2003 Mustang Cobra convertible getting e-level setup!

[Specv118]

bravo!

[Fastphil]

Back from the dead with an update!

I finally got some time to sort out things that were on my to-do list for the air suspension.

The first order of business for the day was to swap out the 9 or 10 year old stock battery for an Optima Red Top. Thirty minutes later, that was taken care of.

Next up, I needed to sort out the tire-rubbing issue. As I have surely mentioned several times in this thread, the tires rub in the fenders near where they meet the bumper. This had been going on since I swapped on the 11-inch wide CCW Classics in October of 2009. It was never serious enough to worry about, but it was chewing up the tire where the tread rolls over to the sidewall.

On top of the usual rubbing, I encountered a problem one cold morning this spring when the car wouldn't air up because the water in the suspension system had frozen up. When I tried to move the car, the passenger side tire bent up the lip of the fender a bit. No visible damage, but it resulted in the tire rubbing even more than usual, and the lip of the fender cutting into the tire every time I'd air up or down. You can see below the section I'm referring to. The first two pics are "before," the last two are "after":





The driver side rubbed too, but nowhere near as much, so I fixed that side too. No pics necessary. I didn't use any fancy fender roller this time, I just went at it semi-gently with a plastic mallet. I followed up with some black paint to help protect the exposed metal. In retrospect, I should have gone with some shade of red to make it less obvious. Whatever.

Now the fenders don't grab the tire sidewalls any more when airing up or down and there's no more rubbing when going down the road! I can even drive now on preset 1 without rubbing. I haven't tried driving with it fully dumped, but I think that will be possible as well, with only very minor rubbing in the rear. Awesome!

And finally, I took care of finishing up the trunk to a more satisfactory level. Here again I didn't use any fancy tools or products. I just thought it through (for the last 10 months!) and followed the plan in my head. Here are a couple pics of what the trunk looked like before I got to work on it today:




I figured I would be able to reuse the stock trunk panel that is missing in the pictures above. I got to work cutting and test fitting it until I was satisfied. Now the only things visible are the compressors on the sides of the trunk. Here is the end result (the plugs across the top of the panel are missing, but I have them somewhere. That's a 10-second job):


I think for a total of investment of zero dollars (aside from the price of the battery), I did a helluva good job today! I'm especially relieved to finally get these items checked off my list. Finding time to work on the car without my own garage is more complicated than it seems. Now that it's done, I'll be able to enjoy the car even more!

In other news, the car has been featured in two magazines and a couple more websites. It may yet still show up in another magazine and at least one more website this year. Considering I did this for my own pleasure, I'm really tickled pink to see how much attention my car is garnering! I really do appreciate all the feedback, and I even enjoy reading the comments from ignorant people who just like to bash me and the car without even getting informed first.

I've also got a new pair of rear INVOs sitting in the shed, so when I get time I'll be swapping those on. In the meantime, I'm having fun leaving darkies wherever the opportunity arises.

Another thing to take care of is to install a water drain for the air tank. I've got an idea in mind for that. I just have to check it out more closely to see if my idea will work out.

The main reason for this work today, besides to get these things done, is that next weekend there's a big local show and there's gonna be a lot of bagged cars in attendance. I wanted to be able to show off something that was at least presentable.

That's all for today.

Phil

[B8JacksonS4]

AIR+SPEED= win I love it

[Fastphil]

My car had the honor of being featured again this week! This time it's on www.stanceiseverything.com. Check it out here!

Featured Ride - Phil's Cobra

Thanks again for the feature Dave!

[Fastphil]

Lower would be nice but i understand you also need driveability. Nice

Glad you like how it looked. Let me know what you think when you get to how it looks now.

[Fastphil]

i try and keep the pad more flat, and get that cord over your shoulder!! lol


looks like it came out well, she definitely needed it.

Thanks for the tips. Malcolm is pretty good at the detailing thing, I'm sure the situation wasn't nearly as bad as the picture makes it look!

[DeeAOne]

Someone just read the first page. lol

[low.slow.celi]

Lower would be nice but i understand you also need driveability. Nice

are you a dumb?

he bagged it months ago

[cruzd2]

Hey All,

Well, it's official, I just put in my order with Mike over at Accuair for an e-level setup for my 2003 Cobra convertible. I ordered the 5-gallon tank with dual Viair 400C compressors and the touchpad, and the bags are coming from RideTech. In this thread I'll try to keep you posted on the work as it progresses, as well as my thoughts as the project advances. For now, all I can give you is some background.

