[58VW]

This weekend I made my body buck and pulled of my body. Tonight I dug in for the first time by siliconing and riveting my front two F-panels. It looks really good! As I sat and looked and the original black coated frame, I wondered if the road I should be taking is to paint or powder coat this frame? What is the route most people take. Will factory five's black finish hold up?

My donor car is an 87 Mustang GT, it is speed density. I have heard of people upgrading heads, cams and throttle bodies without converting the engine over to mass air. Can I get some advise here.... Do I have to convert this car over. How will it run. I am not going to get really radical, I will probably leave it stock with may be a E or F cam and a set of headers and later on upgrade the heads and the intake.

I also plan on either 3.55 or 3.73 gears. What do you think for my set up? On the highway in fifth gear where with the engine be at?


Thank you in advance for the help guys!!!!

[ March 18, 2002: Message edited by: 58VW ]

 

[brettredd]

I have heard Forum members complaining about Factory Five's frame paint job in the past. Apparently, the frame wasn't prepped well and paint began flaking off almost immediately. Supposedly, their quality is much higher with the newer kits.

I had my frame shipped bare as I welded on some custom brackets and other goodies. I then had the whole thing powdercoated for $350.

Many builders are going with high quality paint like POR 15. This is labor intensive and the prep materials and paint is about $100

 

[Marc A]

Speed density wont support the mods you are talking about. It assumes air and fuel flow. Mass air reads and calculates for actual fuel and air. More HP = more air and fuel. Sorry.
Marc A

 

[RacingRob]

I'm running speed density for now. I'm still in the go kart stage and it seems REALLY fast! If I feel the need for speed in the future, I'll upgrade as the budget allows.
Rob

 

[Wade Chamberlain]

Rob - Trust me, you'll feel the need.....

I think I uttered those very words when I was finishing mine up. In less than a year, I've converted to mass air, added a Vortech blower, 80mm Pro-M meter, 65mm TB, GT40 intake, 30# injectors, 255 lph high pressure fuel pump, etc, etc. Now, I'm trying to figure out how to pay for some AFR heads and a cam! Will it ever end?????

 

[bill32]

OK 58VW, after hearing the talk about FFR frame paint quality, and the $350+ for powder coating, I decided to order bare frame and paint it myself with POR-15. I did that last Sunday. Took about 4 hours. Looks absolutely beautiful, and only needed one coat. Here are a couple of tips:
1. do any custom welding first
2. Use a small wire brush to get rid of any of the light brown welding residue, either your's or FFR's that may be on the joints
3. Wash the entire frame with Simple Green, using a cotton wash towel, and make sure you wash each steel tube completely, then rinse good. I use an air hose to get off water and then let dry for several hours. The frame has to be COMPLETELY dry before you paint.

Using a dry cloth, you should wipe off any dust after it dries.

The best finish is with foam brushes, but that takes a lot of time. I used foam to start but then switched to regular 1" wide brushes. That went much faster and gave a good smooth finish. It took about 6 hours to dry enough to handle.

Total cost was about $50 and looks great.

 

[Bob Lennon]

Greetings Wade.
Please allow me to be the ying to your yang, or is that the yang to your ying. Anyhow...

Every one seems to run Mass air. But, you can get lots of performance with speed density so long as you run the stock heads and cam. I even run a supercharger. The speed density was a good system and the stock SD mustangs are reputed to be faster than the stock MA stangs. I also like to play with mods like Wade but have never had a problem with the SD system. It is more simple and I get a kick out of watching the 5-0--heads at the car shows standing over my car arguing and trying to figure out what kind of MA meter I'm running. Lot's of the youngsters don't even know there is anything other than MA.

 

[Bigfoot]

You really owe it to yourself to look into MAF... I am a newbie here... but a fanatical hot rodder MAF will keep a lot of future doors open. The pure efficiency is a lot of bang alone..

 

[Wade Chamberlain]

Good points Bob. I think as long as you leave the stock cam and heads alone, the SD setup is ok. But take the blower out of the picture and there's not a lot of additional power to be made in a naturally aspirated 302 without messing w/ the heads and/or the cam.

You're right about the head scratching. When I was running with SD, I had a K&N filter stuck right on the throttle body. The mustangers had fun with that!