In the midst of all of this, it was time to seal things up for the time being, and start to make everything look presentable. This included painting the underbody and engine compartment and powedercoating all kinds of parts and pieces on the car. Everything will be sealed up for good later when the car gets snadblasted. Nothing high budget, just some rattle cans and an Eastwood powdercoating kit.

Pulled apart the engine to put in the new Melling oil pump, Canton windage tray and Moroso pan. Changing the oil pump in the new motors sure is not as simple as it once was. Oil pump in a modular motor is on the crank snout behind the timing gears. After getting everything back together, had to work on all the little things like custom throttle/cruise control cable bracket (based off a 2004 Cobra one) since the dual bore throttle body setup is a one-of on this car.

Fuel system is basically done – just need to get Oetiker clamps on the lines and that will be it. Ended up using new Mustang fuel filter and bracket and retained the quick connect fittings. Makes parts cheaper and more readily available too.

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.

Have not posted in a while.. likely because we have been too busy working on the car. We have the fuel tank almost ready to bolt in, just need to weld on a modern filler neck/cap. The pump reservoir has been welded to the standard Torino gas tank to mimic the setup on a 2004 Mustang Cobra.

Brake system is for the most part complete, as all the necessary lines are bent up and attached to the car. Once the car is back on the ground, only thing to do now is bleed them.

Splined swaybars arrived this week from Speedway – very nice parts. Looks like we are very close to having all the parts we need to complete 1 car – finally.

Have not posted in a while.. but getting lots done behind the scenes.

Have the rear wheel wells, shock mounts and spring mounts completed. Pictures shown is with the car upside down. Not much else to do in this area until final paint goes on. Moving onto the front of the car, the new radiator crossmember is welded in for good, and more or less complete (and also shown upside down. Just need to make up a mount to pick up the hood latch support. Only thing left to do under the car now is bend up the 2 rear brake lines and a fuel line.

Figured since the car will hopefully be up and running soon, it was time to finish up the fuel system. We made a fuel sump up out of stainless using a 2003/2004 Cobra tank as reference. We still need to add the supply tube and air vent, otherwise it is ready to go in the tank.

Once the lines are done, the car will be put back on its suspension, and the powertrain will go in for the last time for a while, as it is time to get thing thing on the road.

Almost there..

Have most of the underbody final welded (pass side shown from underneath car). Was a bunch of rust on the front crossmember under the rad – so we just cut it out. Will replace with 3″x2″ steel section which will fit perfectly – the nice thing is it only needs to be cut to length and can be welded in. No sense in spending lots of time on spot repair since the suspension points that use the underside of this are long gone anyway.

Also found an Earls oil cooler, Bosch intercooler pump and Spicer 1350 series u-joints on Ebay in the last few weeks. Just need to get a Speedway 36″ 1.25″ OD splined sway bar for the front and the major purchases for this car will be close to complete.

Moving right along, got the Magnaflow offroad X-pipe yesterday. Looks great and saves a ton of time trying to piece together straight sections and bends. As soon as the car comes off the rotisserie, the powertrain will go back in and exhaust will go on. Also got some straight 2.5″ SS pipe to make the Magnaflow system work since the Torino is longer than a Mustang.

Moved onto the e-brake system. Went back and forth on whether to go on the floor in the pedal area, or in the console area. Since the car is clearly not going the stock route, function wins. Since we are not running consoles in the cars, and want a nice area for the dead pedal to go, it makes the most sense beside the driver. Besides, it makes e-brake drifting much easier . Cables are aftermarket pieces for a 2004 Mustang with IRS.

We now have June in our sights for a cruise around the block..

Since we plan on having the car up and running in the next month.. time to take care of the smaller things. Worked on getting the parts together for the remote battery setup. We were going to make our own battery mount, but for the time it takes, we decided to just go with a DSE mount for a 34/78 Optima. To connect the dots, we are using 2 gauge Quickcar cable and side mount location on the battery.

Driver’s side floors have been welded and smoothed out. Pass side is close behind and just need to be ground down smooth. Sure is nice to be able to do this with the car sideways on the rotisserie. Nearly done everything under the car now. Also in the process of of putting the rear seat support back in. It is hard to see in the picture, but we added a recessed area in the seat supports right beside the frame connectors where the brake/fuel lines will clip into on each side.

Been working a lot on the car lately.. mostly in the form of welding, so there is not as much to see as of late.  Finished the balance of the welding on the subframe connectors in the rear and moved onto the rear suspension and wheel tubs.  Should have that done in the next couple of weeks.

Finally gave the exhaust some attention.  Decided to just run an “off the shelf” 2003/2004 Cobra system, and will add length where necessary, and modify the outlets so you can’t see them.  Found a used 2004 Cobra cat-back stainless Magnaflow system with only 1600 miles on it for only $200 shipped, and it even came with an extra set of flowmasters.  Not sure why it was so cheap, but I didn’t ask questions there.  Have the forwards x-pipe section on it’s way, so we may have an exhaust system in the car soon enough.

Have been doing lots of underbody welding.. so not a whole lot of exciting progress to see latetly.

Added the final pieces to the rear of the subframe connectors to make them blend into the rear frame rail. Once the IRS comes back out, this can be finished up. Also started to weld the connectors to the floor pans.

Now that the rosisserie is in use, we added the final bracket to the IRS in the middle of the car. These IRS units are notorious for wheel-hop issues, so hopefully stiffening all of this will put that to rest.