Innovative & Extreme Custom Projects

[cobrajeff96]

I wanted to suggest a certain space on this site for extreme custom projects big or small that people have undertaken by themselves over the months/years/even decades that go way into uncharted territory. Less along the lines of, "I bought their kit, followed the directions, and installed it." and more so for people that, "bought the raw materials, fabricated it myself, and made it work based on my own knowledge/experience."

Could be something as simple as making your own section of wire harness, a hose, a CAD/CNC design, something you welded, something stock that had to be relocated to make space for other things like a battery relo, an engine you swapped, etc. Obviously an engine swap project would certainly fit well here, I'm thinking.

And so this thread wouldn't be reserved for just one person's car, but for all. And while the "What did you do to your car today" is a very handy catch-all kind of thread and the "Engine Swap" thread covers down that area pretty well, this could be a catch-all for the extreme side of things as mentioned.

I suggest this because some people's innovative ideas don't often come as one dedicated non-contiguous project spanning a day or week, but rather as successive events over longer periods of time, and I think there should be a space for that so others can here can see examples of what it takes and to get inspired if they ever wish to go into the deep end themselves.

It goes without saying that this'll be a pic-heavy thread out of necessity, and so pics or it didn't happen should be the mantra here. And so I can't very well suggest such a place without first putting in my ante. Here goes...

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Back in 2018, I revamped the fuel system from stock, largely in preparation for the second engine swap I did going from Gen1 Coyote to Gen2. Wanted something safe above all, neat/tidy, capable of going the distance with a max ceiling of 700hp to the ground (but probably less in all practicality), avoids exhaust heat like the plague, and is easily serviceable. I wanted something that avoids any OEM folly such as being completely unable to service the fuel filter in a IRS-swapped car (it's a bitch to get to that fuel filter!)

And so it began.

Twin Walbro GSS342s inside a billet Fore pump hat, Glenn's performance baffled 03 Cobra style tank with custom mil-spec circular connector for pumps and level sensor, Bosch IDF-750 filter housing, custom AN hard lines and soft lines, custom wiring/fusing, bulkhead connectors and Staubli quick disconnects, Aeromotive regulator and fuel rails, OEM injectors,.

During the actual build up and locating things where they needed to be to push fuel to the front of the car the best way possible, I rant into a bit of a snag trying to route the hose as far from heat in the rear of the car while obviously avoiding any moving parts. Check out the pic that has the fuel lines (and the battery cables) going through sheet metal just in front of the rear wheels! Spanning the largest segment of the runs, the fuel lines tunnel through the square steel of the out jacking rails for the subframe connectors as well.

This was definitely uncharted terriroty, and for me definitely OTC!

 

[cobrajeff96]

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[white95]

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[cobrajeff96]

Rear diff cooling, part 1.

I had an old diff cooler from years before, never once used it. But with the new rear suspension (especially the Fore billet diff cover) I knew something serious was needed here. Not only this, but SN95 packaging constraints only let you go so far with add-ons like these. Space is always a scarcity. Needed something capable to cool down the diff because out here in Germany I love to drive at high speed for long periods of time and that diff literally takes all the heat from that. And it is an expensive diff that I want to get my money's worth out of. And that thick diff cover retains heat I think more than it could shed it. And the fluid volume of an IRS is much much less than that of an SRA to begin with. If the diff was a clutched variety instead of the worm-gear system that it is, it'd have like a 2 year life span and be toast.

But looking around before planning any of this, I could see that the huge fuel tank in the rear was the elephant in the room. I had no choice but to work around it, making sure it could be taken down for any future maintenance without risking harm to any part of the new diff cooling circuit.

Luckily for me, the Kenny Brown modified IRS carrier has these beautiful flanges welded on for the rear frame mounts. Made the perfect surface with which to rig up AN passthrough bulkheads and have the feed and return lines of the circuit kind of snake around the sides and to their places of business.

But before any of that, first thing's first. Time to mock up and mount the reservoir and the pump. Part of that includes deleting the old bent up and crusty ass radiator that was there before as well as grind off the old studs mounted to the rear crash bar for the old pump that never even got used.

Then weld up new studs for the new pump and reservoir. Had to make my own mounting bracket for the reservoir in order to kick it slightly away from the crash bar. Just 1/8" steel that I put into a metal brake to make the bends, a burr tool to wallow out some mounting holes, and some acetone and paint to finish it off. Took this opportunity to make a release system that only requires loosening the fasteners in order to remove things instead of unscrewing them entirely, both for the reservoir and the heat exchangers, which you'll see in future postings in this thread.

