My Teksid Project - Orange Nightmare

[Martin0660]

He can’t use the spacer because the new system won’t use a flange like the stock set up.

[Ares]

Spacer wouldn't work as I need a shorter driveshaft also. Stock GT is 45.5" center to center. I need something around 44"-44.25"

[sutyak]

He can’t use the spacer because the new system won’t use a flange like the stock set up.

Ah yeah, now I see what's going on.
The 03/04 Cobra driveshaft is 43 5/8 and has 1350 joint openings, but not sure if you can use that either?

[Ares]

Slowly chipping away at this. Feels like death by a thousand cuts and can't wait to finally turn key and hear it run. Got some circuit breakers (200amp for main feed) and (150 amp for alternator). Those will be mounted to some 3mm thick carbon fiber plate behind battery box. Just waiting on few more electrical items to show up and can say that crap is done.

Picked up a RJS cam-lock harness and got that mounted. UPR crotch strap bracket and fabbed up brackets out of 3/16" plated for lap belts to mount to. Found out I need to pay attention to where I put things on dash. Can't reach some spots once strapped in. Also got window net mount kit and RJS net. Not going to use net but for price was worth seeing if it would work. Instead will make template and get a custom one made.

Last thing is picked up set of Ford GT exhaust lash adjusters. Should allow more oil to cam bearing area and less out of lash adjuster/follower. Along with the GT followers it is a much better design over the 16 giant oil bleeds that were stock. Can also see in pic how oil is directed towards cam lobe/follower roller vs stock shooting up at valve cover.

GT Exhaust Lash Adjusters (Melling JB-7500) same length and diameter as a stock 2V lash adjuster. Got off Rock Auto since they had best price I could find on them at $10ish each

Stock 2v stuff on left in pics. GT parts to right.

[Martin0660]

I’m really happy to be solid and be done dealing with lash adjusters.

my followers are investment cast heavy beasts. When Ford moved to the 2nd style like you have, they changed the stem diameter and ratio so they are useless.

not sure on the mod motor stuff, but grams off the valvetrain was huge on mine for longevity. I stopped beating parts up.

when your buying date coded parts, you got to be close

[Ares]

not sure on the mod motor stuff, but grams off the valvetrain was huge on mine for longevity. I stopped beating parts up.

when your buying date coded parts, you got to be close

I'm still annoyed I couldn't reuse my titanium retainers with current springs. Spring height was off when trying them. I will reweigh followers to see the difference between the two when at valve spring. Could swear I have seen it at 5grams.

Buying dated parts...feels so good

May raid the piggy bank and just bite bullet and go with the Megasquirt PC for this car. I like what I see it can do.

[Martin0660]

I think I’ve said before, the Megasquirt stuff is a great solution if you are going to own it and tune yourself. If you ever think you are going to need help of a “tuner”, I would second guess it as most of them avoid it like it’s got a disease.

FWIW, I would suggest you have a look at Stingers Pimp solution. It will plug into the Ford harness and reuse a lot of the existing hardware. This was originally a 2.3 kind of solution, but they do support other platforms. My car is on MicroSquirt, but my wife’s Vert is on their first version. They keep a forum for support that I understand is pretty good.

https://www.stinger-performance.com/

in the end, speed density isn’t real hard to tune. The stuff that “drag races” is actually pretty straight forward. It’s the cold start and drive around stuff that’s tedious with a stand alone.

[Ares]

The moment when you click order and your account just goes....... MS3Pro PnP along with a few other goodies ordered Wait is the light at the end of the ridiculously long tunnel getting brighter?

Now if Fedex would be so kind as to locate my damn wire connectors for harness they lost once it left Tampa FL would be so fn nice

[Ares]

Few more things came today.

Custom window net from Stroud. Exact to my measurements and I even got angles right as bottom length is nuts on to what I needed

[Ares]

Alright alright alright....now I am getting somewhere. Got the ECU today. I still need to order a driveshaft and gonna see what Greensburg Machine can do. Waiting a rear wheels still and hoping those ship next week. Also stumbled on to a set of sail panels and quarter windows off a Mach1. Should have those next week. Just need to get paint ordered up.

Also have an Innovate LC-2 wideband to run with this.

[Dan B.]

I used Simko in Johnstown a few times with good luck. He just did the aluminum one in my son's truck. Think it was $60 to shorten.

[somethingclever]

Greensburg Machine does not balance driveshafts last I checked.

Point spring and leaf does, however.

I have had nothing but good experiences at the latter.

