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Street Fighter Mustang - Interior DesignWe Turn The Street Fighter Mustang's Metal Shell Into A Race-Ready Street-Friendly Cockpit. From the November, 2010 issue of Popular Hot Rodding By Liz Miles Photography by Liz Miles
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Coming up on a year in progress, the Street Fighter Mustang is actually starting to resemble a functioning car, thanks to a fresh interior. The last major jobs we did were welding in the 'cage, rewiring the electrical, and installing the gauges. The idea was to keep the inside mostly stock and very clean, but with hard turning and safety in mind. Like all projects, it's a great idea to keep as many original parts from the car as you can, but for the things that couldn't be saved, we browsed the National Parts Depot (NPD) catalog, and found our missing items. We got a dashpad, carpet kit, window cranks, door release handles, doorsill trim, package tray board, and some other dress-up knickknacks to finish it off. This is where we left off... This is where we left off after the wiring was laid and the 'cage was primed and painted. Since the stock seats would not suffice for track work, we sold those on Craigslist for $200. This was a nice chunk of change to contribute to the Corbeau replacements. Like the original project car rendering, we stayed true to the design with simple black seats and red harness belts, also from Corbeau. The seats we choose were Corbeau's Forza design, an extremely well-priced fixed-back seat we've been pleased with in the past. Corbeau has a bracket for nearly all of the popular car and truck models, as well as more obscure ones. If you've got something odd, it would pay to look at the Corbeau website to see if they've got it. Ordering two sliding brackets to mate the '66 with the Forza seats was a no-brainer. The first thing we did was... The first thing we did was paint the dash before any new parts came in. We sanded the surface with a soft block covered in 220-grit paper and masked it with leftover supplies from the paint and bodywork. We sprayed it with VHT Wrinkle Plus paint, waiting 5 minutes between three medium-wet coats. With safety and streetability in mind, we chose Corbeau's SFI-approved 3-inch five-point harnesses. We decided not to install the antisubmarine belt at this time (the one fixed to the floor between your legs). There are two types of belts to choose from, the latch-and-link style, and the camlock style. The camlock type allows you to push each section of the belt into the receiver independently, while the latch-and-link type requires you line them all up at once before locking them in. Camlocks may be preferable on the street, where you have to account for passengers who have never used anything but a three-point inertia reel belt system. The $50 upgrade for the camlock was well worth it. These belts can be mounted with or without a rollcage with a belt bar, so if you don't have a rollcage and want to use these belts, you can. We picked up some tips along the way, one being the proper order of operation for the interior assembly. First, you'll want to take the carpet out of the box and lay it in the sun. The carpet will be stubborn to relinquish its in-box shape if you don't. A full day's sun should relax it enough to make working with it easier. The bare floor in the 'Stang is pretty uncomfortable to work on with its metal seams, screws, and tabs. Throwing the carpet in early makes working inside the car a lot more pleasant. We definitely recommend doing absolutely everything you can before installing the seats. Between the 'cage and the seats, space becomes very limited. Popping your head behind the dash with the seats in is an act that should only be performed by a trained gymnast. Many of the interior parts that came with the car were usable, and just required a scuff-and-shoot refinish. We used VHT's Wrinkle Plus black spray paint for the dash, inner door skins, and rear side panels. It's got a neat look, and covers up a good amount of damage if you've got some to hide. Somehow we managed to turn the Mustang's completely gutted cab into something that was ready to race in 30 hours. That may seem like a long time, but the interior holds a lot of small pieces that each need special attention. Hour-for-hour, it was the most gratifying project to date, and one of the least expensive.  Once the paint was dry, we...  Once the paint was dry, we popped the dashpad on and the JME billet gauge pod and glovebox door. (Refer to "New Pod," September '10.) Here you can see how the texture turned out. We liked it so much we painted the inside of the doors and inner quarter trim that sandwiches the back seat.  To get an idea of where to...  To get an idea of where to cut the inner quarter-panel trim, we measured from the seat to the bar, and from the bar to the package tray surface, and transcribed that information onto the panel. We used nothing but a cutoff wheel to cut the top off, and then trimmed the opening to fit.  Once we were happy with the...  Once we were happy with the fit, it was paint time. We used a body-prep scuff pad from Summit Racing to rough up the panels for paint.
