Mustang Week 2016

Last year we had some rubbing issues where the rear fenders would hit the tires.  There was a 1 inch hubcentric spacer between the back wheels and the axel.  That was removed and a 20mm spacer put in place. The other change is the MM weight jacker rear lower control arms ( see my suspension write up on those ).  Just before loading the car up, I jacked the rear suspension by about 1.5 inches. There was NO rubbing on the way down.  Maybe the Eibach pro kit with progressive springs also helped.  As the car was loaded, and the rear spring perches increased, the springs were more compressed.  Being a progressive spring, they responeded differently.  All in all, it was a great drive down.  When we got to the condo in Myrtle Beach and unloaded / unpacked, I dropped the suspension to a more reasonable ride height without all the weight.  Before we left, I jacked it up again before we loaded it all up.  It worked perfectly.

The next thing I learned was that the idle needs some work.  I have since made some changes to the Quarterhorse calibration in Binary Editor after getting home.  Turns out that I had the RPM for when idle routine was entered way too low, so most likely it never used those idle functions and scalars.  I also had the desired idle set too low.  After some reading I learned why the ECU cannot control idle lower than the current 900 rpm.  Right now at 900 RPM the ISC duty cycle is 10% which means it's not moving at all because there is too much air entering the engine through the throttle body.  I'll be doing a base idle reset soon.  If I can get the duty cycle for the IAC  around 15% then the computer can control idle, which would be ideal!

Next is the overheating.  The past few years we have left for Myrtle Beach in the middle of the night.  We travel through the night and arrive early in the morning.  There's very little traffic and only minimal construction to deal with.  This year we didn't do that.  We traveled to see family near Richmond and stayed there for two nights.  It was about 7.5 hours to my cousin's house.  It was 5 hours down to Myrtle Beach.  We left Richmond in the morning and got to MB during the peak of the day.  I quickly learned that traveling during the day also meant that the hottest part of the day, and the peak of the sun, was going to have an impact on the coolant temp.  The temp was high and I needed to turn off the AC periodically to let the car cool down.  This was rough when we were in traffic.  If we didn't turn off the AC, the car would overheat.  Fast forward to the trip back on 7/24/2016 - there was a heat wave in the northeast.  During normal driving the car would run at 204 degrees F.  Once we turned on the AC, the temp jumped by at least 20 degrees.

Although the AC worked well, I know that there is a leak on the hose that runs above the drivers side headers.  This is the 'manifold refrigerant hose'.  I also inspected the condenser - which is what cools the 134a after the compressor.  It is really beat up.  I think it's original to the car.  The fins are so bent over that I can't imagine it will let much air though it.  My thought is to replace that condenser and the manifold line, use a vac pump and make sure there's no leaks, then charge the system again.  I think that will remedy the cooling problem.  Hopefully!

Another school of thought is to upgrade the radiator to a bigger unit.  I have a stock replacement installed in the car right now.  I needed to replace the original since it was leaking.  Champion makes a 3 core all aluminum radiator:

All in all, the car was really comfortable to drive.  The suspension worked well, the seats are comfortable and the new Gibson MWA mufflers all but eliminated the drone at cruising speed.  I really enjoyed the seat time, even if it was for 1700+ miles.  By the time we take this on another road trip, I'll have that calibration dialed in even more, and the cooling issue should be resolved.

1994 Mustang GT: Vortech and Tremec

In most of my blogs you'll hear me reference 'my buddy' or 'my best friend'.  That guy has always been by my side when it comes to anything mustang.  He's been my groomsman more than once, and I've done the same for him, more than once.  So when Lou called me up a few weeks ago and said 'I'm going to do you a SOLID' my ears perked up.  He had come across a project car that someone wanted to get out of.  The car had a bunch of stuff he wanted / needed and a few parts that I could use.  Cash up front from me would mean that he didn't have to dive too far into his pockets to make it happen.  Lets just say that the deal was very very good.  

Fast forward to today, when there is a TKO 500 transmission sitting in my garage.  Sitting next to it is the bell housing, fork, driveshaft spacer and on top is an MGW shifter with the handle.  Also in the same area is a Vortech V3 Supercharger, an intercooler, two additional pulleys and a mondo bypass valve.  There's also a mess of piping, couplers and clamps to go along with it.  To say this was the deal of the year would be a complete understatement!!!  

If you've been following along, you know that I've become very familiar with the Moates Quarterhorse and binary editor.  I've been building the calibration in a way that it should accept a power adder with no problem.  That portion of the calibration should essentially 'come alive' once boost is added.  I've also just remedied the voltage drop between 4 and 6k RPM during a WOT acceleration.  Voltage drops are not good for fuel pumps at all.  Pumps want to see a constant 14v to perform adequately.  Thats why Kenne Bell and Vortech created regulators that keep pump voltage constant under all conditions and even provide a way to increase pump output with a boost reference.  I'm going to need to do some upgrades to accommodate the supercharger.  The transmission installation should be much more kind.  

Fuel System

I'm going to also include the Mass Air info here, because it is essentially what the calibration will use to determine fuel delivery.  I currently have a 2004 F150 90mm mass air sensor installed in the car.  The curve won't be enough for the additional air flow of a supercharger.  Besides that, I would really like to use an 05+ mustang slot style mass air sensor in a blow through configuration.  The piping is 3 inch and I'm not so sure that the curve is adequate.  I may have to go with an HPX sensor, which has some pretty serious values for the transfer curve.  More on this later!  

