2003 Mustang Cobra convertible getting e-level setup!

[Zack01GC]

I love this.

I've always love Mustangs, but Terminators are the bees knees to me. And properly low? Sheeeeeit.

[Fastphil]

I've finally signed up to YouTube, so I'm uploading the videos that are in this thread there at the moment. I'm hoping I'll be able to embed them instead of having to click on them and be taken to another page to view them. If you're just getting to this post after having read through the whole thread (yeah right, like anybody actually does that!), you'll already have seen the vids on YouTube.

[rowdydaoudy]

100% bad ass! love it

[Fastphil]

Great job dude! nice work!

*edit... you owe me money for my roof, as my boner just broke a hole in it.

lol I just saw this post! The check is in the mail!

I spent the evening at the drag strip and I made about 8 passes. I set a new personal best at 12.77 on my first run.

In other news, I've switched all the videos in this thread to embedded YouTube vids, to make it simpler for viewers to watch them. And this thread hit 10,000 posts yesterday, I think. I'm impressed, thanks for the support and interest!

[Fastphil]

Well, after a long wait, my car has finally been posted up as Car of the Month at www.MontrealRacing.com. There's not much text, but the pics are definitely worth a look. Check it out!

http://montrealracing.com/forums/showthread.php?784654-Octobre-2011-2003-Ford-Mustang

[manbeard]

this car is awesome. it makes me miss my old mustang


as for the front tire wear, i had 275/40/17 tires on the front of my car, and they kept getting worn like that. I replaced all the bushings and basically everything in the front suspension, but it still messed up like that.. turned out it was getting worn because at full lock, it was rubbing against the frame rail and the sway bar.. ugh.

[Fastphil]

as for the front tire wear, i had 275/40/17 tires on the front of my car, and they kept getting worn like that. I replaced all the bushings and basically everything in the front suspension, but it still messed up like that.. turned out it was getting worn because at full lock, it was rubbing against the frame rail and the sway bar.. ugh.

Thanks for the input. I noticed the other day that the new tires still rub. I had aired down to setting 1 and was turning full lock when I heard it. It doesn't do it on setting 2 though. The stock front tires are 275s on a 9" wheel and they don't do this, so it must be a minor difference in offset or the fact that the wheels are a half inch wider. Anyways, I'll have a look but if it is the framerail, there's not much that can be done about it.

[dal]

Nice work, Awesome.

[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!

[D&W]

nice! love that you got a feature!

[Alex@BagRiders]

Congrats!

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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