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Shark92651's MK4 Coyote Build #9327

50K views 236 replies 14 participants last post by  IsaacW 
#1 · (Edited)
Shark92651's MK4 Coyote Build #9327 - fully titled and registered

While my Kit is still about 3 weeks from delivery, I have actually started working on it already so I decided to go ahead and start a build thread so that I can consolidate all my updates and questions into a single thread. If you count the obsessive research I have been doing online, I guess you could say I have been "working" on it since December 2017. I attended the Mott Build School the weekend of 3/9 - 3/11, which I found to be excellent. I met a lot of cool people including a few more builders here in Texas.

I've always loved the Shelby Cobra as long as I can remember, and have thought about building a replica off and on over the years. I finally got my mind set that I was going to build a Factory Five roadster and with a tepid buy-in from the wife (she is coming around, or at least accepted it is inevitable now) it is on now. Besides, I was born in 1965 so it's like it was meant to be ;)

Here is my planned build:

MK4 Complete Kit with IRS
Coyote 5.0L
Tremec TKO 600
Quicktime Bellhousing
Ford Performance Clutch
Tilton Hydraulic Release Bearing
KRC Power Steering
Koni single-adjustable shocks
13" Wilwood brakes
18" Halibrand Wheels
Stainless side pipes

Other Upgrades
Dual Breeze Stainless Roll Bars
Russ Thompson Trunk Box (yes I'm going to cut the diagonals)
Russ Thompson turn signals
Competition Gauge Layout
Leather Covered Dash w/ Glove Box
USB Charger, 12V adapter, Footwell Lights (hidden under dash)
Leather Removable Trans Tunnel Cover
Leather Bucket Seats
Leather Door Panels
LED Headlights, turn signals, tail/brake lights, dash indicators

Color is undecided at this point, probably one of the first items I ever thought about and will probably be the last decision I make.

I'm really looking forward to this process and want to thank everyone that has helped me already and those that will in the future. This forum and it's participants are an invaluable resource! My experience with working on cars in not very extensive. I have installed LED lighting in the front and rear of my truck, replaced a radiator on my Z3 I used to own several years ago, and some basic maintenance, but that is about it. I've done quite a few jobs around the house (electrical, plumbing, etc.) and ran network wiring and camera systems in two offices so I know my way around tools, oh and I am REAL good at Googling and YouTubing.


Here is my one-car garage where I will be building. It's a little tight, but I have 1/2 of the 2 car garage just across from this one to store my body and boxes of parts. Up to this point I've just been getting this work area ready.


I had a large monitor and a Chrome Box at the office that were not being used so I mounted them on the wall over one of my workbenches and connected to my home WiFi - this should be very useful.
 
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#40 ·
This weeks update

I'm waiting on control arms for the front and rear, toe arms for the rear, and all four shocks - that going to put a damper on the suspension assembly for awhile, but there is plenty to work on.



I got the body on the buck and the boxes in the garage. I've started inventory, that is going to take awhile.



I got all the chassis installed panels marked and removed



I mocked up the dual stainless breeze roll bars. I've got a welder lined up to come over and tack them and make a couple other welds for me and he wanted some pics.



I don't want to see any of the brackets for the tank straps in the trunk, so I decided to cut them both off. I'll fabricate a new bracket out of 16 ga steel to weld in at the same height as the DS bracket, and modify the PS strap to fit.



I got the diff painted with POR-15.



I'm also a member of the "yes I have friends, no they weren't available to help" school of roadster assembly. Between my floor jack with homemade trans platform, engine crane, and tie-down straps I was able to get it into place all by myself and all four of the bolts went in with little effort. Woot!

 
#41 ·
Started installing IRS components

I didn't get as much time to work on my kit this weekend as I would have liked, but my back-ordered control arms did come in late Saturday and I received my dropped trunk kit from Russ Thompson.



I cut the ends off of the rear spindles using my angle grinder and a cutting wheel, cleaned up with a flap disc.