The pump itself is about the size of a large banana but handles almost as heavy as a bowling ball. I have no doubt of its quality and longevity. Even has a filter pre-installed into its supply side weighted for gear oil.

Reservoir is from Chase Bays, and honestly it was just a google search to find the right rez, one that had bottom side ports due to SN95 space constraints and how I envisioned routing the lines would end up. I did have to change out one of the port sizes on bottom, as this rez was intended for a power steering system which typically utilizes -10 for supply and -6 for high pressure. My system uses -8 (1/2") on both sides, and luckily this rez didn't have the fittings welded on like so many others. They are instead O-ring port -to- AN adapters and so buying different adapters was all that it took to get this thing usable in my system. Took this opportunity to drill and tap holes in the side of the can to install a sight glass of sorts with components I found while browsing through McMaster-Carr. If you've never been to that website, absolutely go there if you plan on doing anything custom to the car... or really anything. This online warehouse literally has everything. It is a DIYer's dream.

Had fun throughout this diff cooling project for sure, and many more photos to come soon!

 

[cobrajeff96]

Most likely the only SN95 in the world to go electric parking brake, and maybe the only Mustang pre-S550 to have it for that matter. I'm just about to wrap up this wiring project for the electric e-brake and let me tell ya... it was involved. Probably most involving was wiring everything into the center console for the purposes of making it as clean and serviceable as possible, can be quickly disconnected and nothing is affected type of approach. The only thing I'm potentially waiting on to arrive is just a specific relay harness adapter for a solid state relay that lets me still run an idiot light when the parking brake is activated.

Used some nice stainless steel corrugated seamless tube to protect all the wires where they are most vulnerable to things on the road (sticks/rocks/animals/etc). A lot of time was spent to get the cut lengths accurate on those, and of course after the cuts I had to chamfer and file down the burrs. Solder seals came in handy for sure. Lots of cushioned clamps. Re-used all the factory line routing beneath the car, even the primary cable weather boot for the hole in the tunnel. Heat shrinked that piece with glue-lined dual-wall so there's zero moisture ever getting in. Actually almost every splice or joint is shrunk with the glued dual-wall. I think there's only once spot that has regular shrink and that's inside the car where the wires snake from the ECU, through the center console rear mount, and finally into the topside of the tunnel where every wire branches off to their places of business.

Not 100% done but it's damn close now. Today, I can at least test to see how effective they are. I'm expecting good things. Wilwood claims these things put out 2400 lb-ft of torque. We'll see!

Later today I'll get some pics of the interior portion of the install.

 

[white95]

I admire the level of technical prep you’ve put into this car and it makes me want to step my game up in refining mine.

Keep up the great work.

 

[95opal]

Most likely the only SN95 in the world to go electric parking brake, and maybe the only Mustang pre-S550 to have it for that matter. I'm just about to wrap up this wiring project for the electric e-brake and let me tell ya... it was involved. Probably most involving was wiring everything into the center console for the purposes of making it as clean and serviceable as possible, can be quickly disconnected and nothing is affected type of approach. The only thing I'm potentially waiting on to arrive is just a specific relay harness adapter for a solid state relay that lets me still run an idiot light when the parking brake is activated.

Used some nice stainless steel corrugated seamless tube to protect all the wires where they are most vulnerable to things on the road (sticks/rocks/animals/etc). A lot of time was spent to get the cut lengths accurate on those, and of course after the cuts I had to chamfer and file down the burrs. Solder seals came in handy for sure. Lots of cushioned clamps. Re-used all the factory line routing beneath the car, even the primary cable weather boot for the hole in the tunnel. Heat shrinked that piece with glue-lined dual-wall so there's zero moisture ever getting in. Actually almost every splice or joint is shrunk with the glued dual-wall. I think there's only once spot that has regular shrink and that's inside the car where the wires snake from the ECU, through the center console rear mount, and finally into the topside of the tunnel where every wire branches off to their places of business.

Not 100% done but it's damn close now. Today, I can at least test to see how effective they are. I'm expecting good things. Wilwood claims these things put out 2400 lb-ft of torque. We'll see!

Later today I'll get some pics of the interior portion of the install.

Looks good but your about 10 years late on being the first lol

 

[cobrajeff96]

I admire the level of technical prep you’ve put into this car and it makes me want to step my game up in refining mine.

Keep up the great work.

Thanks!

Looks good but your about 10 years late on being the first lol

There was an SN95 in 2013 to have an electric e-brake?

