svt dave
Member
I'm Dave from Ontario and I'm going to be starting a 03 cobra swap into my 88 coupe. Hopefully with the help of this website and a little luck I can get the job done. I'll post pics as I go to show my progress.
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Hey everyone :)
- Thread starter svt dave
- Start date
cpearson1342
Well-Known Member
Hopefully I can give some help, I hear the cobra swap is a little different than the mach 1, but I am pretty good with the wiring. What exactly are you swapping over? Just drivetrain or interior also?
svt dave
Member
Thanks, any help would be greatly appreciated. I have the drivetrain, all the harnesses, the computer and the cluster from the donor car. I want to keep the 88 dash in the car but I thought if I could somehow fabricate the cobra cluster into that dash it might make wiring a bit easier. What do you think?
cpearson1342
Well-Known Member
You probably have a better chance at it than I do, the 86 cluster is much different than the 03 04. You should see if it will even fit with the bezel on. I've seen one guy that cut them up and put them into the 86 cluster but I didn't want to take the risk, if you take the cluster apart you will understand why.
I actually just got my intellitronix create-a-dash system, which cost an arm and a leg and I'm waiting on my tach adapter to run all the wiring and install the senders, but when I finish it I'll be sure to post some pics on a different thread.
As for the rest of the wiring, it's very easy to keep the old dash wiring, as that's what I have in my car, just haven't figured out where the a/c switch goes to on the 86 side. If you're keeping any of the cobra stuff such as traction control then it's less wires to remove. I completely took apart the 03 dash harness and individually removed the wires that weren't being used along with added a few extras to link up with the fox ignition. I did a lot of referring to alldata and the other wiring guides that people have on this site, which I'm linking anyway.
If you want to stay with the returnless style fuel system you will need to use the fuel pump driver linked to the computer, but I can tell you more about that when the time comes. I don't have traction control so I took that and all components out. I left the plug for the pats antenna in case of emergency and tucked it away and used a tuner to disable it. I ran power for a lot of things including my alarm system, obd and others from the 03 fuse box. The only thing I wish I would have done was cleaned up the wiring in the engine bay because there are many unused connectors for the old headlights, washer, horn, etc which gets in the way of other things including the fenders.
Hope this helps, let me know if you have any specific questions.
I actually just got my intellitronix create-a-dash system, which cost an arm and a leg and I'm waiting on my tach adapter to run all the wiring and install the senders, but when I finish it I'll be sure to post some pics on a different thread.
As for the rest of the wiring, it's very easy to keep the old dash wiring, as that's what I have in my car, just haven't figured out where the a/c switch goes to on the 86 side. If you're keeping any of the cobra stuff such as traction control then it's less wires to remove. I completely took apart the 03 dash harness and individually removed the wires that weren't being used along with added a few extras to link up with the fox ignition. I did a lot of referring to alldata and the other wiring guides that people have on this site, which I'm linking anyway.
If you want to stay with the returnless style fuel system you will need to use the fuel pump driver linked to the computer, but I can tell you more about that when the time comes. I don't have traction control so I took that and all components out. I left the plug for the pats antenna in case of emergency and tucked it away and used a tuner to disable it. I ran power for a lot of things including my alarm system, obd and others from the 03 fuse box. The only thing I wish I would have done was cleaned up the wiring in the engine bay because there are many unused connectors for the old headlights, washer, horn, etc which gets in the way of other things including the fenders.
Hope this helps, let me know if you have any specific questions.
Attachments
svt dave
Member
Great thanks a lot. I'm sure i'll have 1000 questions once I get into it. Hopefully soon I will meet the requirements to be able to open some of these files. I've got 11 points so far whatever that means lol.
cpearson1342
Well-Known Member
Mine took a little while after 10 so just keep posting, and ask questions. Is all you have of the car listed above? And does that include the fuel pump driver or pedal assembly? And are you going hydroboost or manual steering?
See I tell you to keep asking questions, but it seems like I'm doing all the work
See I tell you to keep asking questions, but it seems like I'm doing all the work
svt dave
Member
I have the hydroboost unit but no pedal assembly. I have the fuel tank and pump also. Someone was telling me I need to put the cobra heater box in my dash to which entails drilling different holes for the heatercore tubes. Not sure if that's true or not?
Yes is it. I used the heater/AC box from an '88 Mustang and found the return port into the AC is blocked by the cylinder head. Having already drilled thru the firewall once for the '88 heater box, I was stuck with it and had to fabricate an offset tube in order to clear the head and install the return line. Had I known before I would have used a '94-'04 heater/AC box. The AC ports are in a different location.
http://www.modularfoxmustangs.com/community/threads/air-conditioning.411/
Regarding wiring, I took a different approach than cpearson1342 did. My car is a '79 Futura with an '88 Mustang dash, which wasn't compatible with the '79 under-hood wiring, so I stripped out the '79 wiring and used all Modular wiring under the hood. I made a jumper harness that ties the '88 dash to the Modular wiring. See my posts "Mod Motor Wiring in General" and "Wire Harness" in the Electrical Wiring section.
http://www.modularfoxmustangs.com/community/threads/air-conditioning.411/
Regarding wiring, I took a different approach than cpearson1342 did. My car is a '79 Futura with an '88 Mustang dash, which wasn't compatible with the '79 under-hood wiring, so I stripped out the '79 wiring and used all Modular wiring under the hood. I made a jumper harness that ties the '88 dash to the Modular wiring. See my posts "Mod Motor Wiring in General" and "Wire Harness" in the Electrical Wiring section.
svt dave
Member
Perfect. Just the info I need. Thank you
Welcome to the party Dave...looks like you're in good hands
svt dave
Member
Thanks. Yeah there is definately a lot of knowledge on this site.