The car is a 2003 Ford Mustang Cobra convertible, which I bought bone stock in 2007. Since then, I've added a few mods, including the following:

CCW Classic 18x9 and 18x11 fully polished with Michelin Pilot Sports (275/35) up front and Nitto INVOs (295/35) out back
Kenny Brown Performance Extreme Matrix subframe connector system
Maximum Motorsports front Strut Tower Brace
JLT Carbon Fiber CAI
BilletFlow 2.76" blower pulley with 100mm idler
Stock throttle body and inlet plenum ported by Stiegemeier
SCT Xcalibrator2 with custom tune
LFP Dual Pass Heat Exchanger
Innovate LC-1 Wideband Oxygen Sensor
LFP Supertank intercooler reservoir
Bassani full-stainless catted X-pipe
Borla full-stainless catback
MGW short shifter
Cut stock springs from a Cobra coupe
Custom paint-matched CDC Lightbar
Bullitt side scoops

I've probably forgotten a couple of things, but that's the important stuff. The car makes an estimated 480 crank hp. I have had it dynoed but I never trusted the numbers it showed. I plan to get it dynoed again, but it's a good way down on my list of priorities. I've run it on the 1/4 mile, my best time so far is a 12.82 without abusing it, as it's my only car.

So this spring I started seriously thinking about going with an air suspension setup. I had toyed with the idea in the past, but couldn't justify the price. After a couple weeks of research, I had determined that Accuair had the most interesting air management setup, and that RideTech had the only Cobra-specific listing for bags and plates that I could find. When I got in touch with Mike at Accuair, we were able to price a system that would meet my needs that was within my budget of $3000. Barring any unforeseen obstacles, we will have met this target. Mike has been very forthcoming in answering all my questions (and I had lots), and so far I can say that Accuair is a top-notch company.

A big part of making this project financially feasible was that I would tackle the install with the help of my friend Michel. We both have a history of casual wrenching on cars (I did almost all the work on my car myself, and Michel has a big-block C3 Corvette that he tinkers with), lots of tools, and a garage to do the work in, so we figure we should be OK to install the air suspension setup on our own. As Jeremy Clarkson is known to say, "How hard could it be?" There, now I've gone and done it.

There are a couple of challenges in this build. Among others:

We will need to re-roll the fenders to clear the tires once it's on air (it already rubs occasionally)
Limited trunk space due to the space the convertible top takes up
Cobras have IRS, and as far as I can tell, there isn't any info to be found on bagging one of these (although it shouldn't be any more complicated)

So that's about all I can say for the moment. Mike says 7-10 days to build the system I've ordered, so all I can do in the meantime is impatiently wait for it to arrive. I am excited to finally get to do this project, and I am also excited to be able to share it with anyone who is interested in reading about it, so please don't hesitate to post up any comments or questions you might have in this thread.

Later,

Phil

Lower would be nice but i understand you also need driveability. Nice

[blackg5]

i try and keep the pad more flat, and get that cord over your shoulder!! lol


looks like it came out well, she definitely needed it.

[notsostanced]

AHh-MAy-ZING!
im working on my static low mustang its about 1in off the ground i live in MA new england.....im glad to see another on the forums..... wish you were closer it would be awsome to snap pics together.

[Fastphil]

Well, despite a beautiful top-down day today with temperatures in the high sixties, the summer-car season is drawing to a close up here soon. It looks like I will run out of time to finish the work in the trunk. I won't be able to work on the car over the winter because it is stored in a remote location. No big deal. Maybe some good ideas will come to me over the winter months while the car is in storage. I have a list of other things that will need to be done on the car when it hits the road again in the spring. I'm gonna list a few here to use as a reference over the winter to get everything I need lined up.

The car needs an alignment. The steering wheel is about 3-5 degrees off while driving straight. It tracks pretty straight, but I don't care to look at a crooked steering wheel.
We never got around to double-checking the whole install, so we will need to do that.
I've got a few squeaks in the rear suspension/trunk area that need to be investigated. I know one of the upper shock mounts is severely chewed up, so that might be it.
The air system needs a water trap or drain.
The rear tires need to be changed. Expect a video of a big smoky burnout around the same time that gets done.
I need to find a way to trim the fender lips where they meet the bumper because they rub a little too much on the tires for my tastes. Nothing to be worried about, but annoying.
I gotta sort out the loose connection in the wideband O2 sensor. It works even less frequently now than it did before.
More out of curiosity than necessity, I want to measure the ride height at each corner to see if it's actually level from side to side. I suppose any difference can be sorted out by adjusting the length of the pushrods.

Despite all these little niggles, I've really been enjoying the car and the suspension setup. It rides so much smoother than it did before and the instant height adjustability is sometimes useful, and often just fun! The car still turns heads just as much as it did before I bagged it, but that's because ride height is basically the same as before. The loss of trunk space hasn't really been an issue at all.

On another note, owning a convertible is an experience in itself. Every single hour of top-down driving makes up for dozens of crappy days. It's therapeutic, and even more so when the season is limited, as it is up here. Most people will tuck their summer rides away for 6 months of the year, from November to April, inclusively. I roll 8 months in the Mustang, tucking it away December to March, inclusively. Those extra two months are where the best top-down driving is. Dress appropriately, and the funny looks you get make it all worthwhile.

That's it for now.

Later.

[Alex@BagRiders]

Congrats!

[D&W]

nice! love that you got a feature!

[Fastphil]

Click the pic to check it out! Not sure if I'm supposed to post all the pics in here or not, so just click through please. Comments welcome!