User's Rides
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Frank Weathers
1995 Mustang GT Convertible Knoxville, TN - United States Deep Forest Green/Saddle top with Saddle Interior Modifications: Moderate ET Range: 13.0 - 13.9 |
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| Engine Specifications | |
| Block: | Stock cast iron |
| Bore: | 4.00' |
| Stroke: | 3.00' |
| Cubic Inches: | 302 |
| Crankshaft: | Stock |
| Compression: | 9.0:1 |
| Rods: | Stock |
| Pistons: | Stock Hypereutectic |
| Rings: | Stock |
| Bearings: | Stock |
| Camshaft: | Crower 15511 218/224 duration @.050 .496'/.515' lift |
| Timing Chain: | FRPP Double Roller (9 position crank key) |
| Rockers: | Crane 1.7:1 'Cobra' roller rockers |
| Lifters: | Stock |
| Pushrods: | Stock |
| Oil Pump: | Stock |
| Oil Pan: | Stock |
| Ignition: | Stock module,Crane PS-91 coil, MSD 8.5mm wires |
| Pulleys: | March Underdrive Pulleys (PN 1100) |
| Crank Dampner: | Stock(OEM Replacement) |
| Engine Mounts: | Stock (Convertibles have heavy-duty mounts)-OEM Replacement |
| Radiator: | Stock |
| Fan: | Stock electric programmed low @181 degrees/high @ 187 |
| Water Pump: | Stock |
| Miscellaneous: | 180 degree thermostat, SVO Oil Cooler,Mobil 1 10W30 |
| Cylinder Head Specifications | |
| Brand & Model: | AirFlow Research 165cc Aluminum |
| Valves: | 1.90 intake/1.60 exhaust |
| Port Work: | Stock AFR heads |
| Components: | AFR Valve-train |
| Gaskets: | Fel-Pro |
| Miscellaneous: | ARP head bolts |
| Exhaust System Specifications | |
| Headers: | Ford Motorsport Shorty headers |
| H-Pipe: | Bassani X-pipe with Cats |
| Mufflers: | Dynomax SuperTurbo |
| Tailpipes: | 2.5' Dynomax Stainless steel |
| Miscellaneous: | None |
| Induction System Specifications | |
| Intake: | Ford Motorsport GT40 upper & lower |
| Port Work: | Lower is Extrude Hone Ported |
| T-Body / Carb: | SVO 65mm |
| Mass Air: | Pro-M 75MM Bullit |
| Air Filter: | K&N 9' |
| Ram Air: | None |
| Miscellaneous: | None |
| Power Adder Specifications | |
| System Type: | Naturally Aspirated |
| System Manufacturer: | None |
| Pulley / Jet Size: | None |
| Boost / Nos Output: | None |
| Miscellaneous: | None |
| Fuel System Specifications | |
| Fuel Pump(s): | 190 lph Walbro |
| Fuel Lines: | Stock |
| Fuel Rails: | Stock |
| Injs / Carb Jets: | 24lb/hr |
| Regulator: | Stock |
| Driver Type (CPU): | Stock |
| Computer Add-ons: | C&M chip dyno-tuned by Powertrain Dynamics |
| Miscellaneous: | None |
| Drivetrain Specifications | |
| Transmission: | Borg-Warner T-5 |
| Flywheel / Converter: | Stock cast iron (resurfaced with clutch change) |
| Clutch Setup: | Motorsport King Cobra |
| Driveshaft: | Stock |
| Axles: | Stock |
| Differential: | Stock Traction-Lok |
| Gear Set: | Motorsport 3.55 |
| Shifter: | Hurst Billet Plus |
| Miscellaneous: | Mobil 1 ATF in T-5/ Redline Synthetic oil in rear end |
| Chassis Specifications | |
| Springs: | 850lb.in Front/350-390lb.in Rear |
| Sway Bar Setup: | Stock |
| Rims: | 17' Bullitt wheels-Anthracite |
| Tires: | 255/45/17 Goodyear Eagle F-1 GS D3 |
| Subframe Connectors: | Global West tubular |
| Roll Bar / Cage: | Yes, welded to frame and bolted |
| Traction Devices: | Maximum Motorsports Std Duty Torque Arm |
| Miscellaneous: | MaxMssprt LCA's/Tokico Illumina's/ Panhard Bar/ CC Plates |
| Body Specifications | |
| Hood Type: | Stock |
| Spoiler Type: | Stock GT |
| Miscellaneous: | None |
| Interior Specifications | |
| Interior: | Saddle |
| Tach / Shift Lite: | Stock |
| Gauges: | Stock |
| Stereo System: | Kenwood |
| Alarm System: | Factory alarm & Lo-jack |
| Miscellaneous: | None |
| General Specifications | |
| Amount Driven: | Daily Driver |
| Vehicle Weight: | 3415lbs. Fully loaded= 3585lbs with me in it. |
| Chassis Dyno HP: | 268 @ 5000-5400 RPM SAE Corrected= 323hp @ the crankshaft |
| Chassis Dyno Torque: | 304lbft. @ 3900 RPM SAE Corrected= 366 lb.ft. @ the crankshaft |
| BEST 60 ft Time: | 2.18 |
| BEST 1/4 ET: | 13.842 |
| BEST 1/4 MPH: | 104.32!!!!!!! |
| Extra Information from the Owner | |
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Update 3/20/2002: Blew a headgasket while simply driving the car to work one day...no heroic story that. However, I took this as an opportunity to swap cylinder heads. After all, why remove on head when you can remove two. I ordered up the AFR 165cc heads for the small block Ford. And while I was taking the intake off, I figured now was as good a time as any to have the GT-40 Lower intake Extrude Hone Ported.