 

[cobrajeff96]

So the cool (and safe) thing about this install is that the e-brake can only activate if the car is sitting still. In fact the e-brake's standalone ECU won't even power on unless the car is not rolling. To achieve this I got visited by the good idea fairy a few days ago when I remembered many years ago I purchased a T-56 reverse lockout module that taps into the speed sensor harness to energize the transmission's solenoid and thus let you into reverse automatically without need to push a button or flick a switch or whatever. So the module's two output wires (coil + and coil -) also energize a relay I mounted into the center console whose power output (87) then provides power feed to the Wilwood e-brake ECU. No thought required to drive the car and it's perfectly safe against e-brake activation when rolling... nice!

So... this mandated an update of the transmission harness as well. Used a nice stainless wire gland to pipe the three wires from inside the tunnel and into the cabin (speed sense / coil + / coil -) along with expandable wire sleeving, insultherm sleeving to shun the heat away and to give a bit of added crush protection from all the zip ties used to hold things down because some portions of this harness come close to the driveshaft. On that note, in the next post, you'll see some of the tools/materials used to make all this professional and fool proof.

Deutsch DTM connectors were used to the greatest extent, especially in critical applications because Deutsch connectors are the gold standard IMO and probably in the opinions of many professionals out there. Granted, these aren't circular locking race-spec connectors but there's no need for that in this car. In particular a DTM connector was used to connect bottom side of the tunnel to the cabin side, piggy backing off a bolt for an unused transmission connector that to this day I have no idea its purpose is. Anyway, the Daniels Manufacturing Corp contact crimper is badass just as much as it is expensive. Also used these lovely aluminum zip tie bolt down plates. They're fantastic to use in applications like these and they came in clutch. The ones pictures had a bit of seam sealer on them from another application, but you get the idea. You can either bond them down with adhesive or bolt them down. My project has a little bit of both methods used throughout the car.

 

[cobrajeff96]

Now for the interior portion (about 99% done and will be completed tomorrow). You can see the back half of the cable gland on the passenger side of the tunnel which pipes the wires from the cabin and into the tunnel (all for the reverse lockout module). Used Littlefuse Miniglow LED fuses which light up when blown, pretty cool. Used in-cabin fleece tape to protect everything directly attached to the console along with those wire-holding fir tree fasteners (had to do a lot of plastic drilling to make it all pretty and routed clean away from interference). A large ~22mm hole in the console's rear mount plate was drilled so that a grommet can pass through the main harness from the ECU, before it all branches out. Everything from there back was protected, first with expandable red/black flat sleeve and also with a pretty thick flat over-braid right where the plastic center console would sit. So with all told, it's just three connectors that account for everything, and the console just like that can be removed without affecting anything so that future removals are a repeatable and thought-free process. Everything is protected and clean-looking.

Note: there are two types of cloth harness tape out there (which is so much better than traditional vinyl electric tape). There's indoor and outdoor cloth tapes. The inside is the fuzzy fleece and should not be used outside the cabin. When this Wilwood kit arrived, I found its wiring harness was finished on every connector end (include every one of them outside the cabin) in fleece tape which is a no-no. It will allow water and will eventually deteriorate in outdoor conditions. In my favor was the fact that I totally disregarded the pre-made harness and made it my own. Then there's the outdoor cloth tape which is more like a nylon type of material. It's very difficult for it to snag on anything and it can seal for the most part unlike the indoor fleece material. The great thing about cloth vs vinyl is that the cloth has much more abrasion and cut resistance, does not require any stretching to be effective, and it never leaves behind a nasty, sticky residue when opening it back up at a later point in time.

 

[ttocs]

I learned a hard lesson that wire tires only do so much good outside of a car. One of them failing is what caused my wire fire and made me start hard mounting all the wiring under the car with c-clips.

 

[cobrajeff96]

And it's function tested (vid here). Just need to get my custom switch plate from the powdercoat shop tomorrow and install it Tuesday and I can finally wrap a bow on the electric e-brake after I provide connection to the cluster idiot light.

 

[white95]

I learned a hard lesson that wire tires only do so much good outside of a car. One of them failing is what caused my wire fire and made me start hard mounting all the wiring under the car with c-clips.

Speaking of fire… Did you ever fix it?

 

[ttocs]

And it's function tested (vid here). Just need to get my custom switch plate from the powdercoat shop tomorrow and install it Tuesday and I can finally wrap a bow on the electric e-brake after I provide connection to the cluster idiot light.

pics?