[J_Pro205]

Great work jpro. I have seen much lower quality from shops getting paid to do work.
This car should be a warning to all those new to the hobby looking at a very pretty car to buy. Bring a knowledgeable friend if you want rust free and look at it closely! Or pay someone in the business if you’re super serious. Unfortunately I think this advice goes not just for a 15k car that seems like a great deal but also a 50k car that was said to be done by a pro shop. If they don’t have pics like jpro I would assume they are full of it until verified on site.
Also to put things in perspective. Jpro said he has over 500 hours in so far and no major custom work has started yet. A cheap shop at 50/hr would be over $25k in labour already. Just for rust repair. The build hasn’t even started yet!
Remind your kid that some elbow grease has saved there college tuition.

Thank you! And I definitely agree. I brought a 2 guys with me that have helped build cars before, but not a classic and they were destined for track only, so we didn't look for the things most relevant to the older mustangs. I had a friend back home that had done some killer work on older mustangs that told me some stuff to look for, but I guess I had to live it to learn it!

When researching and preparing to buy something, I specifically looked for an unrestored project. I'd seen enough horror stories/posts about people getting into finished or nearly finished work only to have to redo it as far down as I am now. Figured it would be easier and safer to knowingly start from the bottom.

Thankfully I'm only charging myself materials cost... lol. But I'm sure I'm working slower than others, but I wanted to track the time regardless to give myself and others the perspective on what it would take, or take me anyways. Results may vary.

 

[J_Pro205]

Mad fabrication skills, incredible planning, patience, and foresight. Next level build and I am subscribed. I have to ask........did you at any point consider a replacement shell from Dynacorn for $17500? Your car is literally back from the dead taking hundreds of man hours, thousands of dollars in materials and who knows how many sleepless nights lying awake figuring out ways to accomplish something in your head because that's what Engineers do.

Thank you! And to answer the question, yes, that was considered. But, I counted my time and labor as $0/hour and with that and parts, I'm in it's a good bit less metal wise than the whole body. The panels and sheet metal have all been fairly reasonable for the current market, plus I learned a lot! you're not kidding about thinking all the time about the different paths. I have a note file in my phone for those random moments of "ah ha" with any project. They often come to me at the strangest times too!

What's really amazing to me is how good the car looks in your initial picture and just how incredibly bad it really was!

Really impressed with your persistance and patience to make the patches you have, with the tools and garage space at your disposal.

RIGHT??? I knew of the frame rails and the spot at the roof, but a lot of the other issues weren't as noticeable. I'm sure someone who really knows these cars would have seen more and walked, but that just means this newbie got his chance! And thank you! I've since upgraded to a 3 car garage with more than 1 15a outlet! But, as with any increase in space, I've just managed to fill it with more stuff so I'm still working in a 2 car space haha!

Even with an inspection, I'd say most of your rust wasn't visible without tearing into it. $50 an hour, good luck with that. 75 to 100 bucks here.

Absolutely, behind the door hinges is a great example of that. I would have had no idea until i got as far as I did. A TON of rust was covered by someone previously with body filler and painted. Tells me someone sometime back was probably trying to turn a quick buck with minimal effort once they saw the extent of the damage.

 

[J_Pro205]

Jpro I might be that friend from back home. Haha. Joined this forum just to watch this thread. Way better than Facebook updates that are in the wind a day after it is posted. This is easily referenced for everyone and searchable.
I am personally hoping your work helps those coming in to be cautious of the pit falls that a lot of restored cars can be lipstick on a pig. But more importantly this is motivation and reassurance that one doesn’t need a 20k square foot fab shop to do good work. Anyone can with patience, practice and persistence. It is just as much about the journey as it is the end point when working on something like this.

Hmmmm, you sounded familiar lol. Yea I think this will be a better place for folks who may want to reference, and for those who have experience and can chime in with advice along the way! Facebook updates are mostly for family and close friends who want to see it moving along. I'm in a bunch of the mustang groups, but don't post in them. Thanks man! Yea, I think my car serves as a good warning, but like you said, also as a good story to show it can be done really by anyone. I didn't get to grow up around restorations, metal work, really even wrenching. I picked it all up through college, co-ops, work, and friends. I've really enjoyed the journey so far, and I know there is still a long way to go, but each step is a new challenge and reward in its own right. I'll have to bug you for the body work and paint learning so that can stay in this scope as a DIY!