I already have Siemens Deka 60lb/hr injectors installed.  Stock fuel rails, a Kirban adjustable FPR, stock lines and a Walbro 255LPH in tank pump are installed as of today.  The pump is not the high pressure / high volume pump.  I did use Earls fittings on the stock rails to go to -6AN Fergola braided stainless line.  They mate to Earls fittings on the hard lines on the firewall.  Feed and return are both -6AN.  The feed at the firewall is 5/16 and the return is smaller.  See my blog about the fuel lines / fire hazard fix!  What is interesting is that the fuel hat / hanger assembly has a 3/8 feed and a 5/16 return.  I also know that the pump won't be enough.  The plan is to upgrade to a Walbro 400LPH pump (Walbro 39/50 DCSS 400LPH  F90000262). .  This will also require that I upgrade the wiring to the pump.  I'm going to run 10GA power wire from the battery, or a dedicated 12V source, to a 40A relay.  I'll use the existing positive lead going to the pump for the signal wire to that relay.  The output to the pump will be 12GA.  I'll also have a 12GA ground wire going to the frame.  That should ensure that the wiring can handle the draw of the bigger pump!  The fuel rails shouldn't need to be upgraded.  The fuel lines should also be good to 500HP, which I'll never see.  Should is the key word.  I may use a 3/8 to -6AN fitting for the feed line on the fuel hat and run a new 6AN line to the front where it meets the existing 6AN line via a union.  Still undecided on that as well.  Those are my thoughts on the fuel system.  

Supercharger and intercooler

The supercharger is made for a 94 95 mustang, so the discharge is aimed at the throttle body.  That doesn't leave much room for the bypass and blow through mass air meter when not using the intercooler.  I also think that the intercooler I have is too big - its 4 inches thick, passenger inlet and drivers side outlet.  There would be no way to take the output of the supercharger and run it to the intercooler and the output of the intercooler to the throttle body.  There's just no room.  What I would like to do is to exchange the v3 for a straight discharge head unit.  Then we could run it into the fender to the intercooler and have the intercooler come back the same way.  That would also require a same side inlet outlet intercooler.  Its going to require a lot of fab work for the piping, but it would work!  Someone even did it already, which gives me confidence.  Here's the link to his ride:  http://www.vortechsuperchargers.com/page.php?id=45341

Ideally, with some additional piping to the intercooler, I'll be able to set up the blow through MAF and a Blow Off Valve rather than a bypass.  We shall see.  More to come on this!  

Transmission

When I pulled the transmission, I read the tag and it said TR3550.  At that point I didn't think it was a TKO500 as the guy claimed it was.  That would also be a 1k price difference.  I was certainly disappointed.  After I got the trans home, I tried to look up the part number on the TR3550 reference page to see the gear ratios and couldn't find the part number there.  Then I ran a search for the part number that was on the tag - TCET4615.  When I looked that up, I showed an American Powertrain TKO500!!!  I had the trans, bell and fork as well as a driveshaft spacer.  I also have the yoke for the driveshaft!  The trans has the 10 spline input shaft so it should fit right into the RAM HDX clutch I have installed.  That clutch should be good to 450HP, so I'm not going to change it until it slips - if it does slip.  I'm a big fan of RAM and I trust that it will be good to the 450 mark!  The MGW shifter I'm going to try and trade for a Steeda Tri-Ax shifter.  I really like the Tri-Ax.  I have that shifter on my T5 and my T56 in the 03 cobra.  Did I ever mention I have a terminator?  That car is also a convertible.  

Mustang week is about a week away, so I'm not changing anything.  I'm just going to clean the car up for the ride.  When we get back, I'm going to get started with the upgrades.  

Trans and driveshaft yoke Install

Upgrade Fuel pump and wiring

SC, BOV, MAF, brackets, and intercooler - this may be a winter project

94 Mustang GT: Moates Quarterhorse and Binary Editor - perload

The last post I had about the QH and BE was the changes that were in place at the time.  Since then I have dialed in the MAF curve using an Innovate LC2 wideband.  I also made updates to DASPOT using the reference to tuning it from the info.efidynotuning.com page.  The last piece to the puzzle was making the changes for the way Load is calculated.  The calibration now has perload=0, which is load /loadx.  This method takes into account the Peak Load at Sea Level vs RPM function.  The original values in this function are for a stock engine.  The load values at RPM need to be updated with those logged during a WOT sweep of the RPM range.  The new values reflect the Volumetric Efficiency of an upgraded engine.  I've gone through this a few times and plugged in the Load values.  Now looking at perload during the WOT sweep, it hovers just around 100%, which is exactly where it should be!

This enables fueling to be dialed in depending on Load.  Spark was scaled in a similar fashion - going to 200 load instead of the 100 load typical of a Naturally Aspirated engine.  The RPM tables also got scaled to 6000 instead of 4000.

The ability of the calibration to scale above 100% means that the addition of a power adder will be accounted for!  While a NA motor can only possibly reach 100% (maybe a little higher if its REALLY efficient), a forced induction or nitrous motor can reach well above 100%.

I won't get into the details of exactly what changes were made - its all available via info.efidynotuning.com write ups!  I've spent a lot of time on that site!!!