The dusk of Mustang

It's getting really hard to tell it's a mustang at this point. Some people can't tell the generation of the mustang. Moreover, these are the part buyers, the enthusiast who know their mustangs. The car is light. In fact, it's stopped being a car. Now it's just a shell. I am actually glad that I went with a donor build. This way I got to play with Mustang too. Sure getting all the new and shiny parts is nice but different. Well, that's my opinion for now at least.

The next step is to send the Mustang left overs to the junk yard. That presents the first challenge. How do I get this thing out of my garage if it's missing wheels. I also exaggerated my strength. I pulled out my engine crane and hooked up the rear of the car. Then I when on to lift the front and no dice. The car is still heavy enough. The next challenge is finding somebody to take this shell. I called a couple of car disposal companies and none of those want to take the shell. Autowrekers would take it but at my expense. Some metal recyclers would take it but for free. So after a quick Kijiji search I found the right guy. He offered me $40 for the shell. :) Hell, it's more then nothing. As a bonus, he gave me some tips on how to get the car ready for the pick up.

My dad came up with a perfect solution for moving the car out problem. He sources some dolly wheels and a thick 3' x 6' plywood. We screwed a 2x4 down the center to strengthen the structure and attached the wheels at the corners. With the engine crane we lowered the car shell on our new dolly and carefully rolled it out the garage. I left the crane attached to take on some weight. I had no faith in the dolly.

And I cheated too, if you look closely you can spot the jack under one side. The car did not rest perfectly on the dolly so the jack kept the unsupported side up. So what do I know, the dolly held up and the car made it to the outside. I really like that crane so why not to use it at every chance.

And just like that, the dolly comes out and the plywood goes under. Time to call the scrap guy over but that for another day. That means I can take some trophy pics:

Once again I had to bust out my engine crane to move the shell over to the first garage stall. It would have been very difficult to load the car from where it was originally placed. I also did not want to get the driveway damaged by unnecessary dragging. The scrap guy was running late so it got very dark. I had nothing better to do so I ended up taking to may pictures. I can almost make a time-laps video.

He was pocking jokes at me saying I would start crying over this car and that's what all those pictures are for. He then came to a reasonable conclusion that I had to gather Facebook material. The guy was nice, friendly and cheap. He only gave me $30 after he realized that the car was too stripped down and he would not be able to make much money on it. Frankly, I just needed it gone. So long Mustang!

I did not get attached to that car at all since I never actually drove it. So even after owning one, I still don't know what Mustangs are like. :) Easy to take apart but that's all I learned. Well next steps are less applied. Now I need to wait for the Factory Five to post a special on the kits. I did miss Black Friday deal already. I suspect next one would be around Holidays. Time to cleanup garage ...

Fear this

See as a kid, I had an accident when I was playing with gasoline. I had a jerry can open and an open flame a garage. Guess what: I was blown back 3 metres and lost the skin on my face and most of my hair. That incident kind of thought me to respect fuel and fire. In fact, when I did my fuel pump upgrade on my Subaru I did that during the winter when it was -20 C outside. See, I read somewhere that fuel does not evaporate much at that temperature.

Oh well, getting on with it. I mentioned before that I could not get the fuel lines to "quick" disconnect. Previously, during the engine pull, I used a tin can and tin snips to cut out a peace of tin. That peace I would wrap around the fuel line and push it into the quick disconnect. It worked for the fuel rail. Here I was faced with 3 connections. Two at the inline fuel filter and one after the fuel pump. They just would not want to play with me.

Luckily, I know a buddy who has a set of those fuel line disconnect tools. I borrowed the tolls and disconnected the lines. All but the one past the fuel pump. I think there's enough dirt and dust in there that would not let me slide the tool inside. It's still November in Canada, so let's wait for the worm weather to come back to finish that off. There a few nice plastic mounts that hold the rails to the body. I took those off too. I may reuse them on the cobra. With the lines disconnected form both ends and mounts removed the lines simply fall on the floor.

I helped them to the shelf.

