Road Race Mustang Build Up Part 2

All right. It's my turn on this whole block of power. I got to rearrange this frame jig to continue on this project. And if you don't know what this is, that means you didn't watch last week,

we're building this frame from scratch,

not for some trailer queen but for an all out road racer. We wanna play with the big boys in the outlaw class of the N ASA. This 4351 Windsor punched out the 408

is our power of choice and this 65 Mustang is the platform. Well, some of it

before we cut it up, we stripped it and sent it out to be blasted.

Now, I know some of you guys remember heavy duty. He's helped us out on several jobs in the past, including a challenger. He's always done such a great job. We decided to have him blast the stand. Now, he's done this for so long. He's got it down to a science. A lot of you guys may have some preconceived

on what the right way is to strip down a car and why? So I'm gonna leave it to the master to tell you why you don't wanna use sand.

Sand is a inconsistent particle size.

It's got a mixture of everything in that bag.

You risk a chance of warping your metal.

We use two different sizes of crushed glass. We have a, use a 4060 grit mix because it cuts the undercoating and the rust out a lot quicker. The reason that you would want to blast the car instead of dipping it, chemical has a tendency of getting to your rockers and in panels that you cannot dilute

the solution to

it out and the metal just deteriorates and it just falls out of the car. When, when you're blasting the car, you use different types of media because the plastic will only take off paint Bondo and undercoating

it, it will not touch rust, it just kind of polishes over rust. So when you use an abrasive, it, it will take it all the way down to the bare metal and it takes

the, the

fresh craters that are in the metal out

and then you've got fresh metal to work with.

And then when you paint it back with an epoxy primer,

it seals the metal and it's, it's good to go.

Once we finish with the initial blasting, it was on to the next boot for finer material.

This is where all the small layers of leftover body filler and primer paint come off.

Now, I know what I've got to work with from what I can tell she ain't that bad a shape.

You need a good base. If you're gonna build a bad ride and blast from the past to get you started.

Don't even think about getting your car media blasted unless you plan on having it primed right away because at this point you've got nothing but a rust farm

French using an epoxy primer. Why? Because you can apply it right to the bare metal,

no need for etching primer and you can apply your mud right over it.

It's time to start my front suspension which is based on my spindle location, which is also based on my wheel location. These wheels are the exact dimensions of the wheels I've got on order.

The frame is being built to ride height, which we planned on being only 4.5 inches off the ground.

I premeasured the body calculated for the engine being shoved back two inches for better balance that put my spindles 19.5 inches from the new firewall location.

The next specification is track with that's how far you want the tires to sit apart from each other. Factory specification is 55 inches from center to center. We set our at 60 so we could get better handling once you get that check your clearances against the frame.

Now we can finally position the cross member

directly in line with the center of the wheel.

Remember we're building a race car. So these parts aren't normal like this spindle and hub from Port City. This thing is huge. These oversized bearings won't heat up as fast and can handle the additional load when slamming it around the turns,

the lower control arms are oversized as well. Afco sent us their well up kit. So all you have to do is cut the fit. When I mount mine, I'm an amount of five degrees higher on the outside than the inside. This way, when I'm throwing it around those turns, it wants to level out for better handles

with the hub in the correct position.

We can mark the cross member for the correct mounting location.

Cut the arm, leaving room for the tubing B.

This hole will be for a rosette weld.

This will help keep everything together

before we can work on the uppers. I need to recheck the spinner location. Remember it's a ride height. Everything must be at zero,

install the upper ball joint

and using its center square it up to the frame.

The mounting brackets are flushed to the frame,

then we'll beef it up with some guses.

Now, these upper arms have to be custom made. You could buy a longer set, cut them up and make them fit or you could write a big check and get some made for you.

I don't like those options though.

Not only did a fo send us the bracket, but they also sent us the ball joint bunks and the cross shaft

and they need to be in place because I'm making my own,

I'll put in some shims.

So we have room for adjustment later

measure the distance between the mounting points, both sides should be equal.

Then from the middle of the bung

the term of the angle needed to keep it parallel to the ground.

Now I can transfer the parts of this jig I made,

this will keep both sides of the control arms aligned and equal.

I made this ball joint plate from 516 steel that gives you a little bit more surface to weld to

a jig. Also makes sure both completed arms will be exactly the same.

I'm Lou Santiago and I approve of the fabrication of this air control arm.

Not bad for a few hours worth of work. Not to mention you're not waiting for the postman to bring your parts to slow you down

after the break. We're gonna get that body ready to go on the frame.

Hey, welcome back. I've come a long way on this frame with the exception of strut rods and shocks. I can't do anything else till I get this body on there. Once I do that, that's gonna help me determine where this rear end is gonna go. But first, we got a lot of work to do

everything in front of the firewall needs to go and the entire floor pan is of no use to us.

The B pill is a mess. In fact. So is the quarter panel no point in trying to save it.

And since your competitors will only see your tail, we'll make that look good too.

We're gonna do our bodywork before we cut the floor out of this thing. That way it makes our panel alignment easier and more accurate.

