The Quantum Mechanic's Garage: More ABS - Cutting teeth on IRS tone rings

[johnpinetree]

So, about time to start my build thread. I'm hoping with this I can document the build, point my friends and family to something if they are curious, and also get timely advice. I'm a lot of things, but chief among them is an ambitious guy who's getting way in over his head and will be asking all sorts of annoying questions.

The Cobra will eventually be my fair-weather driver as well as something to do some auto-X in.

I imagine I'll be editing this first page a bunch as I get a better handle on what it is I'm building, but the short of it is:

Mk IV roadster
IRS
Coyote gen 3 (aka my Five-O)
T-56
ABS that can be disabled
Traction control that can be disabled
A sweet looking dash

Received delivery June 9th. As the FF semi pulled up my wife quipped, "subtle". Yep, it's like that.


To this picture my pal said, "That's the happiest I've ever seen you in a picture!" I asked about my wedding day, graduation, that sort of thing... "Nah, I was there for those. This takes the cake.:


The three of us figuring out how *exactly* this plan of removing the body was going to work. Nearly called this thread "Urban garage".


Many thanks to my climber-extraordinaire wife for figuring out all this rigging.


And now all that's left is 200+(?) hours of work!

[JB in NOVA]

Love the "subtle" quip. So true. Welcome aboard!

[Blitzboy54]

Congrats and welcome

[egchewy79]

Welcome to the party!
When Stewart delivered mine, it was blocking a fairly busy 2 lane road in front of my house for 45min. We had to call local police to help w/ traffic flow. And it was like 0*F that day.

[Straversi]

200? Glad you have a sense of humor. Don’t worry, you’ll enjoy every minute of it but emphasize the + in 200+..

Congrats and welcome.
-Steve.

[460.465USMC]

I think I spent 200 hours on my inventory alone. Just kidding...mostly. Really glad I spent the extra time, as it continues to pay off some 8+ months later when I need to find a part.

Welcome, Juan! I think you have the same Bendpak lift. Recently started using mine for the build after it became a roller. An exciting time for you! Enjoy!

[johnpinetree]

So finally got a good pull in this Saturday! Started with the front suspension. I got my upper control arms last week as a part of my POL stuff. I'll say when I went through my inventory last month there were a bunch of things that were plain missing, excluding the POL stuff. Communication with FFR has been tough -- seems like they are slammed right now. Not too worried about it, hoping things sort themselves out. On to the fun!

So first up were these lower control arms. The whole 'shim these things until they're 'bout right' was sort of my first introduction to what we're working with. It was funny, as I was messing with this I thought two things:
1) this is all probably fine -- an 1/8 of an inch difference here or there on this thing isn't going to matter.
2) I'm guessing this isn't how they do it up in Detroit/Freemont/insert-the-location-of-your-factory-of-choice-here.

Anyhow, grabbed a ratchet strap as my helper and got rid of some slop.


After torquing bolts down to spec... I realized that I had used the N-m value instead of ft-lbs. Way to go genius! Two things on that:
1) whoever thought to list N-m first when 90% of this car is in imperial units is just plain mean.
2) This whole thing where some of the car is imperial and some of it's metric... if (when...) I go insane I think this should be the first thing people look at in doing the post-mortem. This is seriously going to break my brain.

Anyhow.........

Up next were getting the ball joints into the upper control arms. All I'll say there is... OMG what a PITA. Seriously.

I won't go through all the details, it's been covered, but yeah, for those that haven't gone down this road yet.. remove the powder coating from those inner threads! Once I did that stuff came together fine. I did end up having to take the first assembly back apart after getting it to within 1/4 inch of done. In metric that converts to: 'enough to keep me up at night'. Anyhow, thanks to the power of propane I got that ball joint off and this is what it looked like:



Well, I was halfway home! Cleaned up both sides on this one and it was still a pain to get snug, but it's there now.


Next was installing the shocks and springs! Except I don't have my front springs!!! Anyhow, was a good opportunity to get acquainted with a grease gun. Front is done for now, I'll see what other trouble I can get into this week.


Thought it might be fun to keep a running tally of hours spent. I failed to capture the 'research' part of it, but I'll grab that going forward.
cumulative time
organization 23
suspension 12

And finally, I was wondering if I might call FFR and see if they don't have some other springs handy that I could get quicker. Seems like some folks run with something beefier than the 500# in front? Any thoughts? Keep in mind this will be a Coyote that hopes to autoX a handful of times a year.

