Say it isn’t so! I took a lot of heat when I started asking around about a trailer hitch for the coupe. I’ve seen numerous sports cars with small tire trailers at the local AutoX and open-track events. A Porsche here or there and even a Ford GT..so why not a lowly Mustang? I don’t own (or want to own) a large truck or a car trailer – so this seemed like a great way to get my tires and gear to the track without dirtying up the inside of the car.

Harbor Freight sells these little gems for just over $200 – and I found a 20% off coupon that I used to buy mine. Welded up a bracket, cut up some 2x4s and I’m ready to go.

The hitch I used was previously made by Reese and is called a “Shadow Mount” – because when you remove the receiver, you install a slim plastic cover and it makes it somewhat less of an eye-sore. At least, not NEARLY as intrusive as the standard hitches out there. Best of all, I can remove it completely in about 10 minutes.

Why am I doing this? Check out Track Guys – they put on a number of HPDE (High Performance Drivers Education) events at REAL racetracks all over the country. If you want to see what YOU can do, in YOUR car on a REAL race track – these are the guys to call. New drivers will have the benefit of an instructor in your car during track sessions (while you drive). Additional classroom training takes place in between your track sessions. I’m going to make a new post about the Sebring event shortly.

The post Trailer Hitch on a 1993 Mustang Coupe – Track Guys HPDE appeared first on 93Coupe.com.

Here’s a pic of the installed engine.  I painted the engine cover and intake to better match the car – and to make it a little different.

The post 2012 Boss 302 Engine Installed in 1993 Foxbody Coupe appeared first on 93Coupe.com.

Yesterday, I received the Boss 302 heads for my build.  The runners and chambers are CNC ported and look great.  I should be able to start engine assembly next week.

The post Ford Racing 2012 Boss 302 Cylinder Heads appeared first on 93Coupe.com.

Wheels are Forgeline GT3 in 18×8.5 and 18×9.5 with Nitto NT05s in 245 40 18 front and 285 35 18 rear.  There is still no engine in the car, so the ride height isn’t 100%.

The post Maximum Motorsports Grip Box – Forgeline Wheels – Nitto NT05 Tires installed appeared first on 93Coupe.com.

I’m going to end up with 8.5″ 245/40/18 front and 9.5″ 285/35/18 rear.  I know a lot of people (including me) have successfully used larger(wider) front and rear tires but ultimate drivability is the goal here.  An aggressive stance, great performance and zero rubbing should be possible.

The post I Prefer Silver Wheels – Forgeline GT3 appeared first on 93Coupe.com.

The MM instructions are pretty good.  They start out assuming that your car is still together and driving.  Mine was stripped down with no front suspension in sight…so I skipped the first 3-4 pages.

When you’re doing the entire suspension, you can almost start anywhere.  I decided to assemble the K-member / Control Arms first and then square them up to the chassis.

Basically, you’re going to bolt the control arms to the k-member.  When assembling the bushings and sleeves into the control arms, a VERY thick grease is applied.  Get a box of gloves and change them frequently unless you want EVERYTHING you touch to be graced with a sticky, dirt attracting coat of grease. It’s like normal grease and superglue had kids – no kidding!

Here you can see the poly bushings that are inserted into the control arms – they go in both sides, 4 per control arm.  Grease everything up first.  You can see the ID of the poly bushing is grooved to hold and distribute grease.  Grease the sides too, where they will contact the k-member.  The steel sleeves are inserted into the bushing assembly prior to installing the control arm into the k-member.  Watch out because they are different lengths, front and rear.

MM now includes these low-profile front control arm bolts to replace the factory ones where the larger head would previously contact the power steering rack boots.  You must use the factory rear bolt and both factory nuts.  MM includes two nuts that DO fit but they are spindle nuts, so don’t use them here.

My favorite way to install a k-member by myself.  Just jack it up and bolt it in.

To square the k-member into the car, do the following:

- Use a plumb bob at four points around the car and mark those locations on a piece of tape on the floor below.  The k-member has two holes for the front corners and use the outside of the chassis bolts on the rear control arms.

- Measure front to back on each side and move the k-member until this is equal.

- Re-mark the front locations with the plumb bob, as they will have changed. Measure the diagonal corners to set the k-member side-to-side location.

- When you think you are done, measure again.

The caster camber plates are painfully easy to install.  You should be able to tell how they go together from these pictures.  I didn’t have to use the bump stops that are included with the kit because the MM struts that I have include internal bump stops.  The only problem that I had was a little excess filler in the holes at the top of the shock towers.  I couldn’t really see it, but it was there and it stopped the plates from reaching their full range of adjustment.  I had to sand a couple of the holes to make it all fit.

The coil-overs were pretty easy to assemble.  I didn’t get a picture of the bearing at the top of the assembly.  I just didn’t think about grabbing the camera while my fingers had wheel bearing grease on them.  It’s basically a flat thrust bearing inside two flat races (they look like washers).

Following the MM instructions, I installed the correct spacer onto the coil-over assembly and then installed it into the caster camber plate.  It’s likely that you’ll need a spacer on the top as well to avoid running out of threads on the strut.

I cleaned up my old spindles and installed them onto the lower control arm ball joint.  I was happy to see that this ball joint did not require the spacer usually needed when using SN95 spindles on a fox ball joint.

Almost ready to order the 5.0 Crate Motor.

The post Maximum Motorsports Max Grip Box in Coyote Coupe appeared first on 93Coupe.com.

First, remove the OEM seat tracks from the Boss seats.

Note, the OE seat track for the drivers seat also had a manual control lever that is integrated into the track.  You must remove the lever and then use the cap that originally attached to the lever to fill the empty hole.

The Fox seat tracks mount to the seat on a 14″ x 14″ square pattern.  You can see here that the stock track rests on an edge that is on boss seats.  This was just about right.

I riveted the tracks in first to test fitment.

Finally ran bolts with lock washers and this was the result.

Sorry about the poor lighting.  Next is to get some suspension back under the car – then some outside shots!

The post 2012 Boss 302 Seats Installed in Fox Coupe appeared first on 93Coupe.com.

My last step was epoxy primer but it left a little orange peel and required sanding.  Here are some pictures of the progression of sanding the epoxy in preparation for base color.

Then I wet sanded with 600.

Final Paint – The pictures came out yellowish and dark

The post Smoothing Engine Bay – Base and Clear appeared first on 93Coupe.com.

I ended up finding this set of Boss 302 Recaro seats from the 2012 Boss 302.  I imagine these are either a pre-production seat or were blems of some sort and were replaced.

BTW, does anyone want to buy a really nice passenger seat?

The post Boss 302 Recaro Seats appeared first on 93Coupe.com.

Here’s how the car was when I got it back:

A lot of the bare metal was left exposed from the previous project and it had sat long enough for that metal to start rusting.  Also, the USC “All-Metal” filler would crack anywhere that I tried to work on it – so most of it had to come out.

I ended up using the “Perfect Paint Job” instructions from Southern Polyuerethanes.  It basically goes like this:

Do your metal work
Epoxy Primer (SPI)
Filler (Evercoat Rage Gold)
2K Primer (SPI)
Epoxy Sealer (SPI)
Base
Clear (SPI)

I’m doing the final blocking on the 2K Primer now and hope to base and clear this weekend.  Here are some more current pictures:

The post Smoothing the Engine Bay Round 2 appeared first on 93Coupe.com.