1980s Mustang Cobra Transformation Part 1

(Marc)>> You're watching Powernation.

(Marc)>> Well when it comes to '80's cars to me there's nothing better than a Fox body Mustang. I mean I am kinda partial to Fords. I grew up in a Ford family and my mom always drove a Mustang sure, but I just think that the Fox body is the quintessential '80's car. [ Music ] [ engines revving ] [ Music ]

(Marc)>> We're calling this Project Sydewinder as a bit of a nod to its reptilian heritage. When it's all buttoned up she'll be a mean little machine. Fox body Mustangs have gained a lot of popularity over the years with being lightweight and that 5 liter e-f-i engine that came out in 1986. That thing made over 200 horsepower right out of the factory. This is not one of those engines. This is a 255 cubic inch small block based on the Windsor. So it's basically a 302 with smaller bores but this stroked Windsor is gonna make us happy. It was actually built by the guys down in Engine Power. So we brought in Mike Galley here. He's gonna talk about what's in it.

(Mike)>> You know Marc Pat and I wanted to pay tribute to the original 427 but we know they're hard to find parts for and they're really expensive to make a lot of power out of it. So this was a more cost effective platform to go off of. It's a 351 based Windsor. This block is actually a DSS Race Prep 20 block. All c-n-c machined with over 31 operations performed to it. It's filled with an Eagle rotating assembly, forged Mahle piston. Capping that off is a set of Trick Flow High Port 225's with a 70cc combustion chamber, and that gave us an 11.3 to 1 compression ratio. Now we still ran it on pump gas. Our dyno carb was a 950 c-f-m Black Diamond and we were running inch and seven-eighths headers, and it made over 610 horsepower and 550 pound feet of torque.

(Marc)>> So you're telling me that's gonna make that Fox body crazy?

(Mike)>> It's going to be a handle. It's gonna be fun to drive.

(Marc)>> That's what I'm looking forward to, and because it's a Windsor it should bolt right in.

(Mike)>> With the high port and that you're gonna have to get a different set of headers because they sit higher. You don't want to bump the floor pan with the collectors and there's some other little small things but as far as motor mounts and the K-member you're gonna use drop right in.

(Marc)>> Nice thanks a lot. Well we've got our Mustang in the air now because we need to get some stuff disconnected under here in order to get the engine out. Now most of the time when we do this we unbolt everything real nice and stack it in the corner in case we need it later, but with this car pretty much everything's getting replaced anyway. So I broke out the saw. [ saw buzzing ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ]

(Marc)>> Well we've got the engine bay stripped out so we can clean all of this out but before we do that we want to block off some of these holes in the firewall because they go into the inside of the car and we don't want cleaner and water to get in there. So we'll just get inside there, tape them off from the inside, and start scrubbing. We're using duct tape because it's super sticky and we're not worried about any residue that it may leave behind on the inside. We're also going to use our shop vacuum to get the loose debris, like leaves, out of the way first. Then we'll scrape the heavy junk out before we start applying any cleaner. Well we've got our engine bay all cleaned up now and prepped, and now would really be a good time to roll this thing into the booth, mask the car off, and then start spraying but we found a couple of issues. One, right here where the battery box was it looks like maybe some battery acid leaked down and rusted the frame rail here. So we need to clean that rust out a little bit. That shouldn't take too long.

(Tommy)>> Yeah we can add some prep to it and neutralize that stuff. Also while we were at it the radiator support down here on the bottom has been pushed back and we've got to fix that. [ mechanical buzzing ]

(Tommy)>> With some pressure on that lower radiator support we can start massaging the distorted metal. [ hammer banging ]

(Tommy)>> Let's just see how straight that is now. Oh yeah, can't get much closer than that.

(Marc)>> Well since Tommy's got our radiator support all straightened out I'm gonna move on to getting this rust out of here. I'm gonna use this metal blaster right here to get the rust out, and then I'm gonna seal it. [ grinder buzzing ]

(Tommy)>> Well we've made all the repairs under the hood that we're gonna be doing. Now it's time to spray on some shiny. We've got it all cleaned up and we're ready to mask. Now we're not gonna get very elaborate with taping this thing off. We're just pretty much trying to keep anything from settling on the top of it, and we're just about there. [ Music ] [ spray gun hissing ]

(Tommy)>> That top coat is actually a durable single stage high gloss fleet paint that we got from Single Source. Man that looks nice! Too bad it's on a Mustang.

