Installing 13" Cobra Brakes

I took the car for a drive and went up to 90mph. The acceleration was pretty impressive, especially so for a stock motor and rear end. As I approached traffic ahead that was going about 45mph, I realized my brakes were weak, in fact, scary. So it's time to bring them up to today's technology.

I decided to install MustangSteve's 13" Cobra brake kit. The kit is pretty straighforward. It comes with his bracket, the calipers, and rotors. To install his brakes, I removed the brake hub, and had a shop press out the center and then press in the new rotor. Everything else is bolt on. Make sure you install the calipers with the bleed screw on top, you'll never get all the air out - don't ask how I know ;)

That was the easy part. Now the hard. My manual master cylinder wasn't going to cut it for the new powerful brakes. I decided to upgrade the master cylinder and add a booster. I purchased the booster new from Autozone for about $60. It is a booster for '90 Mustang 5.0. The Master Cylinder/Reservoir was purchased used on ebay for $15. It costs over a hundred new, no kidding. The master cylinder is for a 2000 V6 mustang. This unusal combination is required due to clearance issuees as well mounting height and cylinder bore size.

Mounting the master cylinder requires significant modifications to the brake pedal housing. After removing it, you must cut off its lips and weld on a new plate for the master cylinder attachment. You could buy the plate from MustangSteve or make one yourself, which I did. Then you must modify the firewall somewhat for the Master Cylinder fitment with a template. The Booster needs to be grinded or smoothed out to fit the Master Cylinder as well. Finally, the brake pedal itself needs to modified. The pedal pin must be relocated for the newer master cylinder as its rod mounts a little lower and forward than the stock location. This requires drilling and welding a new one in - once again, comes with the MustangSteve kit.

A proportioning valve/distribution block was also needed. I purchased an all-in-one from summit racing for about $60.

All of the above was straightforward and relatively trouble-free. The hardest time was fabricating brake lines from scratch. I had to build a total of five lines. Two from the master cylinder to the proportioning/distribution block, two from the block to the front brakes, and one from the block to the rear brakes. Getting the length and angle was tough enough, then getting all of them to connect to the block was even harder. To my dismay, I had to redo all the brake lines due to leaks in all of them. It turns out I needed a little more practice on using the inverted flaring tool. Make sure you follow the instructions precisely!

Installing AutoMeter guages

I hate the old mustang gauges. I promised I would replace them as soon as possible. Fortunately, the water temp gauge and oil pressure gauge would not work with the 5.0 sending units, so I had replace them. I figured now is a good time as any. Initially, I wanted white face gauges with a silver bezel. This turned out to be way too expensive (about $600). So instead I purchased Autometer Ultra-Lite gauges. These are silver on silver and a good compromise ($300). I also purchased a six gauge cluster for $70 or so.

The stock oil pressure and water temp sending units were replaced with the AutoMeter ones. Pretty easy to do, took about 30 minutes. The tach uses a wire already from the 5.0 wiring harness. I plugged in the stock fuel sending unit wire - we'll see what the gauge says. The voltmeter was just connected to the nearest 12V connection I found. I haven't connected the speedo yet. Overall the job didn't take that long, maybe 4-5 hours.

Updating headlights to the 20th century

The old mustang headlights were not Halogen and did not need much electricity or voltage for power. So Ford only gave it 8 volts. New Halogen lights require a full 12 Volts and you'll often see an old mustang with dim headlights since it had 4 volts less then needed.

There is an easy way to fix this problem. You have to install two relays, one for low beams and one for high. These relays act as switches allowing a clean 12V to the lights. The wires also have to me beafed up, from 18 guage to 12-14 gauge. So I decided to tackle this project since it seemed like an easy one and I had some spare time.

I ripped out the old headlight wires and installed new ones from two relays inside the wheel well - I have enough wires already in the engine bay from my sloppy 5.0 mess. The relay logic is explained in my 5.0 wiring harness explanation earlier.

It made a big difference. My headlights are as bright as any modern car!

Installing Custom Headers

After running the car for a little bit, I realized to my dismay that MustangSteve's clutch cable was too close to my headers. I was warned about this ahead of time, but took a chance anyway. Mistake. So I just purchased brand new custom made headers by FPA. These headers are made for a 65 Mustang with Randall's Rack and a cable clutch. I had a real tough time removing the driver's side header. But it was easy compared to installing the replacement header. Due to my welding of additional metal to enforce the shock tower, there is practically no room for the headers. I had to grind some of that metal off to make the headers fit. In addition, the Global West upper control arms had very long bolts, which I had to shorten by half an inch or so to allow the header installation. All in all, it took me about 90 minutes to remove the old headers, and about four hours to install the new ones!

