Mustang SVO RallyCross/Stage Rally

ClemSparks said:

For the wiring diagrams try ebay for an EVTM (electrical and vacuum troubleshooting manual).  Shouldn't be too expensive and it'll have the info you need.  I seek them out for every Ford project I work on.

 

Here's one for an '87.  I didn't see an active listing for one for an '86, but it'll come along eventually.

Nice! I found a pdf upload of an '88 and it was off on a few connections, but good enough to label out some wires and restring the harness. My original intent was to remove the dead parts of the harness, but for all the work it would be to peal the brittle harness apart and attach, I'd be better off leaving it, or completely replacing it. Good news is, after spending alot of time trying to figure out what wires I can't remove, I am now pretty familiar with the wiring and alot more confident of what I need to to do replace

irish44j said:

also your interior is very festive Christmas colors! :)

Do you have any pictures of your seat mount? I just brought home 3 sticks of DOM to start laying out my rollcage, but my seat is delayed until January 20th. The rules for ARA are a little blury about what they want to see for a seat mount, the OEM is mediocre, reinforcing and plating may be OK, but FIA 253 looks like it would require cutting out the factory crossmembers and bolting/welding in square tubing with captured nuts.

Still prepping for the rollcage, but making some progress. Windshield is out and I picked up 45ft of DOM to start out with the main and lateral bars

I also pulled out the seat crossmember with a harbor freight spot weld cutter, that shattered like glass on the very last spot weld.

I was thinking about keeping the crossmember in and making seat mounts over the top of it, but there was some stress cracked in the drivers front mount and I found rust holes underneath it once it was out.

I scored an Allstar Tubing Notcher, the reviews on it are mediocre, but if it saves some time over notching with a grinder, it's worth a shot

Still trying to figure out where the main hoop should go, my OMP seats are on the slow boat delivery and won't get here for another 3 weeks, so I did a mockup with the factory seat, but from where it is, I am on the fence about whether the main hoop should go on the sill in the door opening to make it easier to weld or on the crossmember and give me some room to move the seat back farther if I ever needed. I would normally have the seat back farther for some more leg room, but too far back makes the shifter hard to reach. From this picture, anyone know where the main hoop should land?

More progress!

I picked up a new welder to replace my old 115V. I'm already impressed with how easy it is to make nice welds with it, plus with it's dedicated circuit, the lights in the house dont dim anymore

I also started my rear hoop plinths and reinforcement plates, which my little vise wasn't up for bending. An old big block Mopar head and some scrap steel came in handy as a brake.

Really nice floor plate for your rollcage!

nice arrangement.

I approve of this random use of mopar parts.

Cage has started. Where you think tubes can land, where they actually fit and how you get them there has been a steep learning curve. I wasted a really nicely fitting lateral by getting impatient with measuring and cutting it too short. Next one I made fits nicely and matches the other side, but that was a waste of material . There was a few minutes where I was ready to throw everything away and start over, but after some more careful measurements and adjustments, the main hoop and laterals are in and they fit sweeeeet

In reply to olso3904 :

That is looking really nice.  I’m looking forward to the next update.

I have the commercial version of that welder for a few years now, no complaints.  The 180C is what Lincoln lets the race teams "borrow" for a season or two then they repack them with all new bits and resell them for discount at welding supply houses.  My local shop gets a skid of them occasionally. 

Still on the learning curve, but it is getting easier. I fought the lateral bars for awhile and ended up remaking one of them. The windshield bar and roof bars went pretty easy, just about ready to weld in the plinth boxes and start on the door bars. Anyone have any good advice on tricks for passing tech?

Only advice I have for passing tech is to speak as little as possible. I have made the mistake of over-analyzing the rulebook and then bringing up things I may have been unsure of during tech, which just draws the scrutineers attention to something that they may not have even cared to look at. Obviously with the cage and any safety equipment you want to be as thorough as possible, but with petty little details I would just not bring anything up unless they asked about it. 

On another note, does anyone know how they measure distances between tubes for cages? For example, FIA spec says that the ends of the roof bars must not be more than 100mm from the side members. But is this measured at the nearest point or center-to-center?

In reply to artur1808 :

I was wondering about that too. When I was putting in my roof bars I needed the tie-in to the windshield bars as close the the center as possible, since I am already short of headroom in the Mustang. FIA 253 doesn't really specify, the exact phrasing is

"The ends of the reinforcements must be less than 100 mm

from the junction between rollbars and members (not

applicable to the top of the V formed by reinforcements in

Drawings 253-13 and 253-14)."

That sounds like the start of the junction, but I did mine as the centerline, just to keep from having to redo it. I think Irish44j had to redo his because of this rule, did the inspector clarify that at all?

I've been stalling on doing too much to the cage until the seats come in, but I just got a message from the shop I ordered my OMPs from in December that I probably won't get them until April. I canceled the order, anyone know of an FIA legal seat that won't break the bank? Anyone have good luck with Marcos?

While waiting for my seat to arrive I talked ti Mike Hurst who built this:

Which is handy because he not only told me about what issues the fox has, but is also the technical director at ARA and gave me some direction on the cage, like the fact that FIA 253 tube distances are measured outside to outside, not centerline. He said a common mistake is to have the windshield bar too close to the driver which makes the a pillar support bar too close to the driver and best practice is to have a-pillar support right at the limit of the 100mm rule to keep it away from the driver.