(Marc)>> Well we got our engine bay all cleaned up on our Fox body Mustang here and we're gonna move on to this front suspension. [ Music ] Next we'll get our castor/camber plates installed, starting with the stud plate and spacers. Then the upper plate, which we'll just start by hand. Then the coil over can come in from the bottom and the nut gets installed. [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ] [ ratchet clicking ] [ Music ]

(Marc)>> Well we've got our front suspension on our '81 Cobra all wrapped up with the exception of that sway bar, which we'll install later on. We also upgraded to larger Cobra brakes up there as well as the five lug, but back here on the back we've got a lot of upgrading to do. This thing still has four lug axles and they're only 28 spline from the factory, which is not gonna handle that power we're gonna throw at it. That's the problem. This is the solution. This is Mosier's M-88 Muscle Pack crate rear end. This thing comes with all the Mosier stuff that they've been making for years to make an 8-8 stronger but with a brand new housing and complete and ready to bolt in. [ drill humming ] [ Music ]

(Marc)>> Some are harder to get to with the impact gun. So we'll use a ratcheting wrench. We'll also undo the brake hose from the hard line since it will stay with the old rear. Now it's time to set the rear down on a stand and knock out those bolts we unfastened.

(Tommy)>> Coming up this pony needs a rear end that can plant all the power to the ground.

(Marc)>> Hey folks welcome back. Well we're just about ready to get our new rear end up under our Fox body Mustang but if you noticed earlier when I removed the old one I left everything attached to it. Well that's because we got all new stuff from QA-1 that we got with our suspension kit. Everything you see here on the table came with the stuff that we've already installed in the front as part of QA-1's level three handling kit. We'll install these onto the car using the original hardware, leaving them loose for now. The ideal plan is to tighten them when the weight of the car is on the suspension. [ Music ] Next up are the shocks. We'll bolt them in from the top and tighten them down. Next is to install these poly bushings. [ Music ] Next up is the lower shock mount. [ Music ] I've decided I'm gonna mate the engine and transmission together. I think I've got everything here to do it and I'm gonna start with this release bearing. We need to attach that release bearing to our clutch fork, and once it's snapped in slide the fork onto the pivot shaft. Now before we can start installing those clutch parts we need to get the motor plate installed. This one up front here is the one that came off of our Mustang and the one behind it, the goldish color one, is the one we got from American Powertrain. Now the bolt holes on the bell housing are the same but right here where the starter goes you can see the holes don't actually line up. It must be something different between automatics and manuals. Either way we've got to use this bottom one. This thing just slides up against the block and we'll put a bolt in it just to hold it for now. Next we'll knock in our pilot bearing and then grab our ARP flywheel bolts, which need some assembly lube on the bottom side of the head as well as some Permatex thread locker on the threads. The flywheel is ready to go on. We'll slip it into place and install those ARP bolts, run them down tight, and get them torqued to 85 foot pounds. A blast of CRC brake parts cleaner will get all the grease and grime off the flywheel. You don't want that stuff on your clutch disc, which is the next thing we're gonna install along with the alignment tool. [ Music ] The pressure plate is next, which we'll get attached with the bolts that came with our kit from American Powertrain. Those get torqued to 24 foot pounds. Now it's time for the wedding ceremony. We'll get our engine in place and marry it to the transmission. [ Music ] This engine makes over 600 horsepower. You couple that with the fact that this thing is a uni-body car, well that means you're gonna have a little bit of twisting going on because a uni-body car isn't as structurally stiff as a car with the body bolted to a full frame, and to add insult to injury we decided we were gonna buy a T-top car. Do I regret it, not one bit, but T-top cars and convertible cars are the same in that they're less rigid than a full coupe would be, but we've got a solution for that. We've got our Mustang out here on the four post lift because to install this chassis stiffening stuff we want the weight of the car on the suspension. That way the chassis' nice and straight the way it's gonna be once we get to driving it. Now one of the things I want to do before I start installing sub-frame connectors and the stiffening rails is right here on the pinch welds there's some bends here where somebody jacked the car up the wrong way over the years. So I need to get those driven out at least straight. That way we can get those stiffening rails in there. [ Music ] We're just using a hammer and a lady finger pry bar to whack those pinch welds back into shape. Alright we put some longer bolts through the back of the seat mounts here and we need those longer studs sticking through there because those are gonna go through these slots here on the sub-frame connector. So I'm just gonna slide it into place for now and install it with these nuts long enough for us to mark where we need to grind the paint off. [ Music ] [ grinder buzzing ]

