March Update

Haven’t had anything real specific in awhile, we have been busy trying to get race cars ready for the season.

Work has been steady on the 2005 Mustang GT conversion to a race car. We pulled it out the other day and it wouldn’t start, pointing toward bad spark plugs. The 5.4 and 4.6 ford motors are notorious for the broken spark plugs, and when we removed them, it turns out we had not just a few, but 8 broken plugs. Unfortunately, the plugs have probably never been changed in the car before.

We actually ran into something we haven’t seen before, in that 3 of the plugs, rather than breaking off when you removed them, had the outer threaded portion come right off the plug, leaving it intact in the head. When the plugs break off, there is a special tool that allows you to drill everything out and extract the plugs without much issue, but when the plug doesn’t break, it got a little more interesting. Normally they break off like the one lone plug in the this picture.

Yea, not suppose to come out like this, but at least this came out finally so we could use the extraction tool. All in all a bunch of work, but we got it done.

After prepping the rest of the cars for the season, we rented hallett for the day with 15 people and ran to check things out. Some things were expected as is normal early season, but now we have a good idea of finalizing the preparations for the season.

The 944 ran great, just clicking off a 1:23.7 lap at one point. Still a couple of seconds left in her as I get comfortable with the new power brakes and power steering. First time in years I have been confident in the brakes.

After we got back we starting some of the last things to do on a few of the cars. The Porsches we pretty much put away for a few weeks, not much to finalize there. I did get a have fun in a supercharged raptor for a few days, and got the 30k mile whipple supercharger oil change done one evening at home. I really like cars, but I love fun trucks.

One of the problems we were having with the G stream wings on the mustangs is that the deck lids were deforming under the downforce, so we reinforced the 2 cars that did not already have the reinforcements. It involves adding a couple of braces and these backing plates. The 302R was easy, but I had to modify the plates quite a bit to fit the 2005 GT deck lid.

This 2014 build has always baffled me a bit, getting the car with 2011 safety equipment in it, and now leaking from MCS shocks. My guess is this car was built in 2011 and sat in a warehouse for 3 years until it came to us. It had zero hours/miles on it when it arrived. Either way, I pulled the shocks and set them out for a reseal, so should have those back next week.

Big bird starting making a little diff noise at Hallet, so we pulled the diff cover and Wes found the retaining clip for one of the moser axles had come out and wedged itself in the diff. Had to cut apart one of my needle nose pliers and use a slide hammer to get the puppy out of the diff, but we eventually got it out. Its hard to see in the picture, but there is a square hole at the bottom back (or front in regards to the car) of the diff where the clip was jammed on the other side. Not fun. Only thing we can guess is when they installed the diff in this 302R, that they just didn’t get it seated properly. While the axles were out, we upgraded the rear 13″ rotors to 13.5″ rotors.

Then we moved onto the GT. We moved the 13″ rotors from big bird over to this car, removing the stock 12″ rotors. This car will get E7 brembo motorsport calipers up front as soon as the brake lines show up. We also had leaking axle seals on this car all of a sudden, so new seals there should keep her drip free.

New brackets for the 13″ rotors.

Here you can see the difference in stock and the 13’s. There are three sizes you will come across in these cars, 12, 13, and 13.5

Replacing the outer axle seals….

And while everything was apart, on Sunday we got the rear diff cooler installed and ducted. My plan is to install lexan side windows with naca ducts feeding through the new trunk enclosure that Wes is building, thus feeding fresh air to the coolers (we will install a trans cooler as well). This is a push system, so air will be pushed via the fan through the cooler and out the duct we built on the other side of the cooler to the outside.