I had a heck of a time swapping out the wheel studs. The FFR recomended method to remove the old studs (grab head of stud in vice, bang out with hammer) worked pretty well but their method to draw in the new studs with a lug nut and washer did not. I got one in with great effort, but about 1/2 way through the 2nd stud the lug nut was getting destroyed, the washers were bending up, etc... So I went to Home Depot and bought a large bolt to use as a punch, ground down the threads on one side, and used a socket in the vice and beat the studs in with a 4lb hammer. It took about a dozen blows to fully seat each stud, but I got them all in.



Here are the completed spindles and hubs. You can see the socket and hammer blows marred the hubs a bit, but I guess it shouldn't cause me to lose too much sleep since they will be hidden.



I also ordered up some stainless bolts and couplers from McMaster Carr for the rear Quick Jacks mod.



Next I started to install all the IRS control and toe arms. A tip I picked up at the Mott's school was to cut some thin, radial grooves in the end of the bushing with a hack saw in order to help the grease flow across the face of the bushing. I have no idea if this will make a difference, but did it anyway. It seems that it should help.



It took quite a bit of coaxing with my precision "knockometer" to get the upper and lower control arms in place, but I finally got all the bolts loosely installed. I need to paint my sway bar mounts and get those in place so a few of those bolts will have to come back out, I hope the arms don't move on me. I discovered that FFR sent me 16mm bolts instead of 14mm for mounting the toe arms to the spindles, so I am going to have to wait on new bolts before I can attach the spindles.



Next I started assembly of my Russ Thompson dropped trunk kit. I need just a little more tweaking of the floor cutout and then can drill out the holes to attach it to the floor. I plan on cutting the diagonals tubes and re-welding them in new locations to help support the box and rear frame. Hopefully I can get these two projects finished up soon and move onto something else.
 
#42 ·
Here are a few more items I worked on since last weekend:



I powder coated the mounting brackets for the rear sway bar. Here they are fresh out of the oven. Didn't turn out too bad but I see a bit of "orange peel", I think I put too much powder on it, but not bad for first attempt.



I mounted my rear spindles. Here you can see the bracket I made out of 1/8" aluminum to cover the ABS sensor hole. The hole for the 6mm bolt was not threaded so I had to tap it.



I got the rear brakes properly shimmed and torqued. You can see that my sway bar still isn't mounted to the spindles. I took the rod ends to a local machine shop to have them cut down to size and still waiting to get them back. I didn't want to tackle that with my Dremel or sawzall. I went to Auto Zone and used their "Loan A Tool" program to get the 36mm socket to tighten the axle nut. The specs in the instructions said to torque it to 98 ft lbs "+45 degree". I could not get it to budge past 98 ft lbs even when using a breaker bar against the wheel studs to stop the hub from turning, so there is no "+45 degrees" for me. Did anyone else have an issue with this? Is it anything to worry about?



Next I made a bracket to mount my triple reservoir. I used a piece of 2.5" angle aluminum I bought from onlinemetals.com and cut it down on the bandsaw at work. I attached it to the rail using 3 10-32 rivnuts on the top rail and fasten it with 1" socket head bolts from underneath and it is pretty flush on top. I positioned it so that the front of the reservoir is only 9.5" from the DS foot box (thanks for the specs Paul!). I went with the triple reservoirs from JAMAR. It's a bit more money than the CNC but I really like the look of it and, quite frankly, wanted to do something a little different.



Here is a better look at the bracket and it's location after powder coating. With this long Memorial Day weekend coming up I am looking forward to getting some quality build hours in.
 
#43 ·
Trunk fabrication nearly complete



I've got most of my pre-weld fabrication complete. This is how I plan to reinforce the trunk area after cutting the diagonals. When I cut the diagonals I intentionally left the tube "stubs" so they will extend under and support the lip of the trunk box on two sides, and the new support tube on the right will provide quite a bit of rigidity as well. I also plan to run one more tube below the trunk box on the left but need to get the tank into place and check clearance and determine the best placement. You can also see the new tank strap bracket I fabricated out of 1" x 1/8" steel bar stock. Gotta get my welder friend out here soon, hopefully next weekend to get all these welded up.