(Marc)>> We'll bring our connector back in, re-install the nuts, and peel off this protective plastic to reveal bare metal. [ Music ] Now if you notice here where we peeled that plastic off they had actually installed that before they powder coated these at the factory. That way once we peeled them off it's just bare metal underneath. So we can weld to that and then also to the part that we ground the paint off here on the car. So the whole idea here is that we're connecting this front sub-frame rail to this rear sub-frame rail with this rail right here. We just need to get them welded in. [ welder crackling ]

(Marc)>> We want to make sure we get plenty of heat penetration into both the connector and the frame rail. These welds are ground zero for keeping the chassis from doing any flexing. Well next up are our stiffening rails. I've got this one already ready to go. Now this is gonna have to go all the way up against the floor and then all the way out against the pinch welds. Now I've already ground where we're gonna weld to the pinch welds. So we don't have to worry about that. Just get it up in here, and clamp it in, and do some welding. Time to burn some wire. [ welder crackling ]

(Marc)>> Next are the web braces. We'll tack this one in just like the rail and some of them require a little persuasion with the pole jack. Then we can burn them in. [ welder crackling ] [ Music ]

(Marc)>> Well we've got all of our chassis stiffening stuff all welded in completely. Now we can get these pole jacks out of the way and hit those welds with a coat of black paint. We'll be good to go. The only thing we didn't install would be that lower chassis brace with the spider braces, but we're gonna need to get the long tube headers in first before we can install those cause there may be a clearance issue. Coming up we get under the hood to snaz it up and start on a cool exhaust system.

(Marc)>> Hey folks welcome back. We're busy working on our '81 Cobra project that we're calling Sydewinder. Now earlier we were underneath working on the chassis but now I lowered it down and I'm working here in the engine bay. Before I start throwing things in here like the radiator, and the belt drive, and the headers there's something I want to take care of first. Cars from this era, whether they're Mustangs or otherwise, they tend to have a lot of holes here in the engine bay, and you could weld them up, body work them and paint them, but that's a lot of work. Besides we've already painted our engine bay. So we've got just the fix. These are aluminum block off panels from Scott Rod Fabrications. They make them in black anodized the way we have them, or even natural aluminum, or steel if you want to weld them in. Now they do need to be trimmed up a little bit on the edges here to get them to fit nice and tight but then they're pretty easy to install. After we've trimmed the panel to fit and marked where the holes need to be we'll drill, and to hold them in place for installation we're using some clecos. If you don't have those you can use regular sheet metal screws for this process. Once we get it held in several places we can start installing the pop rivets, and we'll repeat that until all the holes are riveted. Alright well we've got all of our block off plates installed and all those ugly holes covered up. Now it's time to move on to getting some other stuff installed in our engine bay here, starting with the headers. We picked these two inch primary stainless steel from Trick Flow that we got from Summit Racing. They do have two inch primaries but they also have a three and a half inch collector. Now we don't need that large of a collector. Three inch is gonna be just fine but we'll worry about that later on. These are actually for drag racing, and as they say if you're gonna make big power you need big headers. It takes a little wiggling but... [ metal clanging ]

(Marc)>> ...success! [ loud ding ]