 

[J_Pro205]

Metal Fabrication/Replacement:
With the passenger side quarter panel tacked in, it was time to tackle the driver side. The process was done pretty much the same way, starting with hanging the driver door and front fender and then finding all the tack welds and then prying it off.

Also, like the passenger side, the quarter panel was hiding a few areas that needed additional attention or patch panels.

In this time, about 5 patches were needed to be made and installed. Unfortunately, I had to basically get the patches made, installed, wheel house hung, and quarter panel on in a day as I needed to get the car moved out of this garage at this time for transport to our new house 1 state away, so I was hustling and didn’t take as many pictures.

 

[J_Pro205]

Metal Fabrication/Replacement:

With patches made and everything ready, I hung and tacked in the driver side quarter panel.

Before moving, I decided to clear house of all the old/bad metal that came out of the car. I had retained it all during the repairs in order to reference back or rob certain things if needed. If definitely was handy at times to have the metal around. At this point, I had pretty much replaced all the major issues, so I felt it was the right time to make a trip to the scrap yard after re-assembling the car…

 

[J_Pro205]

New Parts/Big News!:

At this point, it was time to move. This was ~March 2022. The next time I did any physical work on the car was in August. But I used the time between those 2 periods to do quite a bit more planning and part gathering. One of the biggest things, and often the first question asked, was powertrain choice. As with all of the decisions on the car, a few factors were decided before-hand and direction was set from there. Basically my list went as follows:

• Reliability - will be daily driven when it’s not snowing/raining
• 7000RPM+ capable - will see autoX and track time and Revs have become addicting thanks to other projects/builds I’ve worked on
• Power – I’m not after the 1k HP show queen. My goal was set at 500 HP and 400ft/lbs
• Modern tech – familiarity for me (I know, I’m sorry!)
• Uniqueness – I’m a sucker for punishment as you all have seen, so why do something that’s been done 100 times over?

My brother suggested on the drive home from New Jersey on day one an engine that would fit this bill, but I blew him off about if for about 18 months before coming back around. My plans and Decision Analysis changed a bit as ideas and other parts changed, so I finally honed in a search and found my donor after almost 1.5 years of searching:

Yep… I’m going to do a VooDoo…

I found the car on the west side of MI from a FB seller. He had bought it to swap all the parts into an S550 convertible and make a 350 clone convertible, but he went a different direction. This one took a gnarly hit on the passenger side just behind the A pillar, and minor front and rear plastic damage. Believe it or not, it runs and drives straight. Drove on the trailer and into my garage. It’s a 2018 with about 6,700 miles on it. I plan to try and utilize a lot of large parts off of it, but also small things like trunk release/latch, small trim pieces, coolers, etc… Known big parts being used will be engine, transmission, front seats, rear seats (with minor modifications), wheels, and possibly front brakes. Many other parts will be sold off to offset some costs associated with buying an entire car. I’m excited about trying to integrate other small things into the classic to change functions just slightly. I still want to retain the classic appeal of the car, and just add my subtle flare, so I think I’ll be able to tie it together well.

Now, going with the Coyote-based architecture up front, that means that the front suspension/shock towers are, in this case, going to be changed. When developing my plans years in advance of this project, I had already narrowed my options down to a few and started contacting people at each company to learn about the options and their support. I even spoke with Shaun at SoT about what his opinion was on pairings to his rear suspension as I wanted the car to be dialed in as a whole and I was only going to run the SoT full floater rear set-up. In the end, I decided to go with the full set-up from Cortex. Full disclosure, it’s not cheap, but again, suspension and handling is only below safety on my list of importance when it came to the car, so my budget after saving for years reflected that in the planned allocation. There were also a few perks that did it for me from Cortex. Like Shaun, their support team is amazing. I had conversations with Filip, Rick, Chris, and a few others at their company for almost 2 YEARS before purchasing. They never turned me away or ignored my questions. Hell, they even set up a conference call with me to discuss options and what was best for my purposes. My in-laws live 10 minutes from their shop, so they even gave me a tour of the shop and showed me products before I had an order in. The support alone sold me, but the products are a thing of function and beauty.

 

[J_Pro205]

Metal Fabrication/Replacement:

These new parts gave me another kick in the rear, as more metal work was needed to get all the fun bits to be a part of a car rather than crap laying around the garage. I started by removing the stock lower brace and getting the new K member in and squared up.

