Rear End Project 1.0

I've had my gears and tlok sitting in my room for a good month and a half now. I got the used tlok and 3.73 gears for my 7.5 rear end from Joey on the collective for $120 shipped. Basically a great deal. Especially since it probably cost over $20 to ship the 30 pound box.


Anyways, Travis and I started taking out the old differential and gears yesterday and part of today. In the middle of it all, we decided on taking off the whole rear axle assembly to make the installation on the new stuff easier. While we're at it we're gonna paint the whole assembly black and red. The axle housing is gonna be red, and the differential case is going to be black. I can't decide if i'm going to paint the differential cover red or black yet but i'll figure that part out later.


So far everything has gone okay. We haven't had any major problems yet. The worst so far was getting the pinion nut off. That thing was torqued on the pinion so tight, we had to put a 1/2 inch breaker bar on it and give it hell and then some. Minty stopped by both days and watched. He also was our errand boy.


I borrowed all the tools required for the job from Rob (trav's gear head stepdad). We also borrowed a dial caliper and a micrometer from geary at the high school. The only tools i've had to buy is a 1/2 drive to 3/8 drive socket converter and an 18mm socket.

The rear assembly is almost sanded down all the way. We're going to paint it tomorrow and set up the new gears. The gear set up is the hardest and most time consuming part, hopefully all goes well.

Mustangs on the Production Line

Short vid of mustangs being assembled at a ford plant. Why in the world they used an AC/DC song for the background music, i'll never know...

Red Leather for The Bullitt

I was browsing ebay the other day and came across an auction for red leather interior. I have always wanted the red leather since seeing the original 2005 mustang promo commercial with the silver stang that had red leather. As i said before, i was gonna upgrade to get it when ordering the car but it was too expensive for me then. I have regretted not getting it for over 2 years. Luckily i found this auction. It turns out the interior came off of a stang with the side impact airbags, so it was just what i needed. I only paid $390 shipped. Hopefully i'll get it before Christmas break is over.

Here's what it will look like minus the red door accents. Maybe i can order those through ford eventually.

V6 with a 460

Apparently some guy drove a v6 straight from the dealer, ripped the engine out and threw a 460 in it with a 6 speed. This has got to be the sweetest thing i've seen so far. Too bad i don't have $15,000 layin around.

The Bullitt's valve covers get color

After putting on the short tube headers, i realized i wanted to take off those dull valve covers and paint them. Two weekends ago i went to walmart to get some engine paint and bulldog adhesion promoter but that trip turned out to be pointless. Apparently the walmarts in minnesota carry nothing useful. I ended up having to go to the p.o.s. O'reilly auto parts store here in NB. I blew $25 on 3 cans of engine paint (primer, red, and clear coat) and a can of bulldog. A few days later i went out in the freezing cold garage to start the project.

Pulling off the passenger side valve cover proved to be tougher than it looked. Ford has those engines wrapped so tight with wiring harnesses and fuel lines. It took me around a half hour just to get the cover off. The top end of my engine looks pretty clean, the cam looks good but it looked like there is a lot of grinding that could be done to make it better. Hopefully i can find a local shop that will take on a cam job for my 4.0.

After a degreasing of the cover with SIMPLE GREEN, 3 coats bulldog, 5 coats primer, 8 coats red, and 3 coats clear i got the one cover done. My dad cut out a nice bullitt stencil.

I also found a almost empty can of gold krylon in the garage and speckled the red a little before clear coating.

The next morning when i woke up, i braved the 10 degree weather to go put it back on and snap a few pics.

A week later i finally got around to getting the last cover painted. The driver side was twice as difficult to remove. The cold air intake had to be removed and a few wiring harness clips snapped when i tried to muscle the cover out. While i had the intake off i started to sand down the ugly yellow paint on it to prep it for a new color. I'll hopefully get around to getting the intake done sometime in the next week.

THE Bullitt Commercial

I first saw this commercial when i was fifteen. After seeing it, i knew i HAD to have a 2005 mustang in silver. Even though the original "Bullitt" car was green, i still wanted silver. It got closer and closer to the time i would turn sixteen and my dad and I went in to the Ford dealership and ordered this baby. I still wish i would have gotten the red leather interior option for $700 more... oh well I'll get better seats eventually. Coincidentally my car arrived off the truck at the dealership on July 18th 2005, my 16th birthday.