Fuel tank is the fun part. First I disassembled the filler neck and unhooked all the hoses around. Surprisingly there's no complexity to that. As a matter of fact, the filler neck simply slides into the grommet. The fuel tank is strapped in with two metal straps. Before undoing those make sure you support the tank some how. I used the wood and the jack but once the straps were loose the tank fell down from my support. No harm since everything was disconnected and there's a plastic protective cover. The only difficulty I faces was draining the tank. I did not spot any drain plugs. So I simply tilted the tank and poured fuel from the filler neck grommet. I had my dad hold the funnel and jerry can. Make sure to use some sort of filter if you are planning to use the fuel. There were some debris on the tank even after brushing it off and wiping it with a cloth. It is definitely a 2 men job. The tank with fuel is not light and is hard to aim at the funnel. I topped off my dad's car after we were done. That's it. The fuel system is off too.

For the next couple of days there was a strong smell of gas in my garage. Even with the fuel tank openings tied off with a plastic bags. I think it's from the fuel lines and some spills that I had. I hope the smell would go away after some time.

Live axle drops

As I've mentioned in previous post. I gave up on the brake lines and moved on to the rear end. To be 100% honest I gave fuel lines a crack too but those did not want to cooperate without the the proper disconnect tool. More on that to come later.

Rear axle is held in place by many bolts. I have previously taken out the springs and the main struts. But there are all the arms left in place and some other shock looking linkage. As with the rest of the jobs, I don't see any challenges. In fact, it was somewhat smooth. Get a plank of wood. Put the jack under the diff with wood in between. Jack it up to loosen the tension. Undo all the bolts on the arms at the unibody end. Some of the arms will simply come out others will need a bit of persuasion. In my case, one of the bushings got squeezed due to the deformation resulted from the accident. So that joint point required much more wiggling and and 2x2 persuasion but it did let go. In fact 2x2 fits nicely in between the body and the lateral arm and was very instrumental.

Here's the fun part. After all that wiggling and last arm disconnected the axle rolled down the jack. It did not fall and break anything but gave a clear indication how heavy it is. Truthfully, I was not expecting it to be that heavy. However, my jack was pulling a wheely at that moment. The fact that it ended up on the jack actually worked out well. I simply pulled the axle out on the jack. After my back refused to lift the axle. I got my engine crane out and strapped the axle in. Voilà!

That's the last major job completed. Next one up is the fuel system.

Small thing but took long time

It is a bit hard to justify removing wiring harness as a precursor to rear end job. However, hand brake removal makes more sense. At least so at first. Frankly, the hand brake only has 2 cable connection and wiring harness has 2 ABS sensors ;). But who cares, I am here trying to postpone the heavy lifting of the rear axle. So hand brake comes first.

The hand brake is a no-brainer. Undo the handle nuts. Unhook the T connector. Fish the cable through the hole and put the thing on the shelf. Done! Well, there's still those two cables going from T connector to the actual calipers. Again, unhook the cables at the caliper end. Undo a couple of screws that hold the mounts to the unibody. Fish the cables out of the body pockets. And you should be almost done. The tricky part is that last bracket. You see, the other ends of the cables are snapped into a bracket that is welded to the unibody above the drive-shaft. The cables have a funny clip that holds them in the bracket. The clip is round with 3 barbs evenly spaced around. The challenge is to get all 3 barbs squeezed and push the clip out form the bracket. Due to the location of the bracket there's not much visibility of all 3 barbs. I was able to press at most two of them but one was always left out. The fact that the two ends are next to each other just reminded that there's twice as much frustration. I even used my creativity and strapped a hose clamp around the barbs but the clamp was not strong enough to squeeze the barbs too. So after a short while I gave up and decided that I need more "POWAA"!

Yep, I took the grinder to it. It did not help at all. So I had the bracket hanging on the cables. I could not see all the barbs but still did not lucky freeing the cables out. In fact, I gave up and moved on to the axle that day.

I came back to take the cables out about a week later. It's still in Canada and still November. But fear not because I got this:

I found I had that from long time ago stuffed with other junk I have never unpacked after the move. It's obvious that heater did nothing but thankfully we were still getting around 10 C degrees out here. In fact, the temperatures were starting to drop off and that motivated me to finish the job.

This time however, I sought advise from community. I can't remember the exact forum but it's out there. And here's the trick that makes the impossible possible.

And just like that the bracket let go of the cables.

See no need to cut and break stuff. Once again I've got frustrated, done some stupid things and solved nothing. In the retrospect, it did feel nice taking a grinder to the car. :)

Zappy job

It's November and it's Canada but it's 17 C out there. Is it a sign? I work at the bank and being the laziest ones out there banks are off for Remembrance day. So I get an unaccounted for long weekend. I kind of found out about it the Friday before. Definitely a sign from the fate to finish off the donor tear down.