The frame rails needed a little bit of prep before install, both sides needed the flanges cut down and welded to allow for the pockets to slide over the frame rail. The passenger side also needed 4 holes drilled for the insert with metal sleeves to be installed to mimic the driver side frame rail.

With the frame rails prepped, I mocked up the K member

The lower weld nuts had to be drilled out on both sides to allow for the K member mounting plates to be installed.

Before drilling, I had set a “laser level” on the ground in the center of the previous weld nut. By doing this, I was able to make sure the next mounting location was pretty darn close to where it should be.

 

[J_Pro205]

Metal Fabrication/Replacement:

With the K member bolted in place, I then added the pockets to the frame rail to mark if they needed trimmed for installation to the K member. The passenger side was actually a hair short, so I made a cap for it to bring that gap in and manageable.

I also figured it’s good to share my measurements taken to make sure things were square. I dropped points from the car to the floor via a plumb bob. From those points, I measured every which way to make sure my front and rear suspension were square to each other, and to the car in general, within reason.

With some measurement error, I’m sure, I’m at worst .35% off when comparing a non cross directional measurement to its counterpart. I believe with the adjustment on the front and rear suspensions, I can compensate for my slight inaccuracies and make sure the car drives straight and has predictable handling characteristics. At least that’s the idea. Another disclosure, I’ve never built a chassis or set suspension points before, so this was just how I saw to do it, I’m sure there are other ways that might be more accurate and correct, but time will tell if this was a good way!

Next step was to install the UCA mounting plates. These were located using the shock towers and more measurements.

Once located, the shock towers came out 😲

 

[J_Pro205]

Metal Fabrication/Replacement:

Next step was to make some supports for under the top of the UCA mounting plate. This is where I got to use a new tool for the first time! A close friend and I went in on a tube bender as we are co-building another track dedicated car, so I decided to get the first use out of the bender on the mustang! I made my template using more poster board and geometry and bent up some 1.5 OD .120 DOM.

 

[J_Pro205]

OK,
Now you really peaked my interest. This may be the first Coyote swap “Cortex” install we’ve had on the forum. Maybe just the first I have read? Good stuff!

Haha glad to keep reeling you in! I know for sure they've done their fair share of them, but I can't say I've seen them on here. They are somewhat active on their socials sharing progress photos here and there.

 

[J_Pro205]

What 120V welder are you using?

I have a Hobart Handler 140. Been working great for me!

Another Jersey rust bucket! Congratulations! You didnt buy it from a guy named Cervini did you?

We pulled a pair of 70 Mach 1s out of there last spring. We were only able to save a few bits. Its mostly a new car at this point... or atleast a pile of new pieces!

Not the guy I bought from, no. But the guy I bought from had recently acquired it, so it could have been. All I know is he considered it a barn find... Haha sounds to be on par! Only existing pieces here will be the roof and VIN tags, which sounds like might be the same boat you're in!

Do you have plans to control the Voodoo vibrations? I'd imagine there's a bunch of threads about swaps into various vehicles that cover how to dampen that down.

Yes and no. Having no actual experience myself, I plan to install it based on the advice I got from another guy who swapped on into his 67? I think it was a 67. He shared it actually wasn't that bad for him using smaller rubber mounts, so I plan to install and do some tuning to make sure I can isolate as needed. I've searched for threads about this topic, and they seem to be few and those that are out there are more of people making speculations rather than data and facts, so I have come to the assumption I'll be taking the testing approach there.

 

[J_Pro205]

This picture is mind-blowing.

You can probably apply for a job at Dynacorn if your current gig doesn't work out.

Haha! if they need a guy that can kinda build a car up over 3 years, I'm the guy!

Welcome to the club!



I'll be interested to see what you do, I found kind of the same thing, lots of folks poo-poo-ing the idea and lots of speculation about vibration and such, but not much real data. Guess we'll both find out if a Voodoo is a mistake one of these days. I always figure worst case, I can just swap to the aluminator cross-plane crank (and cams) if it's really too bad.

Ooooh man! you and I will have to bounce ideas back and forth!

Yea, and I have been writing that off quickly because, opinions are fine, but not always facts. There's a user on here whos been driving his voodoo swap for years. I had a chance to speak with him about it over the phone and he was very open about it and it seemed to be a non issue for him. I think he was just using the AJE front subframe and normal sized rubber mounts, which isn't too abnormal so I think I can find a solution if a problem comes up. Exactly! Worse case any cross plane engine can drop in and run with a firing order change wire side and tune.