[Martin0660]

I would suggest PST as a supplier. Pre COVID at least they was able to do a 1 week turn around on them with me shipping them my yoke. 1,000 hp shaft with correct critical speed, balanced, and option for lifetime warranty and even SFI. Can do moly, aluminum, or carbon fiber.

matt Walter is a dealer for them, and walked my order through at a great price. When I ordered mine, billet slip yokes was hard to get and I was nervous shipping mine there. He walked it through the process for me and it was flawless.

https://walter-racecraft.myshopify.com/

[Ares]

Ended up getting a 3 1/2" Chromoly driveshaft from Strange. Forged chromoly shaft yokes, 1350 Spicer u-joints and I already had their chromoly trans and pinion yokes/cap set. They didn't need my trans yoke to balance since I was using one of theirs. Pretty fast getting it out the door and had it about a week from ordering. Was unpainted so took the u-joints out and painted with semi-gloss Krylon 5x. Got it put together and in car. First time with a drive shaft in car since April 2016.

Need to order up a air intake temp sensor as I'm going to do Speed Density with new PC instead of a MAF setup. Need to pull some ground wires from battery forward to power box. Few other grounds to take care of. Get new PC swapped in. Get wide band setup wired in. Drop fuel tank and get pump swapped out. Really just need to figure out what to do with cooling system for engine. and get remote oil filter setup. Now if I can just get more done and not have weekends wasted with other crap I might actually get this thing fired up soon.

Painted intake with VHT black wrinkle paint. Let it dry and then set in tail gate of truck in sun and finish came out perfect. Using a Cobra secondary smog pump as an electric vac pump for engine. Made a mount for it out of 3mm carbon fiber and a couple of 5/16" threaded nut-serts into frame rail up front. Made sure that wires to motor were soldered to terminals and removed foam from inside pump. Just need some hose and fittings.

I still need to finish cleaning floor where mufflers would be and get that painted. Leaky pinion seal makes a mess. Also need to remake my turbo support. Once blanket was on my setup is not going to work. Couple brackets to make for some wiring on front of engine. Again I can see the light at the end of this ridiculously long tunnel...I mean project.

[Ares]

Last piece of my electrical puzzle showed up in the mail today. A Deutsch DTHD connector setup with a back machined face plate from Maven Performance. Using it to pass 4ga cable thru firewall to alternator. Wish I had ordered it earlier last week. As I could have had it for the weekend and had all this done. Course I had to rip apart the interior and the metal work to get cable from trunk, along tunnel and up behind dash. Sucked but worth it. Just need to get this installed and build the wire harness off alternator.

Also my breaker setup in trunk behind battery. The 200amp from positive side of switch to front of car. The 150amp from alternator to battery side of switch. The black wire loom is the pair of 10ga from battery negative to power distribution box up front. Which solved all kinds of electrical gremlins as it appears a good part of the factory system is not ground to chassis.

Kind of scary to think I can focus on the new computer system and all the fun that will bring now

[somethingclever]

nice clean install Ed!

[Ares]

nice clean install Ed!

Most times it things work out nicely. Other times, not so much. This was one of the times it went as planned. Well except for that one nut-sert hiding in top right. Which was not drilled right. Used the carbon plate I had drilled as template for floor. Guessing I caught edge of frame rail with drill bit and it kicked. I didn't notice until trying to bolt that to floor. Had to redo nut-sert.

[Ares]

The Deutsch DTHD connector worked out perfect. For once drilling three holes and having them line up. I may need to play the lottery or something.

[Ares]

Not sure wtf happens when I work on my car but I swear time goes by super fast and I get nothing done it feels(Steeler game was started and over before I knew it)

Still got all I need wired basically done except shortening lead to oil pressure switch. New computer is swapped in, got MAC solenoid for boost control mounted on firewall. Mounted Innovate wide band controller to kick panel(which sucks to remove with roof bar there, barely room to get out) and a fused box, which is switched 12v power for wide band, boost control solenoid and CAN Bus gauge. This thing is pretty cool and so much can be switched and shown from just playing with it. Wired in a GM IAT sensor. Pulled compressor cover off turbo and drilled/tapped for pressure fitting. Re-tapped waste gate and blow off valve for 1/8"npt (they were straight thread) for new fittings. Using 1/4" hard plastic line and push to connect fitting. Still need to run those lines.

Last thing I been holding off on was putting in lash adjusters and followers. Felt no need to get that done if it was going to sit for so long. That is now done and drilled valve covers for some Moroso -10an fittings. Just need to get some -10an steel bungs and fab a tank for the vacuum pump. Figure (2) -10an in and (1) -12an out. Have fittings and hose for remote oil filter.

That leaves figuring out coolant system. Not sure how I wish to go about that yet. Moving rad forward kinda mess up hoses fitting or even reaching Really last major thing to do.

[somethingclever]

Looks great Ed!