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I forgot to take pictures.... so here they are.
I really like the CAI. To me, apart from the functioning, it just looks beautiful and well made. Not entirely out of plastic!
Also I received my Redline hood struts. Unfortunately, the mail man delivered them just when I finished the install of the CAI There is so much more room to work under the hood, without that stupid prop being in the way all the time.
I wanted new Brembo brakes, but the company my wife works for just went belly up. She is now out of a job and looking for new employment. So for now, my modding has come to an end.
Steeda, explained that the plug I was using for the firewall, was actually not to be used for that. The plug is apparently for manual cars. And Steeda, doesn't supply the firewall plug. I drifted away from the instructions when I saw the plug and assumed it was for the firewall. My apologies to Steeda!!
Went to dinner this evening, and took the Mustang. This was the first time after the tune was installed, that I was able to really get on it. Wow! Double wow! This is a big difference. The car has a nasty growl, and it goes! Something that I noticed and I'm very pleased about is that the engine is allowed to rev much higher.
The ford original tune, would cut the power rather abruptly if you let the engine climb into the revs. This tune goes to 7000rpm. Something that I have literally never seen before in my Mustang: the rev counter turns red when you reach 7000rpm. And the nice thing is, the engine power is not cut, you can just shift to the next gear.
When the car is in D shifting is more aggressive when you drive that way. But when you take it easy, the shifting is done very civilized as well.
All in all, I'm very happy with the tune Steeda gave me.
I wonder how long it takes to get used to this and want more power. How much would this transmission be able to handle?
The trans should handle quite a bit. The Auto guys drag race. The 6MT guys usually road race. Poke around and see what the power limits are for the auto. Pretty high from what I've read.
So today I finally found some time to replace the original Ford rear lower control arms with the BMR units I had purchased a while ago. The BMR unit was not too expensive ( less then $90 incl. shipping, direct from BMR). It is much lighter then the Ford unit, but it looks a lot beefier. I had watched CJ Pony parts, BMR LCA install video, and it actually got me working in the wrong direction. In his video, Bill says to support the rear axle on axle stands, if you're not working on a lift. So I assumed, if I drive the car on some ramps, it would have the same effect.... well that was not the case. Once I removed one of the arms, there was no way to get the new arm in. The axle moved about an inch, so the holes did not line up any more. I tried a few things to get the axle back aligned. The one thing that made things soooo much easier, was just to jack the car up on the rear jack point, so that the wheel was of the ramp, and I could just push the axle in position so that the holes lined up. The other side was done the same way, but that took me in total no more than 10 minutes. Anyway, the Ford LCA that I removed were on the car for about 16K miles. The bushings were really soft, and I can easily imagine how these contribute to wheel hop and weird cornering behavior. I put the LCA's on my work bench and I could deflect the bushings using a small screw driver and a little muscle power.
Imagine how much it would deflect, when the arm is torqued down, and you put some real horsepower against it! below is a comparison or the BMR unit on the right and the original Ford unit on the left. The Ford unit is actually stamped steel plate. So not solid like the BMR.
After taking the car for a test drive, I can say that the cornering seems a bit more well behaved. Also there is this one spot, that I always had wheel hop when I gunned it: near my house, a corner, going up hill on a rather bad stretch of road.... Wheel hop: no more!
All in all a good functional mod for less than $90 !!!
I added a rear shock tower brace (the one from Shelby) that I purchased on eBay for next to nothing :-)
I can't say that I noticed it improved anything.... but it looks cool. I'll take that.
I have been thinking about a brake upgrade for quite a while and I have finally made my decision. I'm going for the Ford Performance kit: M-2300-S. These are the Brembo brakes that originally came on the track pack cars.
The thinking is that these brakes are a significant improvement over the stock GT brakes, while still reasonably affordable. Next to that, these are parts that are going to be carried by most Ford dealerships, so getting parts later down the road is not going to be an issue.
My camber is a little too aggressive, which means that I have great traction in the twisty mountain roads.... but tire wear is also a little too much. So I have also purchased Eibach Camber bolts, but also the BBK Camber plates. I am having everything installed this monday at Borelli Motor Sports. Hopefully the camber bolts will do the trick to get everything in spec (I have the GT500 strut mounts). If that is the case, I will try to send the BBK Camber plates back. If it is too much to dial in, I will have a set of GT500 strut mounts+ Eibach Cambers bolts for sale :-)
I have started a new job, and have not had much time to work on my car myself. So this time, I'll just have to pay someone to do it for me. The upside is that I have a lot of confidence in Borelli http://borellimotorsports.com
They have done this a million times before (and I still need to graduate from Youtube academy :-) )
As the car is already with experts, I have also asked them to install the new brakes.
I added a rear shock tower brace (the one from Shelby) that I purchased on eBay for next to nothing :-)
I can't say that I noticed it improved anything.... but it looks cool. I'll take that.
Pics will be posted later. Too much stuff in the trunk now.
Yeah, was a little absent for a few months. I had been laid off and needed to concentrate on finding a new job (Bay Area is kind of expensive without a job). And then I landed a job, and everything went much faster than originally anticipated. So now I finally have been able to catch my breath again and have some time for leisure.
Rear seat can still be folded down, to stow additional luggage when on vacation and such :-)
Nicely powder coated. purchased it on eBay for the price of a bare metal brace.
And this is the front tire, after running about 6000 miles with a little too much camber. It's going to the shop for alignment on Monday, and they will do an initial measurement. I will be able to tell exactly what the camber setting was. It needs to be between 0 and -0.75 degrees. My own rough measurement says it was at 1.5 degrees.
a little too much camber. Inside of the tire is getting close to being a slick tire, while the outside looks new.
New brakes and alignment done: camber AND toe out back in spec.
Before
After
Borelli Motorsports did the alignment of the car. Apparently the camber wasn't off. My own measurement told me it was about -1.5 degrees, It turned out to be -1.00 degrees. Using the camber bolts they changed it to -1.30 degrees, which according to them is in spec , but on the aggressive side. However, somehow the car was running a significant amount of toe out !! I have no idea how that is possible. Mustangs are not supposed to run any toe out. Needs to be 0 degrees, or a very tiny bit toe in. Also the toe out wasn't even on both sides (and I would have thought I would notice that the car pulled to the left or something. But with mountain road carving and bad highways, I hadn't noticed). The last alignment was done at a Ford dealership, after they replaced a lower control arm under warranty. As I have not any curbs, and nothing was bent, can I assume this was an incorrect alignment by Ford a few thousand miles ago? Or does the toe angle also change when the suspension is lowered? I thought it was only the camber that got a more negative angle.
I love it. I have used it on my Mustang, my Fusion, and on my Edge (I have the BL-5000SLX on 12 volt).
My mustang is lowered and I leave the jacks in the middle of the bay, where I park my mustang. So no additional storage is required.
3/24/15, 10:14 PM
There is so much more room to work under the hood, without that stupid prop being in the way all the time.
