make a video!

Play a video of a mustang while playing a video of a miata on silent. Now you have his car.

Sounds better than most Mustangs. Nice lope on the cam and the big single Magnaflow sounds good. Leaving town for work in the AM for the rest of the week and going to Chicago next week so not a lot of progress planned.

UPDATE!!!

The car has been at a standstill for months because I couldn't find a way to tap the motor and pan for the M16 x 1.5 pipe tap sensors for the oil and water temp. That, and it's been friggin' hot and I was upset with it when it died on me and I had to strap it home and dinged my pristine bumper cover paint.

Finally digging around at the shop today it occurred to me that a 3/8 - 18 npt is pretty close. Thread pitch on a M16 x 1.5 is .059" and 18 tpi on the 3/8 - 18 npt is .055". Seemed close enough so I got a tap and die from work and threaded the sensor into the die. It went easily without shaving the sensor threads.

So, I have now installed the water temp sensor in the IM, the oil pressure sensor in the standard oil sensor port (it was 1/8-27 npt anyway) and I drilled out and tapped the big plug in the side of the pan (old oil temp sensor?) for the other M16 x 1.5 sensor with the 3/8 - 18 npt. It was filled with some plastic stuff so when it came out it was slightly over the 9/16" tap drill size so I tapped it a bit short and installed that sensor with JB Weld. It's curing tonight. Tomorrow I can install that plug and re-fill the oil and then run the wiring for the MaxiGauges that these sensors are for.

As soon as that is done and I get my tach signal tapped from the coil it's off to the dyno for tuning. I'm not worried about the speedo right now. I can take my GPS if I really want to know.

That is all.

No Saabata no care.

I know, but I have way more time and money into this. I really need to finish it. That and the Saabata is just welding and that is a nice winter time project. Welding in gear in 100* days blows.

Regarding the SAAB, I do have an offer at the tech center of a "very" large automotive paint distributor to bring it in on a weekend and he will spray whatever color that I want including the paint for the low, low cost of...free. They have state of the art guns, booth, drying tunnel. Everything needed. He can do a couple of cars a year gratis for friends. Perk of the job.

WINNING

Probably have to finish that welding first though?

Car is done, fan works now, Maxigages installed. Going to the dyno tomorrow morning. Wish me luck.

Nice, I hope it puts down some good numbers! I'd love to see how you mounted the Maxigauge. I just hooked mine up yesterday and have been kicking around some ideas similar to what Godless did.

It's tomorrow morning, what'd you get?

I'm gonna say "he got dissapointed". Hopefully I get proven wrong.

We are getting trolled.

OK, here's the story.

Started at 8 this morning. First thing Dan wants to do is check fuel pressure. I figure, OK.

Ford is supposed to be 39-43 psi. Mine is running 68 psi. Pull line and it's not returning to the tank. Finally pull off line. Air gun says it's open. Put air gun on tank. Tank is open. Put line back on tank. Not open. Can't figure it out. Finally pull fuel pump and there's a regulator in the tank. Cut off regulator and reassemble, now down to 47 psi. Walbro 255 is likely overdriving the Ford regulator. Close enough, we can tune around that. Thanks for the help Ali.

Hook it up to the dyno. Start it up and gauges are showing 15.1 volts. Seems high. Check battery. It's charging at 18 volts. Shut it down and start looking around, checking schematics. Finally realize that my 1991 motor came with a 1984 Mustang alternator. It has no internal regulator. As I had wired it like it came to me I had no regulator at all. Start digging up schematics for 1984 Mustangs. Decide to go to u-pullit to get a voltage regulator and harness. Score one from a 1980-ish Ford F150. Go back and hook it up. In the meantime Dan goes to NAPA and buys a new regulator and pigtail. Hook up old stuff. Now no charging at all. Change wiring to match a second schematic. Still no charge. Change it again and add new regulator. Finally getting a 14.1 charge. So now for first pull with a canned tune. Do pull and something stinks. New regulator is puking out the potting compound. Remove that regulator. Thanks for all the help Ray.

Go to Advance Auto and buy another regulator. This one for a 77 Mustang II. Install it and consult yet another schematic that didn't have a capacitor on the circuit. Pull capacitor and do a baseline pull. Regulator stays cool so all is well but my wideband is reading 12.3 on the pull and his tailpipe sniffer is reading 13.6. Decide to pull my wideband as I may have killed it running the canned tune with almost double fuel pressure. AFR's were around 10 all the time. Swap in his WB o2 and do a third pull. After the pull I had a pretty hefty valve tick. Dan says that when pushing a new motor sometimes you have to run the valves again after a couple of pulls so we called it a day. Never got to do any tuning at all. There's still a bit on the table but the canned tune yielded 275/308. He's pretty sure that the little Heddman shorties are not going to allow a lot more, maybe 10-15.

Dan drove me home, picked up the trailer, loaded it up and got home a bit before 10:00.

Damn, sounds like a busy day. Looks like you're nearly there though

Wow, that's some serious problem solving.

Considering you'll end up close to 300whp I'd say it sounds like everything is in good shape, just lacking a solid tuning session where you're not constantly battling other issues.

Good luck.

This isn't some kid doing this project. Stein don't mess around ;)

Thanks. The tuner really helped me out here. Fuel pressure? Never thought to check it. Just bolted in the Walbro and figured the FPR on the Ford would deal with it. Never gave checking it a thought. Props to him.

Voltage was high. Again, I never gave it a thought. Figured it was a low battery and it was just charging back. Again he thought we had to dig into it. I never gave the alternator a thought because the whole accessory package and wiring harness was running in another car - I just moved it over. Who would have thought that he was running a non-regulated alternator for all this time?

Oh, and I had the fan wired backwards. Pusher fan was pulling, lol. That one flat out made me feel like a doofus.

The car started and drove so I thought all was well. He's seen it all. When I first got there I thought I'd be done tuning by noon. Before we even got into it he said we would probably find some things to fix. I was like, "no way, everything is good". I guess experience trumps enthusiasm.

Nice build.
You do have great skill and ingenuity!!
Just wondering why the 5.0 besides the cost? I am following your lead on the subframe modification to fit a LSX motor. Just can not justify the crazy cost being charged for the subframe.
I'll create post for the LSX build I am doing so members can learn from our mistakes.

5.3 liter? As in truck motor??

correct.
it is a LM4 all aluminum motor with LS1 heads as they flow better. Ideally I would done the LS3/6 heads as they are still a bit better but home port will do.

Stein,
would love some vids :)