Shorty Headers go on Halle

About 4 weeks ago i bought shorty headers new from a guy on the collective. I got em really cheap, $115 shipped.


anyways i woke up that saturday and started putting them on @ noon.

literally 10 hours, 4 bloody knuckles, several bruises and 3 deep cuts later i shut the damn hood and parked her in my other garage disgusted...
(i did take a lunch break so it was only 9 hours of work, 3 times more than the estimated time and im still not done...) and when i started the damn car, the driver side header was leaking where it connect to the cats... Minty stopped over around 4 to help out a little. When i say help out i mean he layed under the car and did what i told him.



We only got one header on. I would have have the other one on but the largest bolt that goes in the flange (the one that holds the coil pack on) just wouldn't budge. I sprayed it several times with wd-40 and even simple green. the freakin thing wouldn't come off. Oh and by the way, DONT EVER use the bolts that the headers come with, i twisted 2 heads off the bolts so now i have a damn bolt in my engine block and no way to get it out.

A few days later i was over at Brandons while him and Darrin were working on the rx7 engine swap. I borrowed a jack handle, slid it over a wrench and busted that freakin bolt loose! Finally.
Anyways i skipped my Tuesday night class a few days later to finish the header install. Minty came over and i bossed him around some more. The headers are finally on and they were definitely worth the little money i shelled out for them. Thanks to travis and rob for letting me borrow all their damn tools since my dad doesn't believe in tools.



here's a little review i wrote over at the collective:

The Headers
I started seeing a bunch of cheap "chinese" headers on ebay for the 4.0 about a month ago for fairly cheap. I started looking around for some and found out that ACRBILL was selling his on the collective. I got them for the cheap price of $115 shipped. Thanks Bill! The Headers are very light compared to the stock manifolds that i yanked off. The welds are really good around the flanges and the interior welds to keep the 3 individual pipes together seemed pretty good but not great. I was kind of concerned that i would get a leak or two and this kind of scared me... I opted not to get them ceramic coated because i don't have the funds for it and i have heat extractors on my hood. Ceramic coating would probably be a good idea for anyone who has the money though.


The Install. . .
-The install took A LOT longer than predicted. Total time invested was around 10 hours in this, mainly because i was being careful with everything. I only had one bolt give me a hard time and that was the 15mm bolt that holds the coil pack mount to the engine block. I used my friend's Engine dolly arm and slid it over the end of the socket wrench and gave it hell. The header flanges themselves weren't really cut perfect... Basically what i mean is the holes that are predrilled in the flanges don't line up perfect with the head studs on the block. I just used a hammer and pounded the flanges until they slid onto the studs right, this made for the headers being nice and snug against the block. Hammering them in cold weather probably wasn't the best idea because the welds might break but it all worked out fine in the end.

One side note is to get under the car and unbolt your crossover pipe from the cats so you can line the cats up right with the headers so there isn't any leaks. The xpipe was sealed to the cats pretty well but thats where the BFH (as mrjimmy would call it) came out. I just hit the edges a few times and it loosened up the rust and what not for the cats to slide around just enough to line them up with the headers right.


Post Install
I surprisingly didn't have any leaks at all after installing! i was pretty relieved. The Stainless Steel has started changing colors already, first a goldish color now its turning blue but it really doesn't bother me, anything looks better than those rusty and hefty stock manifolds.

The Difference
Sound
The car definitely has a different tone when it idles. I didn't really notice at first but after a few days i started to hear the difference. The idle is a little bit deeper and just seems like the car has a tad bit bigger balls. Now don't get me wrong here, the change isn't big at all. I was hoping that the tone would change drastically but that isn't what happened. Unless you're obsessed with your car, like i am, you shouldn't notice a big or even mild difference. It just gives the exhaust that little extra. It doesn't change much during revs either. Its does make it a bit more raspier according to MY ears though.

Drive
The first little spin i took through town didn't really show me anything. After driving it for a couple weeks or so i definitely do notice a difference now. Again, its not a big change or even mild. It just seems to add a little more GO to the car. The change is biggest at WOT obviously, the engine seems like it wants more now.

Overall
I am VERY happy with these headers, for $115 shipped it was a phenomenal deal! (thanks again bill). I had 0 leaks and very little trouble with these, i even used the supplied gaskets with them. JUST DONT USE THE CHEAP A$$ CHINESE BOLTS, i twisted off the heads on 2 bolts, one of which is STILL in my engine block. I'll get it out eventually...




While i was under the hood, i got the urge to paint the valve covers. Hmmm... that would be my next project.

The history of the Mustang

I was browsing mustangforums.com and found this video on the history of mustangs by Top Gear. It's pretty cool, check it out.