[460.465USMC]

Good idea on the ratchet strap, Juan. Wish I would have thought of that back when I struggled with my IFS/IRS.

Nice progress!

[egchewy79]

yes that upper BJ is tricky unless you remove the coating on the threads of the BJ w/ a wire wheel. I got my BJ stuck in the control arm and had to use a torch and an air impact gun to get it back off. I nearly ripped my bench vise off the bench trying to thread it in. once the coating was removed, it slid right in.

[johnpinetree]

Yeah agreed chewy! My vise is bolted onto a 600 lbs end mill that's bolted to a 100 lbs steel table that's anchored to my concrete floor. When everything started shaking I realized I was doing it wrong!

I also thought to myself, "eh, new car build! Won't have to pull out my favorite tool for this one!".

Wrong.

[nucjd19]

Keep on plowing Juan! To me the first few build days were the hardest. it was a steep learning curve. Then I was cruising. You are doing a great job! I had already known about the upper ball joint and went with the Howe Racing ball joint which slips right in cause I emotionally could not handle the issues with eh current ones LOL!!

Oh...and great idea with the white board. I wish I had one hanging for punch lists etc.

[johnpinetree]

Well, still waiting on a boatload of parts from FFR. Patience I tell myself... because what else can I do? Hoping to run brake lines here next week when the wife is away on travel.

Anyhow, on the more positive side I (think!?!!) I got a new gen 2 coyote from a new friend in CT. Mike Everson over on the other forum pointed me to someone selling a new Coyote on CL. He bought it for a project and it didn't fit. Anyhow... it's with ABF now and should be here next week! Not sure if I covered it but after (way too much) research the Gen 2 is what I'm after. Has the hope/possibility/chance of working with an aftermarket ECU... anyhow... down the rabbit hole.

Speaking of... time to pick a tranny! I know I want something silky smooth that shifts as the winds change here on the front range so I've been committed to a T-56. Chatting with Mike Forte I've been bouncing back and forth between the short and tall version of their transmission. After much research and one sleepless night I'm going with the tall because it fits what I'm trying to do with this thing.

Peeling back the onion a little further... the tradeoff is really in the shiftpoints. So, taking the final gear out of the equation we can look at the torque that gets sent to the diff for both the short version of the T56:


as well as the tall version:


Again, the final ratio only really affects the x-axis here, and one could always swap that out later... easier than swapping a tranny I figure, but whatever, the point here is that in picking the tranny you want to minimize the drop in that torque factor (please don't hammer me for butchering the term here... it's late) when you shift gears. Well, interestingly enough there's a tradeoff! Like always!

It looks like the tall version of the T-56 does a nice job between first and second... while the short version does a nice job between 2nd and 3rd. For me, I know I don't want to track this thing. I do a lot of risky things with my neck and figure I can live a very happy life avoiding the track. I do want to autocross this damn thing though, so that 1st to 2nd shift is what I'm most concerned about... so.... very long story short... I think I can pick a tranny with confidence!

I guess the other consideration folks have when picking transmissions is that final ratio. My cruise into work is done at 74.999999999.. mph. With this set up that should put me at about 1750 RPM. A little low, but I'm good with that. Less noise and if I need to get up and go that's what the clutch is for!

Ok! Time to sleep!!!

[johnpinetree]

Will post a couple quick hitters here. First, still waiting on a bunch of stuff from FFR. Front springs and hub nuts (yeah seriously), which is making progress, well slow.

But! My Five Oh did come via freight. Stoked on that. Waiting for a rear end (3.55+Torsen), spindles and oil pan from Forte. Hopefully can start on that over next holiday weekend. Check 'er out:
.

Another Denver MkIV builder swung by, GTBradley. Shooting the breeze with Bradley was great and checking out his build was inspiring! We talked planes, ABS, autoX and then some. All while squatted in the back of my garage because my pickup was parked in front with the Five Oh. Anyhow, Bradley didn't even flinch and there's just so much value in actually talking to someone versus reading posts. It's also just funny how many of us are so like minded. This is Bradley driving off into the sunset -- wish I had gotten more of his overall car, instead of just random engine bay details:



Did what I could on the front suspension today. I got the knuckles in this week. Here's the obligatory, "maching stuff is fun" shot.



And was commenting to Bradley: "The build really goes together quick when you've got all the parts". I mean, I'm sure interior and finishing stuff will probably take forever, and so far it's been pretty straightforward stuff, but man it just flows. Anyhow, way better than working on an already built car where:

a. Taking apart frozen suspension bits can be 85% of the challenge.
b. Figuring out which of those bits is worth it and just cussing at the rest of them that are in your way presents another challenge. Oh and
c. There's all these stupid body panels in the way!

