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  1. So you want to put a quick release steering wheel on your SN95? Okay then! In my case, I had removed the stock steering wheel long ago. So I won't be showing that. Youtube or Google for how to remove a stock SN95 steering wheel. It's pretty straight forward. *Understand, you will be removing the driver side airbag. You do this work at your own risk and I am not responsible for any injury that occurs to you as a result of this modification.* Quick Release Primer Okay, so in case you don't know what it is, a quick release is a mechanism that allows one to quickly and easily remove the steering wheel from the steering column. This is to facilitate getting in and out of the car, usually due to the fact that your race seats are permanently mounted in place. If you have slider seats still, a quick release may not really be necessary (and don't feel bad, I still have slider seats for the time being). The other concern may be people stealing your steering wheel, as now it can very easily be removed from your car. But fear not, you can be like Lil Bow Wow in Tokyo Drift and CARRY YO WHEEL!!! Okay. Moving on. There are essentially 3 parts to the quick release: the hub (or sometimes called short hub), and two parts of the quick release itself, the part that stays attached to the hub, and the part that stays attached to the wheel. And that's the gist of the quick release. The NRG Innovations Hub And Quick Release? I decided to go with NRG. While their product seems good, the customer service was horrible. The issue is the short hub. I spent about a week talking with a customer service person that didn't like to use more then 5 words in his responses, and spent the majority of the time trying to convince me I had a Fox body steering column in my SN95. Ugh. Anyway. If you use a different brand, your experience will be different. But if you want to go with NRG like I did, here's what you will have to do. The parts I used: Short Hub: part # SRK-174H Quick Release: I used a Gen 2.9 part # SRK-290GM-BK/CG A note about the different NRG Quick Releases: Gen 2.0, Gen 2.1, Gen 2.5, Gen 2.8, Gen 2.9 and Gen 3.0 all work essentially the same way. They use ball bearings with springs to hold them in place. The differences are really only in the way it looks, color options, and how easy/hard is to grab the release mechanism, especially with racing gloves on. As you move up the Gen's, the lip gets larger and larger which supposedly makes it easier to remove with racing gloves on. But they all function the same way and will attach to the SRK-174H hub. One more note: some install vids on Youtube or whatever show people removing the little push button. This push button is a secondary lock - in addition to sliding the ring up to release, you have to *also* push this button in. I highly recommend that you do *NOT* remove the button. It's there as a safety feature. And while I can't imagine the hub ring would slide up on its own and the steering wheel pop off - why risk it? The button adds like 1 step and 1 second to the removal process, which is well worth it to ensure the wheel has a secondary lock to prevent accidental removal. Remove the button at your own peril. The Issue Is The Short Hub, And The Work To Be Done The short hub that supposedly fits the SN95 is part number SRK-174H. In my car, the steering shaft has two flats on the shaft. These flats are on the TOP and BOTTOM. I triple checked by centering the steering column. Before installing, you should do this too, just to make sure. Jack up the front of the car to get the front wheels off the ground. Make sure they are straight, and then turn the wheel to the right all the way to the lock. Count the turns. Then come back to center, and do the same thing to the left, counting the turns. The turns, both left and right, should be very close to each other, if not the same. This will ensure your steering column (and flats) are centered and correct. In my case, this put the flats of the shaft on the top and bottom. Which is unfortunate, as the NRG short hub is center drilled with the flats on the LEFT and RIGHT. Ugggh. In order to use it, you will need to turn it 90 degrees. Oh, and the center bore of the hub is actually not large enough in the rear to fit far enough down the shaft. Otherwise, the hub is great!! Lol. Seriously though, this 90 degree thing effs up the whole thing. It means that the holes the hub portion of the quick release screw into is turned about 45 degrees, which means your wheel will *not* be installed straight up. Some sites will want you to also by this: SRK-500 *DO NOT BUY THIS* Supposedly it will help to realign the steering wheel to compensate for the 45 degree turn. However, it doesn't. It only offsets the wheel about 20 degrees, which means instead of a wheel 45 degrees sideways, it will be 25. Still not at the top. So save your money, and DON'T BUY IT. Instead, use the money for your machinist. I took the hub to a machine shop and had them drill new holes to correctly place the quick release at the top. It cost me $40. Here's an image of the problem: In the image above, you can see where the new holes were drilled, allowing the