The time has come to remove the rear axle. But that's a heavy part. So I put that off the later and I am off to remove all the wires. There's is nothing difficult about removing the wiring harness off of a car. Run around with a flat head screwdriver and a needle nose pliers and pull all the connecters apart. Label them. Label them. Label them. The harness is actually composed of few sections. So tackle one segment at a time.  So that's exactly what I did.

Here's the first:

And then some more

And then some more

The ECU (PCM, EEC, etc, the brain) is a bit of a pain to remove. It's tacked into the passenger side wall. It's a bit too hard to access the screw that's the closest to the firewall. I guess Ford folks put that in first before mounting heater and other accessories there. Luckily, I had no fenders on so that makes it simple to turn the screw out using pliers from the outside.

I think I labeled all I needed. At least I hope I did. The time will show if i missed a critical plug. There are a lot of wires. Some modules are there obviously for air bags and corresponding sensors. Those would need to be stripped out. As well as the remote door and trunk openers, fog lights, heater control, stereo, power convertible top, etc. I bet I could simplify this harness a bit. But that's for after. I would probably have to do it after the car starts and drives. I am too scared removing the wires blindly with out testing. However, if i get bored in the winter time, I might start on simple stuff.

For now, all of that is connected together and in a big box that goes in a far corner of the garage.

That's it. This job is almost too quick. It did not give me enough procrastination before rear axle. I bet I can find something else however.

I can lift the car now!

It is 100% true. I can lift the mustang by the front bumper. Sadly it has nothing to do with me getting stronger. It is the mustang that has shed a lot of weight.

The last time I gave up on front suspension. Actually, since then I gave up on it a number of times. We, front suspension and I, have a history together. It is never easy between us. In fact, I would rate it as number one job I would hesitate to do on a car. For example, I needed to swap out sway-bar end links on my Subaru since the beginning of this summer. I did do it but in August. You see, I am not particularly strong and car's suspensions is designed to withhold crazy loads. In addition, at the front there are two of my compassionately hated parts: ball joint and outer tie rod end. Now that I come to think of it, on mustang, unlike Subaru the end links are not a problem at all. So, I had to outsmart the mustang since I could not beat it by force. First, ask friends how to remove those two enemies. Their advice only got one tie rod end off. Since I was seeing much progress, I came up with plan B:

That's a front end service kit from Canadian Tire. I have rented that especially for this job. Getting the tie rod end out of the spindle was a blast. In fact I went back to return this kit and ended up buying this:

As you can see, that one of the parts from the kit. That thing is amaizing for popping tie rod ends and ball joints out. I still did fail to remove the ball joint. That sucker had the rubber boot too close to the spindle so I could not stick my magic tool. But this time I got away since I was taking the control arms too.

Everything else did not pose any problems as expected. My impact gun was not strong enough to take the control arm bolts out. I guess 350 lb-ft of torque was not good enough. For cases like that I have another magic tool: breaker bar. Nothing can take that. Bolts gave up easily. In the end - ta dah:

Now I can tick off the steering parts off my "needed parts" list.

If you reflect back: the engine is out, radiator is out, master cylinder is out, power steering is out, now the steering rack and entire front suspension is out... Wait, the front end of the car has only bumper beam left. And that's exactly why I am able to lift it. ;)

Rear axle, here I come...

No brakes! Day 2

It's true. I took them out and put them on the shelf.

Today was the second day of my vacation. I can't really make it any more exciting them engine pull. So lower your expectations. Even though the big parts are out, there are plenty of small bits left in. They are boring and tedious but are required.

I hope that picture will keep you reading after previous sentence.

