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1992 LX The street to track to street again build.

173K views 1K replies 49 participants last post by  Peter92lx 
#1 ·
This is the story of my 1992 LX fox body and my plan to rebuild it. Fair warning it long so grab your favorite beverage and I hope you enjoy.

The Story

1995-1996

I bought my mustang back in 1995 it was used with just over 8k miles on it. It wasn’t very sought after on the dealer lot since it had an automatic installed in it. I didn’t really mind at the time since I had planned on drag racing it. I did some of the normal mods to it at first cat back exhaust, 3.55 gears, JBA headers and subframe connectors. I then lowered the car on suspension technics springs, front and rear sway bars and tokico illumina shocks. I really only added the suspension to it because I liked the looks of the lowered car wasn’t thinking about handling at the time. That changed when I went to a local car show and met a guy with a 1965 GT350 he was autocross racing. He told me all about it sounded like fun so I thought I would check it out. it looked like fun but I realized the automatic was really not going to be good for autocross racing.

1997-1998

After checking out the autocross I decided that is what I wanted to do with the car. The company I worked for got internet access and I found the corral I used to go under a screen name 92lx. I searched all over the net to find the parts I would need to swap the car over to manual. So I bought all the parts I needed to convert the car from automatic to manual. I picked up everything I needed from a salvage yard the only parts I bought that were new was the tranny, clutch quadrant, clutch and flywheel. Then I added JBA racing springs, global west camber plates and hotchkis upper and lower control arms and got the car aligned for autocross. I also added Baer Racing brakes so it would stop. I started autocross racing and loved it. I met a few other guys that raced fox body mustangs and they helped me out getting the car setup. I found out quick that the rear control arms mixed with the bigger rear sway bar can make the rear of the car bind up really bad. The car had really bad wheel hop all over the place. I left the lower arms in but pulled the uppers out and put the factory arms back in and took off the rear sway bar which helped. I added clutches to the diff to tighten it up and the car started to work pretty well but I wanted more.

1999-2000

I started to look around for what I wanted to do next suspension when one of the guys I raced with got a new front suspension that turned it into a SLA front suspension. The kit added a upper control arm to the front of the car and I hadn’t seen anything like it for a mustang. The company that made it also had a complete kmember kit for the front. The kit was made by a guy named Corey Shaw at IPS suspension. Now if you have been on this site long enough you probably recognize the name. The problem at the time was the cost it was way out of my league. But while searching the for sale forums some one was selling a almost complete front an rear IPS setup. I say almost complete since it was missing the front sway bar and the brackets that held it on the car. I didn’t care and bought it. I got the rest of the parts from IPS and installed the front suspension on the car. I didn’t get the rear installed for another 6 months after the front suspension. I had my issues with it but it really worked good on the car.

2001-2003

After I installed the suspension I ran into a problem the car wasn’t legal for most SCCA classes other the CP which the car had no chance in with full interior. This when I made the worst choice I could I turned the car into a track only car. I pulled out my 4 point autopiler roll bar and added a full cage to the car and took it off the street. I thought at the time it would be super cool to own a race car. I bought a full size truck and trailer then started building my race car. it never made it to CP I started to run a local class called SU aka Street Unlimited you could do anything you wanted to the car you just had to run on a DOT approved tire. The class worked great for me so I ran it for the next few years. During the next few years I ended up breaking the rear suspension at the upper mounts and the front spindle adapters. I added a maximum motorsports panhard bar to the car to fix the rear. The front parts were going to take some real fab work with the creator and the company gone I decided to look else where for the front suspension.

2004-2006

I decided to look at all the parts MM had to offer. They were getting ready to release there own kmember and control arm setup so as soon as they released it and started taking orders I bought it. I ended up getting everything they made for the front and rear suspension except the torque arm. I still had the parallel 4 link in the car and decided to stick with it. I raced the car in this configuration until the end of 2006 and the car was great.

2007-now

Then in 2007 I started to realize having a track only car was expensive with the cost of the full size truck and renting a place to store my trailer. I wanted to buy a house get out of CC debit so I decided to sell the truck and trailer and put the car on jack stands. I bought a 2007 Subaru STI so I could still autocross in stock class without doing anything to the car. The mustang remained on jack stands only leaving them when I had to move it to a new place. The years that followed I got out of debit met my wife bought a house and became a dad. I planned on selling the car a few times because I thought my wife was tired of me toting the car around. She told me not to sell it she said if you think I’m mad about you owning that car and it just sitting around your wrong I will be mad if you sell it and try to buy another one later on. I’m lucky to have a wife that likes to autocross race with me its how we met but more on that another time. Now I have the ability to do what I wanted for the past 10 years rebuild the car.

