95 GT - Das Llama!

mcglsr2 · Sep 17, 2013

Hello all, I've been on and off the forums here for a year or two now. Mostly lurking. I tend to have bad experiences at forums (not this one in particular, just in general) so I've kind of kept my distance.

I've got a 95 GT that I purchased specifically with the intention of racing it at HPDEs and Auto-X. I've done a lot of work to it over the last 2 years (at least it feels like a lot work) and I've been getting pumped up reading ReplicaR's build thread, so I figured what the hey.

June 2011

What got me started was an STI I bought in 2011. I had always wanted to do a HPDE event, and now that I had the car, it was time. I did a weekend event at Sebring International Raceway at the end of June 2011, and absolutely loved it. However, the car was brand new, so there were many years until it would be a track car. I needed something now that was affordable, had great aftermarket support, could be made to handle decently, and could be driven on the street (I didn't want to get involved in trailering). Obvious choice: Mustang. I decided I wanted a 302, however the Foxes were out for me because of the rear brakes/spindles stuff I didn't want to deal with. That left a 94 or 95 GT. As luck (fate?) would have it, I was able to locate a 95 Mustang for the Right Price not 1 week after the event at Sebring. The car was located in...Sebring. No, really. The girlfriend and I drove back down, took a look at the car, drove it, and bought it from the nice people. On July 4th. This guy right here:

Some basic specs on the car (most, if not all, will probably be familiar to you guys):

Car:	1995 Ford Mustang GT
Color:	Opal Frost
Miles:	Unknown (odo stopped at 101K)
Weight:	~3450 lbs (estimated)
Length:	181.5 in
Height:	53.19 in
Width:	71.69 in
Wheelbase:	101.3 in
Drag Coeff.	0.36
Turning Radius:	458.39 in
Front Track:	60.12 in (assumed on stock 7.5" wheels)
Rear Track:	58.7 in (assumed on stock 7.5" wheels)
Fuel Tank:	15.4 gal
Engine:	Stock 302 ci (supposedly overbored and cammed according to previous owner, but I have my doubts)
Compression:	9.0:1
Stock HP:	215 hp @ 4200 rpm, flywheel
Stock TQ:	285 ft-lb @ 3400 rpm, flywheel
Stock 0-60:	6.6 sec
Stock 1/4:	14.9 sec
Rear Axle:	8.8" w/ Trac-Lok, 3.08

A little about the car: it drove okay, was SUPER loud, literally had a different brand tire on each wheel, there were only two bolts holding down the driver's seat so it rocked back and forth quite a bit, stalled after getting gas, has all kinds of paint damage and dings (but looks great from 10 feet away), had a broken fuel gauge and coolant temp gauge, a suspect oil pressure gauge, broken odometer (unknown miles, broke around 101,XXX), the door locks and windows sometimes worked, the shifter didn't have any spring-return anymore, the 3rd brake light didn't work, looks like the car was towed/pulled using the lower radiator bracket, parking brake didn't work, front bumper was attached via two plastic clips and a lot of hope, only the left rear speaker worked, rear tail lights were swapped to 96+ style for some reason, ignition key and door keys did not match, the rad fan was wired to turn on when the car turned on and run constantly, the wheels (which were 17x8 Bullitts) were all rashed up, and the A/C, which was supposed to work, didn't. Oh yah. Allllll mine. Actually, it was okay. For the price, I'm happy with what I ended up with. I knew what I was getting in to (at least I thought I did). The girlfriend was like "...uh, okay, if this is really what you want..." - it was. So I drove it back to Orlando white-knuckled, with her following me, waiting for it to strand me.

It didn't. We made it back!

twovalveterror · Sep 17, 2013

looks good! any plans for mods before you start racing?

Brian95SVT · Sep 17, 2013

Great starting point! I would love to get my hands on a '94/'95 GTS with all cloth interior and turn it into a HPDE car.... one day. Sub'd to follow build.

mcglsr2 · Sep 17, 2013

First things first, before I could put any faith in the car, I had to find out what was wrong. Which meant driving it. And I did. And you know, it was pretty solid. In addition to the issues I listed in the first post, there were the normal wear-and-tear items like a broken center console, broken shifter trim ring, broken door panels, lots of squeaks rattles and moans - the usual my-car-is-16-years-old-and-probably-thrashed noises. However the engine was decently solid. Apart from the random stall, it chugged away like a champ.