Today was supposed to be suspension day. I was planning to remove the front spindles. It all went well until I got to the tie rods. That's about 30 min into the job. I did everything in my power to get get them out but they are there to stay. I remember replacing them on my Subaru, it was not exactly a walk in the park either.  This is the time to buy the special press tool and make the job enjoyable. So I gave up on the suspension and switched to the next thing: brakes. It does not really make sense to remove the calipers since I am taking the entire spindle off the car, that means that master cylinder is up. Interestingly, Ford did not use the usual vacuum based booster for the brakes. They decided to go "Hydroboost". What that really means is that the power steering pump is also powering your brakes. Nice idea. It's got pros and cons. But it's not worth the discussion since I am using it as is anyways. I am off to get the master cylinder off. That thing seats on the hydroboost thingy. That means I am really off to get the entire assembly off. It's held in place by 4 nuts. I take the first nut off and jump inside. Guess what? The other 3 nuts are on the inside under the dash. Now that picture above gives away the ending. I tried to work with the dash on but it's very painful. In addition, I need to take a lot of parts from under there anyways. Out it goes. As a side effect, I took off the steering column but did not find it on the list of needed parts from Factory Five. I find it a bit strange. I'll shoot them an email to confirm. Surprisingly, I found that there's a vacuum line going into the climate controls. Ford is using vacuum lines rather than wires. They look very similar to wires but the connectors are soft. Another discovery: you know that knob that controls the heater temperature? Ford is actually using cable and a couple of pulleys but no electricity here either. Very simple but it works.

Over all the day turned out to be a success. Lot's of small parts made it to the shelf. Throttle cable, clutch cable (or what's left of it), pedal box, accelerator pedal, power assist and master cylinder along with all the lines that make up the power assist system. Let's just say that the interior.... what interior?

I can honestly say that if I had a week to work on this car, it would have been stripped. I would probably collapse since even after yesterday I am a bit stiff. By the end of the day in awkward positions, I was finding it difficult to walk.

Well, till the next time. Fuel, electrical, suspension, steering are still to come.

Pedal to the metal. Day 1

Wrench to the metal is more like it. A while ago I started a new job. At the new place they have "fair" way of calculating vacation day allowance for the first year. At the start you have none. As time passes by they give you day by day. That kind of made me save my days for the longer vacation later. However, after almost 6 months I realized that I don't really have that many days still but the summer is almost gone. So I made a call to take 2 days off to relax.

So day one was yesterday and now I am having a coffee break to write this up. The donor was parted out to such degree that no more parts were getting sold. Only some loose odd parts were left and they would take time to sell. In addition, I had someone ask for the cross member. It made sense to pull the motor out and proceed with the project. So this two days were allocated for that.

Previously I went to Canadian Tire and bought engine crane and stand while it was on sale. I had to jump throw some hoops to actually get it in my hand and in my garage but that's history now. One night, I assembled the things and had them ready for this 2 day spree. The plan was to pull the engine first and then get the tranny out next day. Well, it never does go by the plan. I got the instruction steps of how to get the motor out from my shop manual. It's only 12 pages of disconnect this and that. Actually it was not as difficult at it sounds beside the step to remove 9 bell housing bolts. The thing with the shop manual is that it clearly tells you what to do but not how to do it. Those bolts are located all around the bell housing. That means that the bottom and sides are more or less accessible but the ones on the top are between the engine and car's body. I still don't know how I could get them off. So after some unsuccessful attempts I gave up and decided to pull the the entire thing. Well, it had to be out one way or another.

The major accomplishment for me is the AC system well-being. There's a bit of a story to that. Once upon a time I had to pull the intake manifold off of my Subaru and managed to lean on the AC line and snap it off the fitting. That cost me $100 or so to refill the system and the new line from my trusty part source: Four Star Motorsports. I don't know why but the dealer never has parts for my Subaru but the rally shops have them all. Next day, I spoke to my buddy at work who is crazy enough to perform engine pulls every now and then and tell him my mishap. He laughed at me and saying that AC does not need to be disturbed even for the engine pull. So here you have it. I undid all the thing required to leave the AC compressor still in the body with all the lines and condenser intact.

What did I break? Actually I usually break more things than that day. Maybe I am getting better at this. I only managed to ruin my clutch cable. I must admit, I was young and and stupid. I remember I was putting it off till later and I guess that later never came. I hope Ford does not charge much for those. I also snapped the plastic box that seems like EGR controller. That thing is still fine it simply came off it's bracket. I need to take a look at this EGR system. I have a strong feeling it's something I would want out anyways.

The fun part was to figure out a way of separating engine and tranny. The crane was kind of holding the couple by the bolts that keep them together. Surprisingly a simple chair was of most help here. Transmission is not that heavy and could be supported by a chair. Once undone, the motor was back on the crane with all chains connected and later mounted to the engine stand. 