Here's some pictures of how the car sits now. I'm trying to find some old pictures of the car I have some from my second autocross event that I will post once I find them. I also have one from a few months after I bought the car.





 
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#373 ·
I got started on the rear fender flares last night. The first part was getting the flares to taped up to the car so I could figure out where to cut the bottom of the flares. The way the flares extend to the bottom of the wheel well causes them not to fit. So I cut the flare right where it blended with the wheel opening. Once I got them lined up right I marked out where I was going to drill the holes for the rivets. I first marked them out 1 inch apart but realized that might be to close together so when I drilled the holes I spaced them 2 inches apart and added ones where needed.





I'm planning on riveting the flares to the car tonight. I'm planning on running them just riveted to the car at first to make sure there is no rubbing problems. Once I know they don't rub and there's no other issues I'm going to use some 3m panel bond and rivets to hold them to the car. Then I can start to blend them to the car but I figure that won't happen until the end of the year.

I also filled the engine with oil last night to make sure the oil system would prime and function fine. I was worried that my cordless drill wouldn't be able to push the oil through the car and I was right it drained the battery pretty fast. It doesn't help that my cordless drill is kind of old and the batteries are not what they used to be when it was new. I have a corded drill at work so I'm going to bring it home tonight and try again.
 
#377 ·
Thanks man its coming alone but I feel like I'm getting close.

I riveted on the rear flares last night. This isn't permanent once get the car on the road and get some autocross events under my belt and nothing rubs then I'm going to panel bond them to the car and blend them to the car.





Now its time to start on the front of the car. I have a pretty good plan on how I'm going to make it work now its time to make it happen. I had to put the car back on jack stands and set the front suspension to ride height so I can work on the fenders.



Now that I have everything set I can turn the front wheels and see how they fit in the fenders. Now its time to start cutting and getting everything to fit.
 
#378 ·
I got started on the front fenders last night and I can say it didn't go as planned. I was able to get the fenders open wide enough to fit the tires but getting the flare on is another story.

Getting ready to do some cutting.



After getting everything cut and opened up the one issue I'm running into is trying to get the flare to sit right on this part of the flare.



Since these things were designed to go on a factory fender when you push them out as far as I have they don't want to mount to the body right. They get really wavy on the edge of the flare. I either need to bring the body out to meet the flare of modify the flare to meet the body. I have some things to try but we will see if they work.
 
#379 ·
I ended up figuring out what was making the flare not sit as well as it could it. It was part of the body where my stretcher bar was pushing out the fender. I ended up cutting it off and it caused the flare to sit better on the car it wasn't perfect but it was enough to get the flare attached to the fender. After a few nights of work the passenger side flare is on.





Now its on to the driver side flare at least this time I have an idea on what its going to take to make it work.
 
#380 ·
I got the driver side fender flare installed last night. It came out pretty good but I have a couple issues I have to fix on them. Here's the flare mounted to the car.



The problem I'm running into is the clearance between the top of the tire and the flare. This the passenger side of the car.



Here's the driver side of the car.



Here's the measurements of the differences between the two sides.

Driver side



Passenger side



You can see the driver side is opened up a little more the 1/4 inch then the passenger side of the car. I was so focused on making sure the distance from the front of the tire to the flare was good that I didn't pay close enough attention to the top of the flare. The other issue is even with more space on the passenger side if the suspension full compresses with the wheel at lock the tire will hit the flare. If trim down the lip on the flare a bit I might be able to get the clearance I need but it will still be close. The driver side I need to open it up allot which means pushing out the top of the fender.

The only problem is I might have screwed myself since I drilled and mounted everything and moving holes will be tough. Luckily the rivets on the back side of the fender flare are spaced 2 inches apart so I can make sire changes in the back. The front edge of the flare should be fine since I have plenty of clearance.

