Trackaholic's GT350 Experience

[NoXiDe]

Unfotunately the wife gets the garage. The Mustang gets parking right in front of the house. I agree that attempting a splice seems worthwhile.

Does anyone know the state of the injectors when the signal is interrupted (I would assume they shut off)? Let's say I had to drive on 7 cylinders for 40 miles. Thoughts?

-T

I'm sorry to hear your wife gets to have the garage. Purchase a outdoor car bubble then..

http://carcapsule.com/outdoor-carcapsule/

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[Trackaholic]

I ended up catching two rats in the trap over a couple week period. Second bugger shown below (he had also eaten the poison and died from that since obviously the trap only caught his tail).

I tried many things to keep the rats away, including stench spray and laundry sheets. That second rat just used the sheets in the nest!. I also tried ultrasonic emitters and lights. To make things weather resistant, I grabbed a small, clear, Tupperware bin and put the LED light bulb with an ultrasonic emitter inside and cut a small notch in the side to run an extension cord through. I keep the bind under the car, which makes it seem like I have one of those old underbody neon kits. Apparently the rats like light or ultrasound, so hopefully my contraption will keep them away (although since the ultrasound emitter is in the bin, I'm not sure it will be effective since that will damp the sound). In any case, no new rats since I caught the second one.

Finally got the car to the shop to have the wire harness repaired. I had also seen a rats nest between the intake manifold and the valley of the V8, and here is what that looked like! Hopefully everything got cleaned out and nothing escaped into the intake tract.

Will be very happy to get everything fixed up and road worthy again.


-T

 

[NoXiDe]

Powered by Rats. That's a new one for me.

 

[svassh]

What a nightmare, hope it all works out soon.

 

[Hack]

Wow, that's terrible! I hope the repairs go well and there are no recurring issues.

 

[zzrat]

Whoa what a mess! Hope you get'r fixed up with out costing too much.

 

[Trackaholic]

Been a long time since my last post. Happy to say that the rat situation was resolved and I was able to get the injectors spliced back in to the original harness. Much less expensive than trying to route an entirely new harness around the engine.

I now keep a small plastic bin under the car with an LED lightbulb/ultrasonic emitter combination inside. I then have an extension cord running into the garage to keep the lights on at all times. So far, no more rats!

I also had the BMR cradle lockout kit installed at that time. The car felt a bit more planted, and I hear a bit more transmission/rear end noise, but overall it feels and sounds pretty similar. I did not have the alignment done afterwards though, so it's possible that the alignment is a bit off due to the potential centering of the subframe.

Regarding the leak mentioned earlier: It was caused by the drain holes around the rear windshield and taillights getting plugged by accumulated dust and leaves and such. Got that all cleaned out and no more leaks.

Did a two-day track day back in October 2020, but my tires were toast by the end of the first day (they were alreay quite old). Rear end was all over the place. Wore out my left rear inside brake pad down to the backing plate as well. Kept checking the thickness on the outside pads, which looked fine, then started getting really bad grinding noises coming off the track and realized I had trashed the inner pad. Got new rotors thinking the fronts had been damaged, but when I went to replace them I found that the left rear was the one that was damaged. Still haven't replaced the rotor yet.

On the way home from the track a rock hit the windshield and cracked it. I've been watching it slowly propagate across the windshield again. I'll be on my fourth windshield when I finally get it replaced. I'm going through windshields faster than tires or brakes!

I added a quart of oil, but forgot to log the miles, so I'm off a bit on my tracking chart. Will need to re-sync when I get my oil changed in a bit.

Also finally got some new tires that will be installed tomorrow. Anyone else having problems finding the fronts? I ended up ordering from tirerack, but they kept pushing out the delivery (from mid March a few weeks ago to mid April now). I decided to switch my order on the fronts to the BMW version of the tire. They have a higher load rating, but the construction seems to be the same. Not sure if the compound is slightly different or what. Might be a little heavier than the Mustang version. We'll see how it goes. I plan on finally getting the alignment done and will see how much camber I can get with the car stock. Not expecting much.