The headers came unpainted (the cheapest way to go) and I painted them blue. I also had an exhaust shop install 50 series Flowmasters and a BBK X-Pipe I purchased used.

The car sounds pretty good at idle, and when giving gas. But when letting go of the gas, it has too much bass.

Fixing the bumpsteer

I've driven the car several times on the road, and it is very unstable. When I accelerate, the front rises and stays up, conversely when decelerating. It is my understand this is due to bump steer. Bump steer is an unwanted changing of toe (where the tire is pointed) when the suspension moves up or down. Ideally, you want zero bumpsteer, where the toe remains unchanged.

All old mustangs have some bumpsteer. Some have more than others, especially when changing the spindle, specifically to a 67-69 mustang or Granada spindle for disc brakes. These spindles raise the outer tie rod mounting height by 0.8" causing severe bumpsteer IF accompanied by a lowering of the upper control arm - which I did - bummer.

To fix this problem, I purchased the Baer bumpsteer kit which allows you to lower the outer tie rod height selectivly by shims. Unfortunately, their tie rod sleeve did not match with Randall's Rack, so I exchanged it for a different one from Baer. However, it is not reverse threaded, so changing toe is a real pain!

Anyway, to check bumpsteer, one must remove the coil springs and shocks. Then get a control height of the car at normal ride height. This was done my measuring the Lower Control Arm height above ground. Then, attach a $10 lazer level from Home Depot to the front tire aiming at a flat sheet paper and mark toe throughout the suspension changes.


My rudementary bumpsteer gauge showed mixed results. I reduced bumpsteer significantly during compression, but hardly at all at rebound. Hmm. Anyway, I took the car for a spin, and it made a HUGE difference!! The car actually drives straight now.

Installing Randall's Rack and Pinion

I took a break from the mustang for the last two to three months. This was primarily due to the fact of having to spend $1500 on a rack and pinion - something I was not looking forward to. In addition, the installation did not look fun. So last week, I purchased Randall's Rack and Pinion. This rack was recommended as a reliable and tough rack as good as TCP's - but a grand less.

I ordered the kit without the power steering pump as I have my own 5.0 pump. The kit comes with the rack, a universal joint for the steering column, and a steering coupler/adapter. I suspect the steering coupler and u-joint are not his designs but rather from a GM or Mopar kit. Anyway, the rack does have a couple of welded on brackets that he obviously made.

The installation required the disassembly of the old steering system. This required sawing off the steering column from the steering box. I did that from inside the interior with an air 3" cutting wheel. The rest of the assembly was unbolted off using a tie-rod separator.

Once the steering column was out the of the car, it had to be shortened to 28 3/8" inches. Then the steering shaft inside the column is shortened to a lenth 2.5" longer than the column. Got it. Good. Finally, the shaft is machined with a Double-D or Double-Flat for the last 6 inches to fit the steering coupler. The latter part was done by a machine shop. The shaft is slipped inside the column and then the into the coupler. Finally the shaft and column are welded together.

Randall's kit only comes with a hose to fit old style power steering pumps. That would not work with my new style 5.0 pump. Therefore, I had to go to a hydraulic shop and have them fab me a new hose to fit my pump. Sixty bucks, if you're counting!

Fitting the rack onto the car took me two hours. 40 years of driving moves the frame a little here, a little there, and of course the rack would not fit. After lots of pushing and shoving and cursing, I finally squeezed her in there. The next step required slipping in the column. The kit comes with a firewall bracket that bolts on the interior side (who knew?). Connecting the rack and steering column via the univeral joint took another couple of hours.

The kit requires everyone to buy a specific inner tie rod ($60 for the pair) and installing it via an adaptor to the stock tie rod. The alignment is done by twisting the inner tie rod - pretty easy!

After the installation was complete, I aligned the car using a ten dollar Toe adjuster and on the road I went. I took the car up to fourth gear in my neighborhood. It sputtered a little, so I may have a vacuum leak or perhaps bad timing, who knows. On the drive back, I sprung a leak in one of the power steering fittings, and to the chagrin of my wife, spilled fluid all other driveway. I reinstalled the fitting and checked for leaks, so far so good.