The heads arrived from AFR and I looked at them in awe for some time. The port work on the intake and exhaust looked phenomenal. I didn't see any burrs or anything that would suggest that these heads needed any more work done to them. I bolted them on with a couple of fresh Felpro gaskets and awaited my lower intake to come back from Extrude Hone. When I picked up the lower intake, I was mesmerized by the mirror-like finish on the ports. I think I could see myself well enough to comb my hair or brush my teeth. The port walls were like a mirror. Time to bolt this puppy on and start atomizing some air/fuel mixtures! With my prior set up (GT40 Y-303 heads/19 lb injectors etc.), the engine always felt strong, but subject to detonation at higher rpms. Since I was this deep into removing parts to get to the head swap, I replaced the 19lb fuel injectors with 24 pounders. And since the CA Smog Test was on the horizon, I opted to add a Pro-M 75mm MAF meter hidden inside the stock air box. My Pro-M 77 is nice, but it is beacon of trouble when it is smog check time. In addition, it is calibrated for 19lb injectors...time to sell it on e-Bay! Bolted this combo all together and wow! Acceleration was great before but now...it is BRUTAL! That is the best word to describe it. So much more power and torque all over the tach! This kind of power is the kind that corrupts! I have not dynoed the car yet, and truthfully I probably won't waste my time. But there are some Street Legal drags coming up in a few months...stay tuned. Update 1/10/01: Happy New Year! Santa Claus brought me all sorts of presents for the Mustang this year. As drag racing isn't really my thing, I asked Santa for the Maximum Motorsports Torque arm package for my car. I also asked for a rollbar because I would like to drive her around the tracks of So Cal in club setting. Since she is a drop top, most clubs require a rollbar ergo... I was given a tip by some friends over at CornerCarvers.com and they suggested Chicane Sport Tuning for the install of the MM system and the 4-point rollbar. Joe Gosinski handled the installation of all of the parts. Spring rates are not maximized for drag racing but for handling...yep my 60ft times will still suck but I like stopping, going and turnig right and left. So some compromises must be made. Joe bolted and welded everything in place and called me to say she was done. Here is the deal: the car is no M3 but she handles like a totally different car. Ever had the feeling that your Mustang was just hurtling down the street? Not with this set-up! No more crazy rear wheel kicking out to the right side when you stomp on it...no more white knuckle moments on the Angeles Crest Highway (or the 110 freeway)...no more Ford Fairmont suspension underneath my Pony! The Caster-Camber plates allow more positive caster and negative camber to give more stright line stability and keep the outside of your tires from wearing out. I was worried about the higher spring rates from the H&R springs up front...but all is well. And the rear without Upper Control Arms? Those worked well on the Fairmont but not on the Mustang. If we are lucky, Ford will either perfect their IRS or come up with a better solid axle set-up for the next generation Mustang. But I don't have to wait for that now...Thanks Santa! Update 9/9/00: Ran at the Pomona Street legal Drags and posted my best et and trap mph ever. In the first run, traction was crap and I launched too hard. Did a 14.22 but at 102.02mph. I was happy with the mph increase. Next run was three approx. 3 hours later and the car had cooled off nicely. I granny launched (traction sucks at drag strip with the Motorsport 'C' springs)and ran a 13.84 at 104.32 mph! Not bad for having 3.55 gears and crossing the line in 4th gear! I'm glad I degreed and advanced the cam 2 degrees. I really can't expect to do much better than that while running street tires, so I'm pretty happy with the way the pony runs now. I'll probably dyno it again later this fall and update those numbers. Update 8/6/00: Advanced the camshaft 2 degrees. I had dyno'd the car after the cam install and found I had lost a little torque and horsepower. I hit 262 RWHP, but RWTQ peaked at only 290 lbft. After researching how this could happen, I decided to dail in the cam with a degree wheel etc. When I had initially installed the Crower, I 'eyeballed' the dot on the crank sprocket and the dot on the cam sprocket...but evidently, I wasn't careful enough about the postion of the crankshaft. I removed the timing cover after carefully setting the number 1 cylinder to TDC and right away noted that the dots were slightly off center. I then tore into the task of degreeing the camshaft. Sure enough, I had installed the cam about 3 degrees