Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Blew up the Focus Saturday afternoon
Don't know the full extent of it yet, but I am sure I hurt something.
Just got the car back on Thursday from having new pads installed, and an attempt to slow or fix my oil blow by issue.
Well, not if this new fix is the culpret or not but on sat afernoon I siphoned 3.5 quarts of oil out of the Focus duing a fourth gear pull to about 7K...again, as before, the oil totally drenched the left front wheel well, but it must have something else too because it pulled 3.5 quarts out of the car.
Car idles like poo, puffs smoke out the tail pipe, and has NO power...
ummmm
351 Focus project?
Ken
Just got the car back on Thursday from having new pads installed, and an attempt to slow or fix my oil blow by issue.
Well, not if this new fix is the culpret or not but on sat afernoon I siphoned 3.5 quarts of oil out of the Focus duing a fourth gear pull to about 7K...again, as before, the oil totally drenched the left front wheel well, but it must have something else too because it pulled 3.5 quarts out of the car.
Car idles like poo, puffs smoke out the tail pipe, and has NO power...
ummmm
351 Focus project?
Ken
Sunday, May 10, 2009
My Mustang
I've been a member of the Mustang Club of America for a number of years. MCA has been representing the Mustang owner in America since 1976, and their monthly publication, Mustang Times, goes out to the membership of over 11,000. I sent in a couple photos and a few items about my car, and was surprised when spotlighted it in the "My Mustang" section.
Below is the copy so you don't need a magnifying glass.
It's a 1998 SVT Cobra Mustang, and here's the story of how it came to sit in my garage. In the late 60's, I learned to drive on my Mom's '65 Mustang coupe (Bronze, 289 w/AC), but had to part with it when I moved out.
Then came a 14 year spell of riding and road racing motorcycles. I met my wife then, and we suffered through an old van and a new Civic. By 1985, we got her a Black Mustang GT that she loved. Then came the kids, minivans, and the Mustang went for a 1990 T-Bird SuperCoupe, which was all mine. By 2001, the T-Bird was acting up, and I wanted another Mustang "so I could always find parts for it". But I knew I wanted something special, so we answered an ad for a Blue Mustang Cobra.
As soon as we saw it from a block away in the dealer's lot, we knew it was our next car. I drove it home that day. We had planned to keep it stock, like the previous cars. But I had been out of road racing for too many years. Once I found out about Open Track events, I took the money from selling some of our motorcycles, and put in a roll bar, rear gears, braided brake lines, and hit the track. And have been modifying it and running it at Open Track events ever since. I've also gotten active in a number of Mustang and Cobra clubs, both local and national. And have gone to shows, planned cruises, and even been to the drag strip and autocrosses with it. But in my opinion, that's just too much waiting for too little track time.
Here's the current information about it:
Base car SVT Mustang Cobra Convertible: 4.6 V8, duel overhead cams, 4 valves per cylinder, 13" front disk brakes, Bright Atlantic Blue.ModificationsChassis: Brooks Performance Stage IV Suspension including: Kenny Brown sub frame connectors and Extreme Matrix system, Maximum Motorsports pan hard rod, '95 Cobra R springs, Bilstein shocks/struts, KB lower control arms, urethane bushings, 3.90 gearing, Brembo calipers and rotors, brake cooling ducts, Steeda bumpsteer kit, X-2 ball joints, Custom front cross-brace with KB G-Load brace, Steeda adjustable rear sway bar, Cobra R 17x9 wheels w/BFG R1 slicks (17x8 wheels with full tread Proxie RA1s for rain). Stein Replica 17x9 wheels with Falken Azenis RT-615 tires for the street.
Engine: BBK cold air intake, Canton roadrace oil pan, Magnaflow catted X-pipe, SLP Loudmouth 1 catback, Odyssey battery.Interior: Autopower roll bar, Hunsaker seats, 6 pt G-Force harness, MGW shifter, oil pressure/oil temp/water temp gauges.
Most work done by Brooks Performance, Chambersburg, PA. and Bill's Automotive Performance, Silver Spring, MD. and myself.
Below is the copy so you don't need a magnifying glass.
It's a 1998 SVT Cobra Mustang, and here's the story of how it came to sit in my garage. In the late 60's, I learned to drive on my Mom's '65 Mustang coupe (Bronze, 289 w/AC), but had to part with it when I moved out.
Then came a 14 year spell of riding and road racing motorcycles. I met my wife then, and we suffered through an old van and a new Civic. By 1985, we got her a Black Mustang GT that she loved. Then came the kids, minivans, and the Mustang went for a 1990 T-Bird SuperCoupe, which was all mine. By 2001, the T-Bird was acting up, and I wanted another Mustang "so I could always find parts for it". But I knew I wanted something special, so we answered an ad for a Blue Mustang Cobra.
