DutchManDann

I have been working on this write up for quite a long time now, almost two months (finding all of the pictures I wanted has been a royal pain). And it is pretty good timing because it seems everyone is posting one of these up right now. This is meant to timeline my car, and includes everything I have done to the car, not just performance/visual mods.

I kind of invision this as a thread that people can look at, and ask for any help with similar mods or problems they have with their car. So I am hoping that people will ask for help!

Also note, that when I use the first person (I, me, myself, etc.), I am really referring to myself and my dad. Without his help, none of this would be possible. I cannot express enough how much I have enjoyed working on the car with him. For the simplicity of the post, I use "I", but my dad was just as much a part of this as I was. We have bonded so much over this car and I love him to death.

The Car

I call her Roxanne. The car is a 1998 Mustang GT Convertible with a 5-speed. It is Silver with a black top, black interior. I bought it when I was 15 years old, in the summer of 2010. The car seemed to be good at the time of purchase, but ended up having a lot more wrong with it than i expected (which i will detail here).

Here's the first couple shots I took after the first clean.




and the engine bay:


First Impressions

My first impressions, the sound was nice, but the wheels looked pretty bad (i mean, deep dishes on the front? just wrong).

I learned to drive stick on the car, but the clutch was pretty much garbage, had to push it to the floor to disengage and it made a ton of racket. The synchros was also pretty far gone, but it was drivable. Also, the car seemed to spew blue smoke on startup. The top would not go up/down automatically either, such a buzzkill.

I liked the exhaust because it had a catless H-pipe, a good choice in my opinion. It was using the stock tubing with an aftermarket muffler behind that ("XLerator Turbo Muffler" was the brand). I am very glad that it came with the light bar on it already, as that was one of the things that completed the look of the vert to me. Also, it had FRPP Lowering Springs on it which have the perfect amount of drop for me.


Fall 2010

So initially, there were problems that needed immediate fixing. First up, the latch that attaches to the trunk lid was broken off entirely. My guess is that the car got broken into or hit in the back. All I had to do was weld it back on.
(it still doesn't look too good, you can also see the rust in that picture. New trunk lid will come once money permits).



I sprayed the bottom of the car for rust. Here's a picture of the before, not too bad, but it is worse in some other spots.



Next I sprayed tinted the headlights and tailights. It turned out nicely but ended up fading (so the taillights need to be redone as well).




I changed the rear struts and the fuel filter. I dont have pics of this, but who cares nobody wants to see that anyways. The rear struts were so bad I couldn't even drive the car basically...so those needed to be changed.

So now for the worst part of the car- the engine ticking. Some of you may remember me trying to narrow down what the tick was. The ticking wasn't there when I bought the car...but about two weeks later it showed up.


For now I had to live with the ticking though, the engine ran fine.

Winter 2010

Winter 2010 was a pretty low-mod time for me. The car was driveable and I didn't want to work on anything in the cold. I was also doing Varsity Swimming which took up all of my time.

I did two major things to the car though.

First off, I replaced the headunit from some old/low end unit to a nice new shiny one. I put a Kenwood KIV-700 in. Looks really clean and the controls are extremely simple. It is one of the best aftermarket headunits I have ever used.

I wired the iPod connector into the center compartment to keep it all clean and to give me access to the iPod. The new headunit did a good job of tuning out the tick as well lol.



Now for the sad part. Somebody decided that they were jealous of my car...or something. They slashed a tire, cut the top, and keyed the side. I don't understand how somebody can do this to a car, especially mine (which wasn't even that nice). But such is life.

I claimed insurance on it and got a nice chunk of change. Putting new 18x10.5" tires on the stock rims would have been way too much money, and so I used the opportunity to buy a new set of rims.

They are off of a 2001 Cobra, and I think they match perfectly with the car.




That's it for Winter 2010.

Spring 2011

For Spring 2011, the first thing I did was a K&N Air Filter and I shortened the antenna. I don't have any pics but we've all done these two mods. The car actually came with a K&N filter...but it was the wrong size. It was way too small and a lot wider than the correct size.

