This is no ‘67! 2015 GT Auto premium, Ruby Red

More tearing appart required to install that than I thought there would be.
Had I known that and seen into the future last year that we would have Covid now, I would have had it done when I was at Dadilva’s.
Care for budget is what stopped me last year.

Would be one less tare down of rear suspension.
Would have been a perfect time when sway bar, springs and shocks were removed.
As well as my vertical links that were installed last year. They are being undone again.
Start over with alignment.

Shot of some of the parts removed.
Muffler, half shalf and wheel hub, rotor and lower control arm.
I didn’t get pic but calipers are hanging on sway bar.
Quite the teardown.


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It’s a good thing I have the tuner to tell the computer which gears are being added for shift points with the auto.
But a custom tune with the gears in will be priority in the future when we can travel again.

Old rear end. Aluminium.
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New housing. Steel, but not much weight difference.
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I’m also adding a couple pieces that are standard on Shelbys and all PP’s, including Bullitt and the 20” inch wheel option.

These are for added structural ridgidity.
First is a cowl extension to add support at the firewall for the k brace part of the strut tower brace kit.

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Second is a k member brace for the underside which includes a new underbelly shield with incorporated door for easy access to the oil filter.

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Another thing I did is drain the orange coolant on recommendation from Dasilva.
The orange coolant is known to turn acidic after time and slowly damage the engine from inside.
Dadilva’s recommendation is to flush it at 5 year intervals.

Well as of June Ford has issued directives to service and parts departments to discontinue using the orange fluid found in 2015 and newer cars.
It is being replaced with a yellow coolant.
Shortly, parts departments will mo longer carry the orange coolant.

Some of the old coolant.

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New mixture ready to go in.

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This is the new yellow coolant replacing the orange.

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Last thing to go on tomorrow will be the mufflers by Borla.
Touring models.
Not too loud but defenitely there with the H pipe resinator delete I did last year.
According to Bill at CJ Pony parts, supposed to be excellent for zero drone.

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Correction for gear ratios.
It’s not 3.31 to 3.55.
It’s 3.15 to 3.55.
The auto transmissions in these cars (GT’s anyways), including the 10 speed, have a very short first gear.
Something in the order of 4.17 to 1, so the none PP cars have a relatively tall base rear end gear of 3.15.
The PP cars equipped with auto shifters come with 3.55’s as part of the PP pkg from the factory.
Or the 3.55 can be spec’d as a stand alone option on all auto GT’s at order time.

Manual cars get 3.73 as part of PP pkg.
 
Nicely done, great looking parts, quite a bit going on, it should be interesting to hear your reviews once you get everything back together.

Thanks for the heads up on the new coolant recommendation, sounds like a good idea to get mine changed when the car goes in for its oil change.
 
Although this type of aftermarket stuff is sometimes foreign to dealership techs, especially in smaller markets like ours, and as a result they may not plow through it like the specialty shops, the factory trained techs have good habits.
My guy saw a slight difference between the two diff covers. My old one had a small vent valve, and instead of trying to patch things together, to ensure trouble free operation like I had before, he opted to swap the covers so I keep as much of what was original to my car.
In doing so, he discovered very slight amount of metal deposits/shavings in the old diff.
Not unusual for high mileage cars but a bit more intriguing at only 23000 kms.

I’m wondering if this explains why Ford Performance sources the loaded diff in a steel casing instead of the OE aluminium unit?
A rough estimate of maybe 30-35 lbs heavier but a senior tech that helped my guy get it in there says the steel diff will be much stouter than the aluminium unit.

Inside of old cover. With flashlight we can see shiny little specs in the oil.

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Inside of old diff once cover off.

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New diff in place.

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Any tips when replacing calipers and mounting the two larger bolts to the base cradle? Over years I never had an issue bolting up calipers on any vehicle until I did my 2017 front camber bolts and the calipers needed to be removed for access. That went well but putting in the bolts with a thread locker the torque spec was reached well before they fully seated on two of them. Needed a little "extra" to seat them. I gave them a scrub with a wire brush first but I have a feeling those suckers are not going to come out easy later. Either galling has occurred or I missed a step of applying something different to help thread them in. When reading after the fact I found many people opt for new bolts as the originals are considered one time only and then there are caliper studs many use on the first swap. Any mod tips on calipers?
 
Sorry, I didn’t wrench on this.
One of the techs at the dealership wrenched while I was working at my job.

I can tell you the front brake kit contained new bolts to mount the callipers.
All with blue lock-tight.
 
Observation on brakes.
Although the OE brakes work very well for normal driving.
Smooth and strong bite with good pedal feel.
They are not the best for repeatability on a road course or spirited twisty road driving because they can heat soak.

Reason is the cooling vein openings on the OE brakes are on the outside of the rotor.
So for air to get to those veins it has to pass through the spinning wheel.
The wheel obstructs the air and creates turbulence.
Not the best for cooling.

On the other hand, the veins on the Brembo brakes are on the inside where the air is less turbulent and dose not have to pass through the spinning wheel to reach them.

Also this design maximizes the efficiency of the cooling ducts by blowing air right into the veins.
With the OE rotors the ducts were not as efficient because the air was blowing on the back surface only and not into the veins.

Also larger rotor can take more heat than a smaller unit based on having more material mass.
It can be compared to water buckets.
You can carry more water in a larger bucket.

OE brakes.

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Brembo units.

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