The only regret I have is for not draining transmission fluid out first. Well, I did not need to according to the plan. Even though I have caught most of it in the bucket, a lot got spilled on the floor. To add to the already messy workplace, a bracket of the engine stand fell and knocked down my beer. It was a long but productive day that came to a satisfying end. When I later showed my "sandbox" to my wife the instantly noticed that the entire garage smelled like beer. Strangely, she did not say anything about the strong smell of transmission fluid and nasty stink from coolant. I don't know what was wrong with that coolant but it had some disgusting smell from the day I got the car in the driveway.

Well, It's time to get back in there. I hope the floors dried up. Here's a sneak preview of Day2:

Some haters work at Ford

Let's walk through a hypothetical scenario. A car guy wants a manly car. He thinks nice V8 it is. He thinks it must be all out raw power. He chooses Ford Mustang GT. Next thing he picks up the car and sticks the key in it and... Bugger! Naturally, if the guy got a V8 he would want the entire world to know that it's a V8. That means it's gotta get much louder. So far none of the typical production cars have addressed that. Hell, even cops don't seem to get it. The only people who seem to be on top of this are cruiser bikers. But I reject their existence. Returning back to the guy with a quiet mustang, he jacks up the car looks at the exhaust system. Repeats the previous step. Looks on the web. Looks on the YouTube. And then, it occurs to him: that thing is stuck in there pretty good.

I appreciate the fact that folks at Ford are very smart engineers and know what they are doing. I can understand their logic behind the design of their exhaust system. In fact, it's been proven to be very effective and well flowing setup. But seriously, just to remove a muffler you need to partially drop the rear axle? In general, the mufflers tend to rust after years and need to be replaced even with normal use. Not to mention that poor car guy who just want's it loud. The first comment I got from the forums was "just cut it into pieces and pull it out". Really? Wait that means that aftermarket setups would install with out all this pain in the rear end. Ford only needed to add one more flange for tail pipes and they would have had enthusiasts satisfied. Having said that, the enthusiasts don't stop at this minor things. They will cut this into parts and put their beloved systems on. But the mechanics at Ford dealerships get the short end of the stick. In fact it's the people who come to dealership to have the mufflers replaced who would have to shell out extra bucks.

Just to put this into perspective my Subaru's exhaust system is made up of four parts connected with flanges and gaskets. The crazy guy I know would change the exhaust in his own garage every spring and fall. He has a winter and summer setup. Just like tires. (Trust me, it's not the only thing that puts him into"crazy" category).

There's my problem:

See those bends that meant to go around axle. That just would not come out ... One joint point. All I ask for.

Edit:
In that guys defense, how can you say no to that:

First stubs at the donor

This post is more of an update. I can't really jump up and declare that the donor is stripped and I am onto the next step. However, I must say that it's a pleasure working on this car. You see, I am a rally fan. And that fact conditioned me into thinking that the cars built for rallying or motorsports in general must be easy to work on mechanically. How else would you explain: suspension characteristics tweaks performed by drivers on the side of the road, 34 min service for repair of a horrible role over, and just over an hour to swap out the entire drivetrain? So for years I have been working on my Subaru and thinking how easy things are to work on. Well it's all relative and I had nothing to compare to.

Frankly, I don't know what motorsports Mustangs are in. However, I would expect such an iconic car to be in some form of competition. I must admit so far it's a blast to work on this car. Yeah they do some things differently at Ford but that's what I expect from different companies anyways. In addition, the car is very simple. Almost primitive. One of the guys from mustang club told me that it's no surprise since the car is mostly based on Fox platform. Those things have been around since late 70s. Simple is good, right? Every car guy would agree. Well every hardcore old-school guy would agree. I just found out that my motor does not have MAP sensor and relies %100 on MAF. So that means that I have too keep the stupid air pluming. No oval cobra filter. No carburetor look. How is that for "simple is good"? I'd say that outright "sucks". I find "no MAP" a bit hard to believe because guys at Ford have to compensate for barometric pressure somehow. But that's to find out later.

Over all the car is only getting better and better to work on as more and more parts are being sold. Of course, it's missing most of the parts that are usually in the way. A big thanks to all the guys who work on their cars and don't want to pay premium for new parts.

Is this always the case?

