3V into a retired NASCAR.... just getting started.

[earlbrown]

A few months ago I found a retired Boris Said roadrace NECKCAR and thought it'd make a cool street car (Duke boys style).


Next, I went off searching for a V8 GT manual (and damn near lost faith in humanity at the amount of autos and V6s compared to v8/sticks).

A few days ago I found this sweet, low mileage '06 that got intimate with a phone pole.


Drove up to Atlanta with $1400. Fired it up to put it on the trailer and discovered it had a new Roush racing (SS, I think) cat back on it and a Hurst Shifter. The bad part is one of the stock wheels got a busted lip, so I cant fix up the car hauler with new shoes.

The radiator was cracked so I don't have any road miles, but the car seems solid. I got the bill of sale where the kid I got it from paid over $12K in November. Poor guy couldn't afford to put tires on it. Two weeks ago he depreciated he hell out of it, so I think I did pretty good.

Now I just have to figure out what tuner I need to buy to let the engine be freestanding (and alter the tune for the long tubes and intake it's about to get), build motor mounts, find a 9" 3rd member, measure for a drive shaft, and slap a license plate on it!


The downside is I'm a Buick Grand National expert and this is my first mod motor. I'm eager to get it pulled, wire dieted, and parted out but I still have some research to do. I want to see it run with a normal key and a reflash before I start the demo.


What really sucks is I found a thread on here about pulling the transmission yoke and it looks like I might not have the slip yoke I wanted.
I got an 05+ so I would get a hydraulic clutch and I wanted a live axle so I'd get a slip yoke. Looks like I might have a solid output yoke, and a 2 piece factory driveshaft with some sort of slip joint. I hope that's not the case, because that really over-complicate$ my custom driveshaft.


Anyway, this should be a fun project, and fairly easy all things considered.

Once I learn and overcome all the hurdles the Ford factory throws at me.

 

[07silvergt]

Sorry I'm not much help here, but upon seeing this post I have to ask... You can get that thing to be street legal?

 

[earlbrown]

Sorry I'm not much help here, but upon seeing this post I have to ask... You can get that thing to be street legal?

It's not going to be exactly 'street legal', but I am going to put a license plate on it and drive my ''2001 Ford Taurus'' on the street.

 

[stv_huff]

Great deal!
Standalone Management is relatively inexpensive and straight forward. Ill eventually go to mega squirt.
Everyone switches to single piece driveshafts. You wont have issues. Sounds like an awesome project so keep us updated.

 

[earlbrown]

Got my Lito 'kit car tune' and the dash out. Now it's time to start my wire diet...


I didn't expect to find so much computer hardware under the dash since the PCM is under the hood. What are these 4 electrical boxes?

It looks like 1 and 2 are amps for my door woofers, 3 is an airbag computer, and 4 is a body computer. Does that sound right?

....and I'm guessing that there's nothing in the body computer that controls my engine (and that's all I care about). I'm hoping it doesn't handle something stupid like my gas pedal.



...and does a wiring diagram for an 06GT exist online? I've got the car where I can keep starting it while I'm hacking out stuff I don't need, but it'd be nice to have some factory data to help speed things up.

 

[teeje]

4 is the SJB (smart junction box) 3 i believe is one of the SRS modules, im not entirely sure what 1 and 2 is for. I could tell if i could see where the harness leads to. My stangs getting painted so I cant look at it...if im right im pretty sure 2 is the body control module

 

[earlbrown]

Is there a list of factory oil pan depths? I can't image all mod pans are all the same depth.

It's as high as it can go without hitting the hood and the pan is hanging below the frame. I'm hoping I can get a junkyard pan and pickup instead of having to cut, weld, hammer, etc...

I got the engine set in the car a while back, and good god, I didn't realize how big this thing is. It barely fits in my NECKCAR. I've got it back as far as it'll go and I need about 1.5" before the factory brace can be put back in the frame. The long tube headers are right at the upper A-arm bolts. It looks like I can move the PS pump to where the A/C compressor was and make that work with a little rearranging of the belt routing.

Now if it'll stop raining in GA and stay a little warm maybe I can get some work done on it (and maybe start a youtube channel of the build)

 

[Racer47]

You're fighting an uphill battle. There are tons of used Nascar motors available that will bolt in. Headers that you can buy used that will bolt in, no big electronics issues and on and on.

Nascar motors are dry sump = very shallow oil pan. No mod motor oil pans will even be close. You already have the smallest one.

Overhead cam motors have big, tall, wide heads as you just found out. Making headers will be very hard or will turn out crappy or will be expensive to pay someone who knows what they are doing.

And if you ever finish it (which is extremely unlikely imho) you'll end up with only a 300 hp 3v motor, way more money spent than you expected along with way too many hours wasted.

 

[Anti]

Every thread I go read, you are in there sprinkling your Debbie Downer dust everywhere. While you are not wrong in most of your recommendations, have you forgotten that some people just do stuff for fun, just to see if they can do it?

 

[earlbrown]

No shit. I'm not building a lego toy out of a kit following instructions that someone else came up with.


I keep thinking some people might enjoy seeing something new and odd, but i guess I need to buy another plain Jane belly button Mustang just like any monkey with a checkbook can do.

...or just make a new post asking about oil pan depths and pretending like I slammed my Mustang to the ground just for looks like a ricer would do.

If I wanted period correct, I'd go get a junkyard 351 or use one of my 460's. I have a machine shop and I'm a professional engine builder. I can literally do this build any way that I want and make it happen.


