Dennis Lacy

For being your first project in over 20 years you dove right in! Those last mock up pics with the modified ‘32 frame look great. Stance is right-on. This kit and it’s companion ‘30 Coupe are very good in many ways but the stance and proportions out of the box are wonky. And, we share the same opinion of the channeled version, there’s just too much free air underneath. I always equate a channeled body to go along with a low slung stance. Next you need to fix the headlight placement which, out of the box, is terrible. They need to come forward and down to eliminate the “frog eye” look.

UPDATE! Had a great day at the bench and finished a lot of the fine paint and small decal detailing. The engine is now complete except for the intake tubing which will have to be built once the engine is permanently installed. I picked up a decal sheet from Revell’s 1993 Mustang Cobra kit for all of $3.00 on eBay. Mostly I wanted it for the Cobra fender badges but it included a second set of snakes in blue which is, as luck would have it, what should be at the center of the intake plenum. The plug wires have been dull coated and if you look close I also added the PCV line from the plenum to drivers cam cover. Here’s the finished master cylinder and hydroboost unit along with the battery complete with Motorcraft decal. The finished subframe connectors and front suspension K-member painted Tamiya TS42 Light Gunmetal. Brakes have been installed front and rear and are a mixture of Testors Metalizer Steel on the rotors, Magnesium on the hubs and Model Master Jet Exhaust on the calipers. The Speedline wheels have been detailed with Testors Silver brushed onto the spokes, flat black In the lug holes and the lug nuts touched with Jet Exhaust. The interior parts have all been paint detailed and the dash/console fully assembled as well. The Mustang emblem decal on the dash comes in the LX kit while the photo etched pedal pads, speaker grills and radio face all come from Detail Master. The white Ford logo horn button decal comes from the Revell ‘29 Roadster hot rod kit. The white gauge faces were on the ‘93 Cobra decal sheet that I bought but the gauge decal is significantly smaller than the gauge decal in the LX kit. I made it work by carefully cutting the white decal into 4 pieces and fit them between the correctly molded raised dividers on the gauge housing. Here’s a closer look at the difference in gauge decals. The bottom one is the correct size from the LX kit while the top is the unused stock gauges from the ‘93 Cobra kit. As you can see there’s quite a difference which is surprising considering the ‘93 Cobra is a slightly larger 1:24 scale versus the LX in 1:25. Despite this I made it work as seen above and I couldn’t be happier! Funny thing is I would never put white faces in any full scale Mustang of mine but for the sake of the model they help further “sell” the car being modified. At this point it’s down to painting the chassis/floor pans and the body itself. ?

No way! Very cool. The white and titanium combo was quite rare and these days extremely hard to come by. When I was 16 in 1996 I bought a Chilton’s repair manual with one on the cover and fell in love. Wanted an identical GT ever since and in 2013 I unbelievably found this one on Craigslist with 57,200 miles and completely stock. It is an automatic but I didn’t care, I had to have it. It’s a factory stripped GT. No power anything, standard radio and no cruise control. Also has the 3.27 geared performance axle. Rare build specs all around.

Tri-5 Chevies sure do make killer Pro Street cars!

Frame modifications look good so far, Phil. Nice way to tweak the K-member into more of a stock appearance. I had no idea the car had the spring ahead of the axle. That couldn’t have been too common and I can visualize how it would have caused wheel hop. I wonder why Tom couldn’t have just moved it behind like thousands of other hot rods?

Sounds like I need to make a trip down the street to Pegasus this weekend! ?

Well then, you’re welcome! ?