Next, I put in sequential tail lights. These are a feature of mustangs that I absolutely love and I had to have them on my car.


Next I put that insurance money to good use and I got myself a trans out of a wrecked car (had ~17k on it at the time) and a new clutch. The clutch was nothing special, better than stock though. Money was tight to cover it all with the insurance money.

This tick haunted my dreams for too long. No matter what I tried...it ticked. I tried all sorts of magical oil additives, with no luck (no surprise lol). So I had to crack open the engine. What I ended up doing is replacing the lash adjusters, rocker arms, and valve seals.

As a side note, let me just mention that replacing the valve seals may easily be the scariest thing you can do to your engine. you have to remove the retaining clips off the valve, and the only thing keeping the valve from falling into your engine is air pressure...





Those are all the old parts. The valve seals were totally shot. The rubber is probably just as hard as the metal part. This soved the blue smoke issue. The lash adjusters and rocker arms did next to nothing, the tick was a strong as ever. I decided to seafoam it just to see what would happen lol...


And once again the tick never stopped. I had to live with the ticking for the time being. So on to the other stuff...

One last little fix, the parking brake light wouldnt come on when I pulled the e-brake. So I just removed the switch and sanded all the connections. Fixed the problem.

Summer 2011

The Summer of 2011 was all restoration. No pics of any of this, but this was all the grimey, greasy work that is pretty unsatisfying. It is unsatisfying because you're working on your car to fix someone elses abuse, and it wont make the car any faster.

First, before the heat kicked in, I put a new A/C Compressor and Condenser on. The first compressor ended up blowing up, it was a made in china piece. I got a rebuilt Ford compressor and it has been good since.

I put Tie-Rod Ends, Front Struts, and new Rotors/Pads on the front brakes, and pads on the back. No pictures, but nothing too special here. I discovered that all the calipers need to be rebuilt or replaced, but it isn't too bad. Also take note that my ABS had been acting up big time, it tripped way too soon. So my Dad broke the sensor entirely, rendering the whole system useless (ABS shuts off completely in the case of a broken sensor). I like it better without ABS anyways.

Next I put new top cylinders on the convertible top, and filled it up with Dextron. The top works beautifully now, the top cylinder was just leaking.

The hood latch cable busted (the handle just pulled right out with a bunch of frayed wires on the end. I hated my car this day lol. So I put a replacement on, was an easy fix.

Lastly, I put some black "Mustang GT" lettering on the bumper, which you can see in this video:



Fall/Winter 2011

I bought some parts off a parts car, I got all of the trunk interior pieces and put them into my car. I also got the strut tower brace off the car (which wouldnt go on until later).

The engine catastrophically failed sometime in the fall. I was cruising at ~20 mph down a side street and I heard one of the worst noises in my life. It was a metal-on-metal shrieking noise. The gauges on the dash went insane and flickered all over and the engine died. The engine would still run...but it continued to make that god awful noise. I drove it home and parked it, and the hunt for an engine started.

I was really hoping to find a DOHC to drop in there. I looked at a few but the deal never went through on any of them. One guy couldn't get his to run...and another just wanted too much for his. I ended up settling on a dusty SOHC out of a 2001. It had been pulled from the car 2-3 years prior and the guy needed it out of his garage. I paid $400 for it.

The engine has a little Ford Rebuild plate on it, so my dad called up Ford and had them run the code. Ford said it was out of an 01 Mustang GT, and estimated the mileage to be ~40k (which is what the seller said). It was still a huge risk though because we didn't know if the engine ran.



After I cleaned the engine up, turned out to be quite a good looking piece



The process began of the engine swap! It ended up taking me ~4 monthes to do. I kept the 98's return fuel system, and I kept the COPs on the new engine (it looks much cleaner). I had to make my own wiring harness to accomodate the COPs. I also opted to drill/tap a hole for the 98's second temperature sensor. I got the 8-bolt flywheel that came on the 2001 engine resurfaced (the only work I didn't do myself).

