Gollum

Well, if you're talking about the EFR line, and you can get one for $600, then that's a no-brainer. As far as what to get, it's easy to say get the most modern design you can, as they promise the world when it comes to spool and power-per-diameter. And there's some truth there. But let's break out an exaggerated example to help show why some people end up unimpressed by dumping all their money for the latest model. If a 65mm compressor is rated to flow 50lb/s with a peak efficiency of 70%, and the same company comes out with an updated version with a stronger billet wheel, and better aero and now makes a 55mm compressor that's rated to flow 50lb/s with a peak efficiency of 70%, which will spool better? Everyone will say that the smaller one will, because it's smaller and will have less inertia to get going. But the problem with that assumption, is that the compressors are rated to the same efficiency. If "all things were equal" and the smaller turbine flowed the same air, then the efficiency WOULD GO UP. At the end of the day, the smaller wheel as better aero, and thus packs more air per rotation (or the same amount per second as the larger one) which means it takes MORE effort to spin the smaller one per MM of diameter per second. Efficiency ratings on compressor maps take inertia into account, which is why on the compressor side of the turbo you should care a lot more about targeting a wheel that you'll not be way off the map with. Now, the turbine side is where all the secret sauce is. A lot of people will go on and on about the material density/weight of the EFR turbos and point to that as the silver bullet as to why they spool so fast. Maybe they're right, but I have a feeling that just like the compressor, blade design is likely just as important. Garrett seems to be all about the temp ratings on the marketing side of the house, and it does indicate a form of reliability which scared EFR's early years with several shattered turbines with a material known to be brittle... Those reports seem to have calmed, and plenty of people run them in competition to prove they're not made of glass. So you be the judge. Personally, instead of getting caught up in marketing hype, I try to find real world A/B tests comparing spool time and power. We're finally seeing some initial tests of the new Garrett G series which look promising. People are getting 400+whp out of the G-660, and I'd like to see the same power figures for the G-550 since the power rating seems slightly lofty for the compressor map max flow ratings, but time will tell. Sadly for you though, the G-660 is likely a touch small for where you're heading in power, but I'm betting it'd spool a TON faster. Also, if you can get a few different housings to play around with, it's worth seeing if you ACTUALLY gain anything up top from a larger turbine AR housing. If not, then run the smallest AR you can, and if needed vent charge air to prevent surge. Could likely have a turbo at full RPM off the line if done right. No, putting that power down? I'll leave that up to you. You seem to have a lot of this stuff figured out already. Speaking of, I'm impressed all around by what you've put together. And on that note, upgrading those injectors soon? Looks like you're touching 80% so more power will be rough on your duty.

Welp, a large step forward has been made: And then of course it's rained all weekend, nonstop. But on the upside, my 20-30KPA 800-4500RPM cells are a lot more on the money than they used to be. And for those curious, my pre-adjusted startup AFRs on the Spartan were 13.3 and 16.6. So I guess my wiring is pretty solid! (for those unaware, the spartan wideband outputs calibration voltages so you can compensate for the common ground offsets, or even potential regulated 5v offsets in the wideband controller versus ECU). I also got some mics in for doing detonation frequency testing... Stay tuned (get it?)

Yeah, PATS can be disabled. Some engine wreckers even offer that as a service when you buy an engine from them. The ford performance kit I linked wouldn't have that issue.

My one concern with going standalone with these engines, and swapping in general is that they're direct injection. Not sure how difficult it would be to retrofit an existing fuel system for DI usage and try to tune with an alternate ECU. EDIT: And also, this is a thing: https://performanceparts.ford.com/part/M-6017-23T I don't think you'll get a DBW standalone + Harness + Throttle Pedal + misc parts that kid comes with for less money. You'd still be left needing the capability to tune it, but it's hard to ignore the plug in and go allure of something like that kit.