One other thing I forgot to ask was ,I'm going with the hydroboost brakes but I don't have the cobra pedal assembly. Will the hydroboost unit and my original 88 fox pedals work together or do I need to fabricate something to work?
One other thing I forgot to ask was ,I'm going with the hydroboost brakes but I don't have the cobra pedal assembly. Will the hydroboost unit and my original 88 fox pedals work together or do I need to fabricate something to work?
I used a hydroboost with a set of '79 pedals, so your '88 pedals should work. I had to trim a little bit of material off the pedal assembly with a plasma cutter to clear the rubber boot on the end of the hydroboost. The bolt pattern for the '79-'93 pedal assembly is different than the pattern on the hydroboost mounting plate. Two of the four bolts don't line up.
Can a make a suggestion? Try putting your technical questions in the Technical Section. They're more likely to be seen there by people who can answer them than if they're in the Welcome New Members section.
Can a make a suggestion? Try putting your technical questions in the Technical Section. They're more likely to be seen there by people who can answer them than if they're in the Welcome New Members section.
cpearson1342
Well-Known Member
All I did with my brakes was took the 86 brake pedal out, compared it to the 2003 and trimmed down the 2003 pedal where the bolt goes through to move it almost all the way to the left (take a lot of time before you cut to make sure it's right because I didn't go far enough to the left) and then you kinda just twist it sideways a little to get it into the plunger. It was a lot easier than cutting and welding everything. As for the booster, I just elongated most of the holes and drilled another for the lineup pin, pretty straightforward.
You also don't have to change the heater box if you don't want to, as I had someone tig weld the 03 evaporator core tips on my 86 core. It seems like it's a very difficult thing to do until you actually get there. All about measuring, keeping it clean, making sure nothing gets in the core, and making sure they line it up correctly. Only cost me $30 to get mine done and was much better than cutting up the firewall. Haven't gotten to test it though because I need to order a condenser that fits in the fox mounts (the one I got was bent anyway), and other than that we just used an ac flush on the core and everything hooked up nicely.
You also don't have to change the heater box if you don't want to, as I had someone tig weld the 03 evaporator core tips on my 86 core. It seems like it's a very difficult thing to do until you actually get there. All about measuring, keeping it clean, making sure nothing gets in the core, and making sure they line it up correctly. Only cost me $30 to get mine done and was much better than cutting up the firewall. Haven't gotten to test it though because I need to order a condenser that fits in the fox mounts (the one I got was bent anyway), and other than that we just used an ac flush on the core and everything hooked up nicely.
svt dave
Member
Ok great the less cutting and welding the better for me. I was going to try and tackle the wiring and the dash stuff before I put the 4.6 in just because the engine is still at my buddies shop. Its kind of hard to know where the heatercore needs to come out without the engine in there.
cpearson1342
Well-Known Member
For my engine, I actually had to move the whole engine/trans forward about 1/2 inch to correctly clear the firewall (there's a thread about it) and I just used the old heater core with some hoses my dad got, which one side is abnormally large on the engine side if I recall, to the small side of the core, which isn't easy to find. It was very tight getting the hoses back there, but looked pretty stock after. I'll try to take some pics this weekend. The whole a/c and heater area is very crammed with the extra wiring that goes there and the accumulator, but not terrible. Had to make a mounting bracket for the accumulator also, we used a horn hanging bracket.
I think that will be one of the major expenses really, all the little parts you may need for misc mounting, but thankfully my dad had access to a lot of the things we needed. Just a few were a low profile locking nut for the steering shaft (mine worked, but many people insist you have to go with the flaming river), we made brackets to mount the coolant reservoir, fuse box, and needed to make brake lines because we used a 2003 mach 1 rear, spindles and hydro. Also needed a few metric bubble flare adapters, and one of the t's to split the rear brake lines for each side. Let me know what you want pictures of and I'll try to get you some this weekend.
I think that will be one of the major expenses really, all the little parts you may need for misc mounting, but thankfully my dad had access to a lot of the things we needed. Just a few were a low profile locking nut for the steering shaft (mine worked, but many people insist you have to go with the flaming river), we made brackets to mount the coolant reservoir, fuse box, and needed to make brake lines because we used a 2003 mach 1 rear, spindles and hydro. Also needed a few metric bubble flare adapters, and one of the t's to split the rear brake lines for each side. Let me know what you want pictures of and I'll try to get you some this weekend.
svt dave
Member
Awesome. If you could get me some pics of the heatercore tubes and hoses coming out of the firewall just so I can have an idea what it needs to look like.
Appreciate it.
Appreciate it.
cpearson1342
Well-Known Member
As you can see, the one has a 90 degree turn pretty much right after it comes out, which a molded hose was needed for. I wasn't kidding about not a lot of room in there... still doing a little wiring for the tach adapter for my new gauges also
Attachments
svt dave
Member
Wow that is really close. I was looking at the coolant tubes coming out of the firewall on a 03 cobra and they come out very similar to the fox ( slightly higher) so I was wondering if I put the cobra heater box in the fox then it would have the quick connect hoses and would work with the original heater hoses. I haven't had a chance to look at how close the cobra motor sits to the firewall in a cobra I'm assuming it's probably pretty close also. The only other question is, would a cobra heater box fit under a fox dash?
svt dave
Member
Thanks for taking those pic for me.
cpearson1342
Well-Known Member
No problem, I'm not too sure about putting a cobra heater box in, I'm sure it's possible but may also need the dash. Hopefully someone a little more experienced can help with that