quick release to be installed correctly. The middle, you can see the problem. The green lines are the round parts, and the purple are the flats. On my car, the flats are top and bottom, thus the hub being turned 90 degrees. If your shaft happens to have the flats on the sides, then you are actually in great luck, and do not need to make any modifications at all! Lucky you! However, I bet it still doesn't fit far enough down on the shaft. So, here's an image showing the issue with the back of the hub: As you can see, the hub doesn't slide down far enough, leaving a pretty big gap between the surface of the hub and the tip of the steering column: To correct this, I used a Dremel and a sanding wheel, and carefully and patiently ground out some of the back. You will want to go slow, and be patient, cut away only a little material and continually test fit. Trust me. You want to do this carefully. The last thing you want to do is over-cut and introduce some play into the hub. When I was clearancing the hub, I wasn't shooting for full flush because I was worried about the hub going too far down the shaft, which would introduce front-to-back play. So I actually left it where there was about 6mm of distance between the shaft tip and face of the hub, to ensure that the hub sits solidly down on the shaft. 6mm won't affect the ability of the bolt to hold the hub. Okay, once you have finished with all the mods to the hub, you are ready to get the installation going!!! The Actual Install Start by removing the knee panel under the steering wheel: You will need to also remove the bottom part of the steering column to gain access to the horn wire there...assuming you want your horn to work. The Column Cover For the horn to work, I used a Ford OEM contact switch for 93 and earlier Mustang, part # E63Z-13A821-A. This has little spring loaded pins that will wipe along the metal tracks on the underside of the hub, making an electrical connection even while the hub (and wheel) is turned. You should be able to find one online or in any 93 or earlier Mustang in a salvage yard. In my case, I decided to 3D print a cover for the steering column that also integrated a place to attach the horn contact switch. If you don't have access to a 3D Printer, you still have a couple options. You can cut up some thin aluminum sheet to size, paint it and install it - figuring out a way to attach the horn contact switch to it (make sure it's strong enough that the contact with the back side of the hub doesn't bend the mounting). Or, you can do what I did with my old MOMO hub, and that's to screw the switch directly to the one of the 3 holes, lining it up and cutting the plastic to fit as necessary. Or, I guess if all this is too much, just forgo the horn. This is what the cover looks like (it attaches to the 3 screw holes located at the top, right side and bottom): The Black wire above will have an eye installed, and attach via a screw to the column for a ground contact. The Yellow wire with Blue stripe will connect to the Purple w/ Orange stripe wire coming from the harness under the steering column. It's located in a black sheath thing, along with a couple other wires. You'll know you found it when you touch the wire to ground and your horn honks. I used the bottom screw location for the ground. So I sanded it a bit to make sure the metal was clean and didn't have any rust or corrosion to interfere with a good ground: The cover installs with 3 back trim screws, and the ground goes between the bottom metal screw hole and back side of the cover, held in via the bolt. I also sanded and painted the cover, though you can still see the marks from the 3D printing. I'm not too worried about it, it's much harder to see without a camera flash on it, plus the hub covers most of it, and lastly it's not a show car. On To The Hub! Next goes on the hub. But before you do, put some dielectric grease on the horn contact pins and rub some on the backside metal tracks. In my case, the tracks I am using are the inner most track, and the outer most track. The middle track is not used. Make sure you use dielectric grease or equivalent, as you want it to conduct the electrical charge/contact and *not* insulate it. The hub installed on the shaft: I also 3D printed a little spacer that goes on top of the column tip and sits flush with the surface of the hub: And then torque down the bolt. Mine had some old thread locker on it, so I just left it on. If yours doesn't, some blue loctite wouldn't be a bad idea: Note, for above, the Black wire matches with the inner most metal track, and the Red wire matches the outer most track. The green wire goes to the middle track, and is unused. Also, make sure the horn still works by bridging the Black and Red wires momentarily (or which ever wires you used). This should ground the horn wire, and sound the horn. If it does, then good, on to the next step. If no horn, double check your wires and stuff. And that's it done! On To The Quick Release!!! There's a modification that must be made to the hub portion of the quick release - the connector on one of the wires is the wrong type to match up with the short hub. So cut off the female spade, and add on instead