Yeah, aftermarket rods are certainly already a thing, hence why there's already 9 second ecoboost mustangs. And yes, we're fortunate. A quick glace at ONE national wrecker, there's 11 2015+ ecoboost mustangs with manuals up for auction: https://www.copart.com/vehicleFinderSearch/?displayStr=Ford,MUSTANG,[2015 TO 2020]&from=%2FvehicleFinder%2F&searchStr={"MISC":["%23MakeCode:FORD OR %23MakeDesc:Ford","%23LotModel:MUSTANG","%23VehicleTypeCode:VEHTYPE_V","%23LotYear:[2015 TO 2020]"],"sortByZip":false,"buyerEnteredZip":null}&searchCriteria={"query":["MUSTANG"],"filter":{"ENGN":["engine:\"2.3L 4\""],"MISC":["%23MakeCode:FORD OR %23MakeDesc:Ford","%23VehicleTypeCode:VEHTYPE_V","%23LotYear:[2015 TO 2020]"],"TMTP":["transmission_type:\"MANUAL\""]},"sort":["auction_date_type desc","auction_date_utc asc"],"watchListOnly":false,"searchName":"","freeFormSearch":false} Of course there's also the ebay sources of wreckers pulling engines and shipping them, but then you're likely going to need to source a harness+ECU and who knows what else is missing. Most of those are also currently sans transmission. Those seem to be selling around 2-3k which means a running engine + trans is certainly attainable under 5k, which isn't far off from what SR20's are going for these days...

More lights: Unlike the headlights, these definitely FEEL their price. The angle of the first mounting area is also puts the mirror a bit low for my taste, and lower than I was hoping. Would have worked much better for my liking mounted closer to a flat surface. But I really don't want to go through the effort of mounting the up at the back of the fender, though that does put them at a better angle. I'll likely keep these as-is for now, and in the future either replace them, or making a new mount for them. I'm thinking a double-ball system as common for photography gear would work well. Would just need to make a custom ball for the mirror side with the correct thread. But, by that time I'd have as much $ into the mounting as the mirrors themselves. That said, I can't find a happy medium between "ultra cheap crap" mirrors and "extremely expensive I have no life other than my motorcycle" mirrors. That said, I DO like the length, as obnoxious as it feels at first. And I like having more "look at me, I exist in this tiny car next to you tanks" lights that are easily visible. Also, yesterday I got the second headlight installed: Now I need to answer the question I've had rolling around my head. "weld the O2 bung with exhaust on the car, or pull the exhaust off"... Hopefully the answer will be made manifest this weekend.

Yeah, that's me and all my youtube glory. Hope it helps out. Keep us updated on the progress!

Just for you, pal.

No idea. I just went to the junkyard and looked around until I found one. It has the same three pin connector on the top as the L series ones, but another pig tail coming out of it's bottom. Resolution isn't a problem, as it's nearly infinitely variable. The smallest possible change causes a resistance change. If you're having resolution issues it sounds like it's stepping, which doesn't sound right at all.

Sounds like a issue at the tps itself. I'm using a Nissan KA24 TPS on the L28ET throttle and it's extremely precise and responsive throughout the range.

