The clutch is DONE (took some open header video too!)

[StangFlyer]

Yes...! For those of you who knew about my clutch set-up that didn't have the right clearances to work probably I've needed to straighten out forever now... It's now corrected. Dusting Wood (MW's behind the scenes Technical Editor and my best friend) and I spent all this weekend wrenching to get this bad boy clutch sorted out. It's an 11" long style sintered iron race clutch, which has very tight clearances within the blow proof lakewood housing. We had to use a custom fork, shorter throwout bearing, and mess with the pivot ball height to get it the clearance needed to allow the clutch to fully engage and disengage properly. The clutch is now fully functional and puts all the power to pavement without a complaint. On a little test spin on street tires yesterday I was chewing pavement all the way through 2nd gear sideways! It's crappy weather right now, but I'm hoping it'll work out where I can take the car soon up to test-n-tune night at Milan dragway for the some passes. The ultimate test is to get it on the track with the slicks where I can stick all the power to ground.

Also, while we were at it, we fired up the beastie for a couple revs before bolting the exhaust system back on. You can see the open header real video clip here in my Media Center account.

[joe4speed]

That's a sweet video, that thing sounds mean as hell!

[StangFlyer]

Thanks Joe. It seems to be running good, so I am hoping to get some track time in soon. I'll run it for now with the previous street tune, but I'll be getting together with Lidio Iacobelli at Alternative Automotive here soon, as he tunes and programs my car. He's putting in a new DynoJet right now and it won't be ready to go until early August. After that we'll be setting up a switch chip on it and tuning the piss out of it on the dyno. It'll have one program for the street set-up (10 lbs of boost and pump gas) and one program for the race set-up (16-18 lbs of boost and C16).

I'll get some good video soon though. While working on the car this past weekend I also bolted in a new roll cage video camera mount. It's the same one Darius has in his car, so I'll be able to get some killer in car footage now.

[joe4speed]

Cool, I can't wait to see some in-car video.
When I was putting my h-pipe on, I decided to take the car around the block with open headers. If only I could keep it that way... It was a beautiful thing!

[StangFlyer]

Yeah... you shouldn't have to worry about waking anyone up in the morning when you leave for work. Like Bubb Rubb says... "peoplez should be eat'n breakfast in da' morn'n"!

[tireburner163]

As a staff member, I get to drive too.................right???

[must89]

Dan, quite honestly Mustangs that look as good as yours made me the Ford man I am today. Your stang was my wallpaper for the longest time. Thanks for building cars to give young guys like me dreams.
Peace

[StangFlyer]

Sure tireburner... sure...

Wow must89! Now there's a compliment! Thanks a lot. I'm glad you like the car that much, it's certainly been a lot of work and a pain in the butt at times over the years... But, it has turned out to be a nice looking, powerful, and awesome running car now... And, it's actually a STREET car, which is the thing I do like to brag about. There's lots of FAST Mustangs, just go to any NMRA or FFW race and you'll see them. Many faster than mine... But, when it comes down to it most are purpose built drag machines. That's not what I wanted. I wanted a full, working Mustang with nothing removed, that still had good street manors and was comfortable... yet, HAULED (i.e. 10's in street trim with pump gas, capable of 9's on the track with minimal changes). And, with a stout engine that didn't have problems because it couldn't handle it.

My only pain in the rear with it's current combination has been getting the clutch set-up right, which could handle the power it makes... (got it right now) and, I've had trouble with with the high torque mini-starter (SN95 style) dying on me. I had the first one die on me three months after building the motor. And, in fact, my second one just died on me YESTERDAY. Yep, no kidding, I got the clutch right and the starter fried on me after driving it for two days. Go figure. Guess what I'm doing this weekend? I know it's due to the mongo headers and heat killing it over time most likely, but I already have the starter heat wrapped so....