I didn’t get much time to work on the car this week — I was back in Ohio much longer than I had anticipated. It’s a busy week anyway as this is the week of the “Back to the Fifties” auto show in St. Paul Minnesota. Dad and I go to this show every year and pretty much hit overload on old cars. Typically there are over 10,000 cars made from 1964 back to the beginning of time. The Minnesota Street Rod Association puts on the event and it’s awesome.

There are no Mustangs here.

It’s by design too — MSRA even has text to that respect on their web site. Obviously anti-Mustang sentiment (probably because there are so many Mustang clubs they simply don’t want their event “polluted” by a bunch of loud cars that would distract from the already loud cars in the club

Anyway, Ford and Chevy have booths at the show. Ford Racing, that is… Which is where I got to speak face to face with Ray… Who’s Ray? He does have a last name, but I forgot to write it down — he’s “the guy” — and I know he’s the guy because when I’ve called into the FFRP support line for the Coyote, I had questions. Lot’s of questions. Eventually, I hit a point where the tech on the line was somewhat baffled and said “Call in and ask for Ray.”

It was great to meet him. Our conversation lasted quite some time (Ray is a terrific guy — even loaned me a pen and paper so I could take these notes). I had a ton of questions and Ray knew the answers to every one of them. The information was flowing from the fire hose and I was drinking as fast as I could.

Let’s break down the pointers here, because I’m sure if you’re reading this far you want to know some of this stuff — it’s not really evident from the other forums and research I’ve done.

Pointers and Suggestions:

1. Use the factory air-box “as is”. Do not attempt to modify it to do the usual cold-air insanity, or you will need to re-tune the motor. Note: Ray wasn’t discouraging the modification of the airbox — I was intending to use the airbox for a host of reasons. I may someday do something cold-air oriented — but will re-tune the motor at that time. In the mean time, for the shorter haul, I am shooting for stability. It doesn’t make sense to step off the recommended Ford path during the initial build — stick with the system as designed as much as possible, because any trouble-shooting effort during the build and install is going to be hampered by any non-stock choices you’ve made.
2. I don’t need hoses for my New Edge build — the hoses under the engine already will work — and the quick-connect to the Coyote on the top radiator hose is included in the control-pak kit. This was a relief because I couldn’t find anyone on the net that seemed to have anything much to say about this.
3. The wiring layout for my new PCM will have to be connected through the old PCM since I’m re-using it for gauge duty (see prior rants posts about gauges).
4. For the water-pump sensor pick-up, I need to purchase an in-line hose-mount for the sensors, on the bottom hose. That way I can wire in the factory pickup (for the idiot-light gauge) and the new Auto-Meter pick-up, which will tell me the awful truth about the water temperature.
5. While we’re on the subject — the fan on the engine, like the old PCM, is controlled by the Coyote PCM. Ray told me not to get concerned about the temperature that the new PCM decides is hot enough to kick in the fan — it’s not using a water sensor, it’s using the engine head temperature to decide when this should happen.
6. The tap for oil pressure gauges (the idiot light and the real oil pressure gauge) is under the oil filter in a similar location for where it is on my 4.6.
7. Don’t miss the fact that the engine has 3 (maybe two, not clear due to my notes) vacuum hook-ups on the top of the motor — one of which must be hooked to the fuel regulator. Leave one open — you guessed it — and your Coyote is not going to run right.
8. To tune the fuel pressure, make sure it’s 55 PSI, and checked without vacuum. It will drop when the engine is running and hooked up right, but that’s how you set the pressure.

Ray was a great guy to talk to and very supportive of my project — with people like this, I can fully understand why FFRP parts are so prevalent. I learned so much in such a short time. Nothing happens by accident — the timing here is very interesting to me.

I’m still waiting on my fuel system, darn it. I’ll keep you posted — after the car show ends. In the mean time, I’m going to be overdosing on hot-rods.

-=FeriCyde=-

Nope, I’m not Santa, but it’s (almost) Christmas time — or at least it feels kinda like it.

I’m about 90% through the list of parts that are non-coyote oriented for the build — ordering them that is.   So, the larger categories: Fuel system, suspension, exhaust, gauges, electrical (battery relocation) and anything related to tools that I might need but don’t have yet.

It’s over 4k of stuff — approaching 5k.   This are “non-aluminator” items — any given item I could install without actually doing the swap — you can think of this as car prep in a way.   Seriously, though, I’m not going to install the majority of the items before the swap, the exceptions are simple, though.

First, I’m going to relocate the battery.   A battery-relocation isn’t mandatory for the swap — you can get away with having the battery in the stock location, like these guys did:

http://forums.themustangsource.com/f657/coyote-powered-01-bullitt-497216/

I’ve looked at that swap closely.  This is one of the earliest Coyote swaps out there into a Fox-like chassis.  It’s interesting for a few reasons — they didn’t swap the K-member — electing to make their own oil pan mods instead to fit the existing stock member.   They made their own custom long-tube headers for the swap and — this is where I question their thinking the most — the engine drinks air from right behind the radiator.   Look closely, and you see that the air cleaner is a K&N style unit, poking downward right where you would want it least to grab air — behind the spot where the radiator is dumping the majority of the warm air from cooling the motor.