retarded. That explained the slight loss in peak torque. I then proceeded to degree in the cam so that the intake center was 108 degrees...2 degrees advanced over the manufacturers 110 degree center. I did this for several reasons: 1. The Crower 15511 valve intake opening event @.050 would be at 1 degree ATDC if installed straight up. Through research on 5.0 cams, I noted that all of the well-known cams opened the intake valve earlier than this...between 0 and 4 degrees BTDC on average. Advancing the Crower cam would have the intake valve opening at 1 degree BTDC. Opening the intake valve earlier results in the the valve being opened more when the piston reaches its maximum velocity on the intake stroke, thus volumetric efficiency is increased because a bigger gulp of the intake charge is drawn in. Another result is the the intake valve closes sooner relative to crank shaft position on the compression stroke, thus slightly enhancing the dynamic compression ratio. Bottom line is, since the change my low-end torque is much stronger and the motor pulls harder than ever. I can easily upshift at a lazy 1500rpm around town whereas before (since the valve timing was so far off) I had to shift at about 2000 rpm for around town driving. The power band was 500 rpm off! For those of you contemplating a camshaft change...DO IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME! Degree it in correctly. Don't trust the 'butt' dyno either! Update 6/24/00: Yanked the 10lb 'vibration damper' off of the bottom of the differential housing. It was held in place by two bolts and a bracket and came off easily. No noticable difference in NVH (same as the front damper I removed from the front end as detailed below). Update: 2/17/00: Yanked the 25lb.'vibration damper' from the front passenger side fenderwell. It was attached to a bracket behind the foglight at one end and to the top of the fenderwell at the other. Update: 1/10/2000: Just installed the Crower 15511 camshaft along with new lifters,pushrods, and timing chain set. The car now feels like it weighs 500lbs less! More power all over the tach and a nice deep bass rumble at idle. Idles smoothly as well. With my 1.7 ratio roller rockers, the cam has .4964' of lift on the intake side and 218 degrees of duration @.050'. Exhaust lift is .5151' with 224 degrees of duration @.050'. Advertised duration is 278/282. Lobe seperation angle is 114 degrees with intake centerlin of 110 degrees. Drivability is outstanding and the uninitiated will probably think the rumble they hear is from a aftermarket cat-back. Part throttle drivability is excellant with no bucking whatsoever. Tools around town in 5th gear @1100 rpm and just a throttle stab and a downshift away from extralegal speeds. When I have it dyno'd again, I'll update the numbers. Same goes for next track visit. My seat-of-the-pants estimate is an additional 15-20 RWHP throughout the entire range. :-) Previous Post: I bought this car used on October 27,1998. I have always loved Mustangs and got this one for a pretty reasonable price. As can be seen in my signature, I have the entire SVO GT40 package installed on my car. It's a great setup and everything works well together. For those who don't know, all parts are available from Ford Motorsport (now, Ford Racing Technologies) and can be purchased separately or as a package. The parts consist of the following: Aluminum Cylinder heads(Y-303);GT40 upper & lower intake; 65mm Throttle body;1.7:1 roller rockers; Motorsport shorty headers;3.55:1 ring & pinion; strut tower brace (stock one won't clear the new intake). I also added underdrive pulleys (originally in the package when first introduced, but replaced by the roller rockers currently). Mine are from March. The whole package is claimed to make 290 hp at the flywheel and I believe that to be true from dyno numbers I'll outline below(with both the rockers AND underdrives). That is everything; cam remains stock and the stock cats and catback remained, as well as stock fuel injectors and fuel pump. To the above combo I added a Pro-M 77 rated for the stock 19lb injectors and MSD 8.5mm wires. Incidentally, I installed all of the parts myself with the exception of the rear gears…I didn't want to chance messing that up! Doing the work myself was a challenge…but I would do it again in a heartbeat! In May I had the car dyno'd to see what the above combo would yield. I got 245hp@5400 and 284lb.ft@3900. Using Ford's 17% loss from the drivetrain, that equates to peak numbers of 295hp & 342lbft respectively at the flywheel. Not bad for the stock short block with 75,000 miles on it. And within spitting distance of the claimed numbers from Ford (was probably making 285hp with the factory airbox). With this combo I ran a 