Some pics of the car outside of garage

Even though I drove the car outside, the doors didn't work. This required me to install new door rod clips. These are 50 cent plastic clips that attach the various door rods to the door latch. Installing them required the removal of the door latch (which had to be drilled out) and the painstaking process of pressing in the new clips. I finally did it and now have functioning doors. Woo hoo! Here are some pics of the car, finally polished and waxed - but not street worthy yet

Installing New Front Suspension

The old mustand is a weak, saggy, 1960's technology - p.o.s. with the turning prowess of a Winnebago. It is my goal to bring it up to today's standards. I took off the upper and lower control arms, the coil springs, shock towers, and strut rod. Steering replacement will have to wait for more $$$.

The removal was straightforward but I would highly recommend to do this with the engine out for ease of installing the new upper control arms. I used global west upper and lower arms, strut ruds, and coil springs. I used koni shocks and open-tracker roller coil spring perches. I also welded-in earlier the Pro-Motorsport Shock Tower Reinforcement kit (blogged at an earler post). I purchased the vario-eccentric lower control arm kit as well.

I drilled new holes for the upper control arms (with one of those $30 step down bits - worth the money, trust me). The strut rod required a monster 1.5" socket with a 3/4" adaptor to install!! Can't use a wrench because of clearnence isssues.

The lower control arm installation required an hour or two of machining the housing to fit the new arm. Further welding and machining with a die-grinder was required to fit the new Vario-Eccentric kit which allows you to set camber by adjusting the lower control arm pivot point. This was a pain in the ass, and once again, Pro-Motorsports expects too much of their shade-tree mechanics.

Nevertheless, I installed all the components, sans sway bar (not needed for test drive). The car is totally out of alignment, but I can still drive out of the house for once! Well, not really. As soon as I pulled out of the garage, my brakes failed. Doh! With the help of some neighbors, we pushed the car back in. A week later, I replaced the master cyliner, bled the brakes, and tada, drove the car out of the garage.

The alignment was really bad and I left tire marks (from the front tires) for the two blocks I had to drive the car to my fiance's house. I was renting out my house and moving into my fiance's house, so I had to move the car; not a minute too late - as my renters were moving in right when I drove her out!

Starting the Mustang!

After a long, rough, dirty, and sometimes disappointing six months, I finally started her up! Of course, it didn't go without problems. First, I had two fuel leaks. The first dealt with my connections. Just had to tighten them up a bit. The second leak dealt with purchasing a used engine. The actual fuel rail leaked. So, with much frustration, and some curse words, I took off the upper intake manifold and repaired the damaged fuel rail with some high pressure fuel hose. That took several hours and of course delayed the engine start by another week.

Finally, I cranked the engine up and it roared into life. However, once again, I ran into a problem, the starter stayed on! I later realized (with Glen's help) to use an early Mustang starter solenoid which solved that problem (after blowing up two modern solenoids)

It feels really great to finally get her started. I have a major exhaust leak and I still have to install the front suspension before taking her out for a spin.

Electrical System

The electrical system is ostensibly why I did this whole modification in the first place. A computer gets inputs of water temp, outside air pressure, etc. to give a precise fuel allotment. I've heard that installing the electrical system can be a really big headache. Many stores out there sell wiring harnesses for $500-$800 and even they still require to cut, modify, and solder wires. Instead I purchased a used 1991 Mustang 5.0 wiring harness for $125.

First thing: Print out this booklet: http://www.vintagebronco.com/newberry/pages/tech/efi/efi.html

Make sure you have all the wires. This is a '93 harness, so the colors may be a little different for previous years. It also has a fuel pump relay, which other harnesses do not. More on that later. Also, use their instructions for welding on the O2 bongs and also drilling the large oval hole in the firewall for the harness installation. Don't forget to get a baramotric air pressure sensor and a coil and bracket. $5 each at a junkyard.

The installation is pretty straight forward. There are about 8 wires going through the firewall on the driver's side. Find out which are "Crank only" "On and Crank" and "On" and use those as power sources. You may also choose to use the various posts on the starter solenoid for those sources. Speaking of starter solenoids: Make sure to use a '65 mustang soleniod!!! (Thanks, Glen)

From the wiring harness, you'll plug these without any modifications: Mass Air Flow, HEGO connector, TFI, Spout, Baro Press Sensor, and Coil. There are two grounds on the harness. The engine side (#26) ground must have a direct connection to the negative battery side. The interior cabin side ground (#38) does not. Make sure that fused wire (#34) goes to battery side of starter solenoid.