Seriously, this is glorious.

Anyhow, was cruising along and then this:



Yeah we're not doing that. I might give FFR a call tomorrow, but everytime I try it's a few days to get back to me so will probably just swing by Ace. Whatever. Also gave me time to count the teeth on the tone ring for the hubs. Decision time... stay tuned.

cumulative time (hrs)
research #DIV/0!
organization 31
suspension 19

[johnpinetree]

Ok, so a little update on the ABS front.

Turns out not a lot of folks have done this sort of thing, or at least posted about it. We've got JohnGeorge who kind of pioneered this and then Toadster who is working it into his build as we speak. I got super excited when I thought I sourced a new ABS unit, but it turns out it was just the valve and solenoid, but didn't include the module (aka the brains of the damn system).

It also turns out that there just aren't going to be a source for parts for this stuff moving forward. Now-a-days ABS is integrated with a butt-load of other sensors and they all tie back to the ECU. That means that there just aren't going to be parts for stand alone units unless you look at models from 10-20 years ago, and all that stuff is drying up.

Anyhow, after spending way way WAY too many hours researching this stuff this is what I've got for MkIV ABS options. I'm hoping (man I hate that word) to do more research this week and will update this with what I find. And I'm hoping (THERE IT IS AGAIN!!! THAT WORD!!) to make a decision in a week or two. In the mean time, here's my summary

Option	New Price	Used Price	Pros	Cons
07-09 GT500		$700	1. Proven... to work? Or at least there's proof points that it's been done, and we've got Toadster that's going to figure it all out for us. Important to mention that a big lift on this is figuring out if the tone rings will work for this sort of thing.	1. No 'brand new' option.
			2. It's also the cheapest option by far... provided you can find the GT500 ABS module.	2. It's a bear to find parts, and really 'parts' just comes down to the ABS module.
			3. Along with the 'proven to work' goes 'proven to handle our funny little cars with a rear bias in the weight distribution. Again, the sample size is a whopping total of one, but, that's not zero.	3. No Yaw sensor. From digging around this means that if your wheels incur too much slip you could fool the ABS module into thinking that you're on ice, and it will do you the favor of locking up all four wheels as you go for a spin. Not ideal. Maybe the GT500 never considers ice because why would you drive a Shelby Mustang on ice??? But I think it's a real concern.
			4. There's an even cheaper option ($330 total) if you go with the stock mustang ABS, but it's probably going to be a pretty aggressive ABS that's going to limit performance	4. Fixed ABS tune.
				5. Will have to figure out how to intelligently split the signal between ABS module and ECU.
				6. Not clear how to turn it off. I'm guessing cutting power is fine, since these things should be engineered to not screw up your brakes if they fail, but it's an unknown.
03-06 M3 - (E46 Mk60)		$2,239	1. Parts seem available? Multiple bimmer sources.	1. No 'brand new' option
			2. Yaw sensor	2. Need to do more research to see if it will work with tone ring options
			3. Potentially tunable for "if you have to ask..." level pricing. Need to get lucky and find the right module though.	3. Not proven to work with our 'funny little cars'.
			4. Includes wiring harness, for the low low price of one kilo buck.
			5. Includes digital outputs for wheel speed sensors so that the signals can also go to an aftermarket ECU.
			6. Can turn the ABS off with a switch
Bosch motorsport ABS	$7k-$9k		1. Gold standard, all shiny and new.	1. No used options
			2. Includes software to dial in for your application. Seems like everything is exposed, lots of options for those that want to do a deep dive...	2. Need to do more research to see if it will work with tone ring options
			3. 12 position switch to dial in how aggressive the ABS is	3. Probably way overkill and could be way too aggressive for street use.
				4. Did you see that price?

[Blitzboy54]

I'm assuming you want the ABS for traction control? If not I'm not sure it is worth it (at least at those last 2 prices). I owned a BMW motorcycle I used to track that had ABS and it was honestly (for performance riding) an issue. The newer RR1000 or the V4 Ducati have a lot of traction control but the bikes would be un rideable without them. Then again I would assume you could shut it off if you wanted to depending on your setup?

As an engineering exercise its fascinating and I applaud Toadster's effort and will make his car unique. Just need to ask yourself is the squeeze worth the juice.