a male spade: Hook up the hub portion of the quick release to the horn wires: Check the horn again, touch the two metal contacts on the front of the quick release portion. If you hear a horn, then it's time to attach the quick release bit to the hub (otherwise, check your wires): This is where getting the hub re-drilled pays off. It is absolutely critical that the "NRG" logo and little dot is at the center top, as this aligns the rest of the quick release and steering wheel. Now attach the rest of the quick release: The Quick Release comes with a metal ring - it's meant to hold the horn: And installed: For what it's worth - I'm not sure this actually does anything to hold the horn in. But that's what it is supposed to be for. Maybe I'm using it wrong or something - you might get it to work better for you. Attach The Steering Wheel Bolt up the steering wheel, depending on your brand it should fit up - NRG supports a large number of wheels, especially if they are 6 bolt style. Mine is a MOMO, and fits just fine: In the above image, you'll see a red connector - that's one more mod to make. My horn button has two male spade connectors on the back. The Quick Release has one male and one female spade connector. So cut off the male spade connector and crimp on a female to attach to the horn. Attach the horn, test it to make sure it works, and install it in the wheel: And that's it! Quick Release, installed!! Put your bottom steering column trim piece back,and re-install the knee panel and you are all set. Some Additional Images The view from the side - the Quick Release brings the wheel certainly closer to the driver - it's longer then the MOMO hub I had installed previously. It adds about 2 more inches beyond what the MOMO hub does: Final Thoughts Overall, I think I like it. I haven't driven the car with it yet, so I don't really know how it feels, but I don't expect any issues. My only concern really is that it brings the wheel even closer to the driver - which, especially when racing, is not a Bad Thing, but actually a Good Thing. However, it might be too close now, as my steering wheel is a "deep dish" style, with about 3" depth. So, worst case, if it is too close, I can get a wheel with a shallower depth and it will move it back away from me a bit. The only real gripe I have is the short hub. Assuming my car is normal with regard to the location of the flats on the steering column, then NRG really dropped the ball with their vehicle research. This is disappointing, made even worse by the shitty customer service when I asked about it. Apart from this, though, the actual quality of the items seem to be there. So, assuming one is okay with the mods to the short hub, then this is worthwhile. Good luck with your project and I hope this helps!!
    2 points
  2. So you want to install longtubes in your 94-95 Mustang? Well, here's how you should go about doing it. For starters, there is something you must understand and accept before you get started: and that is....all the other instructions are wrong. You will read some forums/threads/whatever that will tell you that the driver's side is cake, 5 min max...and that the passenger side will take you hours upon hours. This is bullshit. Maybe this is true on a Fox. On a 95/95 SN95, it's just not true. The driver side is far, far worse. The passenger side is cake. Don't believe me? Read on. I installed BBK long tubes - if you have another brand your fitment may be different. Also, I did this in my garage using jack stands, Race Ramps, and jacks. I do not have access to a lift. Before Starting Before getting started, I recommend the following: Heat shield boots for your spark plug wires (I used this) Heat shield wrap for your starter (I used this) Velcro heat shield to protect a couple things, 3 feet (I used this) You should also pick up new header bolts. I used ARP stainless steel ones. A couple days before starting: spray the header bolts at the head and down where the headers connect to the midpipe with Aero Kroil. Aero Kroil is penetrating oil on steroids - it's better then PB Blaster, Gibbs, whatever you use. Trust me. Aero Kroil is the Good Stuff. Spray all the bolts a couple times each day and let the oil do its thing. Also, don't forget to spray the EGR tube (connects the EGR to the passenger side header) if you have an EGR. Disassembly Remove your strut tower brace, if you have one. Remove your intake. In my case, I have a CAI, so I just removed the whole thing. I don't have smog stuff on my car. If you do, you should also remove the thermactor solenoids and stuff. Also remove your throttle body. Trust me. It's worth it. It's four bolts, a spring, a cable (or two if you have cruise), and unclip the TPS and IAC. Put the car on jack stands, or a lift if you are lucky. Get the car as high as possible, you will need the ground clearance for the driver side longtube. I had the back wheels of the car on some race ramps, and then I jacked the front of the car up super high and used jack stands under the subframe connectors near the front of the car. You may need a step stool or something to access the engine bay. Or, break all the bolts loose while the car is on the ground, then remove them once