Rio Red 98 GT Build

[lwarrior1016]

OK, so as promised Im starting up on my build thread. For the sake of history I have to give a little back story on the car, so the beginning of the thread will be kind of slow going but I will try to get up to speed as soon as possible. On to the story. I came home from my first tour in Afghanistan in 2011, around March time. I bought my first mustang in august. It was a 2002 GT. Bought it from a shady car lot, needed tires, clutch, heater core, all kinds of crap but it looked cool and sounded great and it was a mustang. Car came with a 30 day drivetrain warranty. When I found out it needed a clutch I took it back to the guy and it sat at his shop for 2 weeks. I finally said F**K you and took the car back and did my own clutch. Then the 32nd day of owning it the car overheated and shut off. I let it cool down and started it back up to find out it was tapping/rattling something awful. Took it home, pulled the engine, found out the intake manifold was cracked, did a top end rebuild because I thought it was a valve related issue. That meant brand new loaded heads with cams and a new intake manifold. Put it together and to my surprise at the time it still tapped just as loud. I got angry, real angry. So to prevent me from torching the car in my field I traded it to my neighbor for a 1994 F150 that had 5k worth of paint. Then I found a guy that had my current GT and needed a truck. He had beaten, abused, and neglected this car, but it was a mustang and it had potential. So I traded my F150 for this 98 GT.

First Mustang


The trade




Then came my 98. I don't have any pictures of the day I got it but at this point I had put the bullitt wheels and headlights on it. Cant tell very well in this picture but it had been in a small front end wreck or something because the hood is a couple shades darker than the rest



I will be posting more on this today. Just bear with me till I get my pictures caught up.

 

[lwarrior1016]

Put the grill delete on


SLP Loudmouth 1 cat-back


I did the black leather with the white gauges


How she sat then

 

[lwarrior1016]

As everyone knows, the car bone stock was slug. I was on the interstate one night and i got outrun by a 2005 chevy malibu, I couldn't have that so I put a pi intake, accufab tb/plenum, pullies, did a 5 speed swap, and put 3.73's in the rear. At the time it was enough but that changed quickly. So I put in Bullet racing stage 2 cams, mishimoto aluminum radiator, 180 t-stat, and tuned it all with a diablosport predator. After all that, I ended up with this cluster .... of an engine bay, but it ran better.

 

[lwarrior1016]

After the car was setup this way it was my D/D for a few months. Then I started preparing for my 2nd tour in Afghanistan. While I was gone I ordered a few parts for it. It got a new wiper cowl, and new carpet for clean up. I also decided it was time to lower it, so I got a set of lowering spring for a 1.5" drop all around, got upr spherical/adjustable upper and lower control arms, steeda bump steer kit, poly bushings for front control arms and steering rack, and a set of shark c/c plates. While I was gone I also decided to change the sound some so I took out the slp loudmouth I resonators and I welded in some magnaflow chambered muffler (best move I ever made). The magnaflows are much better in my opinion. And while I was gone my wife bought me a 1995 Harley Davidson heritage softail.

This is what I came home to, my Harley is the orange one, the other is a friends bike. That story is for a whole different time.


Most of the parts I came home to


Started to take care of the neglected and abused parts I mentioned.




Carpet was disgusting




Did some soundproofing


Black it is.


Also opted for black switch panels

 

[Evilgt]

Looks good. Love the color and the interior contrast.

 

[Barner1]

Nice start. I like the blue under the hood

 

[lwarrior1016]

Ok, now I moved on to the suspension work and the new exhaust set up.

Got this b***h sitting like a car instead of 4x4 style.




Then one morning I went out to the car and found this.


So, Time for new wheels


Got a great deal on some wheels with decent tires

 

[lwarrior1016]

Nice start. I like the blue under the hood

Stick around for a bit, the pictures are just getting started but right now I am balls deep into it.