Oh, I finally cleaned the Ford Performance (airaid) air filter and it made a huge difference. I need to get some pantyhose or a fine mesh to put over the filter though, because i had tons of small leaves and bits that got stuck in all the pleats of the filter. Had to blast them out using a garden hose, but had to blast from the outside rather than the inside which I didn't like (first cleaned as much as possible from the inside out, but that wouldn't get the bigger stuff that was wedged in there). Car felt WAY stronger and smoother after. Definitely something to keep an eye on going forward.

A couple times now I get a "service advancetrack" error when leaving the house. I think it's happened twice. It has gone away on its own both times, but not sure what's going on there. Maybe a mag-ride sensor going out? Keeping an eye on that one.

Overall the car is doing great.
43,000+ miles at this point.

-T

 

[Trackaholic]

Finally got around to replacing the rear rotors on the car.

What a PITA! But, as always, you learn as you go and while it took about 3 hours to figure out the first wheel I did the second one in about an hour.

The big issue with replacing the rear rotors, is that the parking brake cable blocks access to the top brake caliper bolt. The parking brake on the GT350 is a mechanical drum brake that is activated by a lever that opens the drums onto the aluminum hat of the rear rotors. Definitely not something you want to use often to stop the car!

To expose the screw you need to get the cable out of the way, so here is how I did it:

1. First, I jacked up the car (very easy since I have BMR jacking rails installed. Could jack up one side with the jack in the middle of the car, and put my two jack stands at the front and rear. I'd leave the opposite side of the car on the ground and throw a 2x4 behind the front wheel to make sure the car wouldn't want to roll (not much of a risk when on jack stands)
2. Undo the parking brake to get as much slack in the cable as possible (I always forget to do this before jacking the car)
3. Removed the rear wheel
4. Removed the brake pads
5. NOW FOR THE SUCKY PART- Unhooking the parking brake cable!
6. There are some specialty tools available to do this, but its a 20 minute drive the auto parts store and I didn't want to do it. Instead, I farted around under the car for 60 minutes before figuring out the appropriate method, which required a flat-head screw driver
   1. Wearing gloves, I manually compressed the spring that holds the cable to the lever
   2. I then used the flat-head screw driver as a pry-bar (the big words on the handle stating "Do not use as prybar" are a clear indication that using it as a prybar is to be expected) to pop the cable off the lever (if you choose to buy (or already own) a spring compression tool, this might be easier, but I'm not sure I'd want to try and pop the cable off the lever with a big tool attached to the spring, so I was pretty happy with my method.
   3. Then, instead of trying to completely remove the cable from the bracket, which requires another specialized tool to compress all the little metal tangs so the bushing can fit back through the hole in the bracket, I instead just pushed the cable out of the way and up behind the wheel hub. This held it MOSTLY out of the way.
   4. At this point I found that I needed a short 15mm socket and 3" extension for my torque wrench, which required a 5 minute trip to the closest general hardware store.
   5. Once I returned I was able to get the socket in behind the cable/spring and the extension could route past it to the torque wrench.
7. Now it was just a matter of unscrewing the bolts attaching the brake caliper/cable bracket to the hub - about 15 turns of the screw....1/8 of a turn at a time. Like the front brakes, the locking compound used on the screws is really strong, which makes removing the screws a bit of a pain. Also, they are torqued to 85 ft-lbs, which sucks because you can't fit a very long torque wrench in the wheel well, nor can you get in-line with your wrench because you need to reach deep into the well. So, it is quite awkward to perform that part of the process.
8. However, once you get the screws out it is very easy to slide out the caliper and rest it on something under the car (I happened to have a perfectly size cardboard box) while swapping the brake rotors.
9. Then its just a matter of re-installing the screws (per the factory manual you'd get new screws with new locking compound, or you can add threadlocker to the existing screws). Getting to 85 ft-lbs is a real pain.
10. Then you'll need to re-attach the cable. This was actually not as bad as I feared.
    1. Once again I needed to manually compress the spring.
    2. Then I used the small slot in the cable bracket as a prying point along with my screwdriver/prybar to snap the cable hook back onto the lever. It worked like a charm.
11. Reinstall the brake pads
12. Reinstall the tire
13. Repeat on the other side of the car!