Engine running readings were enlightening. First off, the angel light runs at a whopping .15A, so roughly 2 watts. Might not seem like much, but it's also not running through any kind of lens so there's just mild diffusion and otherwise very forward facing beams. But under running condition, the halogen went up in amperage as I expected, while the LEDs went DOWN a fair amount. I expected them to stabilize, not drop so much. Anyhoo, here's the readings. LED Low Beam = 1.48A @ 13.6 Volts = 20 Watts Halogen Low Beam = 2.65A @ 13.6 Volts = 36 Watts LED High Beam = 3.05A @ 13.5 Volts = 41 Watts Halogen High Beam = 3.9A @ 13.5 Volts = 53 Watts So there ya go, low beams are HALF the power, but far FAR more useful. Under high beam operation the halogens aren't AS obviously behind, but the LEDs cast a lot further and wider, while using considerably less power. It's less enough power that I'd consider running a LED light bar tucked under the hood lip in parallel to the high beam wiring. And now for the pictures (because everyone loves photos). All photos were taken in manual mode and I attempted to get as close to what my eye saw as an actual output. I could have bumped these photos up/down to show detail otherwise lost, but my goal is to give some real world perspective. I want to start by showing just how bright the angel eyes are at night. Obviously their use case is daytime, so they'd better at least be decently bright. (note my LED Interior lights are on and they light up the cabin pretty good) Pretty close to what my eye saw Yeah, a good bit of light for a measly 2 watts That's just the halo/angel light. And that's about how blinding it feels when down on it's level. And there's the low beams. It's pretty sad the halogen hardly even looks like it's on. And that's what they look like when standing above the beam line. It was hard to get the expose right, but halogen didn't look quite that bright in person, as I could easily make out the detail of the glass texturing. And here's what the low beams look like down on the beam's level. I was able to get the exposure closer, and you can really feel the difference here. I got the exposure low enough that it's close to what I saw, and the LED is on fire compared to the halogen. High Beams. You can see now the halogen is registering a lot better, but it's still not competing with the LED in any reasonable fashion. High beams standing above the beam line. You can tell the halogen is casting a lot of diffused light in all directions with the LEDs a bit more focused. I didn't get a good in-beam picture of the high beams. So moving on. Here's what the low beams look like from the driver's seat in context of on the road. LED's cast well enough to get solid reflection from the stop sign ahead, with lots of local light being cast within the first 50'. I was surprised how well the halogen lights were showing in the high beam pics, because it wasn't so obvious to my naked eye. But here you can see the halogen is casting a lot of useful light finally, but the LED is keeping up just fine and casting a lot of it's bluer light (obvious on the neighbor's lawn), and still casting it's sharp edges on the left side, refusing to be bled out by the warm halogen glow (note the tone of green in the "slow children at play" sign, indicating the LEDs are reflecting off that more than the halogen). Now I just need to measure the aim so I'm not that a-hole blinding everyone... Never been a problem before, but I guess there's a first time for everything.

Also, because my curiosity was nagging, I busted out the DMM. LED Low Beam = 1.77A @ 11.5 Volts = 20 Watts Halogen Low Beam = 2.5A @ 11.5 Volts = 28 Watts (or round up to 29W) LED High Beam = 3.9A @ 11.2 Volts = 43 Watts (or round up if you care) Halogen High Beam = 3.77A @ 11.2 Volts = 42 Watts Now, if I did these same tests with the engine running, and getting full alternator voltage, and let's just assume we're running HOT at 14volts, that puts max halogen wattage around 50 watts on high beams and around 35 watts on low beams. In my experience, halogens tend to be pretty linear in a certain range, and amps will go up with volts and lumens increase as well, to a certain point. In the automotive range of 9-14V, that tends to be the case. So if the amps eek up a touch, these halogens might max out around 37/55 watts. By contrast LEDs tend to provide most of their lumens well under max voltage, maybe somewhere halfway between forward voltage and max voltage. Seeing as these fire up just fine on a 9V (common PP3 alkaline) I'm betting I won't notice any difference between my just measured readings versus engine running. But... they WILL waste more energy in the form of heat. I wouldn't anticipate amperage going up much at all, but with the raise in voltage this does put high beam mode at 55watts and low beam at 25 watts. They'll most likely consume just as much, if not more energy in high beam mode, and I honestly didn't think high beam was THAT much brighter, but we'll see once I get these on the road. But what's amazing, is how much lower consumption the low beam mode is with SO MUCH MORE LIGHT. Words don't even begin to describe the difference. I'll try to get a picture before I convert the other side. It is refreshing to actually see the numbers though. I can see why these are rated at 60 Watts, and likely DO consume that at peak voltage. I'd be nice if the manufacture or reseller also shared specs on the low beam setting though. I'm also not so sad my headlight wiring is over-gauged, and these still pull plenty of power to warrant being careful. Also, I didn't get power draw on the halo, yet. I plan to, but I also anticipate it being super low, around the .5A or less range.