If anyone is planning on doing these flares just know they are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. Each one fits different they mount to the car different side to side. Before you commit to mounting them make sure to double check everything before you start to drill holes. Right now I might have to drill out allot of the rivets to release flare so I can push out the fender to get more clearance.
 
#381 ·
I got more time working on the car and got the driver side fender the same as the passenger side so the flares should be good. Time to move on to phase 2 of the front fenders.

You can see from this picture I cut the bottom front of the fender off.



I got this to cover up the lower part of the fender.



I had originally planned on putting a GT nose on the car but liked this idea better since the hole thing is one piece. Its going to take some cutting to get it to work.

Unfortunately the part i really wanted to get done this weekend was starting the car didn't happen. Mostly due to timing and not getting a chance to start it during the day.
 
#382 ·
Well I got the car started. It didn't go perfect but the car did start. I ran into a couple problems one was code 56 saying the MAF was having problems. I swapped it out for my old Pro flow tech one I had that I knew worked and the code went away. Not sure whats going on with the new meter. I also couldn't get the quaterhorse dash working in TunerRT Pro for some reason. I think when I first started the car it wasn't running on a tune. Then tried reloading everything then the car wouldn't run at all and the dash still didn't work.

It went pretty well the car ran smooth when it was running responded good no leaks all the gauges worked and I got the fuel pressure and timing set so I'm pretty happy with how it went. Sorry I didn't get a video of it running going to try and get that this week.
 
#386 ·
I'm running a Quarterhorse setup on my car. I'm having Decipha write the tune for the car right now. I wanted to go standalone with the car but there really wasn't a way to make it smog legal not that tuning with QH is but at least all the smog equipment will still function with the QH installed and I can tune it to run clean.

I know people have made the Pro-M system work for smog but I couldn't see spending 2k on a system and not be able to pass smog.
 
#388 ·
Here it is the engine running.



I came home during lunch today to fire up the car on the stock A9L tune with the data logging enabled in the tune. The car runs pretty good in the beginning but has trouble idling once its warmed up. I think the base idle need to be set on the car since it has a new throttle body on the car.

Unfortunately this happened after the car was running for a bit.



Luckily it looks like this is the only place it is leaking right at the fitting in the water pump. I put a rag against it to stop the leak and the dripping stopped so I believe this is the only leak. At first it looked like it was coming from the bottom of the water pump but that doesn't seem to be the case.



I'm going to try and fix the leak tonight so I can try and fire up the car again tomorrow. I took the stock A9L tune and added some settings for the injectors, engine size and MAF flow numbers to see how it will run. I still need to talk with Decipha about why the car will not run at all on the startup tune he provided.
 
#389 ·
I can help with the tune if need be, but decipha is darn good at it as well. For some reason I thought you had ms on this car, but quarterhorse is better for achieving your end goal. You will not want to leave the quarterhorse in, get your tune burned onto a moates chip and run that day to day. It's easier on your computer. I had one start acting up with the quarterhorse in it and that's what moates advised me to do. It worked and solved the ussue for me.
 
#390 ·
Small update on the car I have a new tune to test on the which I'm hoping to give a try today. i still need to work with the DMV to get a pass to drive the car on the street. I started to do the install on the rear seat delete. The main issue I had was the roll bar since mounted in the rear seat area. It just took some cutting to get it to fit. I still need to get it all lined up right but its almost ready to install.



I'm not going to get to work on the car next week since I will be out of town. But the plan right now when I get back is to go to the DMV to get my pass to drive the car on the street so I can start getting it ready for its smog check.
 
#391 ·
Well the car is happier with the new tune. I got the car started and it ran for bit while tried to burp the cooling system. The low coolant light is on and I can't seem to get it to go away. I got a lisle spill free funnel to help burp the system which did get allot of air out and the over flow tank is full so not sure why the low coolant light is on unless its a bad sensor.

The one thing I did notice is the coolant surges in the funnel while the car is running. If I hit the gas the level will go way down then surge back up when I let off the throttle. Here's a short video of the car just idling. There's no air coming out I guess it just seems weird to me but it might be normal.



I have a leak down tester so I thought about doing a leak down test tomorrow to see if everything is fine inside the motor. I was planning on doing it anyway since I thought it would give me piece of mind that the motor is good.
 
#392 ·
Nice thread Peter.

The burbling water past the radiator cap is normal with a Fox Mustang. It has to do with the air which is always trapped in the upper coolant hose.

