Reborn

It took 5 years but I got my '68 back on the road. I had never driven a vintage Mustang before I had mine finished so I didn't really know what to expect. I was pretty shocked on how well things ran right out of the shoot. The alignment seemed spot on and the car tracked really well. Acceleration was excellent. The C4 transmission seemed to be working flawlessly. And the Borgenson power steering was finger tip control.

It wasn't all perfect. My larger tires had some clearance issues and I'd bottom out over bumps quite a bit. But considering that I had no automotive experience when I started and did it all myself it was a pretty amazing result.

Over the next few weeks and months I got the clearance issues figured out and started to dial everything in. A couple of things weren't fundamentally up to what I wanted though. First, the MPG. I was getting around 12-15 MPG which with a 16 gallon gas tank and my intent for the car to be a daily driver just wasn't good enough. So I went about solving this two ways. First, I upgraded the fuel tank from the stock 16 gallon to a 22 gallon tank. Voila - 28% more miles per tank full!

The second way of addressing the issue is the transmission. I had a C4 transmission which seemed to work perfectly except it's kind of a few gears short of optimal. It was great fun screaming down the road at 70 mph and 3350 RPM but it was guzzling gas. So I replaced the C4 with an AOD.

I'm still on my first tank full of gas with the AOD so I don't have any numbers yet but cruising at 70 mph now only needs 2350 RPM. So I'm pretty sure I'm saving butt loads of gas. I was expecting the performance of the AOD to be identical to the C4 until the overdrive gear kicks in. But it's not, at least, not yet. It seems a little less responsive and boggy compared to the C4. My best guess is the torque converter isn't a good match for my engine. But I'll figure it out. I absolutely want the best MPG I can get when cruising on the highway but I also need the thing to be jack-rabbit when I put my foot down.

The next, and last, major upgrade will be going to EFI. I ordered the Sniper 2 and hopefully will have that installed within the next 6 weeks. My plan is to take my 8 year old son on a cross country baseball tour next August. I've got 10 months to make my baby bulletproof!