I have the trunk aluminum nearly complete - just need to fab a cover to go over the old tank strap locations. I ended up using rivnuts to make the access panels removable.
 
#44 ·
Front end work

I'm still waiting to get my F-Panels back from powder coat but I decided to go ahead and start on the front end. I just snugged up the bolts that mount the upper control arms to the frame and I figure I can just remove those bolts and pivot the entire assembly away from the frame in order to rivet in my F-Panels when I get them back. Both of my upper control arms were installed incorrectly so I had to unscrew and swap them around. I guess it's too much to ask whoever assembles these to take an extra 2 seconds to make sure they do it correctly :rolleyes: I guess I was lucky on my ball joints though, both screwed all the way in to the shoulder by hand. I loc-tited those and tightened then down with a 24" adjustable wrench I got at Harbor Freight this morning for a mere $22.50 with my 25% off coupon! That is one big hulking wrench. I figure I can use it to crush zombie skulls during the apocalypse.




I posted photos of front and rear of both sides. Let me know if anything looks out of the ordinary. Still waiting on all four back-ordered shocks.

DS Front



DS Rear



PS Front



PS Rear



As I was installed the second rotor I noticed a directional arrow on the rotor and it was pointing in the wrong direction! I quickly removed the calipers on the other side and swapped the rotors before the loc-tite had time to set. I then wondered if I got the rears on wrong as well. I figured I had a 50% chance of getting it right.

Well crap! I guess I'm removing loc-tited bolts on both sides on the rear and swapping them as well. Awesome...

 
#45 ·
KRC power steering

I started work on the steering last night. When you buy power steering from FFR they are supplying the KRC system now, which is nice. Other than the steering rack, it's all just loosely mocked up right now. My tie rods and upper steering shaft are on back-order so can only get so far right now







Unlike the photos in the instructions, this input shaft does not have any flats on it. Do I just tighten the set screw down onto the lower splines or is it supposed to land in the area between the two bands of splines?



This is where the shaft enters the footbox. Does this look correct? I know this has to come back out to install my front footbox aluminum, which I should be getting back from powder coat tomorrow morning.
 
#50 ·
Finished up the trunk fabrication

I found an awesome welder through Facebook of all places, and he lives only a mile from my house! Shout out to Matt from Warrior Welding. He came over on Friday and welded up all my new tank supports and my new PS tank strap.



Here are the new trunk supports after welding.



And this is what they look like after painting. I used a gloss black appliance rattle can and it matches fairly well.



Because I lowered the position of the PS tank strap bracket, I had to modify the PS tank strap. I just drilled out the spot welds on the back end, flattened it out with a hammer on my vice, and then bent it around a bolt in the vice at the appropriate position. I just kept comparing it to that end of the DS strap until it looked right. I cut off the excess on the end and had my friend weld the ends back together. Touched it up with the rattle can.



Here is a close up of the PS tank strap area after installation of the tank.



Speaking of the fuel tank, I went ahead and installed that. I have an M-Pro racing hanger which was kind of a pain to install. I had to cut a small notch in the opening to allow clearance of the longer return line, but I got it in there and managed to not get any trash in the tank.





And finally here is my completely fabbed trunk with drop box and block-off plate I made to cover the old tank strap cut outs.
 
#51 ·
Carbon vapor filter

I was at Home Depot this afternoon picking up some parts to add some drip lines to my irrigation system when something caught my eye and I got an idea. I decided I can make a decent gasoline vapor filter for the vent line using a replacement popup body. They even have a 1/2" barb fitting that is perfect for attaching to the vent line. Total investment was under $3 (excluding the filter carbon).