I also cleaned the crap out of all the coolant parts and everything I was going to reuse. I didn't want any of the old 98 engine grime in the new one.

Engine is out!


And the new one's in!


I also put a new pinion seal on my differential, as the original one was leaking.


The engine did not start right up though. I had a minuscule short in the wiring harness I made, and it was driving the PATS insane. I guess the car thought I was trying to steal it. I managed to bipass the PATS system and get the engine to crank. It started up, but ran very rough. It was pretty disappointing.

I got the car put back together and got it on the ground. I decided to drive it home even when it was running rough.
I put some good gas into the fuel tank and drove it home. On the way home, something sort of...popped. I can't describe it, but the engine just started to run like it was brand new. My guess is the injectors were clogged from sitting so long. This was one of the most amazing moments of my life, the engine has so much more power than the old one.

I threw on a FRPP Shift **** that I got for christmas as a mini-celebration for having my car running:



Spring/Summer 2012


The engine still needed to be tuned, however. It was being run as if it was a 98, and to my understanding the timing is a bit different between the two engines

So in celebration of getting a job at Starbucks, I splurged and bought this:



And that helped the engine run perfectly and got me a few extra HP.

Two videos of the new engine, still running the original exhaust:



Now the car was ready for all the performance mods I always dreamed of getting. To start, the sexiest shifter in the world, the MGW. I cannot express in words how much nicer the car felt after the Short Shifter. It felt like a brand new car, honestly.



For high school Graduation, my Mom and Dad went out on a limb and got me a Magnaflow Cat-Back exhaust. This was an amazing gift and it is my favorite cat-back. Here's a video to hear the difference:



View of the Magnaflow Tips:



Other minor things I did in the Summer of 2012 are the slower turn signal flasher, the stock was just too fast for me. And I fixed my Odometer, which had broken at some point and I never got around to fixing it.

Here's how she sat at the end of the summer:






Fall 2012

I was much happier with my car's performance now with the few mods I did to it over the summer. So I went for some visual modifications.

I got some Hoonigan license plate frames and LED trunk lid lights to replace the yellowing incandescents.

Because Im not already attracting the cops enough:


I bought a Chin Spoiler, which my Dad installed while I was away at school:


I converted my interior to full LED lighting, the guages and the map lights. It felt a little bit ricer putting LEDs in...but everything looks 10x cleaner so I didn't mind. Also note the car was throwing a code at the time that turned out to be nothing (knock on wood):


Next, I decided it was time to fix something that annoyed the crap out of me. The rear fender on the SN95 hangs over the rear wheels like a giant muffin top. And it looks really stupid. I wanted to get 10.5's in the rear, but nobody makes a 2001 Cobra rim in 10.5. So I opted for Eibach Wheel Spacers, 25mm:




I put anti-seize between the spacer and the rotor, and I lock tighted all of the lugs on it. I torqued, and re-torqued, and re-torqued again to make sure the spacers aren't going to fall off.

Lastly, I installed the strut tower brace that had been sitting for about a year. It improved cornering slightly but it could just be in my mind. It definitely wasn't a drastic change. Looks sick though. Here's a comparison between the original engine bay and the Fall 2012 engine bay:



Here's a quick video I made of the car. Just wanted something to watch later when I was in North Carolina for college, and away from my car


Winter 2012

Winter 2012, so now basically. I pretty much went insane with mods. I am back from NC for good now. So what I have done so far is pretty extensive.

First I put seats into my car, they are out of a 2004 GT. The 98 seats were in rough shape, one had a tear in it:



New seats are much more comfortable, they hold you better. They also smell a lot better, they smell like new leather. What blows is someone must have had something in their pocket, and they ripped a small hle in the passanger bolster so now I have to get that fixed.



Next I put Maximum Motorsports Full Length Subframe Connectors in. I welded them in myself, and my god what a difference they made. The car is so much less noisey and so much more nimble.



I swapped out the crappy walmart floormats I had for some OEM Cobra floormats out of a smashed 95. They are my winter floormats:



Next I decided it was time to fix the messed up idle. It was annoying the crap out of me, it would rev up when I shifted and took like two hours to rev down. I put a new IAC valve (Borg & Warner) and I made a restrictor.