I did the normal stuff first, changed the oil/oil filter, replaced the spark plugs and wires, cap and rotor, flushed the brake fluid (which was black when changed), cleaned it, etc. I already had some ideas about where to go with the car. I wanted to be able to drive this car to HPDEs, race like the dickens, and then drive it home. Everything I would do on the car would (hopefully) move me towards that goal. I also bought some factory service manuals for the car in anticipation of all the work I was planning on doing. I also replaced the instrument cluster, and got a working odo gear - the odometer worked now, not that it mattered anymore.

I removed the smog pump and thermactors, but left the EGR stuff in. I replaced the belt with a smaller one that allowed me to run all the accessories with the exception of the smog pump. I didn't bother with a smog delete bracket as I feel it's just a waste of money.

There were some concessions I was prepared to make - since the car would be used for racing, it wasn't going to be the most comfortable ride on the street. But that's okay. It's not my daily driver, and if it's fun to drive, I can put up with it. Because it was going to be driven on the street, it wasn't going to be the fastest it could possibly be at the track. But that's okay. I 'm just starting out so I probably won't be putting the car to its limits anyway. This allowed me to have a backup car, and I didn't have to invest in a trailer and vehicle to pull the trailer. All around reasonable compromise.

After the basic maintenance things, with the car running smoothly, it was time to start upgrading things!

mcglsr2 · Sep 17, 2013

First and foremost, I was going to focus on the weakest thing: the handling & braking. While the engine from the factory is nothing to write home about, the suspension IMO was worse off. I decided to take the Miata approach - even with a low HP engine, if the car can handle and stop, it will be fun drive. Adding power later will just make it MORE fun to drive. Adding power first will make it scary, and NOT fun to drive.

So my plans were (and still are) to focus on the suspension first. Engine mods will come later.

First up were the be brakes.

lutter94 · Sep 17, 2013

mcglsr2 said:
That left a 95 or 95 GT.

What do you have against 94's? Lol

CC'S95GT · Sep 17, 2013

welcome to the madness
sound like a fun build.

Slykin · Sep 17, 2013

Sounds like you're basically doing what i'm doing. I look forward to seeing the progress.

mcglsr2 · Sep 17, 2013

lutter94 said:
What do you have against 94's? Lol

Lol, more like what do I have against grammar. Apparently something. Fixed, thanks for the catch

SVTstang96 · Sep 17, 2013

Sounds like my car plans! Anyways I'm redoing my suspension so if you want to go coilover or lowering springs with shocks let me know, I have both. Along with rear control arms, panhard bar and camber plates all for sale!

MustangChris · Sep 17, 2013

nice@!! i love seeing these non-straight-line-cars on the forum

mcglsr2 · Sep 17, 2013

SVTstang96 said:
Sounds like my car plans! Anyways I'm redoing my suspension so if you want to go coilover or lowering springs with shocks let me know, I have both. Along with rear control arms, panhard bar and camber plates all for sale!

Thanks, I appreciate it! But I think I'm all set. I've already got just about everything I need, which I will post up when I get to that part. A lot of the parts, like the PHB, I've had for almost a year now, just haven't installed it yet. On the coilovers, if I had known earlier though...

mcglsr2 · Sep 17, 2013

MustangChris said:
nice@!! i love seeing these non-straight-line-cars on the forum

Awesome

It's funny - most of my friends that I talked with about getting a Mustang to road race were like "don't do that, it's too heavy, it's a live axle, it's a Mustang, blah blah blah." I don't regret it though. With some parts, these cars can handle quite well - in stock form? Not so much. With some aftermarket parts, yes indeed.

MustangChris · Sep 17, 2013

hhahahahhaha..

#1 drifter in the world: s197 mustang.
#1 funny car in the world: mustang.

hahahaha. ... silly friends. mustangs are for bad-asses.

ReplicaR · Sep 17, 2013

I fully back Mustangs in road racing. Cheap to get going, get expensive eventually, but you don't really have to go there to extract 80 percent of what my car can do. I will say that MM suspension dramatically changes the way the car behaves, I was particularly impressed with k-member setup. My mustang has been my daily driver and track car for many years, and endured 130k miles of that driving. They are stout cars if setup right, and driven properly. One of my friends has a S2k swapped AE86, and he loves driving my car at the AutoX events we go to, saying that it feels neutral and totally predictable, easy to go fast on. A confidence inspiring car goes a long way

RichV · Sep 17, 2013

Welcome! On brakes you absolutely need 16" rotors and 15 piston calipers, on front an rear! Oh wait, that's for cruises and Burger King runs.

j/k.