you jack it up. What ever is easiest for you. You will need to remove the midpipe. Mine was aftermarket, so it just unbolted. You may need to cut the pipes if they are stock. Remove the O2 sensor in each of the headers. Remove the spark plug wires and spark plugs Drain your power steering pump. Yes. I know. The problem is (at least for me), the return line that goes in to the back of the power steering pump is literally right on top of the front-most driver side header bolt. You maaaay be able to get the bolt out. But installing the new one, ugh. Nightmare. Just do it now, get it out of the way. In my case, the hose was a heat cycle or two away from rupturing anyway due to how close it is to the header. I disconnect the return hose down by the cooler (just follow it down from the back of the pump to see which it is). I had to cut it. If you want a replacement hose, Auto Zone (or whatever) sells the hose. It's called the Power Steering Return Hose or something like that, it's the low pressure return hose. It's supposed to be 31" - just get 4 feet and cut to length. Remove the header bolts If you still have an EGR, you will need to disconnect it. Start at the EGR side, use a large wrench that fits snuggly, and loosen the bolt. Also remove the EGR - it will make installing it later easier. Remove the dipstick from the driver side. Once the bolt attaching it to the header is undone, it just pulls out (it installs in the block via a hole and RTV - what actually holds it in place is the bolt at the header). Remove the headers Remove the starter. Completely. Get it out of there. I used a box on the floor, removed the started from the bellhousing, and placed in on the box so it wouldn't pull on the wires. Disconnect the steering shaft at the rack. This may not be necessary for you if you have a stock shaft. I have a Maximum Motorsports solid steering shaft, and there is not enough room (maybe if I had a lift I would have enough room to wiggle things in). Anyway, if you have a MM solid shaft as well, remove the pinch bolt at the steering rack, and slide the MM coupler completely off the rack and let it dangle. It installs only one way on the rack, so don't worry about loosing the position of your steering wheel. Either reinstall your power steering return hose, or if you got new hose, fit that up. Make sure you use some velcro heat shield on the hose - you don't need a lot, just cut enough to keep the header heat off. You will easily be able to eyeball the amount you need. When you are ready, don't forget to refill your power steering fluid. This is the bastard: the front-most bolt behind the power steering pump. The blue rag is where the return hose attaches: Prop the starter up on something so it can stay completely out of the way without stressing the wires: Driver Side Install Now you are ready to install the driver side. As the other guides say, sure, it takes 5 min to put the header in place. And then a couple hours to actually get it installed (dipstick and all). So be mentally prepared. It will not be just 5 min. Slide the driver side in up from the bottom, angling it as best as you can. If you have a buddy or wife or whatever, have them hold it in place once you get it up through. The hardware the longtubes came with do NOT have studs. If you bought a stud kit instead of bolts, then thread in the two studs at each end so your helper can slide the longtube on to those studs to hold it in place. Slide the header gasket in place, and then use a couple header bolts, finger tight, to hold it in place. Thread the other bolts in, loosely. Wiggle the header as you do this. Re-attach the steering shaft if you removed it. Make sure it clears the tubes. In my case, I had about 1/4" of clearance. Not a lot, but enough. This part will suck. Re-install the dipstick tube. Clean all the old RTV off the bottom of it. There will be a lip on the bottom - the tube will go into the block up to that lip. You will need to spend some time test fitting the tube, adjusting it a little fit around the headers. Have patience, and be careful when bending the tube if you do need to bend a little (I did). Each time you bend a little, grab the dipstick and slide it through the tube to make sure it still slides in. The last thing you want to do is install the thing only to find out your dipstick no longer slides in. Also, the stock arrangement was a threaded header bolt, which the tube flange thing fit on to, with another bolt to hold it place. This won't work with your new headers. Instead, plan on placing the tube flange behind your new header bolt, and then screw the header bolt in. I had to bend the flange thing a little to get it to line up. Take your time, don't eff up your dipstick tube. The tube will go around the outside of the header, between the tubes and strut tower, and in between the header and steering shaft. Start tightening the header bolts. Start at the center, and move outwards. Use anti-seize if you have aluminum heads. Before doing the bolt that will also hold the dipstick tube, apply RTV just below the lip of the tube. Use a good amount, it will need to seal the tube to the block where it slides in. Carefully slide the dipstick tube in, being