I had a 2017 GT350, the Voodoo is awesome, loved that car, regret that I sold it. But I needed the space to finish the 65 so...

Soooo combine the two?

Seems like you rebuilt the entire car! Awesome job! The patches came out great. If you round the corners when patching it helps dissipate the hear and create less warpage. When creating a 90 degree on a rounded piece (like your trunk) tuck shrinking or a stretcher can help by moving the metal and saving time by eliminating relief cuts. The car is awesome.
Great work

If I haven't, I'm sure close! Thank you! I'll have to try some of those tricks. How much would you round them? just a small bit I'd assume? I want to learn with more of the dedicated tools one day, just need to find the right person who has them and has the time to teach. That would be awesome!

 

[J_Pro205]

Optima Ultimate Street car comes to mind with your build. Are you considering a more serious path on the track with the designated track car you are co-building? How does one control the Voodoo? I know MARS has the turn key pallet.

That is a series I'd be interested to try out. A good friend also suggested the mustang would be a good fit for a MotorState Challenge Event he's gone to. I've already co-built a pretty wild track car with the same guy, this next one will be a bit tamer and for wheel to wheel/endurance racing for us. As far as controlling the voodoo, the guy who did his said he spent a lot of time talking with Ford engineers and tracing the wires himself before finding that the control pack for a gen 2 with a re-pinned firing order to match the voodoo worked for him. He just flashed a 350 tune on it and ran (this is all from memory, I'd have ask him again or reference back to my notes from the phone call about a year ago). I think any of the part guys that sell the pallets just do a break out ECU with the stock harness. That is also an option, but in the chance that I can't run the cross plane crank, I don't know how well that harness would play with a different firing order and engine. Good alternative to consider though!

 

[J_Pro205]

Metal Fabrication/Replacement:

Next step was to begin on another aspect that is somewhat controversial, an integrated cage/structure. I mentioned the uses of the car earlier in the thread, and, to me, it was important to protect for anything that can be thrown at it while not pigeon holing the car into a track car that can be street driven. I have read many posts, threads, articles, etc… on cages in street cars and I agree they pose a risk for someone sans helmet. I stumbled upon a single thread quite a long ways back that showed an older Nova (I think it was a Nova) with an integrated cage INSIDE the existing structure. Cue the creative juices and some quick eyeballing told me I could get pretty darn close to replicating. I took a lot of photos and sketched up my plan in Microsoft paint, aka my hobbyist AutoCAD. The main objectives were:

• Strengthen the upper structure
• Tie front and rear together more rigidly
• Protect for rollover/accident
• Still allow for 4 passengers on street safely

To do this, I did not plan a sanctioned cage, rather a cage like structure for the car. This system will be considered 6 point inside with ties to the front tubular suspension at the firewall. I am not planning a dash bar or door bars, but will have a removable rear down bar cross brace and harness bar for track use. All other bars are planned to be tucked into the existing structure or have panels built around them to remove a single point of impact in the unlikely event of an incident (things like the Main hoop top section at the roof and Main hoop vertical runs.

As far as material, I am only planning to run this car in SCCA and other comparable rule events. Due to that, I spec’ed the materials from SCCA’s rulebook, and a 1.5 OD .120 wall DOM tube is allowable for 3000+lb cars. My guess is when I’m done I will fall right at that mark, so I wanted to protect for that possibility. This also allowed for a 4.5 center line bend radius, which was preferred in this application.

I spent quite a bit of time planning and discussing with the people I’ve built other cars with to make sure my thoughts weren’t pipe dreams and began fabricating. I started by running a piece of tape under the roof between the inner structure taught to get a measure of the roofs curvature (at least a 10 point representation, and then translated that inner shape to cardboard as a template (at least half the car).

 

[J_Pro205]

Metal Fabrication/Replacement:

From this point, I sucked it up and started bending. First shot didn’t go perfectly, and had the last bend slip in the die and kink, so 1 stick was kind of wasted. I learned my lesson to clean the tubing better and cut the middle section out to spot check the fit to the roof. I altered the structure a little and bent the real one up. I also made 2 landing plates for the main hoop on top of the rear torque boxes.

