. I put up a post on the mustang forums (since its an 8.8) and there is one guy that said I set up the trac lok wrong and its shimmed too tight and thats why the cross pin won't go in, but I disagree. The spider gears went in great so I think that the problem is the axles, but I'll see after I make some phone calls

Anyway I actually took some pics to bring this thread back to life, but I'm feeling good about all of the fabbed parts. But I'll just have to wait and see how everything works together....

 

And in the 2nd to last pic you can see where I relocated the fuel pump harness I moved it so I could run tailpipes on either side of the axle and not worry about melting the wires. I still need to route the fuel and brake lines, but that will happen after the rear end is assembled and the car sits on the ground. Then I can finalize how the car will sit, and run the exhaust.



BTW I know the garage is a mess. I have parts laying everywhere, my buddy's 5.0 Ranger is being rebuilt, and my dad has been doing work to the lawn mowers haha. And a couple weeks ago it had water running through it Its in need of a good cleaning

 

Well it turns out that the axles are built oversized and are meant to be a grind to fit install, but nothing has been said about that.

Oh well, I ordered the lug nuts so maybe this weekend I can see it on the ground

 

I picked up the rear brake hoses yesterday before work and the rear caliper brackets should be here on Thursday. I need to get some fluids, oil, gear lube, tranny fluid, and antifreeze. Then I can reroute some of the wiring to make it look and fit a little bit better, grab a couple of belts, and see if it will start

I still have alot of work to do, but I think there is a light at then end of the tunnel. And if the exhaust goes together well I just might see about getting an alignment done next weekend. I definitively don't want to ruin my Nittos

 

Well I ordered some braided brake lines for the front. I just hope they work, they are universal and 16" long. The stock ones were 12" and were ~2" too short. Got a whole kit from Speedway Motors for $57 shipped And they are DOT approved, but I don't think that matters considering that nothing else on my car is haha

 

lookin good, ill be interested to see you cornerkilling it after this, gonna post some videos?

 

I'll defiantly see what I can do about that. I almost can't wait to get a Wolfe roll bar so I have a reason to get a camera mount and have a place to mount it haha

I can not wait to see how the 4 link makes the car feel. Thats what I'm most excited about

The lug nuts and front brake lines will be dropped off at my house on Friday, I can't wait to make my brother run the brake lines haha. And I lucked out with the brake lines, they come with banjo bolts and all of the mounting tabs and hardware. The banjo bolts are 10x1.5 so they won't work for the front calipers, but the rear calipers need a 10x1.5 banjo bolt Now I don't have to dig through bins to find the right ones. I had that fun with the front calipers, had to pay $16 for one banjo bolt plus drive 60 miles each way to get it. Local dealership didn't feel like having it shipped to their shop, lazy ********

 

watts link looks good.

 

Thanks, I hope it was worth the 4 month wait and the price tag. But I should find out really soon

 

17x11s with 315s on the front stick out so far The wheel is turned a touch, but this is a decent view of the top. 50mm offset with a 1/4" spacer and the nub on the spindle ground off. No rubbing, but its really close to the spindle haha



Rear axle is in and done. I ground down my axles and have .008" of clearance between the cross pin and the axle with the c clip seated. Summit tech guy said ~.010" so I think I'm close enough. Took me about 2.5 hours to get them ground down. I didn't want to mess them up, so there was a lot of assembly and tear down. Then I fitted the Helwig rear sway bar, and now I need to make some 2" or 3" spacers to drop the sway bar down. I guess my car is too low, I have the end links turned all the way in and it still doesn't fit right. And with the axle at full droop the sway bar hits on the floor. But I think spacing the sway bar down will fix that.

Another thing, I only have 27 psi of air in the rear bags. I thought that most guys have 50+psi. But when I air them up to 50 psi the rear raises up about 2" higher than in the pics. I don't know if it will matter, but even at 27 psi the rear end feels stiff I still have some fine tuning to do to the 4 link. It was binding a little bit at first, but loosened up after I adjusted the upper bars a little bit.

Everything was going well until I was putting on the drivers side front wheel and I broke a 3/8" ratchet and hit myself in the mouth with the socket. And my reaction was to jerk my head back and I strained a muscle in my neck After that I was instantly in a bad mood and didn't feel like working on anything after that. But the car is on the ground for the first time in 8 months. I need to adjust the front coilovers to drop them down to match the rear and then check clearances on everything. And I need to adjust the lower control arms a little to get the alignment closer so I can move the car. Right now its way off and I don't want to even try to drive it onto the trailer.

I'm going to order some rear brake pads and hope that the caliper brackets show up this week. Then next weekend I'm going to try to tie up the rest of the loose ends and get it outside for a much needed bath. A car cover is also on the list so I don't have to look at my car being so dirty ever again


But enough rambling

 

The back of the car is really quite low.

Did you see how much travel you have left?

A little higher in the back will solve any ride harshness, plus the raked look is cool! Ha Ha.

 

haha ya I know its LOW, but its also adjustable I remade the shock mounts to aid in travel with a low ride height. I know its probably going to have to come up a touch, but I'm going to try to make it work where its at. It would be hard to find another f body around here with a stance like mine, but I know there's a reason for that. But with no TA I should be able to really tuck up the exhaust and possibly get away with a really low car, but the LTs still hang pretty low.

I shall see in a couple weeks when all of the small things are finished and I can get it to the alignment shop and drive it home from there. I have my fingers crossed that everything goes well on its maiden voyage

 

Car is coming along nice. It should be a serious corner carver.