It seems like a familiar story every time. Yet I did not notice it until yesterday night. It's like back in school. In order to write a good essay you should follow this steps: blah blah blah, whatever they are. And then for the rest of your school all you do is follow those simple steps.

Here's what I mean. Seems like everything I do is happening according to preset plan.

1. Oh cool! Good idea.
2. It's easy. I can do that
3. Read something. Watch some YouTube. Educate myself a bit.
4. That's not hard at all.
5. Tell my wife it'll take me 15 min.
6. Hack at it for 3 hours
7. Have "The hell with it" thought cross my mind.
8. Promise myself a cold one once it's done.
9. Hack at it for another 3 hours
10. Have it complete
11. Stand back and ask "what was that easy part?"
12. Skip on the beer. I told my wife I'd be back 5 something hours ago. Out of time now.
13. Sleep on it.
14. It was not so bad after all.

Maybe I am just a slow learner. It appears I go through the same 14 steps every time I do anything and come back to doing it again. If needed of course. For the exception of car stuff,  that's pure masochism. I can't come up with any rational explanation on that.

My enlightening moment came after attempt to remove windshield and convertible top off of the donor.

 Ah, it's like throwing octopus on hockey ice. It's just makes me smile to see it flat on the driveway.

This pony got into my lasso

Now I know what Christmas in July feels like. Past Friday, I came home and found this in my driveway.

So I ran to get the keys and my wife pulled out the camera. Hopefully her Facebook update would not be too embracing for me. :)
 
Frankly, it was not easy to find this. One would wonder how hard is it to buy a car? Well, in this case money is everything. If you've got cash in your hands and the sticker price is not a problem, it is easy. In my case, I had a check list to meet: 99-04 years, 89 octane, manual transmission, low km (around 100k km or less), some mods are good but no crazy power mods (remember my octane limit) and ,of course, in good condition. Oh, did I say I want to spend as little as possible ($3000 that is). Believe it or not, just the technical requirements put a lot of cars of limits. The only ones left were GTs and Bullitts. Bullitts don't count too. They are way too rare. So I was left with the most generic mass produced V8 mustang. What could be the problem then? Apparently, even though mustangs are very common on the roads, there aren't that many V8s running about. Out of those, too, we have even fewer with a stick shift. Guess what comes next, those who have a V8 mustang with a manual transmission seems to be knowledgeable chaps and value their cars. The fact that I did not have many bills in my hands did not help either. Thus, the search for donor turned into a lengthy affair.

I also have to contradict a couple of my statements in previous post. I did end up getting a car of Impact Auto. That is from Canada. In my defense, that was the second mustang that popped up in half a year. In the States, I saw one sell about each week. The main reason for not landing an American car was the shipping costs. I had to lower my bid to stay within my budget for the entire purchase. Keep in mind that at every auction I had to compete with people who live in the same area and are willing to go extra few bucks since they have no shipping expanses to worry about. Now that I come to think of it, that's one of the reason I was able to get this car. It was in Hamilton. Thanks to Ways Auto for delivering the car and helping me with the entire process.

Now to the more interesting facts. I did see the car for the first time when the money have left my pocket already. That means there were surprises, both good and bad. For example, I saw Magnaflow engraved on exhaust tips. :) But two wheels had damage and one tire was punctured. :( Oh well, I bet there's more  surprises to discover. For instance, I wonder who makes blue springs for Mustangs?

So we are off to strip parts and try to recover some of the donor cost back. Anybody needs body and interior part?

Canadians must be crazy

The most important step is to start with a good foundation. I was looking for a donor car for a few month now. I have been monitoring the used car sales, private listings on Kijiji as well as local Mustang club. One thing was obvious. Good stuff does not cost cheap. So I turned my attention to auctions selling off cars after collisions. Now the prices were in my comfort zone. I was recommended to look into Copart. And frankly that's where I spent a lot of time. However, not that may cars were in Canada. I mainly was looking at the near by US states. I saw a 2001 Cobra sell for about $3500 and a Mach 1 for $1500. My expectations were that Mustang GT would cost me about a $1000 give or take. I have been recommended a business that can buy and deliver the car for me. The obvious advise I got is to look near by and not as far as US. Mustangs are very common and I should be able to buy one locally and save a lot on shipping. Thus, my new search place is Impact Auto. It did not take me long to find the car I want. The night before auction I dropped off my deposit and was waiting for the results.