Piece of cake!

I took some photos to show what I did in case someone else wants to perform a half-assed rotor swap like me rather than getting all the special tools.

Afterwards, I went to go fill up the car with gas (on the way to the station my range dropped to 0 miles to empty). The car took 15.4 gallons, so it was definitely on fumes.

Let's see if I can get the photos in order:

• First, a look down from inside the wheel well, showing the parking brake cable/spring being held out of the way by the hub. You can see the backed-out screw under the cable/spring
• Second, my perfectly sized box, showing the tools needed and also supporting the brake caliper.
• Third, a view under the car, looking up at the bracket, showing how I used the slot on the bracket as a prying point to re-attach the cable with my combination prybar/flat-head screwdriver tool.
• Finally, the proof of the fuel refill. Luckily the trip to the station was almost all downhill!

-T

 

[ChipG]

Finally got around to replacing the rear rotors on the car.

What a PITA! But, as always, you learn as you go and while it took about 3 hours to figure out the first wheel I did the second one in about an hour.

The big issue with replacing the rear rotors, is that the parking brake cable blocks access to the top brake caliper bolt. The parking brake on the GT350 is a mechanical drum brake that is activated by a lever that opens the drums onto the aluminum hat of the rear rotors. Definitely not something you want to use often to stop the car!

To expose the screw you need to get the cable out of the way, so here is how I did it:

1. First, I jacked up the car (very easy since I have BMR jacking rails installed. Could jack up one side with the jack in the middle of the car, and put my two jack stands at the front and rear. I'd leave the opposite side of the car on the ground and throw a 2x4 behind the front wheel to make sure the car wouldn't want to roll (not much of a risk when on jack stands)
2. Undo the parking brake to get as much slack in the cable as possible (I always forget to do this before jacking the car)
3. Removed the rear wheel
4. Removed the brake pads
5. NOW FOR THE SUCKY PART- Unhooking the parking brake cable!
6. There are some specialty tools available to do this, but its a 20 minute drive the auto parts store and I didn't want to do it. Instead, I farted around under the car for 60 minutes before figuring out the appropriate method, which required a flat-head screw driver
   1. Wearing gloves, I manually compressed the spring that holds the cable to the lever
   2. I then used the flat-head screw driver as a pry-bar (the big words on the handle stating "Do not use as prybar" are a clear indication that using it as a prybar is to be expected) to pop the cable off the lever (if you choose to buy (or already own) a spring compression tool, this might be easier, but I'm not sure I'd want to try and pop the cable off the lever with a big tool attached to the spring, so I was pretty happy with my method.
   3. Then, instead of trying to completely remove the cable from the bracket, which requires another specialized tool to compress all the little metal tangs so the bushing can fit back through the hole in the bracket, I instead just pushed the cable out of the way and up behind the wheel hub. This held it MOSTLY out of the way.
   4. At this point I found that I needed a short 15mm socket and 3" extension for my torque wrench, which required a 5 minute trip to the closest general hardware store.
   5. Once I returned I was able to get the socket in behind the cable/spring and the extension could route past it to the torque wrench.
7. Now it was just a matter of unscrewing the bolts attaching the brake caliper/cable bracket to the hub - about 15 turns of the screw....1/8 of a turn at a time. Like the front brakes, the locking compound used on the screws is really strong, which makes removing the screws a bit of a pain. Also, they are torqued to 85 ft-lbs, which sucks because you can't fit a very long torque wrench in the wheel well, nor can you get in-line with your wrench because you need to reach deep into the well. So, it is quite awkward to perform that part of the process.
8. However, once you get the screws out it is very easy to slide out the caliper and rest it on something under the car (I happened to have a perfectly size cardboard box) while swapping the brake rotors.
9. Then its just a matter of re-installing the screws (per the factory manual you'd get new screws with new locking compound, or you can add threadlocker to the existing screws). Getting to 85 ft-lbs is a real pain.
10. Then you'll need to re-attach the cable. This was actually not as bad as I feared.
    1. Once again I needed to manually compress the spring.
    2. Then I used the small slot in the cable bracket as a prying point along with my screwdriver/prybar to snap the cable hook back onto the lever. It worked like a charm.
11. Reinstall the brake pads
12. Reinstall the tire
13. Repeat on the other side of the car!

