RedRaider58's Roadster #10033 Build Thread

[RedRaider58]

Hi All,

Been thinking about doing this for years and finally pulled the trigger in the fall of 2020. My plan was always to start with a base kit and add on from there since it gave me more control of which parts went into the car. My job is to develop strategies for maintaining equipment, so being able to pick up most of the parts from OEM sources was important to me.

This led me to buying a 2002 Mustang GT early on in Covid to get some of the parts I'd need to re-purpose. The car came from Copart and I don't think I was the first one to think of it as a project. The positives were that it had Cobra brakes, a new(er) Mishimoto radiator, and no real damage to anything I planned on re-using. The bad part was that the TR-3650 had been replaced with a T-45 and interestingly the 4.6 was out of an 04 Towncar as well. The transmission was disappointing, but I was planning on a Coyote, so I didn't really care about the motor.

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Tearing down the donor was a good experience and gave me some time for my Covid investments to gain some value before I purchased my kit.

[RedRaider58]

In early November I ordered my kit with a completion date set for late March. My order was as follows:
- Base Kit
- Powder Coat Chassis
- Coyote Install Package
- Two Roll Bars w/ Grommets (If my wife in nice enough to let me buy the car, it is the least I can do)
- Electrical Completion Components
- Autometer Gauges
- Independent Rear Suspension
- Wind Wings

Planned Mods are:
- Power Steering with Volvo or Mazda Electro-Hyrdaulic System
- Drop Trunk
- Body Coupler (Kleiner Mod)
- Skidd Arduino Turn Signals
- Glove Box

The car will be powered by a Coyote sent to a 3.73 Trac-lok differential via a TKX.

[RedRaider58]

Almost a year to the day from when the Mustang came home Al from Stewart Transport showed up and dropped off the roadster. Al was really great and not that I wasn't excited, but his enthusiasm took it to another level. He also got a lesson on just how humid Houston can be.

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I was the last car on the truck, but learned that my car got to ride along with the F9 sent to Erik for Sema. Al said it was one of the coolest things he's ever loaded off his truck.

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It only took a half hour or so for us to unload everything. My garage isn't as big as most of those I see on here, but I knew I'd be able to make it fit somehow.

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It was difficult to focus on work for the remainder of the day to say the least...

[John Ibele]

Great to get your kit in house, that's a big day. You've got some cool options in mind which will make for a distinctive car (not that all Roadsters aren't distinctive!).

Clearly you've got some comfort level with working with cars, not to mention incorporating the Arduino in there. I thought about that, but reached my limit of custom / time-consuming detours. Will be great to get updates on progress. Congratulations on getting the kit and being able to start the building phase!

[Greg Wenzel]

Congrats on getting your kit. I would be interested in knowing how bad your POL list is if you wouldn't mind sharing. My completion date is late August and I'm trying to get a sense for how bad the back orders are.

[Blitzboy54]

Welcome aboard. Look forward to following your build.

[zarnold]

Congrats! I'll be following along as well.

[RedRaider58]

Thanks for the encouragement guys!

Honestly my POL wasn't too bad, but keep in mind I had a base kit. It was probably 3/4 of a page and roughly half of that was filled before Stewart picked it up. The wood steering wheel was missing, which meant I couldn't sit in the car, hold the wheel, and make vroom vroom noises, but somehow I think I'll survive. There were a few items that were missing after doing inventory, but FFR literally sent me a FedEx notification the next day.

Progress is somewhat slow around here, I've got a 2.5 year "helper" out in the shop, a 3 month old inside, and an amazing wife who let me partake in this journey despite the other two. Yes, my neighbors think I took advantage of her sleep deprived state...

So the actual progress. I've got a body buck "lite" that I put the body onto and hoisted into the rafters with. The buck is a combo between the FFR suggested buck and one I saw somewhere on the forum. The good news is I've only bonked my head on it a few times and was able to build it from material on hand.
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After that I marked and removed all the aluminum panels to expose one of the reasons I wanted a FFR Roadster to begin with. Look at that frame, what beauty!
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[RedRaider58]

My next order of business was to start getting the "F" panels how I wanted them. I started with the raw aluminum and worked my way through 220, 400, 600, 800, 1200 with my DA sander before going with green scotchbrite. I then followed up the scotchbrite with sharkhide to give it some protection.

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I seriously considered keeping the 220 grit, shown in second picture, but decided to keep the scotchbrite approach. I'm really happy with the way it turned out.
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The next step would normally be the front suspension, but I still need to replace the bushings one the donor lower control arms. Rockauto to the rescue! Whoever had the Mustang I got them from didn't install them all the way either, so they aren't quite lining up. Hopefully that changes once the new bushings are in.
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[JB in NOVA]

Looking forward to following your build. Looks like a nice plan.