In the morning I was 200% confident that by next Friday I would have a Mustang in my garage. But I was missing a small detail: Canadians don't value their own money. The auction began and almost in seconds the price went over my maximum $2000 mark. In the end, US car imported into Canada and with a front collision in nondrivable condition sold for $3350. Did I mention that SVT Cobra sold for that much in US? Well, a normal response would be: "but you get cheaper shipping". True, I would have saved about $500 on shipping but it still does not justify another $1500.

The bottom line is this, we are looking at the US manufactured car sold in two neighboring countries where the currency is at almost the same value. The laws allow for US sold cars to be imported and registered in Canada. In fact, we have a free trade agreement that allows for US manufactured goods enter Canada with out duties. There are some paper work and associated fees but they are not excessive by any standards.

Moreover, this Canadian willingness to overpay stands true for new cars too. For instance, 2013 Boss 302 is starting from $48,799 in Toronto and after 1.5 hour drive, $42,200 in Buffalo. That's about $7000 just for getting speedometer to show kilometer numbers bigger than miles.

Yesterday was supposed to be a great leap forward for my project. However, it was a day of realization of a sad fact. Once again I find myself looking over the border.

Getting to it, sort of

Well we have the idea, let's get to it. Based on the info I gathered around Factory Five website, Western Canada Cobras and various forums, I was not crazy. It is actually possible to import the car kit into Canada. Build it at home and then register with Ontario. After putting all the rules and regulations readings behind me I was set to find the source of power to propel this project forward: a Ford V8. This task should be easy and straight forward to some but not me. Remember I drive a Subaru, DIS, EFI, DOHC are all very dear to me. Now, if you don't know any of those things you are probably not following me. On the other hand, if you are familiar with them you are definitively not clear. So I'll leave it open for now. The choices are 302 small block, 4.6 modular or Ford Racing gems in crates. Well after some excessive drooling and cost calculation, I've decided that 4.6 modular is the motor for me. I do like my electronic toys (that's all those acronyms) and Anna is not giving up on stressing that the power is not nearly as important as fuel efficiency. 4.6L motor is all of that and is probably less rusty since it comes from more modern Mustangs. Once the prey was identified it was just a mater of a couple of clicks and I was striking a deal on a 2002 Mustang GT. The deal went sour in the end. I was devastated. I came to a sad realization that I don't have a garage to build the car in. I called all of my friends and relatives but nobody would surrender their garage to my Mustang with a minor accident damage. Worry not, I have my second half to support me in exactly such tough times. She, having extensive education, has applied her analytically thinking and spotted the problem: no garage. In the next few weeks we bought this

There was a house in front of this and that meant we had to sell our condo and move. It was the necessary evil. I could not proceed without the garage. With the garage, I need be constantly reminded that the house is my first priority. None the less, I was happier than any kid on Christmas once everything was said and done.

Let's start

Just a short intro. Lets skim over the boring stuff.

• I like cars
• I like working with my hands
• I like WRC (it's a motor sport :))
• I drive a Subaru. 

The story:
 Once up on a time i met a girl. Her name is Anna. She did not drive. After many years of constant encouragement from me, she still does not drive. At one time I even promised to give her a MINI cooper if she gets the license. No luck. The shocking answer i got "I don't like that car". What girl does not like MINIs? Since I obviously could not pick a car for her I asked what she would like. Here's the answer: "something pretty". I wasn't getting very far with that driver license issue so i gave up. This resurfaced later when i was admiring this car

It's the legendary Caterham 7 from http://www.caterham.co.uk. Unexpectedly, Anna shared my passion by proposing to build a kit car. Yes, IT WAS HER IDEA. There was a small speed bump however. She graphically described her passionate repulsion to the car above. And you would have to take my word here, it was graphic, descriptive and very detail oriented monolog diminishing every aspect of that car. So what do i do? Standard move: throw my arms up and "Oh yeah, you pick then".  Here's the list http://www.kitcarlist.com/. A couple of days later she comes back with this

Now the interesting bit, she went as far as "I'd drive that". There we go! We finally found the car that she is willing to drive. At least, that's what i keep telling myself. Another one of those is that I will build these for a sole intention of her driving it. The source of the chosen kit is http://www.factoryfive.com.Now we have an idea to turn into reality. The project Cobra was born.