Piece of cake!

I took some photos to show what I did in case someone else wants to perform a half-assed rotor swap like me rather than getting all the special tools.

Afterwards, I went to go fill up the car with gas (on the way to the station my range dropped to 0 miles to empty). The car took 15.4 gallons, so it was definitely on fumes.

Let's see if I can get the photos in order:

• First, a look down from inside the wheel well, showing the parking brake cable/spring being held out of the way by the hub. You can see the backed-out screw under the cable/spring
• Second, my perfectly sized box, showing the tools needed and also supporting the brake caliper.
• Third, a view under the car, looking up at the bracket, showing how I used the slot on the bracket as a prying point to re-attach the cable with my combination prybar/flat-head screwdriver tool.
• Finally, the proof of the fuel refill. Luckily the trip to the station was almost all downhill!

-T

I've recently taken the rear brakes off and found a way to do so without the special tools that wasn't too difficult. I used a trim tool (screwdriver may work as well) to compress the spring so I could work the cable off the lever - not too different from your method. The other bit is that I found that a brake line wrench of the right size would work to get the cable out of the bracket, making the rest of the job much easier. Just pull down the spring, put the wrench around the cable below the bracket, and push up around the tangs to compress them so you can pull the cable out of the bracket. Once I had the right size wrench, it took less than a minute of wrangling to pop the cable free. With that cable completely out the way, the rest of the removal and replacement is very straightforward. Of course, this is dependent on having a different specialty tool (brake line wrench) but I figure more folks have those and they have more applications than one specifically for removing the brake cable. Lacking a brake line wrench, more creativity might be needed - perhaps a zip tie pulled around the tangs to compress them or something.

 

[sox3]

Finally got around to replacing the rear rotors on the car.

What a PITA! But, as always, you learn as you go and while it took about 3 hours to figure out the first wheel I did the second one in about an hour.

The big issue with replacing the rear rotors, is that the parking brake cable blocks access to the top brake caliper bolt. The parking brake on the GT350 is a mechanical drum brake that is activated by a lever that opens the drums onto the aluminum hat of the rear rotors. Definitely not something you want to use often to stop the car!

To expose the screw you need to get the cable out of the way, so here is how I did it:

1. First, I jacked up the car (very easy since I have BMR jacking rails installed. Could jack up one side with the jack in the middle of the car, and put my two jack stands at the front and rear. I'd leave the opposite side of the car on the ground and throw a 2x4 behind the front wheel to make sure the car wouldn't want to roll (not much of a risk when on jack stands)
2. Undo the parking brake to get as much slack in the cable as possible (I always forget to do this before jacking the car)
3. Removed the rear wheel
4. Removed the brake pads
5. NOW FOR THE SUCKY PART- Unhooking the parking brake cable!
6. There are some specialty tools available to do this, but its a 20 minute drive the auto parts store and I didn't want to do it. Instead, I farted around under the car for 60 minutes before figuring out the appropriate method, which required a flat-head screw driver
   1. Wearing gloves, I manually compressed the spring that holds the cable to the lever
   2. I then used the flat-head screw driver as a pry-bar (the big words on the handle stating "Do not use as prybar" are a clear indication that using it as a prybar is to be expected) to pop the cable off the lever (if you choose to buy (or already own) a spring compression tool, this might be easier, but I'm not sure I'd want to try and pop the cable off the lever with a big tool attached to the spring, so I was pretty happy with my method.
   3. Then, instead of trying to completely remove the cable from the bracket, which requires another specialized tool to compress all the little metal tangs so the bushing can fit back through the hole in the bracket, I instead just pushed the cable out of the way and up behind the wheel hub. This held it MOSTLY out of the way.
   4. At this point I found that I needed a short 15mm socket and 3" extension for my torque wrench, which required a 5 minute trip to the closest general hardware store.
   5. Once I returned I was able to get the socket in behind the cable/spring and the extension could route past it to the torque wrench.
7. Now it was just a matter of unscrewing the bolts attaching the brake caliper/cable bracket to the hub - about 15 turns of the screw....1/8 of a turn at a time. Like the front brakes, the locking compound used on the screws is really strong, which makes removing the screws a bit of a pain. Also, they are torqued to 85 ft-lbs, which sucks because you can't fit a very long torque wrench in the wheel well, nor can you get in-line with your wrench because you need to reach deep into the well. So, it is quite awkward to perform that part of the process.
8. However, once you get the screws out it is very easy to slide out the caliper and rest it on something under the car (I happened to have a perfectly size cardboard box) while swapping the brake rotors.
9. Then its just a matter of re-installing the screws (per the factory manual you'd get new screws with new locking compound, or you can add threadlocker to the existing screws). Getting to 85 ft-lbs is a real pain.
10. Then you'll need to re-attach the cable. This was actually not as bad as I feared.
    1. Once again I needed to manually compress the spring.
    2. Then I used the small slot in the cable bracket as a prying point along with my screwdriver/prybar to snap the cable hook back onto the lever. It worked like a charm.
11. Reinstall the brake pads
12. Reinstall the tire
13. Repeat on the other side of the car!