On your spindle bolt I am not sure that's the correct bolt unless they made a change I was given a hex head that were longer with my kit

Box 14

33704 - M12-1.75 x 50mm Bolt
25995 - Locknut, Flanged, Nylon M12x1.75

[toadster]

cool that you're looking into ABS!! I figure this car will GO fast, and I want it to STOP fast, or at least control the stop without flat spots on these soft tires...

search ebay for 2C353-AB which is the street version of the control unit...

the FR500S is designed for slicks, but the street version should be better tuned/tamed for street tires IMHO will find out soon!

[johnpinetree]

Thanks Toadster! I think you'll be in uncharted waters there with the AB unit, I think? The other folks I saw do this pulled it from a GT500 (AE), where I presumed that the ABS doesn't kick in too early. Definitely will be watching how your Cobra Dreams turn out... If I'm wrong and there are other folks that have used the stock mustang unit I'd be super curious.

Thanks for the pic BlitzBoy, that helps. The screws I got came with my steering arms (they all came together later, on the POL). They are these funny 12 point heads too. I'll dig around and see if I can't find the screws you're referencing.

As far as the ABS goes the traction control bit is a different issue. What I'd hope for is an ABS that can help keep wheels from locking up and increase performance. I think a lot of the ABS we're given from the manufacturers (I'm thinking of my old Exploder right now...) are really aggressive and engage at the slightest hint of wheel spin. I'm hoping to find a solution that is more suitable for a Cobra.

[toadster]

to my knowledge, traction control is available if you have an existing ECU that supports it, or a custom ECU (not the Ford one)
I've looked at a few options - none are cheap...

pricey but seems plug-n-play https://www.haltech.com/product-cate...ord-coyote-5l/
https://moretraction.com/ <- would have to see how this would interface to the ECU

[johnpinetree]

The stuff I've looked at manipulates port injection. I don't know of a solution for the gen 3 coyote, since it's both direct and port injection. Anyhow, not sure if you were doing a coyote or a pushrod or what, but fyi. I'm going to go with an aem infinity ecu, which can do traction control. Not the worst since I don't have an ecu to speak of, and it seems like there is a standard map and harness that we can start from, but still a little ways from incorporating that bit.

After my digging I didn't find a stand alone traction control that looked decent to me. I was ruling out stuff that uses GPS for speed. No data on this, but just seems to me like you're not going to close the loop very fast that way.

[Old Timer]

The MegaSquirt has traction control.

https://www.msextra.com/
https://www.msextra.com/product-range/ms3-pro/

I do not have it hooked up, but maybe some day.....

[johnpinetree]

Well, time to throw the diff in. I went with a 3.55 (can see the overanalysis in my prior post) and upgraded to a Torsen. Should be better for autoX, but mainly I've had a few cars with Torsen's now and somehow, in my mind, it just "fit" the build. Just don't tell the wife that. Tell her this was a critical step towards safety, reliability and Cobra-ness.

Anyhow, I enlisted the help of my snowboarding-buddy/co-pilot/13-year-old son to help with the 'bull pins' ala EdwardB. Turned out great. If I were to do it in the future I'd probably go for 5.5" instead of the 5 inch ones I bought, but it was fine. And they helped for sure.



Survey says... perfect!



I had my son lower the car onto the diff supported on the old transmission jack. Thankfully the 4-poster lowers really smooth and slow, so it was fine having him on the controls. Was happy with this part of the "lift".



Phase 2 we got a hand from my second favorite tool in the garage, the ratchet straps. Just went slow, iterated a bunch, and realized the pumpkin really needs to be pulled forward and up first, then it settles into place nicely.



Finally, getting these bolts in tended to push the sleeve out. Found a C-clamp worked nicely to keep things together



And.... tada! Hashtag no filter! It's weird, you get the center section in there and things just glow. Must be one of those things I guess....



Anyhow, felt great, big milestone under the belt. With that we moved onto the IRS! In another bout of "not-so-shocking" news one of the spacers was wrong. Oh well. Will get on the horn with the FFR Tuesday and try to get some of these MIK trinkets out sooner rather than later. Last I was told stuff will ship out "as soon as we have it", which I understand for the POL. But it seems like stuff "Missing in Kit" would fall into a different category, right? I know I can just make or buy bolts and sleeves and stuff, but at $5 a bolt that seems like a cost I shouldn't have to incur. Anyhow, enough griping...