| THE COST SO FAR |
| The car |
$3,800 |
| Battery replace and relocation (11/08) |
$299 |
| Radiator and fans (12/08) |
$1,398.12 |
| Spindles, front brakes, wheels, tires (1/09) |
$3,067.04 |
| Trunk rehab and toolbox (2/09) |
$40.48 |
| Rack-and-pinion steering, column, and wheel (4/09) |
$3,012 |
| 9-inch rear and brakes (5/09) |
$4,631.02 |
| Rear suspension (6/09) |
$2,918 |
| Front suspension (7/09) |
$3,034 |
| Engine bay cleanup with engine sale (8/09) |
-$394.75 |
| Smeding 427 Windsor (9/09) |
$9,995 |
| Keisler five-speed swap (10/09) |
$4,181.55 |
| Paint and body supplies (3/10) |
$1,607.85 |
| Engine brace (6/10) |
$459 |
| Rollcage (7/10) |
$628.95 |
| Wiring harness (8/10) |
$659 |
| JME gauge pod and glove door (9/10) |
$1,175.90 |
| Interior overhaul with seat sale (current) |
$1,219.83 |
| Total: |
$41,731.99 |
 We used the windlace to finish...  We used the windlace to finish off the tube opening. This is the stuff used around the door opening as well.  The easiest way to cut the...  The easiest way to cut the windlace is with a fine-toothed hacksaw. We used this method to cut the remaining pieces for the door opening trim.  First we set the carpet out...  First we set the carpet out in the sun to relax for a couple hours. Then we put it in the car to see how it needed to be trimmed, and to make it more comfortable to kneel inside the car to finish the other projects.
| WHERE THE MONEY WENT |
| NPD: |
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| Dashpad |
$157.50 |
| Carpet kit |
$146.50 |
| Kick panels |
$26.50 |
| Doorsill trim (2) |
$25 |
| Sill trim Ford emblem (2) |
$3.90 |
| Package tray board |
$7.65 |
| Window cranks (2) |
$17.90 |
| Door handles (2) |
$25 |
| Glovebox liner |
$15.70 |
| Lock pull knobs |
$4.75 |
| Trim roll (17 feet) |
$14.45 |
| Corbeau: |
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| Forza seats (2) |
$458 |
| Seat brackets (2) |
$188 |
| Other parts: |
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| Vinyl from fabric store |
$14 |
| 3M spray adhesive |
$8.49 |
| VHT Wrinkle Plus paint (3) |
$8.49 |
| Red camlock harness set (2) |
$298 |
| Deductions: |
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| Sold factory seats |
-$200 |
| Total: |
$1,219.83 |
 To fit the carpet around the...  To fit the carpet around the rollbar tubing, we cut a slit to the base of the tube, then cut a half circle from the end of our first cut outward.  To wrap up the dash we installed...  To wrap up the dash we installed the new glovebox liner from NPD. It screwed right in using the factory hardware.  Since we're not sure what...  Since we're not sure what we want to do for tunes, if anything, we made a simple block-off plate to close up the hole. It's a cardboard cutout with a piece of vinyl attached with spray adhesive. We used a touch of Gorilla Tape to stick it to the back of the dash. We also used the same covering method for the rear package tray. The 97-degree temperature helped relax the fabric.  Here are the goods from Corbeau:...  Here are the goods from Corbeau: Forza fixed-back racing seats, 3-inch five-point camlock-style racing harnesses, and direct-fit sliding seat brackets.  With the carpet in the car,...  With the carpet in the car, cut an X or C pattern over where the boltholes are for the belts and seats. We exaggerated the cut in this photo to show the hidden hole below.  On goes the shift boot that...  On goes the shift boot that came with the Keisler five-speed swap. We used self-tap screws right into the transmission tunnel. This also helps anchor the carpet to the car.  Before the seats go in, bolt...  Before the seats go in, bolt up all of the belts. This is a lot easier when the seats aren't in the way. The only part that will need to come back out is the belt with the camlock mechanism attached, as its big end does not pass through the hole in the seat.  The Corbeau seat brackets...  The Corbeau seat brackets bolt to the seat first, then the floor. With the slider fully forward, the rear bolts go in, and with the slider all the way back, the front bolts can go in.  These reproduction kick panels...  These reproduction kick panels from NPD snapped right into place. They look much nicer than the factory cardboard pieces.  If you don't have the factory...  If you don't have the factory hardware and get to choose your own, it's really helpful to find a bolt that has a tapered end to make it easier for the nut to catch the thread. The way the Mustang's seats bolt in, you have to put the nut in a shallow socket with an extension and blindly guide it to the bolt hanging down from the floor inside the car. The easier you can make it thread on, the better.  Last step, reinstalling the...  Last step, reinstalling the door bars we built in the 'cage story. Trust us, you don't want to put these in any sooner!  For the first time this Mustang...  For the first time this Mustang feels like a complete car. The blend of street and race is exactly what we were hoping for.
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