I somehow did a terrible job getting a picture of the just main hoop tacked in, but I promise it’ll be shown in the rest of the pictures as progress moves. With the main hoop done and tacked in, I moved onto the most complicated bars, the Forward A pillar bars. I wanted to tuck them in the structure running above the doors and inside the kick panels, the only exposed areas would be right at the hoop and along the A pillars. I had already learned my lesson practicing on DOM, so I bought some 1.25” conduit piping which has a 1.51” OD and was perfect for doing my first bends. My math always got me close, but never perfect on the first shot, so this saved me a lot of money in DOM tubing. I can’t take credit for that trick either, it was another internet find.

I cannot guarantee all of the math above is right, my notes quickly become a nightmare and various iterations with no real flow. If there is open white space, I’ll use it! The A pillar bars do have multi-plane bends. I know this is not the strongest structure that can be made, but again, I was taking some concessions to still stiffen up the body and help protect in some way. I would NOT build a cage like this for a dedicated track car that would see 10/10ths. – Disclaimer over.

I made more landing pads for the A pillar bars on the front inner convertible rockers. I had to trim the edge of the rocker to lay it flat.

 

[J_Pro205]

Metal Fabrication/Replacement:

With the passenger side done, I moved on and repeated the process on the driver side.

Once both A pillar supports were done, I moved onto the front upper halo bar to connect the 2 A pillar bars. This bar will be mostly tucked in the front upper “clam-shell” structure. It will need some modifications to fit back on, but should be easy work.

Next up was one of the tubes I was excited to see if I could make work, and that was the main hoop down bars to the rear frame rails. I wanted these to run entirely in the sail panel and have cross support under the rear window panel between the trunk lid and window. I used some string and math to figure out what angle I would need and where I would need the tube to run.

 

[J_Pro205]

Metal Fabrication/Replacement:

Peak my set of helping hands photo bombing! She’s a mechanical engineer as well, so thankfully she’s really interested in my project and progress and super supportive!

I did as before, and moved to the other side. Rinse and repeat.

With both rear down bars made, I turned my focus to making the cross support bar right at the bends. I actually plan to make this bar the trunk latch support and open up the rear tray. This way I can work on integrating the rear GT350 seats and have a true pass through for daily use.

 

[J_Pro205]

Metal Fabrication/Replacement:

With the inner structure holding itself in with 2 tack welds at the main hoop, I was pretty happy so far! I decided to tackle the 1 spot that worried me the most; making the front upper shock mount. Cortex showed me a really cool option for their upper shock mounts, a jack screw that will adjust ride height independent of spring preload. The only tricky part with this is it comes as just a threaded collar that I have to support in space with tubes. Cortex was again great to work with and they gave me some advice to get me close at first, and then nail it (I hope) on a small revision after having conversations with Rick about some questions I had.

To get close, I made a jig based on their recommendations that references the K member already installed. I then made a bar that mounted on the LCA location to show the angle of the shock when installed. This would help dictate the angle of the adjustment jack so that the motion was 1:1. I started using string to replicate parts, which turned out to be really helpful visually. I also installed the upper control arm as the shock passes through. Rick re-confirmed the suspicion I had that passing through the UCA in the middle was more critical that matching the location of their jig, so that lead to a small revision as I had gotten ahead of myself and just went with the jig location my first go round. Thankfully I didn’t have to remake tubing, just alter it.

With the forward bars in, I moved on to planning the support and triangulation back to the firewall. It was really important to me that I retain or improve on the load support with the shock towers removed. I decided on a solid bar back to the outer section of the firewall where it would be directly across from a plate inside tying the inner structure to the front suspension. I also decided on a rear hoop that dropped on top of the UCA tube support. Once done, I will make a removable cross brace that will mount on the middle of the firewall.

 

[J_Pro205]

Metal Fabrication/Replacement:

Once the main supports were in, I then made some supports between the front upper tubular support and the UCA tubular support to triangulate between the bends.

With the front suspension bars tacked in, I moved back inside to make a bar on either side of the car to connect the A pillar supports to the firewall at the same spot as the front suspension supports. I welded landing plates to the firewall, cut the kick panels for clearance, and made the tubes.

 

[J_Pro205]

Metal Fabrication/Replacement:

With all of the permanent tubes made, I decided to mock in the front suspension and make sure things were correct from my installation. This was where I noticed the shocks were not very centered from my first go, and a quick conversation with Rick helped re-direct some work and I modified the tubes to re-center the shocks correctly.

With the suspension in and mocked up, I threw on some half wheels and the fenders to see something that represents a car!