She really flies!

A recent landmark birthday saw me flying a P51 (actually a Commonwealth Aircraft Company variant) at Caboolture. What a total buzz and a childhood dream accomplishment!

The Mustang with wings is a hotrod of the skies, with the superb inverted V12 Merlin Rolls Royce crackling us across the wild blue in real style. Wing overs with high G pull outs, shooting up the airfield, man o man it was mind blowing.

Afterwards the guys let me park my 'stang with it to snap out some photos. I did this once before at an airshow about ten years ago. The Austang has undergone massive changes since then so it was interesting to compare the two pics.

Steering straight

The Austang uses an Australian power rack and pinion steering set up. I have not really expanded on the stuff I wrote earlier, now that we have tweaked and poked it, I suppose this is as good a time as any to give a report.

The ad in "Street Machine" said the rack would end bump steer. When we put it in place, that claim was clearly a bit of an inexactitude! The Racecraft guys had to reinforce the mount and alter the height of the forward mounting point to ensure equal movement and tracking over bumps.

But don't think I am bagging the unit! It has worked flawlessly and is a high quality piece of kit, worthy of any street machine.

We had challenges with the unis and the angle of the steering column, which caused the steering to bind slightly at 12 o'clock. The guys at RRS were very helpful in this regard and offered advice which enabled us to fix the problems.

Now George has sorted the freeplay in the collapsible steering column, the whole thing steers very well.

Looking back at the challenge I can offer this advice to anyone contemplating the addition of a power rack and pinion set up.

Firstly get an engineer to do it! Although you might have a mechanical aptitude and a good tool shed, this is serious work that needs first class mechanical work.

Secondly the instructions about the angle between the steering column and the unis appears to be absolutely critical for good operation. This info was sadly lacking in the instructions of my unit and perhaps it is something the guys at RRS should address. Make sure you discuss it with the people selling you the unit before you buy. If you can't get this right, you will not be happy.

Finally, the power steering is very light and means you have to be careful at speed with the unit installed. Not a big issue, just that if you (like me) are used to driving the car with manual steering, a serious adjustment to your concentration and style is required, while you get used to the effortless power set up.

Now I am used to the steering and the set up is finally correct, the judgement comes down that the RRS rack was a good choice.

Mustang Dreaming

Went for a ride down via Sandgate and shot some pics . . .

Rocking new alloys

The need for a new set of tyres for the Austang got me to thinking . . . the beast really needs a great set of new wheels that suit the lowered profile of the car. So I thought "Why not a set of 18" rims?"

They had to be something which looked old school but new tech. Here is the sweet result, a set of polished alloys, 8" at the back and 7"s on the front. Nice dish and a real old hot rod feel.

The low profile tyres give the car a real solid feel on the road. I have not given it a bootful to smoke them yet . . . they cost too much to spread all over the road . . . but they certainly have tamed the traction monster, gauging from the driving so far.

I shot this vid on my iPhone, funny, it made the car look pink!

Goodbye faithful old wheels, now I better get you onto ebay!