UPDATE: Took the beastie for a road trip, 500 miles each way running up and down I-5. I haven't had it out for more than the 3-4 mile morning/afternoon drive since August. Pace of traffic was 90-100mph for nearly the entire trip (seriously... WTF?). It seems like cops in Kommiefornia stopped issuing traffic citations. Guess that's both good and bad.
Anyway, rocking down the horrible roads in my Honda over TG weekend was distinctly unpleasant. Soft seats made my back scream and the soft suspension seems to have magnified the terribleness of the road surface. Rocking down the same freeway with a freshly injured back and a suspension setup that's totally at home on a race track made me nervous. No worries. It was the most pleasant ride I've had. For as rigid as the suspension is, it's not abrupt as it could be. I had just tooled a Tesla around a bit over the prior weekend and I noticed when driving the Cobra that the Tesla's suspension was considerably more harsh over potholes/bumps. See what happens when you put 1700lbs of batteries in the body? You have to have suspension fit for a semi.
So, while I'm down in SoCal I decide to go ahead and finish up the work and replace the steering shaft which I still had in my trunk. Well, it's still in my trunk because I found a MM steering shaft in place already. Sigh. I don't know what would cause someone to need to do that, and the car was 99% bone stock when I got it so I didn't expect a steering ninja'd in shaft replacement, but they definitely did it. So now I have this steering shaft... see below for what sort of war crime I'm going to commit with that wonderful bit of spare parts-y-ness.
The driver rear O2 is still tossing low voltage unless I goose the throttle so I figured that there's no better time to return to a stock tune than while on a road trip and see if maybe there's something in that that's doing it. Nope. The stock tune helped exactly zero percent and the car is so much less entertaining. People be capping on SCT's CARB compliant tunes but as far as I can see, it's better than the tunes I got back in 2001-2010. I'll be returning the SCT tune to it soon enough. I'm still trying to get the OBD2 drive cycle to complete and I have to use more throttle with the stock tune and more throttle helps the O2 sensor not show low voltage. Probably 2 weeks before I can attend to that.
I did find (finally) find a transmission harness with all the connectors intact and from a known TR3650 car that wasn't idiotically priced and bought it. ETA 1 week. We'll see if that helps or if I'm going to have to dig deeper and pull out the ECU harness.
And last update, fark Magnaflow. Fark them in their unhelpful, dishonest poop chutes. If you're not up to speed on that, they sent me a $5000 exhaust setup that was out of spec so far I had to have it cut completely to pieces and re-welded. When I reported that, they blamed the suspension and then insisted that I send them over a dozen logged ECU data points or they wouldn't issue an RMA. For a part being physically out of spec.
Now to pay forward some of what Father has given me (this will not get its own thread so people have to engage a bit more... a sop to my fellow old timers): If you have a Mustang which still has the factory steering shaft (pic reqd) and you have 100 bucks you can spare and you have already modified your suspension with at least lowering springs and you post a picture of your nasty, disgusting bare feet next to your nasty, disgusting socks and the shoes you wear at work as a reply to this post then you've entered for a chance to receive, as my gift, my still unused Maximum Motorsports steering shaft (99-04 definitely work, check MM's site for full compatibility).
The Deal:
Shipping is included in the steering shaft deal. You pay for it with the picture of your gross feet next to your gross socks and your (possibly gross) shoes. NOTE: I'm not into feet if that's what you're thinking. I like messing with people and this seems like a harmless way to do so while actually doing some good. This isn't a sale. This is a giveaway. You're going to take that 100 dollars and go find someone that you don't know out in the publicly accessible spaces of your nearest town who looks like they could really use a hand up and a kind heart and you're going to give them three things:
1. You're going to give them that hand up. You're going to buy them what they need the most urgently. If it's 20 bucks or 100 bucks. If you have money left over from the $100 then repeat this step until you've used the full $100. You can buy them whatever they need but not necessarily whatever they ask for. You decide about what "need" means. I'm not playing dictionary today. You're a grownup anyway so I trust you to make a grownup judgement call.
2. You're going to take a little time out of your day and (at their option) pray with them or just be there to hang out and chat about the weather and how funny Ren & Stimpy is. You will make sure that they will know by your actions that they matter (especially important... they will not see you look at a clock or phone at any point unless calling for emergency services).
3. You're going to tell them that the Father provided their gift and then arranged for his servants to deliver it. You will specify prior to making any spend that the source was not you and it was not I, so they mustn't thank either of us. If they wish to thank someone, they may thank Elohim.
What about multiple entrants?
Assuming multiple people who all qualify for the giveaway enter then I will select, based solely on my personal judgement, the one who's feet tell me that they work hard and don't know how else to be. Men that work really hard & don't know how else to be know what the feet of such men look like. Men that don't work or do know how else to be won't know what it looks like. Think of it as my version of a secret handshake. I think that brings a great balance to the whole thing while preserving a little mystery and allowing me to eschew my normal bureaucratic, officious and callous nature for one of capricious though humorous whimsy.
In the event of a tie, whatever I decide. None of you are homies of mine so there's no worries about "fairness". I don't believe in fairness anyway. Life isn't fair.