Once you get the car running, I would consider installing a rubber or polyurethane bushing in at least one location on both sides of the rear suspension for control arm mounting. The parallel 4-link has less bind in it than the stock Quadra-Link, but it still has some bind.
 
#393 ·
Thanks Jack.

I thought all the air was out of the system but I'm finding unless you pressure bleed the system your not going to get all the air out until you drive it.

I've looked into doing that very thing to the rear suspension it moves pretty free but will bind at the top end of its travel. The problem I have is the coil overs are pretty close to the upper control arm mounts. I'm worried the deflection in a rubber or polyurethane bushing might cause the coil over to hit the upper control arm axle mount. My plan is to add your torque arm to the rear suspension and your full length sub frames. I think that will be a better match for the front suspension then the 4 link. I honestly just put it on hold until later this year because right now my main focus is getting the car running and get some of the inevitable teething issues fixed. You can't go through a complete rebuild like this without running into problems.

Let me know when you get the lower k-member brace done for the ford racing oil pan its another part on my list.
 
#394 ·
Peter,

With regards to getting air out of the system. You can not do it on a Fox Mustang due to the routing of the upper radiator hose. It has a 12" long section which is 2" higher than the thermostat and the radiator cap. The air trapped up here can not get out unless you put a vent at the high point in the system. When you speed up the engine quickly, the water drags some of this air down to the radiator cap and makes the water burble. The air then goes back up into the hose. Once it is bled, you will only have air in the upper section of this hose.

I saw that you were planning on installing a TA, then I thought I saw that you changed your mind and were going to leave the 4-link. If there are clearance issues wit the UCA rod ends, the RLCAs could be swapped to ones with polyurethane bushings in them.

You and 6.3 million other people who are waiting for a bent k-member brace:)
 
#395 ·
I saw that you were planning on installing a TA, then I thought I saw that you changed your mind and were going to leave the 4-link. If there are clearance issues wit the UCA rod ends, the RLCAs could be swapped to ones with polyurethane bushings in them.
I've bounce around on the idea between the 4 link and the torque arm but I think the best setup will be the torque arm in the end.
 
#396 ·
Hey Peter. I'm still picking at my own engine and have some questions regarding what you've been up to.

First, the 1 inch setback. I too have the FR pan. I was planning on using Energy suspension engine mounts. I tried to follow what you did but am unsure as to the final combination you went with. I'm wondering if I'll need to space the mounts from the engine block at all (MM K-member too). I went withe the middle "setting" for the rack bushings as I believe you did.

I'm also wondering about exhaust manifold clearance at the firewall with the 1" setback as well. I see in this photo it looks like the manifolds you are using look to use a nut and bolt arrangement at the ball end. I have the FRPP shorty headers that have a threaded flange and use a stud. I'm wondering if the studs may hit the firewall if setback or not. Curious as to how much clearance you had here. Jack, I'd appreciate any input from you as well.




Regarding the FR oil pan, I didn't see you mention it but mine hit the body of the oil pump and wouldn't sit centered on the pan rails - not even close. You can see it hitting inside one of the threaded holes at the bottom of the pan.



I'm using a Melling nodular iron pump. The body dimensions are the same as that of the factory OEM aluminum body. I had to cut and grind the threaded bung inside the pan way down to allow for clearance such that the pan sat right and there was a gap between the pump and the remainder of the bung. You had plenty of clearance here?

 
#397 ·
As I understand it, Peter has MM solid engine mounts with the engine spaced back 1" on the k-member.

The trans was 1/4" too high because the front edge of the oilpan sump was hanging up on the center portion of the 1" brace tube welded onto the back of the k-member. Once the engine was moved back, this problem went away.

You can use either the Energy Suspension or solid engine mounts with the engine moved back 1".

With shorty headers, they don't hit the firewall. Access to the upper nut at the collector is very tight. You will need a long socket on the end of a u-joint. If you use full length headers, then you need to massage the Passenger side of he firewall at the bottom.
 
#398 ·
Jack nailed it setting the engine back was the only way I could get the pan to work. I wasn't sure if it was due to the motor mounts or something else so I tried the original solid motor mounts I had but they were same as the MM mounts. I'll be honest I've thought about going to the Energy Suspension motor mounts to cut down on the NVH from the engine. I forgot what it was like with solid mounts in the car. I'm going to keep them for now and see how i like it after driving the car for awhile.

