Foxbody Coupe Build

32icon321 · Apr 4, 2017

I got in the Trickflow R-series Lower today. Super nice piece at a super nice price....FREE!

This was purchased with eBucks on eBay through Summit Racing. For those not familiar with eBucks, it is a rebate reward system eBay has. I purchase a lot of things through ebay fairly regularly and will wait until they offer 10% back.
In this particular case I waited for one of these 10% promotions to order the brembo brakes, bilstiens front and rear, and all four tires(which came with an additional $100 off) for the car. These purchases alone netted me over $200 in eBucks. I already had about $300 from other purchases. So I also purchased my set of Maximum Motorsports caster camber plates.
They only allow a max earning of $500 per quarter and have just recently made auto parts eligible for rebates, so I have definitely been taking advantage!

Stopsign32v · Apr 9, 2017

Looks fun

One thing from doing the pushrod 5.0 thing before I learned. I would never, ever, ever waste money on the 302 setup again. I would go straight to a 351 platform and never look back.

crazycarlo · Apr 9, 2017

I've read the same thing. Unless I had money for an aftermarket 302 block.....but then I'd have the money for a 351 block lol. Looks fun. I'm slowly building and improving my coupe as I drive and enjoy it. Gonna rebuild the power
Steering soon to stop a leak and hopefully get it to stop whining.

Stopsign32v · Apr 9, 2017

crazycarlo said:
I've read the same thing. Unless I had money for an aftermarket 302 block.....but then I'd have the money for a 351 block lol. Looks fun. I'm slowly building and improving my coupe as I drive and enjoy it. Gonna rebuild the power
Steering soon to stop a leak and hopefully get it to stop whining.

Aftermarket 302 block $1500

351 block as cheap as $150

Apples to bananas

crazycarlo · Apr 14, 2017

I meant if you had the money for an aftermarket 302 block then you had the money for an aftermarket 351 block haha. I'll eventually drop a 351 in my coupe.

Stopsign32v · Apr 14, 2017

crazycarlo said:
I meant if you had the money for an aftermarket 302 block then you had the money for an aftermarket 351 block haha. I'll eventually drop a 351 in my coupe.

There is no need for an aftermarket 351 block. Go get one from a junk yard.

32icon321 · Apr 16, 2017

I got a good start on the suspension and brakes over the last few days. Not many hang ups. I got started by cleaning up the 94/95 spindles and painting them black. I got them mounted and found that the thread engagement onto the ball joint wasn't sufficient and on top of that if fully tightened the nut would be further down than the hole for the pin to go through. Luckily I had some strut spacers from the old set up and the thinner one worked perfect.

32icon321 · Apr 16, 2017

Here I had to modify the brake line brackets for the stainless lines. They needed to be filed a little bit. The passenger side needed a fitting for the conflicting threads. I also located some OEM Ford Hubs through a dealer on eBay. I have been trying to use as many OEM Ford parts as I can. I threw in a before picture.

32icon321 · Apr 16, 2017

Here is the work I started on the rear end. This kit is from north racecars. In addition I ordered the rings as shown for the rotors to fit flush on the axles. At this point I still need to mount the calipers and run new lines on the rear. We already modified the parking brake for the disk setup, just didn't get any pictures.

After I button up the rear I am going to finish it off the with master cylinder. I decided to just upgrade to the Cobra R 1" bore and run the stock booster after bills quality issues with the aftermarket ones. If it works well, great. If not I will be looking into other options.

32icon321 · Apr 18, 2017

The kit came with brackets for a sn95 car, I had to cut and bend them to fit onto the axle. Then I had to bend the axle bracket out to meet the sn95 bracket. So I got those mounted and then we ran new brake lines and mounted the calipers. That is all I had time for over the weekend. Still need to re route the E-brake cables, hook them up, install the MC, and finally bleed the brakes. So I feel I am about a good days work from getting back on the road.
I threw in a picture of the exhaust set up Bill and I made for the car last year.

paulyboy928 · Apr 18, 2017

nice work!