First I'm come across the build. Subscribed! Keep up the vids. I'm also eager to see more speeduino stuff documented, as I think it's a bit of the hay stack breaking the camel's back pushing MS into the Pro-only market. I'm running MS3x and if I hadn't of gotten a good deal on a full ECU+Intake+Fuel Rail+Injector setup I'd likely have gone another route.

Hmmm... after looking around it seems I might have those mirrors upside down... Will have to mount the other way around and see how that changes things.

So I didn't have much of an "idea" for what should be on my christmas list. Then I realize that my "car list" on amazon was 90% low buck items that I just hadn't gotten around to ordering. So I transferred all the items over and told the family to have at it. Got around to installing one of the gifts from the wife. Wired up the Angel DRL as an always-on DRL. Could be configured to a manual switch, but then it'd also need to be tied into the turn indicator circuit as it's required for the amber indication. So always-on was easy and meets my goal of being noticed on the road. I don't exactly trust other drivers... And there's the amber. It's tirgger wire is hooked into the flasher circuit output I built and the headlamp handles a graceful transition from amber to off and takes about 2 seconds to go back to white so you get a nice high contrast OFF/Amber when signaling, same as all the modern cars do. And that's low beam. I oriented the lamp to have the DOT label face up, position on the bottom, which puts the wiring plug at the bottom of the back. I THINK that's correct, but I'll verify once I got the beams shooting more than 3 feet. And there's high beams. No need to run LOW+HIGH on your circuit with these. High will bridge low so you can use a single relay to toggle NORM-OPEN and NORM-CLOSED between hi-low if you wanted. I wired my circuit so HIGH has both circuits on, because the old lamps I had were that way, but leaving it as such shouln't be an issue. You can see there's a bit of color wash with high beams on trying to indicate, but to the human eye it's still pretty visible. That said, why are you indicating while flashing high beams? Low beams have very nice contrast while signaling. Something the last pair of cheap headlights I bought with turn signals DIDN'T do. But those were also still halogen lamps and I think were like $60/pair. I knew I'd been playing around with the electrical system a lot without running the car, and my battery is on it's last legs so voltage would be down. This is the other side with low beams on.... Plugged my battery charger in and it read the battery at 47%.... So voltage was pretty low. That said, even with the engine running, driving at night was... not fun. EDIT: Forgot to mention, you can run these without the DRL on with high/low beams on if you wanted. My headlight power source bypasses my main relay as a safety concern so I can easily kill everything and keep headlights as well as turn signals, and verified the Angel circuit is completely separated from the main beams other than sharing ground from the main connector. So, wire up as you desire. If you were chasing ounces, these are heavier. No doubt. In theory my MAX electrical load went down a good bit I bet, but I'd have to measure to be sure. Advertisements says high is 60 watts, but I'm not entirely sure that's accurate. Also, I think the front is glass. It's certainly not a cheap/light plastic. You could save a lot of weight compared to these using an all plastic housing with a lightweight halogen lamp. Exact Amazon Item: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FS617J8 And since that link will likely die in time, the description: LIMICAR 2PCS 7" High Low Sealed Beam Led Headlights White DRL/Angel Eyes & Amber Turning Signal Lights Round Headlamps for Jeep Wrangler JK CJ TJ Hummer H1 H2 Truck 4x4 Off-Road Headlights Assembly You'll see my review on that amazon page, and I really do mean it: these are great for the price. I've seen a lot of guys saying you need to spend $500+ to get nice headlamp units, but I just don't see what that cost difference gets you. If these last 5 years, I can still buy 4+ of them before I've spent what other say I need to spend in order to get "quality" units. Also, here's another "cheap christmas item" that I'll be installing soon: I'm not thrilled with how low those sit, and will likely fab up a wedge shaped washer/spacer that I may or may not weld to the door to bring the angle up. Right now, I don't like how swinging the mirror to see closer to the car or farther away creates height differences, so I'll try to target a level swing on that rotating plane. This might make the upper arch of the mirror slightly awkward, but meh. Does anyone here actually think I care that much about form?