Piece of cake!

I took some photos to show what I did in case someone else wants to perform a half-assed rotor swap like me rather than getting all the special tools.

Afterwards, I went to go fill up the car with gas (on the way to the station my range dropped to 0 miles to empty). The car took 15.4 gallons, so it was definitely on fumes.

Let's see if I can get the photos in order:

• First, a look down from inside the wheel well, showing the parking brake cable/spring being held out of the way by the hub. You can see the backed-out screw under the cable/spring
• Second, my perfectly sized box, showing the tools needed and also supporting the brake caliper.
• Third, a view under the car, looking up at the bracket, showing how I used the slot on the bracket as a prying point to re-attach the cable with my combination prybar/flat-head screwdriver tool.
• Finally, the proof of the fuel refill. Luckily the trip to the station was almost all downhill!

-T

Gotta ask, what fuel are you buying for $4.40 a gallon?

 

[09cs]

Gotta ask, what fuel are you buying for $4.40 a gallon?

That's 91 out here in So Cal around that price.....

 

[sox3]

Damn, 3.13 for 93 here, filled up today.

 

[460Fred]

Last fill up for 91 here in Bakersfield was this Friday past, $3.60. Going up pretty steadily as it does every year at this time. Don’t remember what it was this time last year but I know it wasn’t this high.

 

[Trackaholic]

Well, time for another update.

Car is having an issue with intermittent engine surge. There is a TSB regarding this issue, and I took the car in to a local dealer a couple months ago and took a senior technician on 20 minute drive, but of course the car drove perfectly while he was riding with me. The dealership was very hesitant to try and fix something when they couldn't experience the problem (which, as an engineer who often needs to troubleshoot non-repeatable failures, I could appreciate), so I ended up trying out some fuel injector cleaner and washed the air filter.

However, just last weekend I was headed to Z Car Garage in San Jose to see the new Nissan Z in person (beautiful little car, BTW), and the vehicle started surging again. This time I was able to get it on video. I put the car in cruise control and you could see the CC disengage. This process repeated 3 or 4 times, and finally a little wrench appeared on the information screen with a message that said "See Manual". No other lights came on.

This matches pretty much exactly what the TSB talks about:
https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2019/MC-10162060-0001.pdf

Drove home on HWY 9 after the event and the car worked perfectly. Was very fun to get to wind it out a bit (until getting stuck behind slower traffic - USE TURNOUTS PEOPLE, they are there so I can risk my own life without pressuring you!).

So, I now need to make an appointment with the dealership again and hopefully with the combination of the video and TSB we can make some progress.

Otherwise car is great.

Now at 46,000 miles. No other issues to speak of. Not driving much these days as I am still working from home 3-4 days per week typically (gotta say, I love that).

-T

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