careful not to get RTV all over your new headers and steering shaft. Make sure all the bolts on the driver side are tight. I used a bit of paint to mark the bolts to make it easier to see if they back out. No idea if the paint will stay on once they heat up. We'll see. Steering shaft clearance (the skinnier black tube is the dipstick tube): Passenger Side Install On to the passenger side. You have to remove more to get to it, but there's so much more room on this side. If you have A/C, you will want to put heat shield on the line that runs along the bottom of the passenger side strut tower. Some guides say to move it up a couple inches, however doing that put stress on the metal part that connected at the firewall and I wasn't comfortable with that. So I cut some of the velcro heat shield, a little longer then the length of the header, and get that installed. On the passenger side engine mount, remove the single nut on the underside of the mount. I also loosened the bolts holding the cross member to the transmission mount, just give a little more wiggle room. Using a jack, and a piece of wood, place it under the oil pan - you will want to use a piece of wood that covers the entire back portion of the pan, to ensure that the pan doesn't get dented in. Jack up the motor an inch or two. In my case, the stud from the engine mount just started to clear the slot when I stopped jacking. Slide in the passenger header, from the top. The bottom of the header will go in the gap where your starter used to be. Move the fuel lines out of the way. The collector side of the header will sort of slide up and inbetween the bellhousing and the body of the car. Just wiggle things around. It will fit. Pretty easily too. Same as the driver side, use bolts, finger tight, to hold the header in place. Don't forget the header gasket. Once the header is in place, lower the engine back down to the mount. Tighten the nut on the engine mount, tighten the bolts on the transmission cross member if you loosened them. On the EGR to header tube, make sure the swivel cap ends actually swivel and move around, it will make installing it much easier. If they don't swivel, then use Aero Kroil to loosen all the rust. If one or both ends still don't swivel, bang those ends against the ground pretty hard to break the rust loose Apply anti-seize to the header threads, and connect the tube, using the swivel to make it easier to install. Don't tighten it all the way down. Apply anti-seize to the EGR threads, and attach it to the tube. Move it around until it fits back on the intake neck. Loosely install the EGR. Tighten the header bolts, center out. I used paint to mark them, like the driver side. Once the header is tight, tighten all the EGR stuff - the swivel nuts on the tube at both ends, and the EGR itself. Back under the car, reinstall the starter. If you want, you can wrap it first. I didn't. I installed it, and then wrapped it. I slide the wrap up between the starter and engine block, and then pulled it down to wrap it around. I also trimmed the heat shield - it would have wrapped around almost twice. Since the 94/95 starter is smaller then the Fox ones, you might not need a wrap. Some people have reported the starter working just fine with no wrap. I decided not to chance it. I was already there, so why not. Slide the stainless steel cable tie things up, and pull them down, and use pliers/screwdrivers/etc. to tighten them. The A/C line, wrapped in velcro heat shield: As you can see, not a lot of room between the A/C line and header: The starter wrapped with heat shield: The Wrap-Up Button everything else back up. Loosely install the new mid pipe, both at the header collector side, and at the mufflers. In my case, they didn't line up so great at the collectors, so I used a pry bar and the bots to sort of force it down on the collectors. I also used a jack to hold the midpipe up. Jack the midpipe up decently high, make sure you are happy with the ground clearance. Also make sure the pipes aren't hitting anything on the underside of the car. Once you are happy with the placement of the midpipe, really crank down on all the bolts. The midpipe no longer has hangers, so it's the connection between the headers and mufflers that hold it place. Make everything really tight to prevent the pipe from drooping over time. Reinstall the spark plugs and spark plug wires Reinstall the throttle body, smog stuff if you have it, and intake. Reinstall the strut tower brace if you removed it. Reinstall the O2 sensors. You may need to extend the O2 wires as they most likely won't reach. In my case, I have replaced both O2 sensors with wideband ones, so my connectors are for the wideband O2's and they reach just fine. Take a once over, make sure you didn't forget anything, and that everything is tight. Put the car on the ground, fire it up, and enjoy your new sound. Run it through a couple heat cycles, maybe a short drive, and double check all the header bolts to make sure they haven't backed out. For the next while, keep an eye on those bolts. Re-tighten as necessary. The O2's: And that's it. A lot of words, but really not that bad. See? Passenger side, no problem. Driver side? Super huge pain.