Yeah... I've been working the opposite direction on that... Definitely building up that "dad gut". I could easily cut 20-30lbs off and still have a good bit to go. I definitely had more "excess" on my body than I've pulled off my car in sound deadener....

These motors also have a helluva lot better transmission options than most swaps. The T56 is great, don't get me wrong, but it's a heavy beast. Garrett has stepped up to offer bolt on turbo upgrades, and others will follow. As this is now the definiove "base" mustang engine, they'll be in wreaking yards everywhere with parts gallore. 350whp is common in mustang circles with basic bolt ons and a tune, which is as much as you'd be looking at for most typical budget LS builds. 500+hp is certainly doable, but factory rods start to be a concern. Seems Ford likes making rods the weak point these days. I haven't figured out why yet, but it's more than a coincidence.

I'm about to do the same thing. My OEM turbo is ready for a rebuild but I'd rather chance one of these Chinese turbos than spend the time and money rebuilding the OEM one. Should be ordering within the next week or so. I'll also report back.

On the bright side, I think I can install 20 lbs worth of intercom equipment and still be WELL under the weight removed from all this crap. I've filled two paper grocery bags thus far with the sticky goop. Each one was at least 15lbs or so.

More dynamat and factory floor liner removed. I think I'm going to call my car "rust free" because my rust runs wild like free roaming cattle. Some people call rust cancer, but I've taken to calling it anorexia. And while anorexia is bad in general, it's kind of dismissed in some lines of work and/or social settings, right?

Re Manifold Studs: It's not a requirement to run studs, though they DO make it easier to mount the manifolds. That said, a far more useful case is to prevent seizing from ruining your day. No mater what, steel in touch with an exhaust manifold threaded into aluminum WILL corrode and want to become a permanent fixture in the aluminum. Studs allow you to pull manifolds off with just removing a steel on steel bond, which is far less likely to snap on you. As someone who's had to deal with snapped studs, if I could rewind the clock I'd just leave studs be unless the threads were trashed. As far as source, there's a lot of combinations that would work, and several suppliers depending on how long you're willing to wait for shipping. I'm sure there's a fasterner option in your region that could get you sorted though. Especially as I'd imagine there's a lot more metric fasteners than we get from our local shops here in the USA. https://www.thezstore.com/page/TZS/PROD/15-8080 (useful info in the application notes in the above link) There's lots of ebay options too, though I haven't taken the time to see if any are based in Australia or how long it would take to ship to you. That said, I'd check the threads for yourself, measure depth, and then find genuine "exhaust studs" from super cheap or similar, in that thread pitch. I only suggest this because of my concerns about seizing. Having the right material can make a huge difference versus just grabbing generic bolts from the drawers. Re Thermostat Lines: That line coming out would have gone to the OEM throttle body. No need to retain.

And then take a tig to the port to build it back up...

Don't lie @cgsheen, you just find it as hilarious as I do watching Jeff perform the same job 3 times. 😂

Dude, update your thread! So to all: I got to see the car up close last weekend. Marshall has one of the best sorted S130's I've seen in person. Not exactly pretty, but mechanically speaking he's heading the right direction on all fronts. The work he's done reverse engineering the ECCS alone deserves a freakin' award, so hopefully some of you think twice before knocking a "drift scene kid's build". Honestly, I'm betting he'd lay down better track times right now than my S30 would, and I've probably got.... 350+lbs advantage on him. Keep up the good work. Maybe one of these days the S130 will be worth something...

So, any updates? I'm curious to see the status, and if you have any updated weights as the car sits now. I still always find it funny (in a good way) when S130's end up lighter than a lot of people's S30's. Keep the updates rollin'!