(Marc)>> I finished getting the passenger side header installed and it was quite a bit of work but the driver's side actually went in pretty easily. So it's time to move on to something else. What I want to do next is measure for this driveshaft. Now I went ahead and got the rear end compressed all the way up where ride height's gonna be. Now I've got this yoke that American Powertrain included with the kit cause they're actually gonna use this to make our driveshaft. We just need to get it installed and do some measuring. To take this measurement properly you want to measure from the center of the bore on both the rear and front. 46 inches even, right in the middle of the bore. Now another measurement we need to take is gonna be the length of the yoke. That's gonna be from the end of the yoke where it goes into the transmission to the center of the bore here, from here to here. I don't have to worry about taking that measurement because I'm actually gonna send this yoke back to American Powertrain to use this to make our driveshaft but there's one more thing we need to measure. We need to measure for the size of U-joint needed at the pinion yoke by measuring the width of the joint as well as the width of the cap. Now according to those measurements we need a 13-50 U-joint but I already knew that because that's the yoke I ordered when I ordered the rear end from Mosier, but if you're starting from scratch you need to make sure you measure that U-joint when you order your driveshaft.

(Tommy)>> Up next we're thinking out of the box for a special effect patina look.

(Tommy)>> Hey guys, today we're slithering back onto our Ford Mustang Cobra, Project Sydewinder. Since the car is already prepped it's time to start masking it off in preparation for paint. You may remember from the rendering that we're wanting a weathered and rusty look that will give us the patina finish that we're looking for.

(Marc)>> Once we finish masking and with the car in the booth Tommy will mix up some primer and give the ole girl a bath with a few coats to the body and hood so we will have a good foundation for the paint. [ Music ]

(Tommy)>> So with that said today's kind of a fun day. We're gonna be giving this car a patina finish. Now one nice thing about doing it this way is it saves you all that pain and effort that you've got to do with all that blocking, but it does require you to think outside the box just a bit, and whenever I'm talking about outside the box you've got to throw it plum out the window.

(Marc)>> That's right and to get it done we brought in a professional. This is Ted Swan. He's with Summit Racing. If you can't tell by his gray hair he's got a little more experience than we do.

(Ted)>> I've actually done a few of these jobs. We're gonna do some unorthodox techniques to deliver a patina paint job. We're gonna do distressing and we're gonna do some rust swarfing to give it that time worn look.

(Marc)>> Yeah but first we need to finish sanding this thing so we can get it in the booth.

(Ted)>> And there's a lot to do.

(Tommy)>> Now there's a tool in the booth that you guys don't normally see. It's the Danmar SX-6. It's a portable lift that's gonna raise the car up about a foot or so to make life a whole lot easier on us. Now before we get to spraying we're gonna cover this thing with plastic to keep it looking nice. [ Music ] [ mechanical humming ]

(Marc)>> With the car in position we will mask off the front of the engine and attach the front fascia.

(Tommy)>> We're ready to mix us up some material and you're probably thinking we're gonna be spraying it on. Believe it or not we're gonna be using a paint roller and some brushes because we really needing some texture, and I know you can get some texture out of a gun but we need a lot. Now you'll want to make sure that you have a lot of paint on the roller so that you get a good thick layer on the car.

(Marc)>> Usually when painting you will want a nice uniform surface but in this case that's the opposite of what we want. The sloppier the better so that we get the desired effect that we're after.

(Tommy)>> As you can see we were able to get that rough texture layer that we were looking for. I'm gonna fill up the old paint gun and spray on one more coat of red oxide so that we'll have a heavy base to work with, and when we get started sanding we won't sand through unless we want to. [ spray gun hissing ]

(Tommy)>> Now when we spray the jet black you'll want to use more of the uniform and traditional form of painting. Nice even coats in one smooth pattern making sure to cover all the red oxide. [ spray gun hissing ] [ Music ]

(Tommy)>> We're gonna be sanding with 320 grit paper making sure that the surface and paper are wet. When sanding you will want to put medium to heavy pressure on the car's surface, sanding down until the red oxide starts peeking through. [ Music ]

(Marc)>> When sanding you will want to make sure to sand in multiple directions to help with the distressing. A little elbow grease and man we made this thing look like she's been sitting in the old junkyard for 20 years. [ Music ]

(Tommy)>> Our distressed look came out pretty darn good. If you didn't know any better you'd think this thing was sitting out in the elements for a couple of decades.