Make sure you have plenty of drill bits on hand because you're gonna need them.

We'll start by drilling out all the factory spot welds.

Now don't go all the way through just enough to break the well,

an air chisel will break him free.

Since we're only skinning this,

we'll cut the quarter here along the body line

before we cut out this wasted bee pillow,

we'll brace it up so the roof doesn't move

hammer flat, the remaining you wanna join to

clean it up

and coat it with some well through primer from duplicate color.

This replacement came from Mustang Masters.

Nobody re pops these

so used as your only option.

A multitude of separate spot welds will keep the heat from warping the panels.

We're making holes for more rosette welds on this rear panel that we got from Kentucky Mustang parts

and loosely tacking it in place till the porter panel is on.

And here it is, we got this one from National Parts deponent looks like it's gonna be a really good fit.

Now, if we're building a high end show car, we cut it right along this body line and butt weld it. But we're not, we're building a race car.

This body will feel a huge amount of vibration and stress.

So for extra support, we'll cut the original body a little deeper in

leaving tabs along the way,

fl

him

and then weld up the panel as well.

Being at the quarter panel is most of the way on. I'm gonna weld some bracing. So the body doesn't flex. When I cut up the floor,

we got a long way to go. But don't you wander off too far.

We'll be back in a bit

back in 1970. They built just under 500,000 Chevelles under 4500 of those with a world famous LS 61 of the nastiest muscle cars to roam the streets.

This week's muscle car flashback, the 70 Chevelle Ls six,

the LS six looked almost like a regular Chevelle as long as it was sitting still

and that mighty 454 burned up those bias ply GSE

for just one year.

And that's all it took to make a muscle legend.

Chevy only made 17 4 speed LS six convertibles that year worth at least 300 grand if they're original and the numbers match even a clone can go for 100 grand.

Bruce Linton keeps his LS six in a garage

that's fixed up to look like his hometown in Tennessee back in the fifties

and all the cars on main street are restored old Chevy.

I wanted to do something just to, to be, just to do something a little creative. And, uh, so, uh, I recreated, uh, my hometown, all the names on, on all the buildings are, are what they were back in those times.

He's got the gas station with historically accurate neon, the barbershop, the church, even the jail. And, you know, he's got muscle. Now, Bruce spends a lot of his weekends driving a top fuel dragster.

So he's used to something that pulls a lot harder than any muscle car. But he says the 454 is a lot of fun on the street just with the stock 450 horses and you don't have to rebuild it every time you start it up.

They're a nice car to drive for the reason. They're small enough that they're, they're pretty quick as far as handling and, uh, and they have a good ride to. But, uh,

you know, with a, with a 454

you know, they, they

got a tremendous amount of power. Tremendous amount of power is just about right

at the time. It was the highest horsepower rating ever put in a Chevy

GM said 450 horses, 500 ft pounds of torque.

And it was probably even more

that put you down the strip and mid thirteens right on the lot.

When you hear that dump truck sound, you knew it was a tranny,

the Munsey M 22. Rock crusher was one of the few that could handle that much power with the optional 410 gear in the rear end. The LS Six only got eight miles to the gallon if you took it easy and nobody did that.

The LS Six was the strongest of all GM muscle cars

and right up there with anything Ford or Chrysler could put on the street.

This baby only lived for one year GM, killed it in 71 when emissions rules got tougher

and they had to go with lower compression engines.

Not long after that, the old muscle car days were over, but a few of these drive on with that kind of mileage, they just don't drive too far.

That's a whole lot of horsepower under one hood. Next time you're at a light and a red convertible. Chevelle pulls up alongside you. You might want to think twice about picking a fight.

Welcome back.

Sorry, I couldn't wait for you to rip out this floor. Not much time left to get this body on the frame.

We've already replaced the B filler,

the rear panel

and most of the rear quarter that wasn't worth saving.

Then we braced it up so I could do this

more panic.

I'm eliminating everything

up to the rocker panels.

Oh,

now that the floor is done, it's time for some front end modification

seeing if there's a perfectly good front end. I don't want to butcher it up. So I'm gonna remove it in one piece.

An original one can be hard to come by

and I can always use it on another Mustang project.

It's time to get this frame ready for the shell. Now, some guys will mount their body where it's a little higher on the rail to protect it when it's bottoming out.

But this is a race car. So I'm gonna mount it flush with the underside to keep it as low as possible.

There's a lot of creative ways to move a shell without twisting it up.

But when you've got the manpower,

use it.

Thanks guys.

Now, to position this thing front to back and side to side, we need to measure off of the only consistent thing. We've got our front wheel location

with both fenders temporarily bolted in place. You can already tell the body needs to be slid back. Some,

it's a simple matter of what looks good to the eye,

make sure the distance is the same

on both sides.

I'm sure the body spread a little bit after we cut it up

and hold what you got, hold what you got.

So to position it side to side, that's square. A

little geometry

and some common sense is an o

my rush to get this body mounted was so I can measure for my custom

end, which I've got to order today because I'm gonna need it next week when I start my roll cage. So I'll see you then.