You'll have to split up the grey, green, and brown plugs and use their various wires from the ford booklet and my relay description below.

Follow the diagram below to setup the relays. The reason for all the relays is to provide a clean 12V voltage to the various components, so it is required, period. The EEC relay is already part of the harness, and you may be lucky enough to have a harness with a fuel pump relay. If not, then go to autozone and purchase two of them and their corresponding pigtails. Another choice is to grab 2 relays and pigtails from the junkyard. They are underneath the driver's seat in a '89-'92 stang.
I mounted all the relays next to the EEC relay. Use a 20Amp inline fuse for the O2 and FP relays. Make sure to solder and then properly seal all connection per www.fordfuelinjection.com

After that, you must connect the alternator to the harness. I'll qoute from Glen's 5.0 Mustang page: " The first thing to do is remove the old voltage regulator. I don't recall all that is involved, but I know that you need to have one main feed from the fusebox to the constant hot side on the starter relay, & a key on hot wire will run from the ignition switch to the alternator. These wires already run up to the voltage regulator. Use a test light to determine the proper one. At the alternator, you will have a feed to the hot side of the starter relay. This will power the electrical system & charge the battery. Then you will need the key on hot wire. Connect the alternator as follows:

There are two plugs on the alternator, one large & one small. Connect the 2 blk/red wires on the large plug to the yellow wire on the small plug & to the feed to the hot side of the relay. The white/blk wire on the large plug connects to the other white/blk wire on the small one. The red/grn wire on the small plug to the key on hot wire."

That's it! Not too bad, was it? It took me hours and hours to figure all that out. I hope this advice cuts that time down for everyone else.

Cooling System

The cooling system was probably the easiest system to change. All I had to do was drop the radiator at a radiator shop and have them change the lower outlet from the right side to the left. I've seen other guys buy brand new aluminum radiators, but that's $300-500 versus my $50. The upper and lower hoses had to be changed as well. I just went to autozone and spent about 45 minutes playing around with their flex-hoses until I found the right ones. (Note: if putting in a new aluminum radiator, just use a '90 Bronco upper hose, fits perfect)

The stock 65 heater hoses were squeezed onto the 5.0's aluminum pipes within a few minutes.

High Pressure Fuel System

A fuel injected engine requires a high-pressure fuel system. No such thing in 1965. To further complicate things, the old mustang gas tank has no baffles, stalling out the engine at sharp turns, depriving the high pressure system of fuel!

The solution requires the installation of a Low Pressure (LP) pump, an LP filter, a High Pressure (HP) pump, an HP filter, and a header or slosh tank. The green slosh tank allows the HP pump a constant amount of gas despite the vehicle's acceleration.

The system works pretty simply: Fuel is sucked out of the tank (1) to the LP filter and the LP pump and then into the slosh tank. Then the HP pump (2)sucks fuel out of there (3) into the HP filter (4) and to the engine. The engine then returns unused fuel (via the fuel pressure regulator) back to the slosh tank (5) and into the gas tank (6).

I mounted all the pumps and filters in the space above the wheel axle. High pressure fuel hoses with special high pressure clamps must be used on the HP side. I used the old LP lines for the return side. I heard suggestions of drilling a hole in the sending unit for the return. Whatever. Just change out the gas tank drain plug for a brass fitting and connect it to the return line. It's a 1/2" fitting.

I used 3/8" steel brake line hoses up the car connecteing them via HP hoses and three (3) clamps it to the fuel rails, making sure of a tight seal...we'll see soon enough.

Throttle Cable

The old mustang has a mechanically linked throttle pedal to the carburator. By adding a throttle body, I needed to change to a throttle cable. I heard there were two methods to do this. The first entailed using a 1970 mustang pedal and somehow attaching it to a cable. The other way was to use an 88-93 pedal and cable. I used the latter method. Unknown to me, the latter is not the easier method, of course.

I first had to drill three holes, two for the mounting bolts and one for the cable bracket on the firewall. Wasn't easy. Anyway, I soon realized that I needed to space out the throttle pedal at least an inch toward the driver (since the floor is at a different angle than a late model mustang). That required rigging, or fabricating (as is the latest nomenclature) a spacer for the two mounting bolts.

