With this.. front and rear suspension design and fabrication = DONE! Finally.

Also got in some LED’s for cluster backlighting. Will be interesting to see how they illunimate things.

Largest challenges include:
- Making up transparent faces with LED backlighting.. and on a budget
- Reversing the direction of the gas gauge and oil pressure gauge on the cluster so they follow a logic direction of rotation
- Packaging everything together
- Remotely connecting gauges and odometer to circuit board. This has to be done since the gauge spacing is different.

First task is working with gauge faces. After doing some extensive research on the web.. we came up with this solution. Since everything is done in Illustrator, it exists as a vector graphic. In a nutshell this means that you can increase the size of the images as large as you want an they will not distort (unlike normal rasterized images). In theory I could print this out large enough to put on the side of a building if I really wanted to ). This provides for some very sharp images which is necessary for print out things like the text and tick marks.

By making up a set of layered images with a high res laser jet printer, we can get the transparent/opague effect. Top layer is a standard transparency sheet printed on the backside (image reversed). The bottom layer is a standard 20lb piece of white paper. Both of these sheets are bonded together to make one piece. Since I did not have the photo mount spray adhesive at the time of making these pictures up, you will have to use your imagination of what things will look like when they are perfectly aligned.

The final picture shows using an LCD computer monitor at night for backlighting. Little to no light passes through the black sections. Looks very similar to a modern cluster. This was relatively easy for the effect it gives. Ideally, we would silkscreen the parts on appropriate materials like auto manufacturers would.. but this will have to do for now until we lock in the design. For under $10, it sure does the trick.

For adding the check engine, ABS lights etc, we will simply add another transparency sheet and omit these images from the front layer. This way you will not be able to see them unless they are illuminated.

More to come as we progress.

Several goals with this design:
- Maintain overall original 1968 looking gauges – this was a one year only color
- Backlight with LED’s instead of the original front lighting (requires transparent faces)
- Integrate Mustang air core gauges into cluster so they can be hooked up to the Mustang cluster electronincs
- Use newer style Mustang digital odometer
– Add more real gauges instead of idiot lights
- Integrate all of the Mustang dash lights like ABS, check engine, traction control etc..
- House everything in a modified original Torino gauge cluster housing

First a look at the oringal parts and pieces. Here are the references – an original 1968 cluster with the tach option, and the “donor” 2003/2004 Cobra cluster with a boost gauge. After that, some spare clusters we have for mock-up – a Mustang GT gauge cluster and a base 1968 Torino cluster.

After countless hours of work using Adobe Illustrator, the first image is what we came up with in the beginning. After some more time and taking into consideration of how the Mustang gauges are set up and how they work, we came up with the last one which we will run with for the time being. The hardest part here was accomadating the Mustang smaller gauges into the package. The lower design also matches the dimensions of the original cluster exactly.

Since one car has an end in sight.. time to move onto #2. Got the rims and tires mounted over the weekend. Hoping to get that car up on the chassis jig shortly to start chopping.

Same tires as the other car – Michelin Pilot Sport Ps2 275/35/18 front, 315/30/18 rear. Rims are forged and from a Roush “Blackjack” edition, with one set narroed for the front.

Now started to move on to take cars of the smaller things like interior, wiring, cooling system etc. Got in intemittent wipers to work using the original Mustang multifunction switch on the column. It was unfortunately not as simple as just getting an 80′s intermittent switch like some do because of the way the computer controls them.

Put the car on the scales now that it is basically complete. 3500lb and ~55%/45% weight distribution. Definitely not as heavy as most would have expected. This was the original goal, we were just not sure if we could get there when adding heavy thing like IRS etc. Still more parts to go on the car – so we approximated them with weight on the car. Once we get into things like carbon fiber bumpers etc, hopefully this will go down.

We have been running the past month or two without a low temp radiator loop on the intercooler circuit, so we have not really been pushing the car until we get this in place. We ended up using a 2007 Shelby intercooler pump bracket and sticking it in the sheetmatal brake to make it conform to the Torino frame. Then it was a matter of playing connect the dots with hoses. Still working on the radiator itself which will go behind the bumper. Also have the oil cooler going in.

Still need to get some videos up. I’ll hopefully get those in the next day or so (low res ones at least.. 1080p ones are huge!).

We got so many parts and pieces on the car in the past 2-3 weeks, that I can’t list or document everything. I hope to at least get the car in one color for now.. and do the final paint next year sometime. I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story – interior shots and movie clips to follow shortly..

Moving onto cooling system, we have all of the hoses, adapters and fittings. Using the Ford racing oil filter adapter, it makes setting up the coolant hoses and oil cooler system a breeze.

Next step is to get a quick coat of paint on the underbody to keep rust away, and then assemble everything underneath the car. Once we shake down the car, we will send it in for final paint inside and out.