Let us know what you need a hand with. My setup is for wheel to wheel, but CMC is a very stock class. The classifieds here rocks! And there are usually awesome pars up for sale. I've picked up a bunch of stuff for my build.

You picked a good platform! The Porsche guys are like ...

when you run them down.

mcglsr2 · Sep 18, 2013

Brakes!!!!

August 2011

Okay, for brakes, the stock GT ones just weren't going to cut it. With better pads, maybe on the street. Not on the track. So of course I wanted the Brembos or a big brake kit, but money not being in infinite supply, I opted instead for the Cobra brakes (or really, the Mach 1 brakes). On all 4 corners, not just the front. I wasn't going to change the Master Cylinder, so I wanted the brakes to stay proportional between front and rear. Plus the car has ABS, and I didn't really want to mess around with that then. The kit I ordered included everything I needed to run them on the front as well as convert the rears.

Some quick notes on the brake differences:

Stock GT Front:	10.84" vented rotor, single piston (66mm) caliper
Cobra Front:	13" vented rotor, dual piston (38mm x 38mm) caliper
Stock GT Rear:	10.5" solid rotor, single piston (38mm) caliper
Cobra Rear:	11.65" vented rotor, single piston (38mm) caliper

Stock fronts:

Cobra front rotor next to stock front rotor - juuuust a bit bigger...:shocked:

Just for size reference, here's the Stock Front rotor next to the Cobra REAR rotor:

Stock rears:

Replaced the bracket and moan braces with the items from the kit:

While I was doing the brakes, I decided to also change over to stainless steel brake lines, purchased from MM. This included the line that runs from the chassis to the pumpkin. And while I was doing the brake lines, I figured why not do some brake ducts too!! A popular kit seems to be the one that's run on the Cobra R, I think it's made of carbon fiber if I recall correctly? Anyway, it was also quite pricey. Instead, I ordered the kit offered by Agent 47. It wasn't "cheap", but affordable. Overall, it's a good kit. I had some clearance issues where the plate came really close to the rotor - too close for me. The issue was that the plate didn't quite clear some parts of the spindle, so it sort of forced it to angle towards the rotor. I ended up having to stack a bunch of washers at the mounting point to balance out. I haven't had an issue since.

The little chassis to pumpkin brake line, which was BY FAR the worst (read: hardest) of the lines to do:

Brake ducting:

I did some trimming of the splash shields on both sides to allow the routing of the brake ducts without sacrificing what little protection the splash shields offered:

To feed the brake ducts, I replaced the fog light brackets with ones made for 3" duct. The car didn't come with fog lights and I wasn't about to add them.

I also replaced the emergency brake cables while there:

My observations on setup: the brakes are awesome (I use Hawk HP+ pads both front and rear). The car really stops, no messing about. And it does it repeatedly. I've got more to say on them when I get to the road race posts. For now, just say I was impressed. Head and shoulders above the stock brakes. A note on the brake duct tube - I originally used zip ties to hold them in place. This was a mistake. The zip ties eventually tore through the tube, they are now almost split in half. I ordered more hose and will replace them when I get a chance, this time around I'll wrap the hose with racers tape where the zip ties come into contact. I don't think the zip ties will wear through the racers tape, and it will still allow the hose to articulate with the steering and suspension movements.

In addition to the brakes, I also did some other things that month. I replaced the current thermostat with a balanced 180 degree one from Summit. While I had the coolant out, I bought a new replacement radiator, a Mishimoto aluminum 3 core one from American Muscle. More on this guy in a later post. I finished off with a flush of the coolant system, and some nasty stuffs came out of the lower radiator hose. Eww.

I also replaced the driver seat with a Corbeau Forza seat from Solo Racer. Since I'm trying to get my girlfriend to also race it (and at least drive it), I opted for the double locking adjustable seat track, that way the seat can move. As it turns out, this was almost a necessity as it would have been difficult to get in and out of the car if the seat didn't move due to the high hip bolsters and steering wheel location. I left the passenger seat alone for the time being.

Speaking of the steering wheel, I realized why it had a cover on it. It looks as though apparently someone had tried to set fire to it. Out it comes. I replaced it with a MOMO Monte Carlo wheel from American Muscle. This of course means I no longer have an airbag here.