After that was finished, I tried to mount the cable unto the throttle body. Didn't happen. Turns out that by eliminating the EGR spacer earlier, I now have caused a spacing problem between the throttle cable mounting bracket and the heater hoses. To fix that, I simply cut a large chunck off the mounting bracket, and tada! fit like a glove.

Installing MustangSteve's Clutch Cable

In an effort to fully modernize the mustang, I decided to install MustangSteve's homemade clutch cable modification. The kit includes ball bearings for the pedal shaft, the clutch cable, two home-made adapters, and several washers. My kit was missing one washer, requiring me to go to ACE hardware once, and apparently, no kits come with two necassary 5/16" one inch bolts and washers, requiring a to return to ACE.

Anyway, the project requires to take apart the brake pedal assembly which took about an hour or two. Then, an adaptor is welded onto the top of the clutch pedal assembly. MustangSteve instructs in the supplied instruction sheet, and I qoute: "The cable retainer bolt goes to the rear." And so, as expected I welded the adaptor with the bolt to the rear. Since English is my second language, I presumably misunderstood the aforementioned instructions due to my poor English level. Not! It turns out the bolt must be in the front! So I had to grind off the rare, and beautiful weld that I paintstakingly made and reweld a shabby one instead. That took another hour or so. I think he meant the bolt goes to the rear of the car, i.e. the front of the pedal...whatever.

After that, I had to drill a hole for the cable to pass though the firewall. Unfortunately, the cable rides high, requiring some cutting/banging/bending some metal to make it fit. See picture:

The roller bearings were pretty straighforward to install. Remove the old ones, weld new housing and spacers, and slip on bearings. The only easy part of the installation.


Finally, as predicted by MustangSteve's website, I have the wrong headers, which means the clutch cable rubs along the headers which undoubtedly will cause it to melt in due time. I'm going to wrap the headers with some heat shields and cross my fingers. Wish me luck!

Installed 5.0 engine and T-5 tranny

Since I am unable to pull the car back, I had to install the engine from the side of the car, over the right fender. Strangely enough, it worked! With the help of my neighbor, we installed the engine in the car in just under ten minutes. This was sans transmission, most of the accessories, and the headers.

Putting the transmission proved to be signficantly harder. I decided to put in the transmission fluid in before installation - warning: don't ever do that! All the fluid spilled on us as we tried to hoist into the car, so fill the tranny after it is fully installed. After heaving the hundred pound tranny on my chest for several interminable minutes, we finally coaxed it in after half a dozen tries. The tranny shaft slips right through the clutch-fork and throwout bearing, through the pressure plate and clutch, finally resting on the pressed in clutch bearing.

Fortunately, my driveshaft has a 28 spline shaft so it slipped right into the T-5 tranny. It it my understanding that you must have .75-1.5" of space between the slip yoke base to tranny. Any different and you need a longer/short driveshaft. I'm afraid to measure it!

Two final notes. A new crossmember has to be installed for the T-5, but the rubber mount is still for the old mustang, go figure. Also, when installing the tranny, install it with the shifter off for ease of installation. The new shifter itself sits a little forward of the stock shifter, so be sure to extend the shifter hole by 3 inches before trying to reinstall the shifter!

Installing Clutch

After many delays I finally installed the clutch. This process entailed pressing in a clutch bearing. (Press-in using a large socket and hammer). Then mount the engine/bellhousing aluminum spacer with some gasketmaker. The flywheel (not the flexplate) is then torqued in at 75-85 ft/lbs. Then, with the help of alignment tool mount the clutch, and pressure plate on top of it with eight attaching bolts. Finally the bellhousing is attached to the engine. The clutch fork and throwout bearing can be installed after the bellhousing installation. I also mounted the starter at this point. Unfortuntely, I was missing most of the bolts, so ACE hardware is now one of my most frequently visited stores - after AutoZone, of course.

Since I eliminated the smog pump, I also had to plug the head exhaust ports that are part of the smog system. These are at the rear of each head. Just plug them with a one-inch 5/8" bolt. Tada!
Now I have to put the engine in the car. But, of course, another delay! I don't have enough room in front of the car to roll the engine hoist. Unfortunately, the front suspension is all taken apart, so I am unable to roll the car back. Stay tuned for the solution to this dilemma.