32icon321 · Apr 21, 2017

Today I installed the master cylinder, proportioning valve and plug. I used MM's install kit which made things much easier. Finished up by hooking up the E-brake lines and bleeding the brakes.
The day was going to conclude with getting the alignment as close as possible. When I went to bolt the wheels on the rear studs were WAY to short. Maybe 3 threads of engagement. I noticed the studs were short when I first installed them but it didnt matter much because the drums were not as thick as the new rotors.
So I ordered some ARP studs. Got pretty close today to getting her back on the ground, but thats how it goes sometimes.

32icon321 · May 15, 2017

Sadly the car had to sit on the lift for two weeks before I could put the wheel studs in because of finals. I was really excited to get back out in the garage after being trapped on my desk for a couple of weeks.
At any rate, I was concerned the rear end was going to have to come back apart after just sealing it back up and putting fresh royal purple in. Luckily Bill pulled another rabbit out of his magic hat....
We used several washers and a long lug nut. They key here was using anti seize, and a lot of it.

Since putting the wheel studs in last week I have been driving the car and enjoying it. There were a few loose ends to tie up, painting and putting on a stock hood, and ditching the ricey center caps. The hood still needs quite a bit of work, but it is no longer red. The weather is really nice right now so I am not going to let that prevent me from driving the car.
I also threw in the Corbeaus.

Moving forward, there are a lot of little things that need attention such as the interior. I am going to try my best to keep the car in running condition this summer and avoid any larger projects.

crazycarlo · May 15, 2017

Looks great! The best thing about little things is that you can still drive the car.

smitty2919 · May 16, 2017

OP, what ignition system are you running to be able to run coil packs and not a typical distributor? What PCM and tuning software are you using?

I've been out of the Ford game, but I assume you use SCT? My brother will be looking into ignition/PCM upgrade on a Foxbody after he builds his motor, I'm no help to him for Ford stuff lol

92GreenGT · May 16, 2017

Back in the day when I done it I used AEM's EPM and their stand alone(gen 1 at the time but it was still brand new then) . I mounted my coils on the strut towers as well, my buddy ran a elbow upper intake so he had plenty of room and we mounted his on the valve covers. Either way it leaves people wondering wtf when they see a pushrod with no distributor, especially funny if you hide the coil packs also.

Great build so far, that coupe of your friends is a perfect example of a fox done up pushrod style.

32icon321 · May 20, 2017

Like 92greengt was saying, I am using the series 1 AEM and all AEM tuning software. It is pretty dated technology these days but it is great for me with my budget and trying to learn stand alone. I will be upgrading to a Haltech system as soon as I can afford one and feel comfortable enough with tuning.
The distributor was replaced with an EPM (engine position module) and we used AC delco d585 coils and the AEM software to set them up.

Sent from my iPhone using svtperformance.com

92GreenGT · May 20, 2017

That's the exact setup I used, it worked well considering at the time it was the best thing since sliced bread. Your build is very very similar to mine, same wheels even, makes me wish I still had my build around.

You'll enjoy it though, and it'll stand out in a school of fish

32icon321 · May 20, 2017

The North Racecars kit does not include anti moan brackets. The owner stated 99% of the kits he sells do not have any problems. Both Bill and I have managed to be in the 1% with some severe moaning problems.

The information I could gather explained that 03/04 cobra and mach one brackets would be a direct bolt on for my application. Those run from $200 to $300 on ebay...no thanks. So I opted for a older set off a 94-98 mustang for $22 shipped to my door. Also included was an opportunity to practice some more welding.

We also made a transmission table. We got the top of it off craigslist and made the rest. Bill was making tools and fixtures this week. Long story short his tranny puked and took out his thrust bearing after a rebuild. So we will no longer be outsourcing tranny work, going to try to learn it ourselves.

He is in the process of a Fordstrokers with oliver rods, callies crank, etc. Will try to post pictures or convince him to create his own build thread once he gets the long block back.