Old IAC:


Restrictor:


This actually made my car louder. I videotaped both with and without the restrictor and compared the sound levels. The restrictor made it louder for some reason. And it completely fixed the idle, it revs down quickly now.

I put Mach 1/Bullit wtyle pedals on my car that I got for Christmas. I also adjusted my gas pedal height so now it is in the optimal position for me. I got it to the perfect height where the pedal isnt in the way when im normally breaking, but it is in the perfect spot to heel-toe shift.



And then I put some Cobra style headlights, the ones off AM that have a smoked mirror but clear lenses. Being able to see at night is no longer something I have trouble with.

I also got new summer floormats which are still in the box, as it is not summer.

Here's the car as she sits today.





And a video I made two days ago just to test out my GoPro camera. Apparently I suck at using it because it didn't record any audio (luckily I have audio from the other camera I was using).


So that is the restoration and evolution of my car from start to now. I am going to post more pictures up of the engine swap later but I need to locate them first.

Future Build

So now, I am going to list off the things I want to do in the future:

-First and foremost, 3.73 gears. the 2.73s are not cutting it.
-C&L Plenum
-Edelbrock 75mm T/B
-JLT CAI
-24lb Ford Injectors
-Rebuild brakes
-MM CC Plates
-FRPP Steering Wheel (mine is pretty worn)
-35% Tint all the way around

My dream mods:
-Supercharge (Vortech V2)
-or- Cams (haven't decided yet)
-Dyno tune
-MM Panhard bar/torque arm
-MM lower control arms
-Better Clutch
-Lightweight flywheel/driveshaft
-Kooks Longtube Headers with a shorty H-pipe
-1995 Cobra R hood

Restoration:
-New Ebrake cable
-New sun-visors
-New sideview mirrors
-New door hinge on the drivers side
-Clean up a few interior pieces
-New side Emblems (mine are chipped)
-new trunklid (mine is rusty for some strange reason)
-Eliminate this annoying dashboard clicking
-Insulate Interior with dynamat or HVAC insulation
-finish spray painting the bottom of the car
-New latch for center console compartment
-New rocker panel retainer clips

-And fixing anything else that brakes



Thank you everyone for reading! I hoped you enjoyed and I hope you like the car. If you have any questions, ask away! There are probably some things I have forgotten that I will update or add later.

Also, If you actually read this whole post, props to you, you deserve a Klondike bar.

I will be updating this thread frequently with more pictures and videos of my future mods.

Thanks again and happy modding.

~DutchManDann

boduke0220

awesome Build bro! keep up the good work!

speedkills

Great work man. 3.73 gears are my next mod too. Got em sitting in my bedroom just gotta find time to install them.

jtb727

Nice work man! Cars looking good!

DutchManDann

Thank you!


You'll have to let me know how they work for you! I can't wait to get mine.

Thank you!

DutchManDann

UPDATE

Here's a few more pictures to add to the build. They are all pictures of the engine swap except two of me welding

Car in the air, ready for a new engine:


Transmission is out!



Old Engine vs the New Engine:



The Easy way to install a Clutch:



New Engine, all chained up and ready to be installed:




My Dad and I after a successful engine swap:



The first drive with the new engine! (Top Down of course):



Learning how to weld on some scrap metal so I could install the subframe connectors:

DutchManDann

Here's the car after an after-winter deep clean and waxing. I also fixed my rocker panels which were falling off.





Also, I picked up a new rear axle. It is out of a 96 GT, it has 3.73 gears, and Auburn POSI differential, and a TA girdle. Itll be going in soon I hope, Im also putting new bushings in while Im at it.

uberstang1

Nice work man, glad shes coming along for you

'02gtgarrett

Looks beautiful man! Like i said in my build thread, it's possibly one of the best looking sn95's ive seen. Its clean, but mean!

Sxynerd

Now I miss my car again. :0) Great looking ride.