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Automobiles

Project Ugly Horse: Part VII

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By Zach Bowman

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Devils, Details and Weight Reduction

There are many things I could call this exercise. A party is not one of them.

I’ve spent three days crammed in the axle well of this 1989 Mustang with nothing to keep me company beyond a trouble light, a DeWalt drill on the very last of its legs and billion razor sharp, red hot slivers of metal with an affinity for my most sensitive of regions. My joints are raw from crawling around on the concrete. I’m half deaf from the shriek of the spot weld cutter and the boom of the cold chisel and hammer.

There are many things I could call this exercise. A party is not one of them. You see, after test-fitting the independent rear suspension from a 2004 Mustang Cobra into the old Fox Body I was left with the really challenging portion of the install: the details.

Technically, I could have simply plumbed some brake lines, said, “screw the emergency brake,” dropped in a driveshaft and rolled, but I want this car to function in all the ways a road machine should, while still being able turn a decent lap on a road course. Combine that desire with a compulsion to scrape every ounce of unnecessary weight from the Mustang, and the result is me doing my best impression of a hammer-wielding Quasimodo, contorted into the void where the rear suspension should be.

Need to catch up on Project Ugly Horse? Take a look at the earlier posts here!

Continue reading Project Ugly Horse: Part VII

Project Ugly Horse: Part VII originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Automobiles

Autoblog Podcast #328

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By Dan Roth

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Episode #328 of the Autoblog Podcast is here, and this week, Dan Roth, Zach Bowman and Steven Ewing talk about the Autoblog Long-Term Garage, Fisker’s troubles, Mini possibly shrinking its future product line, the reveal of the Detroit Electric SP:01, and the reveal of the BMW X4. For those of you who hung with us live on our UStream channel, thanks for taking the time. Our Q&A module went AWOL for the podcast, so we threw in some juicy tidbits about Dan buying a car and teased Zach’s progress on Project Ugly Horse. Thanks for listening!

Autoblog Podcast #328:

Topics:

In the Autoblog Garage:
2013 Kia Optima SXL
2013 Acura ILX Hybrid
2013 Subaru WRX
2014 Mazda6

Hosts: Dan Roth, Zach Bowman, Steven Ewing

Runtime: 01:29:30

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Continue reading Autoblog Podcast #328

Autoblog Podcast #328 originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 09 Apr 2013 19:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Autoblog

Automobiles

Project Ugly Horse: Part VI

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By Zach Bowman

Independent Rear Suspension in Project Ugly Horse

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Solid axle? What solid axle?

I was fully prepared to embark on a seven-day journey down a rabbit hole of broken bolts, internet hearsay and consternation.

This should not have gone this easily. Having a long and checkered history of simple projects punctuated by much wailing and gnashing of knuckles, I was fully prepared to embark on a seven-day journey down a rabbit hole of broken bolts, internet hearsay and consternation when I finally decided to lay hands on the ’89 Mustang with the goal of relieving the car of its stock rear axle. Instead, it took less than a full morning’s worth of work to carve the old 7.8-inch solid axle from its moorings and mock up something, well, different.

You see, after my enablers friends at a local Ford Mustang salvage shop made mention of how easy it would be to plunk an independent rear suspension from a 2004 Mustang Cobra in the ass-end of my decrepit hatch, I became consumed with the notion. Sure, anyone with half a lick of sense and the synapses necessary to fire off a Google search will tell you the stock hardware can be made to handle quite well with a few modest modifications, but the IRS held a number of unique appeals. Chiefly, the conversion actually made financial sense.

Listen, you can’t give me any look I haven’t seen from my wife on a weekly basis for the past four years, and sheltered as I am from the glare of your skeptical eyes, I’ll expound on the dollars and cents argument for gracing my $400 car with more than $900 worth of engineering.

Need to catch up on Project Ugly Horse? Catch up on all the earlier posts here!

Continue reading Project Ugly Horse: Part VI

Project Ugly Horse: Part VI originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 21 Mar 2013 14:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Autoblog

Automobiles

Project Ugly Horse: Part V

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By Zach Bowman

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The Slippery Slope

I’ve had a healthy appreciation for cars that stop since one truly unfortunate incident with a runaway 1971 Lincoln Continental.

It’s funny how quickly a party can turn from, “We’re all having blast” to “What happened to the front of the house, and how many stitches do you think this is going to take?” Standing in a Mustang salvage shop in Kodak, Tennessee, I couldn’t help but feel I had strayed into the latter territory with Ugly Horse. There was a supercharged 5.4-liter V8 plucked from a rear-ended Cobra sitting off to my left. The shelves were lined with second-hand Roush and SVT components galore, but I couldn’t stop staring at a set of rotors with the approximate diameter of my chest.

Plucked from a 2003 Mach I, the package deal included a set of five-lug hubs, 13-inch rotors and dual-piston PBR calipers for the princely sum of $300. If you’re paying attention, that figure is nearly 3/4 of what I paid for my whole Mustang. Still, I’ve had a healthy appreciation for cars that stop since one truly unfortunate incident with a runaway 1971 Lincoln Continental 12 years ago, and the hardware that was staring me in the face should be enough to pull the freckles from my skin should I get serious with the brake pedal in the Fox. I fished three slumbering 100 dollar bills from my wallet, laid them on the counter with a wince and walked out with a set of parts that set this project down an entirely different path.

Need to catch up on Project Ugly Horse? You can check out earlier posts here!

Continue reading Project Ugly Horse: Part V

Project Ugly Horse: Part V originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 11 Feb 2013 14:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Autoblog

Automobiles

Project Ugly Horse: Part IV

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By Zach Bowman

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Bits and Pieces

Project Ugly Horse Cabin

The asphyxiation-blue plastic of my dash looked like it would snap under a crass tone.

The line between cleverness and idiocy is a blurry one. After reading a number of write-ups on the best way to swap pedal boxes in a Fox Body Ford Mustang, I decided to eschew common wisdom and blaze a new trail of my own. Traditionally, putting three pedals where once there were two involves pulling the entirety of the ancient plastic dash from the vehicle in order to gain access to a few carefully hidden nuts and bolts. Undo some linkages, pull said hardware, reverse the process and voilà! You suddenly have a portion of the controls necessary to row your own gears.

It was pulling the dash on Project Ugly Horse that had me sweating. The asphyxiation-blue plastic of my dash looked like it would snap under a crass tone, so rather than go all hog wild with the ratchet, I took a closer look at the construction of both pedal boxes. From what I could spy with my little eyes, the swap could be accomplished with a little ingenuity, some sweat and a few well-placed curses. I busted out the grinder, set the welder to warm and got busy.

Continue reading Project Ugly Horse: Part IV

Project Ugly Horse: Part IV originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 18 Jan 2013 11:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Autoblog