I also talked to Mark Utecht, who bought Mike's Mustang and turned it into this:

Mark was extremely helpful and incredibly friendly, especially letting me talk his ear off with questions while he was driving back from a family vacation. He had a ton of good advise, including one that I found interesting, especially for how much it gets bounced around on this forum. He said while campaigning the Mustang, he never ran a panhard or watts link. The key to getting the mustang to hook up was solid bushings on the lower control arms and leaving a little give in the uppers with polys on one side and solids on the diff side. Im paraphrasing since we talked for awhile, but I found that interesting since I was battling with trying to figure out how to get a panhard to work without loosing suspension travel. He also confirmed my fear of the rear control arms needing all the reinforcement it can get. I have already added weld in torque box reinforcments, but I will have to get creative with tying them into the cage.

Speaking of the cage, I took a jump and starting adding tubes, I think I might even be able to keep most of the stock dash

Keep up the awesome work.  I’m already waiting for the next update.

Update!

I have been pretty busy with work and went on vacation for a week in Colorado and Utah, but got back to cutting and grinding tubes and finally the cage is in and first coat of paint is on

I still need to figure out how I want to tie the main hoop to the rear shocks mounts and back stays, but my main goal was reinforcing the lower control arm mounts. I also need a front strut tower to dashbar/forward lateral tie in bar, but the engine needs to come out to route those, so it may wait until this fall.

I even made some mounts to keep the factory gauges and most of the dash, since the cage is now covering the factory dash mount.

The nasty mix of steel dust and the Minnesota salt falling from my wife's truck at night destroyed my garage floor.

After a few passes with the power washer it is useable, but your shoes still get orange from walking on it.

Next is routing the rear brake line and portioning valve, mounting the seats and harness and putting the wiring harness back together

In reply to olso3904 :

Your cage work looks very nice!  Looking forward to following this build.

It's been awhile, but I made some progress. The interior is painted with some Rustoleum, that came out smoother than I expected, seats are mounted and belts are in. I kept the original harness and removed all the stereo, HVAC interior lighting wiring I wasn't going to use, but the harness is still a mess. The wiring is also brittle, so I left the steering column wiring in place. For the trouble of rerouting it, I think it would be easier to just replace the harness is an aftermarket one. 

I chopped up the factory dash, to make is easy to rip apart later, since the roll cage made using the factory mounts impossible. It's easy enough to take apart now, but it's a bit floppy, in a few spots, since it is just a plastic skeleton, but I guess we will see how well it holds up to rally use. The cage also covered up the factory door handles, so I came up with a quick fix to not get trapped in the car, but I have some plastic ordered for making new panels and will have to come up with some better release handles.

I brushed the paint on cage, just hoping to stop the flash rusting that started happening this spring, but it leveled out pretty nice

Best news is, its a bonafide race car now

I also scored some SN95 wheels that are too wide for rally tires, but perfect for ripping around town with. Turns out SVOs are a pain in the a$$ to get 15" wheels for. With 40mm offset and a 70mm center bore, I have been unable to score any reasonably priced wheels. Luckily, the factory SVOs are super sturdy and will probably turn into the primary set of wheels, as long as I can get a set of 16" rally tires or truck AT tires.

I'm on the fence about weather I should spray the whole car or just cleanup the rough spots and try to color match, with the list of other stuff I have to do, I might put off a hold spray job for now.

With V8 SN95 springs, I'm suprised how low it sits in the front, I don't even have the skid plate on it yet. I might try to cut some weight out of the hood since it's heavy as hell and move the battery to the back.

Heck yeah, awesome progress! Do you have your eyes set on a particular debut event for the car?

I bought a single event license so far and am planning to do the Ojibwe Forests Rally in August since it is only a couple hours from my house and has relatively smooth stages. If it goes well (and my budget allows), I want to enter the LSPR in October and Nemadji Trail Regional in December.

part of the ARA rules are your first 4 races as a novice in a turbo car require a 30mm restrictor. Since a 30mm restrictor for a T3 isn't too common I bought a used housing off of ebay and sent it to AZE Performance to machined a restrictor. I just got it back and its  probably the most well made part on the car now....

Congrats on the logbook!  I bet that restrictor barely makes a difference, it's not like the T3 is big to begin with so hopefully it won't really notice it's there.

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

Thanks! Still a little nervous about tech inspection. I might spectate/volunteer for Ojibwe and try to enter LSPR or Nedmadji for a first race just to get an idea of what to expect.

Been stuck on an unexpected problem with trying to find wheels and tires for the SVO. Turns out SVOs use 40mm offset, and a 70mm center bore, so 15" wheels are nearly non-existant and 16" are rare. I have some SN95 wheels I have my street tires on that look good, but stick out of the body and are 7.5" wide. I did find out that one car that uses a big center bore and 40mm offset is the Jeep Libert/Dodge Nitro. I scored some cheap used wheels off craigslist and had to make a few minor tweaks but they fit. It also let me try stuffing 29" tires under the mustang. The rear fits suprisingly well, but the fronts aren't even close, I'm probably stuck with a 26" diameter unless I do alot of trimming.  I'm still stuck on what I can do for rallycross/stage rally for tires

1. Run my 16" wheels and Maxsport Rally Tires (the only 16" rally tires i could find), that are 24.5" tall, which is a little short for the car

2. Run my 16" with snow tires that are the correct diameter, but may or may not work very well in rally

3. Keep searching for 15", 40mmish offset, 70mm center bore wheels, anyone heard of these?