[RedRaider58]

Thanks JB,

I've made some progress cleaning up donor parts, mainly the differential, front brakes, and front spindles. I hit them all with a wire wheel then followed the steps on the POR15 starter kit, cleaner/degreaser, etching compound, then actual paint. I've never used the stuff, but was super impressed with the way it went on. Long term durability to be determined, but everyone here seems to like it.

Along those lines, I did use plain ol POR15 on my calipers despite them having a special caliper formulation. I already had the can open, neither will stand up to brake fluid, and it was only a 50F temperature rating difference so I figured I'd give it a shot.

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My rear gear ratio is actually a departure from standard 3.55 rear and is the 3.73 Torsen. That wasn't really planned and I didn't notice until I counted revolutions and rubbed the grime off the sticker when I got home. Good reminder to all when you got the yard for parts, trust but verify. Atleast the error was in my favor, could have been way worse.

[Railroad]

The 3.73 gears will work well with any of the modular or Coyote engines. You did well, IMO.

[NYMike]

Looks great so far! Will definitely be following along.

[RedRaider58]

Yeah, I'm not disappointed with the 3.73s at all. Which speaking of, it is now installed in the back of the car. I did it by myself with the help of a floor jack and a drift pin. I essentially ended up doing it twice because I didn't start with the back two bolts that thread into the housing. I got 3 of them in and couldn't get the final one threaded in so I started over but started with the two that thread into the housing. (Like many on here mentioned in their build threads) Tools of choice: Drift pin, rubber mallet and 2x4...

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As you can see there is a little gap from my metal sleeves being longer than the rubber bushings. FFR tells me this is normal and nothing to worry about so I proceeded onto the rest of the suspension. Lower control arm flanges needed opening up as did the uppers. The passenger side went in with a little encouragement and I was cruising along with the driver side until I noticed my grease fitting on the upper control arm is contacting the frame and preventing me from getting it lined up. Picture below.

Has anyone had this? I've tried opening it up a little bit to shift the assembly over, but don't want to move it too much. I'm also wondering, how the heck are these greased anyways? The passenger side barely cleared from having the same interference.

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[edwardb]

For both upper and lower IRS control arms, the grease fittings should be pointed down. Looks like you have them on the wrong sides. The fittings are easy to access when installed that way.

[RedRaider58]

Ahhh of course! I had assumed they were directional and I just happened to grab the right one from the get go. Glad I walked away instead of trying to make it work and regretting it later.

[RedRaider58]

After flipping the rear control arms around and cleaning up my knuckles I got them all installed. I had a little help getting them put on the car, then we spent 30 minutes looking for a nut that my helper ran off with. Interestingly the 1.09" spacers for the shocks are on the POL list, so I'll have to wait a bit before getting the rear end completely assembled.

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I've also been spending a lot of time getting my other donor parts prepped up for install. The front lower control arm bushing replacement is quite a beast. I've got the old bushings out, but am struggling to get the new ones in. Now I know why the old ones weren't installed all the way. I've been trying without a press because I really don't have the room to store one, so I'll probably end up taking them to a shop to get them pressed in. The C-Clamp style ones from the parts stores are either too small or clashing with the other side of the control arm.

I've also been cleaning up the pedal box and hydroboost unit from the 02 donor. While the instructions don't explicitly say it, I'm assuming the little round spacers on the back side of the pedal box need to come off? Is this then the thickness that the spacer needs to be? Does anyone have a thickness measurement for that spacer that they'd be willing to share?

[RedRaider58]

Suspension is now complete!
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Between the removing the old Mustang control arm bushings that had been improperly replaced on the donor, replacing them with new ones, and performing the sawz-all modifications to get them to accept the other components it was a lot of work. Thanks Norm and the others who chimed in where necessary to keep me on the right track! Quite honestly without this forum I feel like it would have been very hard to understand what all needed done here.

When it came to the upper control arm I was able to borrow the father in-laws Bridgeport and lathe to shorten the necessary parts to get a little more adjustment. I ended up taking about an eighth off the rear of each side.

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Now things continue on hacksawing the pedal box spacers and fabbing up some pedal pads for it. I'm planning to make some from some aluminum sheet. I've also been able to locate a rebuilt fox steering rack to modify. I'm leaning towards reusing the SN95 inner tie rods and relocating them onto the fox rack, this will allow my existing outer tie rods to be reused. Ford changed from SAE to metric between the two. The interesting part is that the length FFR recommends trimming off the SN95 rack would make it the same length as the stock fox rack. My takeaway from this is that with my usage of the SN95 lower control arms the inner tie-rods would then only need the provided spacer installed and I could use an unmodified fox rack with SAE fox outer tie-rods (standard with the complete kit). Hopefully that all made sense...