As soon as we saw it from a block away in the dealer's lot, we knew it was our next car. I drove it home that day. We had planned to keep it stock, like the previous cars. But I had been out of road racing for too many years. Once I found out about Open Track events, I took the money from selling some of our motorcycles, and put in a roll bar, rear gears, braided brake lines, and hit the track. And have been modifying it and running it at Open Track events ever since. I've also gotten active in a number of Mustang and Cobra clubs, both local and national. And have gone to shows, planned cruises, and even been to the drag strip and autocrosses with it. But in my opinion, that's just too much waiting for too little track time.
Here's the current information about it:
Base car SVT Mustang Cobra Convertible: 4.6 V8, duel overhead cams, 4 valves per cylinder, 13" front disk brakes, Bright Atlantic Blue.ModificationsChassis: Brooks Performance Stage IV Suspension including: Kenny Brown sub frame connectors and Extreme Matrix system, Maximum Motorsports pan hard rod, '95 Cobra R springs, Bilstein shocks/struts, KB lower control arms, urethane bushings, 3.90 gearing, Brembo calipers and rotors, brake cooling ducts, Steeda bumpsteer kit, X-2 ball joints, Custom front cross-brace with KB G-Load brace, Steeda adjustable rear sway bar, Cobra R 17x9 wheels w/BFG R1 slicks (17x8 wheels with full tread Proxie RA1s for rain). Stein Replica 17x9 wheels with Falken Azenis RT-615 tires for the street.
Engine: BBK cold air intake, Canton roadrace oil pan, Magnaflow catted X-pipe, SLP Loudmouth 1 catback, Odyssey battery.Interior: Autopower roll bar, Hunsaker seats, 6 pt G-Force harness, MGW shifter, oil pressure/oil temp/water temp gauges.
Most work done by Brooks Performance, Chambersburg, PA. and Bill's Automotive Performance, Silver Spring, MD. and myself.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
The Value of Having the Correct Tool
My father always told me to purchase quality tools because cheap tools will often fail when you really need them, and then you are left with a broken tool, a job not done and often a set of busted knuckles... or worse. That philosophy also extended to having the right tool for the job. Whether it's woodworking, auto repair or gardening, having the proper tools for the job makes a big difference.
This point was driven home, yet again, this past weekend at Summit Point. Due to various factors in my burn-the-candle-at-both-ends lifestyle, I didn't get the brake pad swap done prior to leaving home for the track. No worries I figured, I'm bringing my tools with me and can do the swap at the track. It typically only takes me 20 minutes or so to do a brake pad swap and I've done it at the track before with no drama. Now, I've been using one of those universal cube style caliper tools which fit on a 3/8 ratchet turns the rear caliper piston to retract the piston into the caliper. While it got the job done, it did leave me thinking there must be a better way.
On Saturday, the pad swap on the right side of the car went as usual - no problem - 10 minutes and I was putting the wheels back on the car. Then I started the left side of the car. First up, the rear caliper... and the universal cube tool didn't work. It turned the piston alright, but the piston didn't retract. I spent more than 30 minutes fooling around with the damn caliper, yet as much as I turned it to retract the piston, it wouldn't clear my track pads which are quite a bit thicker than the street pads they were replacing. Brian Shafranek took pity on me (after first laughing at me) and loaned me his brake caliper tool which both turns the caliper and pushes it in at the same time. 2 minutes later, the piston was fully retracted, I was putting the caliper back on the car and thinking that I would never use the universal caliper cube thingy again now that I had been enlightened. This tool would make brake pad swaps even easier.
A quick session with Google yielded numerous options for acquiring a brake caliper tool set of my own. It just goes to show, having the right tool for the job makes all the difference. Now I'm wondering what other specialty tools I don't know I should have. As usual, I suppose I'll find out the hard way...
This point was driven home, yet again, this past weekend at Summit Point. Due to various factors in my burn-the-candle-at-both-ends lifestyle, I didn't get the brake pad swap done prior to leaving home for the track. No worries I figured, I'm bringing my tools with me and can do the swap at the track. It typically only takes me 20 minutes or so to do a brake pad swap and I've done it at the track before with no drama. Now, I've been using one of those universal cube style caliper tools which fit on a 3/8 ratchet turns the rear caliper piston to retract the piston into the caliper. While it got the job done, it did leave me thinking there must be a better way.
On Saturday, the pad swap on the right side of the car went as usual - no problem - 10 minutes and I was putting the wheels back on the car. Then I started the left side of the car. First up, the rear caliper... and the universal cube tool didn't work. It turned the piston alright, but the piston didn't retract. I spent more than 30 minutes fooling around with the damn caliper, yet as much as I turned it to retract the piston, it wouldn't clear my track pads which are quite a bit thicker than the street pads they were replacing. Brian Shafranek took pity on me (after first laughing at me) and loaned me his brake caliper tool which both turns the caliper and pushes it in at the same time. 2 minutes later, the piston was fully retracted, I was putting the caliper back on the car and thinking that I would never use the universal caliper cube thingy again now that I had been enlightened. This tool would make brake pad swaps even easier.
A quick session with Google yielded numerous options for acquiring a brake caliper tool set of my own. It just goes to show, having the right tool for the job makes all the difference. Now I'm wondering what other specialty tools I don't know I should have. As usual, I suppose I'll find out the hard way...
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