Project Car Update:  The V8 Edition

By Colin Holte

A quick glance at the project car column should tell you that MotoIQ has a large (and ever expanding) roster of project vehicles.  With all these vehicles it can sometimes be tough to keep the updates flowing for each.  In some cases vehicles may have even been sold but we still keep them on the project roll for posterity.  These articles are intended to share a little bit of the details with you of where some of the project vehicles that haven't seen the spotlight in a while are at in their evolution.  In this installment we check in with the V8s:  Project Mustang V8 5.0, Project Tundra, Project V8 RX-7, and Project Lexus IS F.

Project Mustang 5.0, Part II: Controlling Body Roll with Whiteline

By Vince Illi

Earlier this year, I dramatically improved Project Mustang 5.0's handling and added a degree of adjustability by installing Steeda springs, Koni adjustable dampers, and caster/camber plates from Maximum Motorsports.  The result was a well-balanced chassis with neutral handling.  There was, however, still a bit of body roll when taking very fast corners.

Improving a Pony Car's Handling - Part 1: Suspension Adjustability on a Budget

By Vince Illi

Apparently I’m weird. (I just told you something you didn’t already know, right?) MotoIQ people think I’m nuts for driving a domestic vehicle with too many cylinders under the hood. Fellow Mustang owners think I’m nuts for racing my car around corners. Road Racers think I’m nuts for dodging cones in parking lots and calling it “autocross” instead of a “driver’s license exam.”

The Physics of Tires - Project Ford Mustang 5.0

By Vince Ili 

In Part I of his Ultimate Guide to Suspension and Handling, Mike Kojima says that one of the biggest ways to improve a car's handling is to improve its tires.  I experienced this first-hand recently when I upgraded the wheels and tires on my Mustang.

But how do tires improve your car's handling and performance?  In order to discuss that, we need to talk about a little thing called traction, also known to us engineering geeks as friction.