Well, I picked up my Hot Rod on Saturday at Factory Five, we ran into a couple of snow storms on the way but got Lucky as they had the roads cleared by the time we got there. Today it's like Christmas in March, opening the boxes & taking inventory, looks like I won't be starting to build for a couple of days. I am excited to get started & hopefully build a respectable Hot Rod.
I am attempting to attach a couple of pictures.
Mine was done Saturday too, but I am now waiting for Stewart to pick it up for shipping! I am worse than a kid waiting for Christmas!
FFR HR #530
Race car theme, Tim Whitaker roll bar, Autometer Autolite Gauges, Satin Black, SBC 383/700R4, 8.8 rear with Cobra Brakes, 3.29 gear, Boyd Tank, QA1 springs and shocks,
Well after a few days of inventory and still working on my garage (getting it cleaned out and organized) we finally got the Hot Rod unloaded from the trailer today.
I noticed that most of the front suspension is raw steel, can someone tell me if I need to mock up the front suspension before sending the pieces out for powder coating?
I had FF powder coat the frame but I guess they don't do front suspensions.
Welcome to the forum Nevin. I think it's personal preference whether to mock it up before hand or not. I sent all my parts and had them powder coated first. Once I got them back, I only had to make minor tweaks to the components to make them fit properly and did not have a problem with chipping the coating. Others may have a different take. Good luck and have fun... I certainly am.
Mostly some stretching required. I did mock up first but in hindsight may not have had to. It is easier to do the second time around though, so less risk of damaging parts.
Nick Sebastian - 33 Hot Rod #495
Factory Five Forums - hdnik
FFCars - lowntubd
I painted my stuff. I did every part that was raw steel right away so no rust moved in. If I had to do it again I would powercoat all the front suspension and paint the rest. The adjustments were so small I did not even nick my paint.
Thanks for the well wishes guys, I am sure I will need them.
Wallace, you say you used to live in Quakertown, Pa. did you by any chance know John Trumbauer? He owns Trumbauers Lawn & Garden equip. and also Trumbauers Polaris-Victory. We bought a Victory motorcycle from him a few years ago, nice to deal with.
Boy that looks like a real serious drive train you are putting in the 33! That should be awesome together. What gear ratio are you going to run in the rear?
Just a note of warning for anyone who plans on putting a Ford 9 inch rear in the 33HR.
The upper control arms from Factory won't fit without binding & jamming the bushings.
It seems that the tabs/brackets that are welded onto the rear for the upper control arms are bigger than the 8.8 rear, I was able to get the problem resolved by installing stock Ford Mustang upper control arms, they fit fine. I called FFR about it and they told me, that's why they don't offer the 9 in. rear option from Moser.
some pics attached.
Just a note of warning for anyone who plans on putting a Ford 9 inch rear in the 33HR.
The upper control arms from Factory won't fit without binding & jamming the bushings.
It seems that the tabs/brackets that are welded onto the rear for the upper control arms are bigger than the 8.8 rear, I was able to get the problem resolved by installing stock Ford Mustang upper control arms, they fit fine. I called FFR about it and they told me, that's why they don't offer the 9 in. rear option from Moser.
some pics attached.
Nevin
The pinion height from the center of the axle is different too. Since the driveshaft is very close to the frame, you may have to set a different ride height for clearance. The shorter the tranny the more this matters for frame clearance.
DB
Nevin, what is the reasoning for the inverted rear shocks and external top mounting. I can't see in the picture what you used for a crush spacer where the top mout would have normally been.
Nick Sebastian - 33 Hot Rod #495
Factory Five Forums - hdnik
FFCars - lowntubd
I am getting ready to buy a 9 inch rear in a 33 I have on order. Where did you get your housing and axles? Does it work with the Factory five Stock rear brake kit, not the Wilwood piece?
Foristell,
Sorry for the long delay in the response, I have been out of town hunting for the past 2 months.
I bought my 9 in. rear from "9 inch Nodular' in North Carolina, 704-507-4300, he sells a complete assy. including the disk brakes & calipers, it fits into the fox body mustang mount points, the only problem was the F5 upper control arms wouldn't fit so I bought a set from a 96 mustang which fit perfectly. So i didn't order any rear brakes from F5 and the complete assy. is less expensive than the 8.8 Moser from F5 with their brakes. My rear is also a Moser piece with Moser 31 spline axles & it's a brand new never used unit.
I guess I will have to update my build thread, I actually have been working on the Hot Rod through the spring and summer & had been making slow progress, then the fall hit & hunting season kicked in & all work on the Hot Rod came to a halt. Now that hunting season is over I will be picking it up again after Christmas; looks like I have a lot of posting pictures of progress to catch up on the thread.
July 2013:
I got the steering rack & pinion along with the associated steering shafts, knuckles, etc. installed and working. Also put together the Grill/radiator/fan assy, added one of Mike's radiator shrouds. My wheels finally arrived from FFR about the 2nd week in July, I put BF Goodrich tires on them. I think it was about this time I got in on the group buy for a Boyd's tank and my grand daughter was visiting from SC. she wants a ride as soon as it's done. One more thing, the E-brake mechanism; I had all of the little pieces powder coated before assembly, putting this together was one of the more enjoyable parts of the build so far.
pictures attached:
Thanks Tom;
question: when you lived in Quakertown, Pa. did you happen to know John Trumbauer? His family owns the Trumbauers Lawn & Garden supply & also the Victory dealership.
FYI...you may end up having an issue with some slop on the passenger side mount of your steering rack. When you put the car on the ground with the motor in, have some turn the wheel back and forth and check to see if the rack moves around in that sway bar style bushing. Mine moved quite a bit and was throwing everything else out of whack. Hopefully you won't have the same problem. I ended up putting an 1/8" shim between the Delrin spacer block and that bushing. It allowed the bracket to draw the rack in tighter to the frame. It's coming together nicely!