Racer47, headers are already on and didn't need any clearance, went from China to straight in the car. Didn't hit a thing. One thing I learned in machine shop class years ago was ''10 thousandths or a mile, doesn't matter as long as it clears''.

The 3V engine, transmission, wiring and computer was more than free. I made more parting out what I didn't need from the donor car than I paid for it. (and since I get a 1099K in the car parts business, every dime I paid lowered my 2019 tax bill). There's no way in hell a nascar engine (and transmission) would be cheaper and faster. Plus an actual nascar engine would make a horribly shitty street car. I'm building this to actually drive. And parts from a parts store are much quicker and easier to buy that nascar specific parts.

I've already got the wiring harness dieted down, a tuner, a Lito tune, and the engine can run outside of the Mustang. I'm literally two welded motor mounts and putting the fuel pump in my fuel cell from making it run.

but you're right, it's probably too complicated to finish. I should probably pay someone to haul it off. :\



...all this because I wondered if there was a factory modular oil pan that's shorter.....

 

[tjm73]

You'll have to look at an aftermarket swap pan if you want it to be more shallow. Moroso and Canton make them.

You might look at pans for a FWD Lincoln DOHC. Same pan as a 3V I think. Maybe they might be more shallow.

I had forgot about this build. But I am happy to see it is still kickin'. Not one I would do, but it is an interesting take. I can appreciate effort and like seeing the result.

 

[earlbrown]

I didn't update much the last few months since most of the effort was spent parting out the Mustang during the day and researching parts at night. Turns out selling Mustang parts requires a lot of time answering stupid questions. Far more than I expected. The car grew more dust than it did getting wrenched on.

All the brakes calipers and lines have been secured, I founds some shocks that will "work" (Ford Lightning rears, oddly enough) and got some springs that will be a good starting point to tune around. And I found a 31 spline 9" rear to harvest the chunk a couple weeks ago.

I've got the seats and removed the Petty bar, but I haven't' bothered to build mounts for them yet. It's hard enough to lay down inside the car without seats in the way, so those will get put off.

The engines been just sitting in there for months. Until I get the Chunk in there, I can't get a grip on the exact transmission mount I need to build, and measure for the driveshaft. I think I'll pass on asking if there's a database on telescoping driveshaft lengths that work with my '06 tranny. It seems it's easier to overcome an obstacle than to ask a simple question then catch shit over my build and my abilities.

I also want to make the Hurst shifter solely attached to the transmission instead of the body. It looks like it might be easier to build one from scratch and use the shifter and ball that came with the car. That bridge will be crossed after the mounts are build and the engine is locked down.



It is going to suck having a car with way less HP than my Grand National, but I have a feeling, even with only 350hp or so, it'll be spinning all over the place. '65 Chevy truck arm suspension isn't exactly known for 60ft times.


I'll look into a FWD pan. I didn't even know that modulers came in front drive cars. AFAIK the pans all have the same basic flange. I've got room for pretty much any sump shape as my ''crossmember'' is right at the very front of the engine. If there's no easy solution, I'll just make mine shorter or build a roadrace style pan.

 

[tjm73]

Continentals had the 4.6 DOHC. Pretty sure the sump is at the flywheel end.

 

[earlbrown]

Good call tjm73. I looked up the pan at vatozone and got excited thinking you unlocked a factory shallow oil pan... The PUBLISHED depth of the Lincoln pan is 6.25"... but the Mustangs is said to be 6.38". For a difference of only 130 thousandths.


So I made if .gif between the two and the pictures tell a different tale (for what it's worth)Looks shorter to me.

 

[tjm73]

Also looks like the volume will be less. You may need to add more sump or a kickout. That's an 1/8". Better than nothing.

 

[Iceman62]

Wow...just came across this thread and anxiously following to see how it progresses. Pretty cool project ya got going here & kudos to resurrect a NASCAR body - love it!

 

[83-88T-Bird Guy]

Cool build.
Ever since the 1980's I have always wanted a stock car that I could drive on the street.
The guys on the Roadkill show had a asphalt stock car they put a cut up Monte Carlo body on so they could make it legal with a vin to drive on the street.

I would love to find a stock car chassis and make it street legal. Ford of course

 

[earlbrown]

Yeah, I asked Mike Fennegan to hook me up with the transmission of of the nascarlo.

It didn't work


It'd be easy as hell in GA if I just set a body over my existing frame like they did. It'd most likely be illegal since it'd be a frame change, but it'd be grey enough to work.

I'm probably going to title it in Florida, then transfer and tag it in GA. Haven't gotten there yet (AKA ''lazy").


This conversion would have been a million times easier if my car would have been raced as a Chevy. Or if Ford would have just left a damn Windsor bellhousing pattern on the mod engines. I'd love to have a modern 6 speed behind a hot 351 or one of my 460's.

 

[83-88T-Bird Guy]

A few years ago I had the owner of a body shop in KY tell me that as long as the VIN plate was unaltered and still attached to the original bodywork that he could take a total mess of a wreck and patch weld that sheetmetal around the VIN tag into a straight vehicle and it would still be legal ( in KY ) Not sure about other states.
I know here you can take a truck cab off and put it on another frame and it is perfectly legal because it all goes by the VIN.

I would love to have a Jerico trans like the one in the nascarlo

 

[Juice]

I'd love to have a modern 6 speed behind a hot 351 or one of my 460's.

As great as those engines are, (love them windsors in any displacement) the new modular engines in general: make more power per cube, rev higher, are lighter, and get better MPGs to boot.

I think I would do up one of those chassis for HPDE if I had one. There have been a few at events and they are pretty damn fast.