Here are the parts I picked up. There is no popup component since it's just a replacement body, but there is a spring and an inner tube that pulls right out.



I decided to cut out this inner sleeve using a 1 1/4" hole saw to give a bit more volume inside for carbon and to make it easy to place a piece of Scotch Brite pad in the cover.



Here is the finished product after I cut and placed a piece of Scotch Brite pad into each end and filled it with carbon pellets. It has a 1 1/4" diameter and is about 5 1/4" long. It probably doesn't have as much volume as some of the other solutions I've seen, but it's very cheap and it has a nice screw on cap and fitting so will be easy to change out the carbon if I ever need to. Now I just need to find a good location and clever way to mount it.
 
#52 ·
E-Brake mod

Last night I completed the E-Brake mod to route the cables over the 4" tube rather than under. I pretty much just followed in the footsteps of EdwardB with this one, using the exact same parts and cutting of the Lokar clevis as he described. It works well. Props to EdwardB for this one ;)



 
#53 ·
Steering shaft trouble

I started to mock up the steering shaft and I had a heck of a time getting it on. At first I tried to put the bearing that goes on the front of the footbox on the inside, but because of the bracket for the pedal box, it won't sit flush.



When I tried to put it on the outside of the pedelbox, there was so little clearance between that U-Joint and the bearing that I could barely get the other end of the shaft onto the steering rack. I mean the only way I could get it on was to rotate the shaft a bit so that the flats were at 12 and 6 o'clock and then I could barely get it to go in. I fear that once I have the aluminum panel on the front of the footbox that I won't be able to get it in at all. I mean it is already so tight that it seems like 1mm would make a world of difference. Anybody else run into this or am I doing something wrong? My first thought was to mark where the interference is on the pedal box bracket and cut that bit of metal off of it so I could put the bearing on the inside, but that seems a bit extreme.

 
#54 · (Edited)
This week's progress

I worked on a few different tasks this weekend.

I put together my flexible fuel lines and got my regulator installed. I am going with the LS style fixed regulator and I installed it close to the fuel tank. I am using stainless braided PTFE hose and mostly Quick Detach fittings from Racetronix. The price was pretty good on these fittings and I like the idea of a single fitting instead of QD to AN fittings. The fittings to the M-Pro hanger are AN, also from Racetronix. I am going to run a single Nicopp 3/8" line to the front for the engine.




I also installed the new pulley and power steering pump w/reservoir on the front of the Coyote.



Next up is the radiator. I installed the Breeze fan shroud and mounted the radiator with the Breeze lower radiator mount. I'm going to pull it back out and send the fan shroud out to be powder-coated with my next batch of panels.




I installed my flexible brake lines front and rear. I guess my next major project is going to be to run the hard lines for brakes and fuel. Another job I have never done before, but I'm looking forward to it.


 
#55 ·
More welding work completed

The Tilton Hydraulic Release Bearing requires a clutch stop to prevent excessive movement beyond what is required to release the pressure plate from the friction plate, only 1/4" of additional movement of clutch pedal once released. I came up with a design for a clutch stop and will mount it on the underside of the top pedal box bracket in the general area where the FFR supplied clutch stop is located. It did require an additional hole drilled into the bracket so glad I did this now before I plumb everything, because I had to pull it all out in order to get to the area I need to drill. Here is what I came up with. I angled the bracket so that the clutch stop engages with the pedal at a roughly 90 degree angle. The adjustable bolt with plastic cap actually came off a hinge door stop from Home Depot. I had my friend come over to do some more welding for me at lunch yesterday to put the two pieces together.





I also had him weld up my dual stainless roll bars from Breeze. I think they turned out pretty nice. I hope the discoloration around the weld will polish out when I have the bars polished, but I really don't have any experience with this so don't know. I also drilled holes in the short stub tubes for the hoops and had my friend plug-weld those to the MK4 chassis stub tubes so I have one less set of holes to drill and through-bolt. The DS rear leg snugged up really well with the hoop but the PS was a bit off, by about 1/2". I had to make one cut in the stub tube to bend it a bit to get perfect alignment. I will have my friend weld up that cut when I am closer to mounting the body. I greased up the stub tubes and inside of the roll bars pretty well before I tapped them into place and he welded them right on the vehicle so there should have been very little movement. Hopefully they will pull off fairly easily.