The headers fit fine but Jack is right accessing the upper nut and bolt is a pain in the butt. I think you will be fine with studs the clearance looks worse in the picture. Since I have to run cats on the car I had to clearance the floor of the car to keep them from hitting. I also shortened my cat back to get the exhaust to fit right.

I looked to see if I had a better picture of the headers but I don't have one right now. I'm working in upstate NY this week so I won't be able to get the pictures until the weekend.

Regarding the FR oil pan, I didn't see you mention it but mine hit the body of the oil pump and wouldn't sit centered on the pan rails - not even close. You can see it hitting inside one of the threaded holes at the bottom of the pan.
I didn't run into that problem it was close but it didn't touch it had enough clearance that I felt safe. The only part of the pan I had a problem with interfering with the pump was the part of the windage tray in the front sump it would hit the pump so I had to trim it.
 
#399 ·
Peter, if you can get a shot when you are home from the side showing how much room there is at the manifold to H-Pipe connection I'd really appreciate it.

I'm absolutely planning on moving back an inch after seeing what you went through. I hope the Lakewood bellhousing I plan on using isn't an issue.

I had to trim the windage tray as well to allow for dipstick clearance. On that note, I ordered both that you had mentioned previously and neither looks to be long enough. I'm considering using the stock dipstick that runs through the block. I had to clearance the windage tray for that as well. I also had to oblong some of the pan rail holes as they didn't line up with those in the block. I verified this with a second block that showed the exact same issue. The pan is a robust piece but FR needs to evaluate the part as it is currently produced - it should fit much better than it does.

And Peter, I don't know where you are working in Upstate, NY but I live there. Shoot me a text if you have some free time as I'd love to get caught up.
 
#400 ·
I'll get some pictures when I get home driver side is easy passenger is a little harder with the intake installed.

We should definitely get caught up I should have some time to talk tomorrow I'll shoot you a text. I'm working in Rochester until Friday.
 
#401 ·
The original FR oilpan was designed on a car with an MM k-member. I know that the original pan cleared the brace tube welded onto the back of the main tube with the engine in its forward position. Over the last two years I've seen a couple of customers who said that this combination just barely wouldn't fit due to interference at this location. I'm positive our k-member didn't change. Due to this and some issues with Gen3 Coyote engines, we're in the process of changing the brace design on all 1979-2004 k-members. Some models are already in production. See the photo below as an example.

https://www.maximummotorsports.com/Assets/store_images/front_susp/MMKM-2-1_2_LG.jpg
 
#403 ·
Haven't had a chance to work on the car much lately. I was out of town for a week and really didn't get to work on it this weekend. Since I really can't run the car at night I won't be able to do a leak down test until the weekend. So I've been working on the interior. I'm just about done with the rear seat delete.



I going to start working on the trunk floor tonight. I need to figure out the placement of the roll bar down tubes in the trunk floor panels. I'm going to make some templates out of cardboard to make sure i get it right.
 
#404 ·
Jack I have some questions about my MMBK10 manual brake kit. I did a quick test in my driveway to make sure the brakes were working before I attempt a street drive and they seem to work but they don't seem to stop really hard. The pedal feels firm and stops without moving if you put enough pressure in it. The master cylinder bore size is 15/16 I wanted that to get a little less effort and more travel. I haven't measured it but my guess is I'm getting about 2inches of travel out of the pedal. i will have to measure it tonight to an exact number. I'm running 6 piston wilwood in the front and 4 piston wilwoods in the rear right now. I was going to pull the calipers on the car and move them around to see if there might be air trapped in the system. Basically everything was replaced except for two hard lines. I did bench bleed the master before I installed it in the car.

Now I will say I wasn’t putting any heat in them I was only moving the car about 10 feet then hitting the brakes so it just might be the fact there is no heat in them so there not working as good as the could.

If you set the pedal height higher in the car do you get better leverage on the master cylinder or does it even matter? When you set the pushrod length should it just touch the master cylinder piston so there is no slop or should it be putting a some pressure on the master cylinder piston? Any advice on setting them up would be appreciated.

Just for reference the pads in the car wilwood BP-20 in the front and BP-10 in the rear.
 
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