Project Muscrate
...bringing up the rear! Part one.
By Jay Roeder
4/7/06
i loyal readers and welcome back! First, let me apologize to all three of you for the delay. I have been super busy at my machine shop building everyone else’s hopes and dreams and simply have not had the time I had hoped for to work on Muscrate. However, I now have my priorities straight and I am full speed ahead on this years trials and tribulations so let us begin, shall we?
 Above is my custom made 14 year old upper arms. Below is the sweet new adjustable Comp. Engineering unit with spherical bearings. Part # C8005 |
 Obviously, this control arm bushing has seen better days. How embarassing. |
As mentioned last article I am in the process of totally revamping the much used and honestly ignored rear suspension of Muscrate. I haven’t done as much racing the last couple of seasons as I used to and consequently haven’t kept up with checking things over and staying on top of potential problems. It’s actually quite embarrassing honestly.
As the photos will attest, the old modified stock lower and custom upper control arms I have been running on the car for years were well…. worn out would be the nice way of stating it. When I finally got around to removing the old components I was amazed, embarrassed, impressed, and stunned at the condition of things.
It’s not easy being me. I will say however that what I had been using has actually worked pretty damn good over the years. Like most of you, the little people, I have never had a budget that allowed me to just go buy the latest greatest new item guaranteed to make me go faster. So, while I did spend good money on the parts I simply could not make myself, such as torque converters, I hand made a lot of stuff such as custom upper rear control arms and plate reinforced stock lowers. And, back when I first built the car in 1992 there really wasn’t that much stuff available yet for the Mustangs. At least, nothing worth paying for. Nowadays I think you could build a Mustang from scratch with all of the parts available! So let's get to the meat and taters part of this article and start building!
I know by now I probably sound like a broken record or paid spokesman for Moroso, but I swear they almost always have what I need! As the parent company of Competition Engineering they have just about everything a racer could want from fittings to complete back-half kits in either the Moroso or Competition Engineering brands. The basic plan wasto buy everything I need in a component matched system with the hopes of actually having the stuff work as individual components as well as a cohesive unit. In other words, the least amount of hassle for the dollar!