Thanks for the vote of confidence

 

I used the measurements I found on eBay and checked the car just now. The mounting points for the IRS do land on the existing frame rails as suspected. This could make it much easier to make the mounts, gives me something solid to weld to.

What makes this a deal killer is if the IRS needs to be further in to the body to get the correct mounting height. To clarify if I have to cut out a rail to get the mount in the correct location that of course would compromise the cars strength and I wouldn't do that.

What I do see immediately is that the area where the springs are mounted to the body will have to be cut out for the IRS to fit. Not concerned about that at this time.

 

I wanted to mention one last thing about the performance. I went to high plains raceway recently for the first time. I took my track pack 2014 Shelby and my friend Tyler took his 2015 track pack GT mustang.....only 3k miles and banana yellow! Anyways I spent the day racing around the track I was very happy with my cars performance, especially on the straight aways (pushing 700 hp to the wheels at altitude!). He let me drive his car around the track and I was surprised at the difference in the corners. The car felt more solid than my own, very noticeably different. It handled much better than my Shelby in the corners.

I thought about this for days, I was torn on what to do with my project car. I decided that I would not make it a car for the road track, instead I would make it a drag car. This was because I knew my car would cost $5k more for suspension and I wouldn't be able to compete with the newer cars at the road track. I thought even more about it. I didn't want it to be just a drag car, thats what gave me the idea to put the IRS in my mustang and maybe recreate part of the driving experience I had with the 2015 mustang. It won't break my heart of it can't happen, it's just an idea.

 

It would be nice. There's a couple reasons I'd want the IRS in my car (for the record I had an 03 Cobra IRS swapped 03 GT before my 14 GT).

A) roads here are terrible and pretty much every turn I encounter on my drives around here includes a mid corner bump that upsets the SRA. It may not slow me down at all, but I hate that buckling feeling. The IRS would help significantly with this "problem."

B) I have an Air Lift kit waiting to go on, and I'm in the midst of (most likely) changing up my wheel setup for the 4th time on this car, even though I love the look of my current wheels - they're already rubbing on the fender with my H&R Supersport springs. The bags would let me drive at a higher ride height, but then when I air out, I'd be sitting on the tire and wouldn't be able to tuck, thus negative a lot of that "hard parked" slammed look, and I'm sure that will not be good for the fenders/paint. The IRS would allow me some negative camber to get rid of the rubbing and allow me to keep my wheels, but tuck them into the fenders.

One thing you should consider though, is that the Ford engineers were going to keep the front end geometry the same as the S197 - that is, until they put the IRS on and the front end couldn't keep up. So "simply" bolting an S550 IRS onto an S197 may (most likely) upset the balance of the car, necessitating more front end mods (possibly SLA conversion, amongst other things).

 

Very good point, I hadn't heard that.

That's cool you are putting air bags on your car, that's becoming more popular for sports cars. Gas monkey garage put airbags on a 2005 ford gt and it looked amazing.

 

My S197 is still at stock height. I've played with suspension mods on my previous Integra's. lots of pro's and cons to lowering ones ride. Though, I swore I would never do it again. Not on my S197 anyway. Patrick's convinced me that air is the way to go!

With the ability of being able to control ride height and adapt to road conditions, is key for me. I know I don't always want to drive around with a slammed ride of 1.5" drop or lower, like I used to.

I'm trying to convince Patrick to just use his stock wheels and get them powdercoated, he doesn't want to hear any part of it lol!

You could just go with an air ride, it'll only help you promote that "sleeper" look you're going for. keep that baby nice and high when you want to punk some kid at the drag strip haha!

It's not that much more when you consider what a descent lowering kit costs anyway.

 

Brakes are pretty much done

 

Definitely larger rotors

 

These calipers are huge!!!

 

Rear diff cooler installed

 

Lines installed

 

More oil lines

 

And the heat exchanger with air scoop. I'll fill the rearend with oil once I get a few clips that hold on the oil lines to the oil pump and diff cover. I didn't get them with the lines.

 

This is what the rear diff oil pump looks like. I haven't bolted it in yet, I'll do that tomorrow. This pump sits above the rear axle and attaches to the trunk floor.

I'll still need to figure out how to wire it to the temp sensor and make it work properly.

 

I used a flexible fuel hose to connect the fuel vapor system. Both the f150 and mustang have the vapor canister, should work the same.

 

Hooked it up down here in the driver side fender well.

 

I also should mention that the windshield wiper motor from the f150 bolts directly in to the mustang. The plug was different for the f150 harness and the mustang electric motor, it also had several more wires than the f150 plug. The f150 electric motor was an easy fix.

 

would like to know more about your rear dif. cooling system.
1) why did you mount the heat exchanger in that location. I would think it would be mounted in front of the rad.
2) what pump set up for the rear cooling are you using. I have never seen that before. I really like the bent steel lines comming off of the dif. cover. You have a very clean install.

Most important is...Thank You for sharing your build with guys like me. Us old guys live our car building dreams thru you. My building was in the 80's working on the late 60's and 70 cars. Just cant do it anymore. But the bug is still inside me. However, I've been left behind with the new cars and by following your thread and others, its like being home schooled!

Any idea when you be able to fire her up and take a test drive? Please post a video of that day.

 

I wish I could take credit for the piping for the diff cooler but that's all ford. That is a diff cooler for a 2014 gt500 with track pack, I bought all this used off a wrecked car. I'll post a pic next of how it grabs air through a hole in the bumper to cool the oil. The pump is also part of that system.

I was lucky and paid $300 for everything barely used (220 miles) but new from ford this setup is around $2k.

Building a car is something I live for and I wish everyone got to enjoy it. I wasn't able to work on anything for probably a decade and life just wasn't the same. I didn't have the money or the time to do anything but work at my company, I feel very lucky that I'm able to tinker on things now. I hope that I can do my part to inspire people to try doing mods to their car that don't just bolt on! Thanks for subscribing, this is the friendliest thread I've seen

 

This is a pic of my shelby w/track pack, air goes in here. D*** I need to wash the bugs off!