 
#56 · (Edited)
I powder coated my clutch stop and installed it. It works pretty well. Currently I have it adjusted to stop the clutch just before contact with the frame tube.



With a little bit of modification I was able to get the Coyote bottom travel clutch switch working with my hydraulic clutch setup using the brackets that FFR supplies. I took the switch contact bracket for the cable clutch and trimmed it down a bit and then I drilled and tapped the clevis on the end of the clutch pedal so that I could attach the bracket to the clevis with a single 6-32 bolt. I was able to attach it with the existing pin and snap rings.





 
#59 ·
I am SO tired of drilling holes

I spent most of this weekend marking, drilling, and placing aluminum panels. This is a lot of work but I have most of it behind me at this point. I am going to pull these off and send most of them to the powder coater this weekend. While not very exciting, here are some pics:









 
#60 ·
First time on the ground

Well my back-ordered shocks finally arrived and I got them assembled and installed, and attached my front sway bar. I wanted to get it on the ground so that I could tighten up the axle nuts and the drive shaft adapter, so I re-installed the e-brake. For some reason I had a heck of a time getting the e-brake re-installed. I ended up removing the cables from the calipers in order to get enough slack to reattach everything.



One quick note that may be useful to someone: I had to cut the corners off of my front sway bar brackets in order to get them to seat flat - there was contact with a weld that was bending them.



Rear Shocks



Front Shocks



On the ground

The alignment is so bad right now. I know it's not really worth trying to align it at this point but once the motor/trans is in place I think I will try to do a rough alignment before the first go cart. I really would like to minimize damage to my new tires. I have the 18" Halibrands with BFGoodrich Rival S tires. Front: 245/40ZR18 Rear: 315/30ZR18



Here is a shot looking down at the front-left tire with the steering almost all the way to the left. If I turn it a bit more the tire will rub the F-Panel. Also note the contact with the flex brake line. These Wilwood brake fittings are a 45 degree and right now they are angled towards the tire. Should I re-seat these and angle them more towards the hubs or vertically? Also I guess I can re-attach the flex lines and have them more bowed in towards the shocks. Any other suggestions? Also, how can I prevent contact with the F-Panels?
 
#61 · (Edited)
Started electrical

Hopefully I will get my panels back this weekend and I can run the hard lines, but in the meantime I can still find things to work on. I decided to make a support for the firewall as I have seen others do. I fabricated this with some of the aluminum that I cut out for my trunk box. I left plenty of room above and below to run wires, but also cut a hole in the middle. I know that I need better hole saws, especially before I cut holes in my dash. The hole saw I used left a burr all the way around the hole so I knocked it down with a flap disc. Should I just buy decent brand bi-metal hole saws for the sizes I need or is there a better suggestion?



Brace installed



I installed the Breeze battery box. I ordered some Steel Gray Pearl powder to match what my powder coater is using on my panels and I coated this box myself. It was tricky getting it into my small oven without smearing the powder, but I managed. It did not turn out nearly as good as some of the other pieces I did in black, maybe it's the powder or the size/shape of the part. Oh well, it is going to be pretty much hidden down there so who cares?



I installed my Optima yellow top and soldered/attached my ground cable. Not much more I can do with this until I start to run the harness(es). I am not really looking forward to that part of the build :(



With the battery installed I wanted to make something light up so I pulled out all the tail lights/turn signals and I went ahead and swapped out the bulbs for the LEDs that I purchased. It was a simple process to swap them out and they do appear to be a bit brighter than the incandescent bulbs. If anyone is interested I purchased the iBrightstar 1157 bulbs on Amazon in Brilliant Red and Amber Yellow.