August 2013:
I had previously purchased a used Coyote engine/transmission assy. from a guy in Arizona, it came with a Boss 302 intake, after doing a lot of reading and research I decided to replace it with a stock Coyote intake for a couple of reasons; the Boss intake has more HP @8000 rpm but less torque @ low rpm where I will be most likely running it, also it is higher and won't fit under the standard 33HR hood. I was able to pickup a brand new take off from ebay, he got the Mustang from ford & had the dealer install a roush blower/intake, etc. before he drove the car. I think I got a good price also, $300 for intake w/throttle body and injectors included. So I will be selling my Boss 302 intake w/throttle body & injectors soon.
August 2013:
Installed the engine /transmission for mock up, I am using the original MT-82 mustang transmission and FFR don't support this combination, transmission mount has to be modified.
Trying to catch up on my build thread posts; August 2013:
Mocked up the exhaust pipes and muffler, mounted 2 of my 3 MC reservoirs, the 3rd one for the clutch will be mounted later after I figure out where the hood pin receiver goes. mocked up the inside firewall from Mike Everson. Modified the transmission mount, I had to cut most of the FFR mount out of the frame to get my transmission in place, then I had a local guy make me another mount that fit under the frame as this transmission is very tall & long, it turned out pretty well I think.
Sept. 2013:
Installed the fuel lines, filter & fuel pressure regulator. I bought a new double flaring tool as I had to cut some of the fuel lines I got from FFR.
pictures attached;
Sept 2013:
I didn't realize it when I bought the engine /transmission (I'm a little behind on auto technology) but the MT-82 is an external shift mechanism type transmission; so after I got it installed, I attempted to install the shifter but I could see right off that it was way to far back, but I was committed by now so I set of to modify the shifter and mounting points. I also had a custom drive shaft made as this transmission has no spline at the tail shaft, it has a flange type mounting for the drive shaft similar to the 8.8 rear mount for the drive shaft so they incorporated a slip spline into the drive shaft at the rear. After installing the drive shaft I could see that the rear mount point I was going to use (FFR's drive shaft loop) was way too low and the bottom of the shifter was going to hit the drive shaft so I modified the loop, I had to raise it by 2 inches, I also modified the shifter; I basically cut it in half in the middle and took 1.5 inches out, then welded it back together. I now have a shifter mounted and in a position that I can shift comfortably while in the seat. Of course I had to cut the transmission tunnel at the rear to accommodate the raised shifter so I will have some cosmetic fiber glassing to do later. don't mind the silver/copper 3rd piece cover on the tunnel, that was a paint test I was doing earlier and it didn't turn out to my liking so it will just be covered with carpet eventually.
Some of the pictures got loaded out of order, I can't seem to rearrange them, anyway, basically you can see what my problem was and the modifications performed to correct it.
Thanks Tom;
question: when you lived in Quakertown, Pa. did you happen to know John Trumbauer? His family owns the Trumbauers Lawn & Garden supply & also the Victory dealership.
Nevin
I think I went to school with some of his kinfolk.
Your car is going to be awesome. Keep up the good work. Enjoy that venison, good eating.
At my last post is basically how she sits today, I did get a different wiring harness from Art Cuesta at Wire Diet because the Ron Francis harness has only 10 circuits and I need more like 18 or 20 circuits depending on the number of accessories I add. So the next action will be to remove the engine/transmission, get the firewall powder coated, then reinstall the engine/transmission with the FRPP controls pack and start installing the wiring harness.
Thanks for the info on the 9 inch rear end. That was very helpful. I hope you do not mind that I ask a few more questions, I was looking at doing a hydraulic clutch setup in my 33 using the Wilwood master cylinder like you have pictured. What size master cylinder unit did you use? How are you setting up the clutch end? Are you using an internal or external slave cylinder? My car will be a little different. I will be using a Tremec TKO 600 and a Quicktime bell housing but the concept I think should be similar.
Larry,
My clutch master cylinder is a Wilwood 3/4 in, the slave is an internal hydraulic throw out bearing (stock Ford 2011 Mustang). I don't really know if it is going to work properly or not as I haven't tested it yet, I have some other mock ups to do before the clutch set up; I will let you know how it works. I think Mike Forte has an external slave set up for the TKO 600.
After reading a lot of threads about how the suspension is super stiff and a lot of guys are going with QA1's, etc. I can't quite justify the cost of the QA1's so I'm going a different route, I picked up this tip from the Roadster forum; I purchased a pair of QA1 250 lb. springs from Breeze Automotive, I put the 250's on the rear of the HotRod, then moved the FFR 350 lb springs from the rear to replace the stock 500 lb springs on the front. A couple of guys on the Roadster forum have done this and say it is a good poor mans way to soften up the ride. I noticed that the rear shock body was rubbing on part of the rear end housing close to the LCA mount point so I used the 2 lb. reforming hammer to fix that problem.
I also adjusted the shocks to the softest of the 4 rebound settings.
pictures attached:
Last edited by H R Lucky; 01-11-2014 at 08:38 PM.
Nevin, AKA H. R. Lucky
33 Hot Rod sn 524 build started 3/18/2013, First Start-5/09/2015, Go Cart-6/01/2015
5.0 Coyote engine, 9in. Ford rear, 4 Link, Wilwood 12in. front brakes
AC, power steering, FFR 17/18in. Hot Rod wheels
Hi Nevin, Im build# 523 Sounds like a great option on the springs I've also been concerned about ride quality even considered air bags but that would blow the budget , im sure you will be go carting before me at the rate I'm going, hope it works out for you. Please keep us posted.