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Back in April of last year I picked up a new project. I got a hella of a deal on a clean notchback roller with the intentions of doing a LS swap. I'm a Ford guy, I've been building my 03 cobra for about ten years now and wanted to try something new. I'll just say, ya LS motors are great. After dealing with dual overhead motors for years, working on a pushrod motor is so much easier. And the goal here was to build a race car that I can take to the track and thrash on.
The previous owner pulled the 4 banger due to noise in the top end. I took the motor in hopes I could fix it and get it running so I could smog the car and register it in my name. I tore the motor down and found the problem. It looked like silicone had been used to seal the oil pan. Who ever did it used too much and it clogged the oil pump pick up tube. Cleaned the pickup tube put it all back together and ran just fine.
Once I got the car running and driving first thing I did was a 5 lug conversion. Had an old set of cobra wheels that went on nicely. Also, found a 4l80e, looks huge next to the small foxbody.[/URL]
Disk in the rear. Got a rear end out of a 98 GT. It's a bit wider than the foxbody rear but was perfect with the bigs and littles I had. The rear you don't want on a foxbody is the 99-04, it's too wide.
After enjoying the car for a few weeks it was time to pull the 4 cylinder.
The motor went in easy with a aje k member. At the time I was planing on doing a turbo setup so I put some v bands on the stock manifolds flipped forward. I ran the exhaust out in front of the tire for the time being so I could atleast fire up the motor and drive it around a bit. Used a Camaro shifter and just plugged the big hole where the stock shifter would go. Mustang tranny cross member worked fine just moved it back a bit.
In was now October and getting close to being done. The car was running and I was driving it around working out some kinks. All I had left was doing the exhaust and fuel system for e85. This is where I ran into a string of bad luck.
The car sat for about a week, went out to fire it and it wouldn't start. Seemed as if the starter was on its way out. Seemed like it was getting caught on the flywheel and getting stuck. After a few tries it finally fire up. But now the motor had a bad knock. I couldn't believe it, when I last drove it it was fine now the motor was knocking. Pulled the motor and discovered this.
Yep, that's a bent gen4 rod. The noise was coming from the small end hitting the piston skirt.
And it gets worse. I had a spare motor laying around. A 6.0 lq4 I was planing on building into a 408. I decided to just throw it in so I could get back on track with the build. Once the motor was in and running I noticed there was coolant leaking from around the heads. At this point I figured a blown head gasket must be the problem. So when I went to remove the heads discovered all the head bolts werent TQ down. I think who ever I got it from pulled the heads to inspect the motor and didn't bother telling me.
Pulled the heads had them rebuilt and slapped it back together.
Well things seemed to be back on track. The car was on the back burner for a few weeks due to my wife and I having twins. So ya needless to say it was a busy time.
After a few weeks many sleepless nights I got back to work on the car.
It was now mid October the car was back up and running. Still on the to do list was fuel system and exhaust. Things just get plain embarrassing at this point. Maybe because of everything going on or for what ever reason I can't explain it I didn't bother to track down what caused the initial knock in the motor before replacing it with the 6.0. Well it happened again under the same conditions. It was running fine, let it sit for a few days went to fire it up and same thing. Starter got hung up. Finally fired it up with the same knocking are the prior motor. Very discouraging at this point.
As I suspected, after pulling the motor again!!! Bent rod same location are the prior one. Long story short and I'm sure many of you have figured I had an injector stuck open. As the car sat for several days fuel leaked down into the combustion chamber. Yep, hydrolocked causing the rod to bend.
If things couldn't get worse, what was supposed to be a simple task of cutting a small tab on the transmission shifter cable bracket attached to the tranny. I ended up almost cutting my thumb off. The cutting wheel on the grinder got hung up and walked right into my thumb nearly cutting it off.
Took 4 stiches.
Man you cant catch a break... Good looking build though, hope it gets better for you
Thanks!!! At this point I was close to just bailing on the whole thing. At the time I was also working on rebuilding the motor on my 03 cobra and in September my wife gave birth to twins. After the grinder incedent, she really got on my *** about it. I took a break for a few weeks from the project.
With all the setbacks I decided not to go turbo for the time being. I figured building a turbo kit was going to take even more time and now with two babies getting time to work on the car was hard. I got some LS swap headers from eBay and had the exhaust built. I also finished up the fuel system.
I used a new fuel hat that has 6an hose fittings really impressed with it and a walbro 450lph pump for e85.
It is now December and the car is pretty much done. I had some nitrous stuff laying around so I installed it. With the 6.0 being a gen 3 I figured it would be safe at around 500 whp. Finished a few odds and ins and scheduled dyno session.
Cleaned up the interior.
E85 looks really good around here for being winter fuel.
And now the payoff. Felt great to finally drive it down to the shop for dyno tunning. If anyone is near Turlock CA. There's a great shop that mainly specializes in LS. Starkweather performance. Nathan Scaldach is the tunner and actually made an appearance on street outlaws when they came out to CA. He really knows his stuff. Dyno day was just a couple days ago on the 5th. The car made 358rwhp and 364tq on motor. On a 200 shot it made 548hp and 629tq. This thing is a monster feels so light and quick. It weighs 3080lbs with me in it. Really happy with the outcome.
Very nice build! Where did you get the fuel hat that has 6an hose fittings?
Thanks!!! The fuel hat was great and allowed me to easily install the 6an fuel lines to run e85 without changing out the tank. Deffinately worth it. Here's a link, they are on back order but worth the wait.
01-06-2017, 07:55 AM
Mustang notch LS build 
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