Why they didn’t go for the stock air breather and do a battery relocation is beyond me, but I wasn’t there (Soon I will be right there, so I’m sure to make my own dumb mistakes as well).

The reason they did this is obvious to me — they ran out of space in the engine bay.   The Coyote is bigger than the previous motor, and there isn’t space where the breathing tube enters the motor for the stock radiator reservoir.   You need the reservoir mounted *somewhere*, so it’s where the stock air-breather goes, and the battery is taking up the space where it normally sits — so they were out of options and made something of a compromise.

I’ve looked at a bunch of these builds — my plan is to relocate the battery and put the breather where it belongs for this motor — in the spot where the battery sits today.  I’m planning on mounting my reservoir to the left where the air breather for the old motor sat, and to put the electronics either in the space under that reservoir (gives me the willies, but it’s a compromise) or to find some other spot for it in the engine bay.

In any case, I’m learning from the folks that went before me — my plan is to document the hell out of everything so anyone wanting to follow along and improve upon my work can do it without guessing and to make a place where they can easily share the results (here).

My list is slowly getting fleshed out — the parts are mostly on order and I’m anticipating quite a few ‘interesting moments’ of my own.

And I’m anxiously awaiting arrival of all the ‘presents’

Back in 2006, I bought a 2004 Mach 1 (a “New Edge” hybrid between a cobra and a GT). The prior owner had apparently (unbeknownst to me at the time) used the car for track or drag strip purposes, pushed it a bit too far, then put everything back to stock as much as possible, and traded the car on a truck. When I got the car, everything seemed fine.

In the summer of 2008, though, strange things started happening — I would be driving the car down the road, and “suddenly” the poor thing was overheating. I ended up replacing the radiator and a couple of years later — the entire motor (due to one of the heads leaking coolant into the #8 cylinder). The odd thing though, was the way that the overheat situation would happen.

I’d be driving down the road and notice a lack of power. I’d check the gauges — and everything would appear fine. A couple of miles down the road — suddenly the temp gauge is pegged. No warning other than my gut telling me something was wrong.

Only later did I find out why. Your gauges in your new edge (and from what I’m told, even the new Mustangs) are really idiot lights with needles. The PCM reads data, decides for you whether or not something is important, and otherwise keeps you happy, showing you needles in places where they’re going to give you that nice “feel good” readout that will keep you happy.

Finding this out didn’t make me happy.

I’m about to put a brand new Ford factory crate motor in my car. The motor — it’s worth more than the car. The last thing I want is to feel good about things that I shouldn’t be feeling good about. The gauge cluster in my 2000 GT is the same as the one in my Mach 1 — it’s there to make me feel good, not necessarily tell me the ugly truth. Something’s gotta give here.

I’ve been all over this and there are no reasonable solutions. You can buy a few different after-market gauge cluster replacements — DON’T — that’s my advice. All of the after-market gauge setups, save expensive ones that completely replace the entire setup, are wired to the factory PCM and don’t add any value as far as I’m concerned.

My choices are:

1. Keep the stock gauge cluster and live in blissful, stupid ignorance of what’s going on under the hood.
2. Replace the entire gauge cluster with a panel and real gauges.   This is the best solution — but it’s also mad expensive and it means I have to disable the PCM checking the gauge cluster (not sure what happens to the mileage readout as well here).   I’ve toyed with this idea the most, since the car is getting another PCM anyway, it makes sense to simply wipe the entire PCM out of the equation entirely and get a different key setup (say a proximity key system).
3. Simply augment the existing gauges with real ones that are reading the right values.

I have been toying with option 2 for months.  The best gauge setup I can find on-line is from Speedhut — they make a really nice setup that you can buy on-line, which allows you to choose the color for the backing and night modes.  It’s the sh-t for that matter.   It’s also almost 800 bucks — when you add in the gauge for fuel pressure from auto-meter, the price comes in over a grand for gauges.  And to make it all work I have to bank on being able to disable my stock Mustang PCM and make everything work — during the addition of a new PCM.

Factor in everything — the most sensible thing to do is to go with option 3.

Yeah, I end up with a bunch of gauges in the cockpit — the stock gauges will be there in all their glory (and it’s possible to make them work with the new motor).  The new gauges I’ll add using a gauge pillar pod holder — the oil pressure and fuel pressure will go there.   The engine temp will join the diff temp and transmission temp gauges in the center console.

This is a compromise — and it will leave my new-edge cockpit with a “chock full of gauges” look that I’m not to happy with — but I will know the oil pressure and real temperature of everything important — for around $350-$400, which is way less than the total replacement solution (especially when you factor in a system to do security duty, like a proximity key setup).

At the end of the day, this really matters.  The build is already approaching $14k in parts alone.   It’s going to be complex enough, getting the Coyote working with the old “new edge” harness — complicating matters with a gauge cluster replacement at this juncture is not something I look forward to.

Later I’ll possibly do this change-over when I redo the seats and interior of the car — maybe — if the multiple gauge setup isn’t something I’m happy with by that time.

In the mean time — I’ll be happy — because I’ll know the ugly truth about my car…