I replaced the shifter with a short throw Pro5.0 knockoff from American Muscle. I ended up having to use the stock upper shaft though because the short throw put the shifter too far out of reach, especially in 1st, 3rd and 5th. I got a cue ball type shift knob, thought it looked cool. I changed it after my first HPDE event. My hand ended up hurting afterwards from it, it just wasn't comfortable for me.

Bad positioning for me:

I also replaced the Steeda pedals (which were attached via screws into the stock pedal) with a kit from American Muscle - I don't remember the brand. But they basically wrap/push on around the stock pedals, with the exception of the gas pedal which was a little more involved.

mcglsr2 · Sep 18, 2013

Suspension!!!

October 2011

Okay, now that I was able to stop the car when I wanted to and as often as I wanted to, it was time to do something about the suspension. I don't know what springs were on the car, but the rears had spacers in them to keep the car from bottoming out, or to jack it up, or increase the spring rates, I honestly don't know. I had never seen them before. Anyway, I got rid of them.

But alas, I made a mistake here. I debated for a while between coilovers vs a more aggressive spring/shock combination. Ultimately it came down to money. At the time, I figured I wasn't a good enough driver yet to actually put the coilovers to good use and that it would be a while, so I went with the less expensive option. I would cut my teeth on a suspension set up better than stock and grow into coilovers later on. In hind sight, I should have just spent the money on coilovers in the first place. I was ready for a better suspension after my first HPDE. Don't misunderstand me, what I ended up doing here worked well, and still does to this day (though I recently bought Koni's and coilover kits, to be addressed in a later post). However, there were certain things that annoyed me - one of the biggest was brake dive. Anytime I deploy the anchors, I feel like the car is going to dig a furrow in the road it dives so much (at least, that's how it feels to me). But that story is for later on.

What I decided to do at the time was pick up some Tokico HP Blues (both struts and shocks) along with H&R Race Springs from American Muscle. The springs have a front rate of 750 to 850 lbs (which equates to a wheel rate of about 188 to 213 lbs) and a rear rate of 260 to 280 lbs (which is a wheel rate of about 130 to 140 lbs). They are supposed to lower the SN95 1.25" in front and 1" in the rear, which would give the car a slight rake (a good thing). I also got Prothane isolators from American Muscle for both the front and rear springs.

Stock front set up:

The rears:

As for the rear lower control arms, I opted for the MM Extreme Duty LCA's that have the spherical bearings on both ends. I also got replacement quad shocks (don't ask me why) and ran them for a bit, but they rubbed against the rear shock so I removed them. With the MM XD LCA's, they weren't really necessary anyway.

I noticed the bushings for the front sway bar were completely shot, so I replaced them as well as the sway bar end-links (Prothane items from American Muscle):

The stock pinion snubber looked like some sort of fungus thing, got a new one from MM:

Up front, I installed a MM k-member 4-point brace:

Lastly, I replaced the bushings in the rear upper control arms. I left them stock and used stock rubber replacement bushings per MM's recommendation. Talk about a suck job. If I had a lift it might not have been so bad. But I didn't. I used the bushing insertion/removal tool sold by MM. It is worth the money. I don't even know how I would have done it otherwise. Also not pictured is the front spring installation tool sold by MM. That was a life saver for me as well. I couldn't get the control arm to drop down enough to get the front spring on the perch. This tool from them makes a 45 minute job into a 5 minute job. Worth every penny.

My observations of the setup: for what it was, it worked really well. The car still exhibited some body roll, and brake dive, but the ride was still smooth enough on the street, and it stuck to the corners better than I might have expected. The ride height seemed a little high - I wasn't so sure about the actual drop height. I'm sure if I removed the isolators I would get a little more, but I didn't want to add any NVH for a tad more drop. And like I said, it has served me well enough to this day. But change is a-commin.

I also installed a CAI. For Moar Powwaahhh!! Actually, the stock airbox didn't fit very well (because of some damage, poorly hung fender, I don't know). It had gaps and stuff, looked nasty, and I'm just making up excuses. I don't remember my reasons exactly, but I talked myself into a cheapie off-brand one from American Muscle. The filter isn't in the engine bay, but rather in the fender, so I liked that. Did it help? Probably not. The fitment was okay. It could have been worse.

In the above picture, note how close the upper radiator hose is to the alternator pulley. Here's a hint, that might be a problem later...

mcglsr2 · Sep 18, 2013

RichV said:
Welcome! On brakes you absolutely need 16" rotors and 15 piston calipers, on front an rear! Oh wait, that's for cruises and Burger King runs.

But only if the rotors are slotted and cross drilled