 

[lwarrior1016]

At this point I had my car running better and looking half way decent and I was thinking about painting it. I started having idle issues and I had never had it on the dyno, I was just running an email tune, and I had a birthday coming up so i decided to order myself a Megasquirt III with expansion card for sequential fuel and spark control. To top it all off, a jimstim for testing. So i started putting it together. Now mind you I had never, until this point, soldered a circuit board of any kind, and I had very little wire soldering experience. With this kit though, I would be able to tune myself and have full control over all of the engine functions and I would know exactly what was going on in there, unlike the email tune where I just load it in and hope everything works.

JimStim:
bare board


Work station




Getting some work done


Completed JimStim


Moving on to the mainboard






Most of the main board is done here, got some jumpers to make and have to put the expansion card in.

 

[Z06killinsbf]

Howd you like doing the through board soldering? We have like a week long class here at work for that crap lol. Looks good with the Saleens.

 

[lwarrior1016]

Howd you like doing the through board soldering? We have like a week long class here at work for that crap lol. Looks good with the Saleens.

Thanks man. The soldering part was a piece of cake as soon as I understood what was going on. The first few connections weren't very good and I had to get a de-soldering pump to make new ones, but after I got the hang of it things went together very easily.

 

[lwarrior1016]

Then after I started assembling my Megasquirt, I had to go to a military school up at Camp Shelby, which is in Hattiesburg, Ms. Its about an hour from my house. While I was there I lost oil pressure and it started rattling. I had no clue what happened, so I let it sit for a while and when it cooled off I started it up and the oil pump was whining and my gauge was jumping all over the place. I have a good friend that lives up there so I took the car to his house and we started pulling the engine and tearing it down. Apparently my timing chain guide pins had fallen out at some time and when I lost oil pressure it let the chains get slack in them. It was a bad day.

Pulling it


My friend posing for a picture


Tear down


Then I found this. Aluminum shavings everywhere.


I don't have any pictures but I found out that in the process i put metal through the crank journals and head journals. Heads were trashed, so was the crank. Oh yeah and I spun 3 rod bearings in the process. That was a really bad day.

 

[Gregor185]

Coming along nicely

 

[DropTopPony]

Some black and gray two tone panels would look great in your interior.

 

[lwarrior1016]

Some black and gray two tone panels would look great in your interior.

I have seen a couple guys that have painted their panels but I have no idea what they used. I would like to do the top half black with the gray on the bottom. I don't want it to look like paint though I would like it to look as close to factory as possible.

 

[DropTopPony]

I have seen a couple guys that have painted their panels but I have no idea what they used. I would like to do the top half black with the gray on the bottom. I don't want it to look like paint though I would like it to look as close to factory as possible.

[MENTION=17070]Tony[/MENTION] just did his check out his build thread it's usually at the top of the first page somewhere.

 

[Z06killinsbf]

Use the SEM Tie Coat amd find some SEM black. The Fords have a specific black I can't recall the name off hand.

Also, are those service stripe tattoos on your buddy's arm?

 

[lwarrior1016]

Then it was time to order all the parts for my rebuild. My friends house is about an hour north from my house and it was just way to hard for me to get there every weekend to work on it. So I loaded my car up and took it down to the shop where I work. Then I started assembling/restoring.

All loaded up, almost ready to roll.


Got it down to the shop and gave it a quick pressure wash to attempt to clean it a little, it was absolutely filthy.




Then I brought it in the shop and started getting it set up for cleaning.


I got the car set up in the shop and I started doing some engine assembly.


Pistons hung


SRP Pistons


2013 Boss rods


Shortblock was put together with ARP mains and clevite H main bearings

 

[DropTopPony]

I think the duplicolor black is a good match also, but I do use SEM myself. Latemodelresto sells the SEM interior dye/paint.

 

[lwarrior1016]

Use the SEM Tie Coat amd find some SEM black. The Fords have a specific black I can't recall the name off hand.

Also, are those service stripe tattoos on your buddy's arm?

Yes they are service stripes. He got his combat stripe on the other arm too.
I will look into the SEM, where can I get that?