    2 points
  3. Since I replaced the stock instrument cluster with the Auto Meter gauges, I lost all the idiot lights. So I moved them to the clock pod, along with an oil temp gauge. The ABS, ebrake, MIL, alternator, coolant level, etc. lights are all there, most as 3mm LEDs, a couple as larger color bulbs (the large round colored ones). The airbag light is there just so it won't chime as I didn't remove the actual module yet (though both air bags are gone).
    2 points
  4. I have to shamefully admit that I haven't even driven the car at all this year aside from backing it out of the garage a few times. I've been so swamped with house projects and trying to get things done before my daughter shows up that I've had really no time for it. Now that things have started to settle down, it's about 95* outside with near 100% humidity and a car without A/C isn't really the place I want to be right now. I am going to start driving it, though. I pay too much in registration and insurance to let it sit around... I did finish this mod to the garage yesterday, though. I just need to wrap the pump wiring in some tech-flex and I'll be completely finished up with it. It truthfully is a DIY project if you're at all handy. My brother helped me stand the posts upright and my wife helped me mount the pump because you'd need 4 hands to do it, otherwise I did everything 100% by myself. Collectively, it took maybe 6 hours or so. I did it in chunks of an hour here and there. It may not look like it in the photo, but the front bumper is at my eye level and I'm 6'4" tall (10 foot ceiling in case anyone was wondering). A smaller car I could stand under, my Mustang I can comfortably work from a wheelie stool. So, so, so much better than jackstands. I also bought the lift with low-profile arms and they can swing under my Mustang without me having to run the car up on wood. I was dreading what shenanigans I might have to go through to get the car elevated and it's no effort really. I'm quite pleased with the whole setup. I can tell you one thing, I'm the only car guy in the neighborhood and it sure made the neighbors look last night the first time I got the car up on it...
    2 points
  5. Me too. I can't believe how many of ya'll have it just sitting there for years. Install it already!
    1 point
  6. I installed mine the day after I got it.....
    1 point
  7. Well, I haven't driven the car yet with them installed. But I'm willing to bet that once I do I will feel it's worth it. The biggest issue I personally had was the assumptions I had going in to it, not the work itself. I was literally expecting the driver side to be cake. And when it wasn't, well. My suggestion, for what it is worth, if it's something you are really interested in, then get 'er done. Once I re-calibrated my expectations, it really wasn't that bad. It's a lot of steps I listed above, sure - but not necessarily a lot of work. With the right preparation and right frame of mind, you can get it done in two nights, 1 night for each side, or a long, full day if you are so inclined. That's actually not too bad, assuming you don't need the car in between. With projects like this, I feel the best approach is to just start doing things. And before you know it...it's done. Besides, this was not the worst thing I have ever worked on. Ask me about putting lowering springs on a 2012 Audi A4 some time if you want to hear about a truly terrible task...
    1 point
  8. Awesome, I hope they are helpful I'll have to create another How To over here for it
    1 point
  9. sounds like a good plan to me. i'd run a bit of the new fuel and cleaner through the line before hooking it up again.
    1 point
  10. Yes, I was actually but it's much simpler with the modular cars. I had done research on corral that led me to corner carvers but I never went anywhere with it. I have an extra, complete set up if you decide to jump off the cliff though.. http://forums.corral.net/forums/general-mustang-tech/1167466-hydro-boost-braking-system.html I'm even thinking about scoring another Teksid block and building up a 4V, screw it...
    1 point
  11. With car back together, I focused on the 4x4 stance: Cant forget about rims:
    1 point
  12. I was going to quit my job and go on welfare but Trump got elected and messed up my plans. I had already picked out my Obama phone. I would have had so much free time for forum life but my evil plans were foiled.
    1 point
  13. it's on my never ending list of shit I need to finish. Here's the finished center caps: [/img]
    1 point
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