14.357 @98.74. Not great, but the convertible weighs 3615 lbs. with me and a full tank of fuel. And the driver was marginal at best (that would be me )! After that I was motivated to extract more performance from my car and I figured the stock exhaust was holding the car back a bit. So I installed the Bassani X-pipe with cats and the Dynomax Super Turbo cat-back exhaust to complement the shorty headers already on the car. I had the cat-back welded in by a muffler shop for rattle free longevity. I could tell an immediate difference with the exhaust opened up. She revved freely and quicker than before…and she sounded great too. A little louder but not much…a deeper idle tone for sure. A quiet exhaust with more power is what I wanted for the 'sleeper factor'. But did it add power? Again, yes. With the full exhaust the car dyno'd at 255hp @5400 and 287lb.ft @3900. That's 307 hp and 345 lb.ft at the flywheel. With this combo I ran a 14.113 @99.82. The limiting factor on my pony now is definitely the piss-poor jockey! I never intend to supercharge or turbocharge or add nitrous to my car, so I am pretty much done with the major bolt-ons. As such, I decided to make the trip over to Powertrain for a dyno-tune and custom EEC-IV program. It was money well spent. After a baseline run, (the figures I quoted in the previous paragraph) Steve from Powertrain set about optimizing my setup. He was impressed with the power the baseline run produced. Especially since the car is running the stock cam and stock injectors. But there is a lot of room for improvement by playing with the many variables in the stock programming. Below is a brief sampling of what was changed. First, the GT variables were traded for 'Cobra' type variables. For example, on the '95 GT there is a 2 second delay at Wide Open Throttle before the car will go to 'open loop'. Open loop is the equivalent of the command 'RAMMING SPEED' and causes timing and fuel curves to sharply ramp up for maximum power output. The stock Cobra computer has a zero second delay for this variable. Another key variable that was changed was the engine coolant temperature required to turn on the electric cooling fan to low speed and high speed. Stock EEC turns on the low speed fan at 212 degrees and the high-speed fan at around 220 degrees. That heat robs power big time because the computer takes away timing when coolant temperature hits these levels. Now the lowspeed fan turns on at 181 degrees and the high speed fan cranks up at 187 degrees. I had to go with a 180 thermometer with this because my fans would run all the time otherwise. Steve noted that my stock 192 degree thermostat wasn't opening up until 210 degrees! I said 'show me' and he let me see the readout from my computer. Sure enough, the coolant temp would rapidly cook up to 208-209 before dropping down to 187. Meanwhile my stock gauge never budged, not very accurate seeing that 20 degrees is a pretty sizable move. Next Steve reconfigured the timing advance curve so that it smoothly ramps up to peak timing with no flat spots. The stock curve has a clearly seen(and felt) flat spot between 2250 rpm and 3400rpm. It ramps timing up, then it basically stays flat and ramps up again to max timing past 3400 rpm. This is the curve that is shifted when we increase our base timing by moving our distributor. It also explains why doing this my cause too much timing down low and not enough up high. Not a problem anymore! There are other variables that were changed as well. For a good description of the EEC-IV programming (and what can be changed) check out : www.gothorsepower.com/eecfile.htm Steve burned a couple of chips and the best result produced 267.5 hp @ 5000 rpm through 5400 rpm…yep a nice, flat , peak hp plateau:D! Torque peak was 304.2 lbft @3900 at the rearwheels. Flywheel equivalents are 322 hp and 367 lb.ft of torque(actual numbers were 270 rwhp and 307 lb ft rwtq, but throughout this post I have used the SAE corrected hp and torque figures for apples to apples comparison). Impressive for a stock cammed, normally aspirated bolt-on only, motor. Throttle response is INSTANTANEOUS making heel-toe downshifting much easier and acceleration much quicker. Yet, the car is still a pussy cat around town driving smoother than before. Prior to the exhaust and dyno tune, it took the motor 12.5 seconds to climb from 2000 rpm to 5900 (in 4th gear). Now she pulls through in 10.5 seconds. 15 horsepower and 22lbft of torque lay inside the computer…and that's at 10 degrees initial advance. Steve informed me that after I put in my 180 degree thermostat (which I did ), that I could probably play with the timing the old fashioned way for a couple of more horsepower. |
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