Alum head in action in Finland

I thought I'd start a new topic now as the story seems to drift away from "first impressions" or vacuum related stuff. You can read the other topic too but this is a sequel somehow, with a more generic title.

Ok, we had our club's main event of the year during last weekend. This time it was almost 400 mls north from my hometown. The car run great all the time but some tuning issues are still present, mostly due to the worn carb I have. Anyways, adjusting the secondary butterfly more properly really helped, and now the engine seems more eager to run day by day. The alum head gave a feeling like somebody is pushing the car from behind for me, so noticeable difference it made.

I start to publish some pics of the events that just went (Beach Pony Party a week earlier and the main event FunRun last weekend), and on the weekend of 8-10th Aug we have a big event coming where we'll have some drag strip, autoslalom and road race on the track too. That's when we'll see a kind of comparison of current performance as the previous 16.9 1/4 mile is known and we'll see how it goes now.

Meanwhile, here are some 668 pics my friend took of the event. Mostly pics from the Slalom, and my car appears on page 5 starting with pic number 337. Enjoy!

http://www.partanen.net/gallery/thumbna ... ?album=302

BTW, about 25-30 cars attended the Slalom, and all but one of them got lost for a six...the winner was the black '96 charged & MM suspension equipped Cobra, license plate SVT-1.
On the first run I had a guy in-car shooting the run on the video, as you can see from the pics. I'm waiting to get that clip. Also, the third trial was videoed from the audience. I've got that already but I have to convert it and make it a smaller file.

Lots of nice Mustangs, especially liked the 67 coupe with the 67 GT500 hood.

Yours is lookin good as usual. Looks like you got a little bit of squat going as your accelerating out of a corner.


Have you put better springs and roll bar on front? Doesn't look like it has as much body roll as last time.

Is that rear "spoiler" stock on your car or is it a original luggage rack cut down?

Well done.

I love that black car with the white roof and luggage rack.

Aside from that, nice to see the white Fox body photos are viewed more than most of the other pictures. Great work on the driving results, too.

Current setup:

Front
UPR Coil-overs, 350lbs 12" springs
BBK C/C plates
Maximum Motorsports tubular LCAs
Stock shocks
1.1/16" sway bar
poly bushings about everywhere
GT brakes

Rear
94GT cnvt springs
92GT cnvt sway bar, something like 3/4" or such
Maximum Motorsports adjustable LCAs
Koni Classic (red) shocks
New FR UCAs incoming within a week, just not installed yet

And of course there are some sub-frame connectors. I still run on 205/55/16 tires which gives my opponents a clear advantage.

I have 10" 350 lbs springs as spares, and if I can get shorter springs to rear (the rear is adjusted to the lowest setting, as well as the front) I can drop the car about 1". I'll be needing offset rack bushings and a bump-steer kit, as it already has some noticeable bump-steer in there.

That rear "spoiler" is a 92GT cnvt luggage rack piece. I left it there to company the third brake light that came with the trunk door from the donor car. It is about to retire, I don't like it at all. I have started to look at the car with an eye that it looks to me a little too "teen" and should get grown up. It is a little rusty and to me it seems like in need for total resto, and being there is another car for sale with no engine/trans and has been done to about the same spec otherwise (but with roll bar...), I may have plans to take the engine/trans combo there and part out this one. Maybe, let' s not tell the car about this plan :roll:

If you look at the pics you see that the car still has a lot of weight transfer even into the front end. That puzzles me, as the 350lbs front springs are about road race rate. Anyways the coil overs to the front was one of the very best mods to the suspension and I recommend all fox-body people to do that, and of course earlys will benefit a lot too. This car is very enjoyable to drive and not too hard at all, at least to my taste.

For what comes to engine performance after 1000+ miles with the new head I think it is approaching a sweet setup now. First I felt it was a bit lazy at low rpms due to bigger plenum etc, but actually it has improved a lot there and it pulls nicely by just opening the butterflys a small amount. From 3000 to 6000 the acceleration at WOT just makes me smile.

addo":93e0ayrz said:

I love that black car with the white roof and luggage rack.

Aside from that, nice to see the white Fox body photos are viewed more than most of the other pictures. Great work on the driving results, too.

Click to expand...

I love the black '66 GT too. The guy bought the car in 2002 as red/white and travelled everywhere with his dog with him. The car is a real GT and it was a very good purchase for him. The dog "Aira" was sitting on the front seat with a fisher's hat, and if you didn't look carefully you might have mistakenly thought it was a human...

About 1,5 weeks ago I saw the car first time in deep Raven Black, which the owner says was the original colour of the car. I was stunned, the car looks very good in pics too but it is superb to see in the nature.

While he drives the Slalom in pics the dog SLEEPS at the passengers seat, although this can't be seen in the pics.

The pics were just put in there, and the link here of course makes more counts to those pics. Also I suspect some "competitors" taking good looks there as it has been pretty hard for some to swallow a faster six. I have driven three events now and finished 4th, 3rd and 2nd beating most of the guys that have won the trophys during the last years. On 9th Aug we have the last event and I know it'll be hard to get the 2nd position there or anything near that. The last weekend's winning car went to repair shop and it may not be there, but the guy has a 2007 Shelby Mustang GT-500 to replace the '96 SVO any time...

80Stang":38zhqxcy said:

That puzzles me, as the 350lbs front springs are about road race rate.

Click to expand...

FWIW, I ran 1100 lbs/inch and then stepped down to 750 lbs/inch front springs on my Camaro.

350 is really really light, IMO.

The 1100 lb springs were awesome on long sweepers @ 100 MPH plus, but much too stiff for low speed maneuvering.

push push push.

Also, I've got to believe the stock shocks on the front are really hurting you on transition. In my opinion, quality shocks/struts is the most significant performance return on the dollar when it comes to handling.

Huge difference.

Did you have coil-overs?

The spring rates are not comparable between different setups but wheel rate is. Wheel rate is the rate that wheel sees, and to achieve the same wheel rate you can use different spring rates depending on how the spring is positioned with the control arms. Normal Mustang spring rates are something like 300-620lbs, and by positioning the spring between upper control arm and shock tower (early Mustangs) or between lower control arm and crossmember (later Mustangs) needs much more spring rate to get the same wheel rate as a coil over spring.

If I remember right the 350lbs coil over spring here equals about 800-900lbs wheel rate.