This last pic is my favorite. Little man (13? Medium-sized man???) is starting to get a little more into it. He popped by in the evening and asked if I needed help with anything else? Well, sure enough... there were wrenches to turn! He helped sand down another sleeve and got my bolts through some of these tight fits. Oh! Probably the highlight of the day was clueing my son in on car secrets... like....

Dad: "I dunno, it seems like the rule for suspension is... even with a BRAND NEW CAR... you still need the number one tool in the garage."
Son: "Which one is that?"
Dad: "We call it the BFH"
Son: "What's that stand for"

Dad explains, son laughs HARD for the next minute.

Good weekend.


cumulative time (hrs)
research #DIV/0!
organization 31
suspension 21
drivetrain 8

[johnpinetree]

So a quick ABS update. I've been having a hell of a time trying to sort through the forums trying to figure out how the tone wheel and connections work for the IRS folks out there. Got my sensors in the mail from NAPA today and it became pretty darn clear. Here is the sensor in the rear spindle:



And, if you have been thinking about this long enough and staring at CV axles long enough you have this "aha" moment. The dark ring on that hub is... yep ferrous! Or magnetic at the very least. Taking a $10 sheet of this green magic magnet paper that I got from Amazon confirmed. And with all that one could count the number of teeth in the tone ring! After using lots of fingers and toes I end up with 96 teeth in the rear tone ring:



I found it easiest to snap a picture and then do the counting in MS paint.

For reference this is the front tone ring:



So, my suspicion is that for the front ABS sensors the magnetized bit is housed in the sensor itself, while in the rear sensor it's the tone ring that has the magnets.

And the more that I think about it... do the teeth really need to add up between the front and back sensors? I would think that if the wheel sizes are different anyhow then it's not going to matter, the rate that the ABS unit will be getting triggers from the wheels would be different anyhow, even if they had the same tone rings/number of teeth. Furthermore, if you have different sized wheels in the front and the back and you're going around a turn the rate would be different from each wheel... so why am I counting these miserable little teeth?!?!!

I'll do some calling around to verify this, but my hunch is that these ABS units are essentially lock-in amplifiers -- their job is to measure each wheel's rotation rate when the brakes are applied. If the rate of one wheel drops to zero (and hopefully with some corroborating data from the inertial sensors) then the ABS kicks in and reduces the amount of brake pressure to that wheel.

Stay tuned for next week when I come back and say that I'm a total idiot and will be reverting back to a horse and buggy.

[Hoooper]

And the more that I think about it... do the teeth really need to add up between the front and back sensors? I would think that if the wheel sizes are different anyhow then it's not going to matter, the rate that the ABS unit will be getting triggers from the wheels would be different anyhow, even if they had the same tone rings/number of teeth. Furthermore, if you have different sized wheels in the front and the back and you're going around a turn the rate would be different from each wheel... so why am I counting these miserable little teeth?!?!!

I'll do some calling around to verify this, but my hunch is that these ABS units are essentially lock-in amplifiers -- their job is to measure each wheel's rotation rate when the brakes are applied. If the rate of one wheel drops to zero (and hopefully with some corroborating data from the inertial sensors) then the ABS kicks in and reduces the amount of brake pressure to that wheel.

Stay tuned for next week when I come back and say that I'm a total idiot and will be reverting back to a horse and buggy.

Doesnt matter if you have an aftermarket ABS module that you can program but it does matter if you have a stock style one that you cant. The rear ring wont work with a factory style unit anyway though they will go into error at best with tooth counts off by that much assuming you choose a unit that is set for the front count. Same story for traction control, if you can get the AEM to read that rear sensor you will be able to set up traction control, but aftermarket ECUs have a tendency to not like such high tooth counts for traction control. You can check on what the AEM can handle but you are looking at 90k+ Hz at freeway speed which is way above what aftermarket ECUs seem to like for that. Note that if you do have trouble getting it to work you can just use the transmission output speed, its giving the computer the exact same information anyway as far as traction control is concerned.

FYI the stock front sensors are variable reluctor type. They take no input voltage, just a signal and ground wire, the voltage is a millivolt voltage generated by the tooth passing by the magnet in the sensor, so make sure you dont wire them up to bring 5V or 12V to them as that can kill the sensor.

[PhilO]

Have you also looked in to how to deal with the two different type of sensor? The fronts as stated are passive and create a changing voltage, the rears are active Hall effect sensors that output a digital square wave. You will need to convert one or the other for a controller to recognize all four wheels.

[Big-boss]

Great thread...The 4-post lift really makes use of the single garage/shop...Great idea...thank for sharing...