UPDATE! Its been a minute since I’ve updated this project because I’ve been spending my time on my ‘90 Mustang. Today I spent the afternoon on this poor, neglected Nova. After brush painting all up inside of the front clip flat black I went ahead and polished & waxed the body, hood, bumpers, dash, console and sub box. As usual I used Adam’s paint correcting polish on a microfiber followed up with their buttery liquid wax. Very pleased with the results! Then I blacked out the spaces between the grill bars with a very fine brush and Testors little jar flat black. This was a tedious process but had to be done. One of the nice things about detailing with Testors little jar paint over Tamiya clear is that if you get it where it doesn’t belong just wipe it off with your fingertip (right away) and keep going. Under the hood I painted the windshield wiper fluid reservoir white and then installed the pump motor with a black line connecting the two. I also installed the brake booster/master cylinder and fuel pressure regulator on the passenger side. The interior is nearly done. The seats are still loose and will be glued down after I make and install the power cables to the amps and install all of the photo etched speaker grills. What is done is the dash with photo etched gauge panel (with digital faces) and photo etched radio/equalizer. The center console and sub box are glued down along with the sub faces, amps and spare wheel assembly. I also installed the photo etched door handles, window handles and pedal pads. So this one is getting really close to the finish line. Still left is to paint the chassis pan after I do some final details on the wheel mounting and I’m also going to lightly tint the windows.

UPDATE! Over the last work week I managed to get all of the interior parts painted except for the floor which is permanently attached to the chassis pan so that will come later. The colors are Tamiya TS33 Dull Red and their semi gloss black. Yes, that’s right. This LX is having “porno red” interior! This color is a little more brown than the factory Scarlet interior but it gets the job done. Originally I planned to finish detail painting these pieces this weekend (window cranks, glove box latch and lock) but I ended up putting a full afternoon into my ‘63 Nova Wagon project instead. So now that we know that the interior is red then what is the exterior going to be? Tamiya TS88 Titanium Silver which is darn near a dead ringer for the factory YX Titanium Frost. One of the harder to find colors and therefore sought after. Here is what inspired the color choices even though it is obviously a GT and has factory two-tone paint, the top half being Titanium Frost with matt titanium lower accent and if you look close you’ll see the red interior. So there you guys have it, the official color plan. I also painted the tubular K-member, subframe connectors, radiator, fan and brakes which I’ll do an update on soon.

Thanks, man!

Thanks so much, Steve! I’m really trying to make something special out of this project. Just wait until you see my painted interior parts update tomorrow night! ?

Thanks a bunch! Sounds like you’ve had some good ones. My current daily is this original paint ‘87 GT. Although, with the values of these cars skyrocketing I’m starting to rethink that.

Thanks! I try to be thorough on the chance what I’m doing might help someone else.

Haha, yeah I can’t take credit for the wires this time. AMT did a really nice job on this engine and it’s details. With some tedious detail painting it looks really authentic. That whole Phantom Vicky street rod kit is really well done. The assembled car is just kinda ugly. ?

I was set on Emerald for a bit, thought for sure that’s what it was going to be but then saw a picture that changed my mind.

No, but I strongly considered it.

LOL! With my last 3 projects being a ‘57 Chevy, ‘63 Nova Wagon and this ‘90 Mustang, believe me, I’m really itchin’ to get back to hot rods. But I can’t stop now or I’ll likely never come back! ?