This is the LED headlight that I chose - it is a United Pacific 31391 in chrome. It has good reviews in an LED headlight comparison review that I read and I like that it has retro styling and won't make my car look like a cyborg ;).
 
#62 ·
For sure do a rough alignment once the drivetrain is in and you have it on the wheels at ride height. Before go-kart. Probably don't have to say this, but both front and back since you have IRS.

For the front brake line, I oriented the fittings down, and installed the flex line in an "S" shape versus the loop. Works find and doesn't touch anything through the full motion of suspension and turning. Pictured below.

For rubbing the "F" panel, if you want to eliminate it, you need spacers in the steering rack. Like these: https://www.breezeautomotive.com/details.php?prod_id=811. In reality, you probably won't be at full travel very often. Only parking in tight quarters, maybe U-turns, etc. Certainly not when going very fast. You can live with it and not really hurt anything. Your choice.

 
#63 ·
Door latch mods

I'm kind of at the mercy of the powder coater at this point. They promised me my panels would be done by today but I'm not holding my breath. It may be next weekend before I can get some significant work done. In the meantime I found a few things to work on. I went ahead and did the door latch mods that everyone agrees are essential. I won't go into too much detail as this mod is already well documented, but I bought a couple 5/16" x 1" carriage bolts and cut them down to 3/4" and ground down the heads so they are flat. I knocked down the top lip of the insert with a flap disk so that my washer and nut will hold the lever, and I added lithium grease to all the moving parts. It's way smoother now. I also drilled/tapped the knobs for my 10-32 stainless Torx bolts and filed down the lever stop a bit to allow the striker to fully retract. One less thing to worry about.



 
#64 ·
Coyote accelerator pedal

I wasn't really that impressed with the FFR suggested way to graft the supplied pedal onto the Coyote accelerator pedal arm so I thought I could do better, although for a bit more work and expense. I figure if this doesn't work I can always buy the Lokar unit, but I'm pretty sure this is going to work pretty well. I heard that someone removed the pedal pad and just spun it upside down and re-inserted it into the existing hole, but I didn't think that would work too well. For one I feel like the pedal ends up too close to the inside footbox wall and I really didn't like the look of an upside down pedal. I had a thought that I could basically buy a piece of 3/16" x 2" aluminum bar and make a new backing plate that basically replaces the wide plastic piece at the bottom of the pedal. With that in place, I would have a lot of flexibility to bolt it to a cut down pedal arm by drilling and tapping the plate for bolts and pieces of aluminum angle that I can through-bolt onto the pedal arm once I find the optimal position. This is my plan and I think it is going to work fine, but I won't do the final fitment until I get my footbox floor and lower-inside wall in place. Here is what I did so far:



I removed the pedal pad and traced the shape of the existing plastic backer and hole location onto a piece of paper, then transferred that to a piece of 3/16" x 2" aluminum bar.





After a good bit of cutting and grinding, I had a backer that could slip down inside the bottom of the pedal pad. I cut down the plastic shaft and secured it with the original tapper screw after cutting it to length.





At that point I mounted the accelerator to the bracket and held the pad up to where I felt it would be best and marked the pedal arm. I cut off the excess pieces of the pedal arm to where I can mount the pedal pad. It took removing/remounting the pedal and testing a few times before I got enough plastic cut out. I may have to cut a bit more when it comes time to permanently mount the pedal pad but it's pretty close right now.



And this is about what I will end up with. It's just held in place with some duct tape right now, but I think it will work out just fine. Once I get it secured permanently I will take a few pics detailing how I mounted the pad to the pedal arm.
 
#66 ·
I'm about to work on that. I plan to drill and tap holes into that backer plate and bolt what's left of that wide plastic flange into the lower corner and use some small pieces of angle aluminum bolted into the backer plate and bolted through the pedal arm. I'll post some pics when I have it finalized.
 
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