1993 Mustang GT Convertible - Trials & Tribulations (Definitely NOT Stock!)

The stock brakes were inadequate at best in stock form on the Foxbody platforms, the 4-bolt arrangement on Mustangs was even more ridiculous.

This particular Fox ended up with a 5 bolt conversion at some point in it’s life before coming into my possession, but remained un-upgraded to a better rotor or caliper. The 10” stock discs did not provide any real confident stopping power in spirited driving or autocross/road course situations. The stock rear drums don’t even need to be mentioned.

Front suspension received 1995 hub assemblies, rebuilt to new specs, with the upgraded ball joints and poly bushings. In the same flavor of other things on this Fox, the arms were sand blasted and refinished in black.

The Cobra Brake Kit came with brackets, calipers, braided lines and E-Brake cables (which being a VERY late 1993 model, this unit has 1994 rear cables – found out the hard way). The rotors and pads were deleted from the kit and ordered separately, as I wanted something more aggressive for this build. The kit can be had with or without these items, the vendor was amazing and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend or reuse on the next project.

For various reasons, I opted for a manual Cobra brake system. The factory booster is quite heavy and it’s huge, creating awkward access for headers, plugs, bolts and anything in that area. This was performed properly, with the correct aluminum master cylinder for the application, correct lines from Maximum Motorsports, and the firewall adapter and pedal kit from MM as well.

For reference, the wheels installed (previous owner) are 18" diamter.

Just a little update……..

The ECU system is truly a plug and play system, though I have had some difficulties in tracing a few things down within the car.

Sometimes you modify too many things, and don’t take out enough of the old system.

This is what I have done.

The SDS system allowed the removal of quite a few things without any issues. Which is nice, as you often don’t need them in a performance build. This inspired a wire tuck during the downtime the car has experienced. Initially I expected to remove all of the un-needed wiring (A/C, Smog, MAF, EGR, and anything else useless to the build), though I did not. The wire tuck commenced with the wiring that is there, and made a small visual difference, but that will now become a project for another winter.

The purpose of this post, was to bring a little joy to you all in the form of an overlooked problem that had me using cursing as plain language for a while.

The fuel pump would not turn on for any reason whatsoever. There EEC relay, the fuel pump relay, the ignition switch and everything in between would power. The pump wouldn’t turn on unless it triggered it manually at the fuel pump relay. 40 psi almost instantly.

The ECU came out, went back to the manufacturer for a review, then the vendor, and it all checked out. By this point I have pulled wiring apart that was neatly loomed and tucked, then for a moment when I pulled the harness, the pump engaged for a couple of seconds.

Realizing that there was a wiring issue, I went straight from the ECU to the relay – BINGO! The wire tuck and pulling led to some older wires to break and loose continuity.

The no fuel problem is 50% solved. As the fuel pump now turns on, and pressures up with ease at the stroke of a key.

The other 50% I will be working on this weekend…………

Have you ever bought something for your Fox (or project car in general) and been so disappointed that you refused to install it?

This is one of the tragedies encountered with this build a couple of years ago.

A solid cowl panel to replace the stock cowl grill was ordered from a fairly reputable vendor, whom had a nice enough website and images of multiple versions of cowl panels that were apparently on show cars.

When the panel was received, it was just shy of garbage. The fitment is absolutely terrible, and the dimensioning was waaaaaay off. As a guy with beyond extensive experience with fiberglass work, I can attest its extremely bad, as the mold would need to have been terrible before the final production pieces could be bad.

Eventually I will make my own, as I do want that pressure area at the base of the windshield to be blocked off, unless I modify the firewall to vend the engine compartment pressure here………..

Regardless, the terribly quality control and lack if manufacturer support, lead to the painting of the factory cowl grill, and it looks pretty good, or I think so anyway.


Edit: I am unsure why the blocked cowl pics are so pixelated, but you are'te missing much

qtrracer said:

Yes, but had to install the dash pad on my '86. The dealer cracked the original and paid for a replacement, but that pad was a real POS. Fortunately, I kept the original and had it recovered when we built the '86. Tossed the replacement it was such garbage.

That cowl looks like it was designed (or not) for a race car where fit and finish are not as important as weight saving, and removal as needed.

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That is really crappy about your dash. How long ago was this? I wonder if some of the newer materials and vendors build anything better. Touch wood, I haven’t had to do anything with the dash yet.

I don’t know if the moderators would appreciate a non-supporting vendor being listed, even as a warning to not buy from, but the pictures on the website were nothing of the sort.

There were multiple versions of the panel on the website, plain cowls as this one, and others that had woven mesh grills and intricate detail for show cars. I’ve purchased more fibreglass parts through the years than I can count working on a mostly glass 69 Dodge Dart GT very slowly now too and I’ve never seen anyone sell a fibreglass product so poorly done before.

If the mould as developed was correct, it would be duplicatable fairly easily without fail. I expect to clean up fibreglass parts when I get them, but having to cut, add pieces, remove areas, fill and redrill holes isn’t acceptable unless you inform the buyer what they’re getting.

The only reason I opted to buy the part over making it myself was time. Which it took over 3 months to receive the part, and didn’t really save any time.

Well the endeavours of today ended, and though the car is a little closer to start up - it’s further away from completion.

Fuel system official apart (again) and should have the injectors cleaned and back together to fire on the weekend.

I know this is one of those modifications that is strictly of preference. I also assume there will be potential tar & feathering that could occur………

The theme throughout the car is red/black and polished aluminum, though the wheels will get a replacement at somepoint to also reflect this. I wanted to have something a little different from stock in theh headlights, but not too different. I have never really been a fan of the one piece aftermarket headlights for Foxbodys or the Euro tail lights. Some guys/gals really like this look, it just isn’t for me.

In comes the 3 piece clear lens smoked headlights from American Muscle. They are lightly smoked, and will receive a brighter than stock LED bulb to overcome a little of the coating.

I still have LX tails in, as I actually did prefer them at one point, but I may go back to cheese grater tails. I wish I hadn’t sold them.

I am torn between keeping the LX tails (lightly smoking with clear), going back to GT, or converting to earlier SVO. My favorite taillights on the fox are 1979 Mustang or the Capri horizontals. I haven’t looked into what kind of PIA it is to convert, but I haven’t been able to find a decent set of either anyway. Take a look online…….

Top Heavy said:

Where are the pics of this beast?????

All I could find were pre-transplant images. They do look pretty sweet.........

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I seem to have forgotten that I replaced the American Muscle smoked cobra headlight housings and side marker housings with clear recently. I found OEM quality Cobra housings at Rock Auto for ridiculously low prices! I liked the look of the smoked housings better, but the fit and quality of the OEM replacements is considerably better.

Jay

Funny you should say that @petmotel …… or not funny….. depending on your sense of humour.

Following a full fuel system review, and taking it all apart, something told me to pull the ECU harness out and see if there was an issue of rub through that may be causing some of the issues that have occurred since trying to get on the start up.

Not too sure what got at this - a rodent? The car had the A/C removed and a few items related to the emissions disconnected when I bought the car. There were a few odd things, like burning through a TFI unit or 2 each season and having intermittent TPS issues that I thought I would get to eventually.

I think the partial wire tuck and tugging wires to relocate them caused some of the minor issues to become major with lost continuity on some wires and grounding issues on others.

All was repaired over the last couple of days and is mostly back together. Hoping to go through it all again, add fuel and see what happens.