UPDATE! I heard there was some kind of big sports game on today? ?‍♂️ At least my wife made a bunch of bomb party appetizers to take out to the bench with me! ? I spent the week getting most of the suspension and engine parts primed and sprayed on my lunch hours at work, sat down today and did all of the fine detail painting and then did some unplanned assembly. I was in The Zone! The rear axle was assembled with the girdle style rear cover, upper control arms, springs and anti roll bar. I painted the springs and anti roll bars Duplicolor Red to represent Eibach parts while the struts and shocks are Tamiya TS34 Camel Yellow to represent Koni “Sport” models. The rear axle cover is Tamiya TS30 Silver Leaf with their flat clear to look like cast aluminum while the trailing arms are Model Master Aluminum metalizer brushed on. The steering rack was also done in Silver Leaf with flat clear with flat black boots and Model Master Magnesium metalizer on the outer ends. Here’s a close up of all of the springs to show better how they are detailed flat black down between all of the coils. The 1996-1998 SVT Cobra engine is an aluminum block, cylinders heads and front cam chain drive covers. The bell housing and 5-speed transmission are also aluminum. As a unit they were sprayed with Silver Leaf, flat clear and then treated to a full wash of thinned Testors flat black. The cam covers and intake plenum are Tamiya TS76 Mica Silver with their gloss clear. Where the oil cap would be on the driver side cover I installed a K&N style breather cap as is popular to do. The breather is from the Revell 1948 Ford Convertibles optional hot rod parts for its Flathead V8. The coolant tubes are gloss black and I cut the molded in no-detail oil filter off and replaced it with one from Revell’s ‘32 Ford kits painted bright white. The belt drive was painted flat black then the pulleys and tensioners detailed in a combo of aluminum and magnesium metalizer. The engine comes with plug wires and coil packs. The wires are Duplicolor Red while the boots, coil packs and divider clips are flat black. They are not glued yet as now that they are detail painted I’m going to dull coat the wires because they shouldn’t be glossy. The plenum is also not attached because now that I’ve detailed the throttle body with bright silver and the EGR valve with Model Master Jet Exhaust I’m going to bury it in gloss clear like the cam covers. The headers are done in Silver Leaf but left as-is to look like silver ceramic coating. The oil pan is semi gloss black. Here’s a quick mock up with the rear axle and suspension in place along with the finished exhaust which, like the headers, is finished in Silver Leaf left as-is to look like silver ceramic coating. And I couldn’t resist setting the engine under the hood! In the coming week I hope to get the front K-member and subframe connectors painted (which I picked up the color for yesterday at my LHS) and also get the interior pieces painted except for the floor and roll bar as they aren’t quite ready yet. I also picked up the exterior color yesterday which isn’t an exact match but very similar to a very sought after color that was new to the Mustang palette in 1990. Any guesses?

Man, I can’t imagine having to go through all of that to work on one of my projects but I guess you do what you gotta do! The interior with the textured paint looks AWSOME!

Some seriously kick ass work going into this one. This will be your best A Coupe yet!

For your first chop looks like it turned out pretty nice! Car has a really tuff look to it. The second header looks much better. The sweep and larger diameter primaries make it looks really aggressive.

I’ve got two Coupes so far but have done nothing more than opened the boxes. People savvy to these kits know that the frame center cross members have different transmission mounting tabs depending which engine is used. I wonder if it’s possible that some kits included the wrong cross member? Feasible considering some of them are showing up with the wrong engine chrome tree. That would throw off engine placement and cause fit problems. PS: Both of my Coupes have the correct engine chrome trees and non warped frames.

UPDATE! I’m happy to report that there were no setbacks this time. In fact the day was productive at finishing the last of the major fab work needed and then moved on to chassis and engine parts clean up towards primer and paint. The first thing I did was scratch build a pair of subframe connectors out of .020 and .040 sheet. These are in the style of a popular bolt-on set from BBK in the 90’s. Next I had to make some tweaks to the engine coolant connections. On the upper U-shaped pipe that connects the heads the original hose connection was on top but that might interfere with the hood so I grafted in and blended a piece of .080” rod and to make a new connection pointing forward. The lower hose is a T-shaped piece that ties in with the oil cooler on the left side of the engine. I had to cut off the forward portion that would have connected to the radiator in the ‘32 Ford street rod kit the engine came from. I cut that off then added a relocated piece of .080” rod to give a better approach for the lower hose to the radiator. Lastly I addressed the brake master cylinder. When you swap one of these wide ‘96-‘04 4-cam SVT Cobra engines into the older cars there’s no room for the conventional vacuum brake booster. Instead you have to use the “hydroboost” unit from later cars. The hydroboost is tied into the power steering system and uses hydraulic pressure to boost pedal input. I cut out the molded-in booster area from the firewall and filled it with a piece of .040 sheet. I then created a loose interpretation of the hydroboost unit from a Ford starter and used the kits master cylinder. It’s still a tight fit but a sliver is as good as a mile! At this point I think I’ve done all I can do until the engine is installed and permanently located which means it and the chassis needs to be painted and assembled. Then I can make the radiator hoses and air intake and I may try to make a few other under hood details. ?

Maybe it wasn’t built to handle you! ?

Thanks for the nice post, KK. Always appreciate your thoughts and support!