I've also been trying to nail down dimensions on the hydroboost spacer that I need to install on the outside of the pedal box. I'm going to use the mill to make one the same thickness as the spacer I cut off the pedal box and see how that works out. If I understand how that whole system works it should do the trick.

Either way lots of work ahead of me, thanks for listening to my ramblings.

[i.e.427]

With SN95 spindles, rather than the F5R spindles, you may have gotten away without modding the rear adjuster tubes.

[RedRaider58]

Yeah, possibly, but you know how it goes. They were off the car and the adjustment was already bottomed out so might as well do it now. Plus if some spindles or LCAs come up for sale on the forum, well one less thing to do to get them on the car.

[RedRaider58]

I've been making incremental progress on various parts of the build as I dodge the supply chain issues most of us are facing right now. Most of the FFR items are here, but the items I'm sourcing myself have decent lead times attached.

The steering rack is installed and ready for action. I knew I wanted to get a new/rebuilt rack and decided to go with a Fox rack in order to keep things as stock as possible. Since my car has spindles and LCAs from an '02 the Fox rack actually works out perfectly once you install the spacers and requires no trimming. The only trick is to get Fox outer tie-rods since the threads on New Edge cars are metric. The inner tie-rods were difficult to get off, I actually put rack vertically in a vice to get them off. It worked much better than trying to do it on the bench or bolted into the car.

My pedal box is just about ready to go, along with the steering shaft, just waiting on the flange bearing from my POL and trying to figure out the hydroboost mounting. In the meantime sheet metal fit up/clean up.

[RedRaider58]

Haven't made an update in a while, but was able to get a few things partially knocked out.

Fellow user Morrisett is local and I went over to his place to pick up a hydroboost socket. While there I checked out his build and realized how slow I'm progressing. His showed up roughly the same time and he is already go carting.. Meanwhile I just got my steering wheel to actually do something useful. Seems like a super nice guy and it was nice to see another build in the flesh. He fired his 4.6 up for me and let's just say the videos don't do side pipes justice.

Once I brought the massive hydroboost socket home it answered a whole bunch of questions. Now that the nut on the hydroboost was removed and I could install one of the master-cylinder spacers on the firewall alot of questions were answered. The pattern is the same and the spacing presents itself, the only trick is to allow for room to get an allen wrench on the bolt and to ensure your bar stock is wide enough to utilize the massive socket, hint hint 2" aluminum won't cut it. Atleast now I know what I need to do when I remake the adapter. So lucky to have access to a mill

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Since I had the distance right I went ahead and fit the steering shaft up. I did need to trim the inner side of the lower bolt hole from the 02 Mustang pedal box a touch in order to clear flange bearing on the pedal box. There was a slight interference that the pedal box sat on when initially bolted up. After that everything pretty much bolted up as directed. Of course I'll have to remove some of it it to get the new hydroboost adapter installed and sheetmetal finished, but dry fit seems to be going pretty well. It was nice to be able to turn a steering wheel and see a reaction at the front wheels.

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[ydousurf]

Hey RedRaider58,

I read though your build so far and it's looking good! I like what you did with the aluminum "skins" on yours. I'm planning to do something similar on my own, for the ones I don't have powder coated. I'm a big fan of showing off the skin and want to avoid putting as much carpet as I can to expose them here-and-there. As for the Sharkhide application, I'm sure you did you do both sides, but I'm curious if that has an effect on the sound/insulation matting sticking if I do both sides in the cockpit/trunk areas? I'm still reading through build threads to find that answer.

Anyway, keep up the good work! And as for the progress, you get the (get out of the garage pass) with the little helpers you have to manage. Though, I think the older one should be promoted to either quality control or shop foreman? He seems to have a good handle on parts placement and the all work no play type of thing. :P Have a blast and enjoy having those little ones around to help out!

[RedRaider58]

Thanks for the kind words DJ,

In regards to the sound/heat deadening I'm not at that point yet. My plan is to go with lizardskin and not apply sharkhide to the side I intend to coat with the lizardskin. I'll rough it up with the sander to get a good surface profile, but dont see any advantage to adding a coat of sharkhide underneath. I would be concerned about it sticking, but have no data to back up my concern.

[HGs_notes]

Nice to see another donor build. Made any progress since last fall?