Newbie with Backdraft Interest

[Ace23]

Originally Posted by pjmoore2003

Still on my first BDR. One day I will do a second one. I have an SBF roush 402 SR/TW. I love the torque mid range. Having driven a 99 mustang cobra (4v aluminum), I know you will miss that resonance you get when you wind up those engines. Many things I thought it wanted in a car I will do differently next time. I would go with a mostly blacked out car for ease of maintenance, ie thought I wanted polished wheels and pipes, turns out I think I'd prefer black. I thought I'd want a wooden steering wheel, and I still like it a lot, but I think a blacked out car with leather wrapped wheel would absorb some of the minor harshness transmitted to your hands (maybe my imagination). I think only engine for me would be a coyote xs type engine that I can make scream.

Thanks for your input. It's great to hear both sides of the story when it comes to SBF vs Mod motors. The industry I'm in is driven on technology and change. As much as I appreciate what the SBF offers it seem the coyote offer so many more possibilities. I would be happy with either setup but long term if I really enjoyed the car I know getting 25mpg+ with the potential for a supercharger would be hard to beat. I really enjoy the way my current 03 cobra sounds but I know it would be completely different in BDR due to the different exhaust routing

[Ace23]

Any advice on a specific car build number or range of build numbers to start looking at when looking at used cars? For example does a builder keep their own numbers or is the car serialized based on the actual number of BDR cars that have been produced? I have heard from a few BDR customers and a few have had multiple cars and say that these cars have continued to approve. I was advised to look into cars after 2009 but that is personal opinion and I was not provided with any facts on why the cars 2009+ may have been improved.

[TexasCobras65]

I bought a second hand 2009 BDR with a Roush 342r while I was strongly considering a Coyote. It had 7000 miles on it when I bought it.

Not one complaint on car.

[RangerMac]

For what it's worth, I have had my BDR next to Superformances at shows and I get a lot more attention. Fit and finish are very similar, no paint differences, and the quality is subjective at best. There are plenty of posts on here from BDR and SPF owners who have had their fair share of issues. Some get lucky and some not so lucky is what is boils down to. The BDRs have a much more aggressive stance, and the SPFs are more tailored towards the "I want an exact replica" if that even exists (and since you are only asking about these two builds). Not to mention for either build, you can pick just about every component imaginable to make it your own. I bought my BDR and I'm not looking back. My next will be a BDR. AND, I will deal with no one other than Jay and Brian at Vintage. Oh, and the motor question, keep in mind these cars weight in at a about 2500 lbs give or take a bit. Stop light to stop light you are something to be reckoned with.

[Sunny66]

Originally Posted by Cashburn

The Terminator motors use a lot of unique parts and are becoming costly to build. The Coyote can put out the same power with a blower. Our tuning is all done by Lund now, we have the Ghost Cam in every handheld but you give up power and drive ability with it so we do not set the cars up that way for delivery.

There's atleast one post on this forum with video of the ghost cam tune running on a Backdraft...

Thought I'd chime in here, as I had initially contacted Lund about installing the Ghost Tune for the build of my BDR #1234 with Coyote in S. Florida last June. I wanted the reliability of the Coyote with the lopey idle "cam" sound of an old school engine. Here is my real world impression of the tune...

Sounds awesome at idle. However, as Jay indicates, there are "drive ability" issues. Namely, it will stumble and backfire something nasty when driving and more importantly, it WILL stall out quite a bit (had some close calls on the road with this!). Upon contacting Lund, and only after the fact, he mentions that the ghost tune is not really meant for real world driving, more for just shows (would have been nice if he stated this before we installed it!). As a result, I pretty much now just keep it in the regular tune and switch it to the Ghost tune when I feel like turning some heads Point of note...if you do go for the tune, make sure you have a manual fuel pump shutoff switch installed. The tune download requires "key on" for quite some time which always drained my battery. Needed to jump start after every download until I got the switch installed.

Jay, as I understand from Reg that you guys are working a lot with Lund these days, have you gotten him to improve these drive ability characteristics at all? Seems like he just needed some prodding to invest the time to improve the tune. Would be great to be able to drive more reliably in Ghost Tune mode.

Feel free to contact me with any questions on this.

[jeffnolan]

For me it was the tail lights... every time I see a SP cobra I can't help but think about how ugly the tail lights are.

It may seem like a small thing but it is a reflection on the overall thoughtfulness that went into the Backdraft design. I simply don't understand the motivation to have an exact copy of a car that had in it's original form imperfections that were the result of the generation of technology and manufacturing capability they had at the time.

PS- I've lurked here for a while, never posted anything until now. I have #1333.

[Mark IV]

Originally Posted by jeffnolan

For me it was the tail lights... every time I see a SP cobra I can't help but think about how ugly the tail lights are.

It may seem like a small thing but it is a reflection on the overall thoughtfulness that went into the Backdraft design. I simply don't understand the motivation to have an exact copy of a car that had in it's original form imperfections that were the result of the generation of technology and manufacturing capability they had at the time.

PS- I've lurked here for a while, never posted anything until now. I have #1333.

So you like the stacked round lamps? Superformance offers them at no cost, it's just that most people are looking to replicate the "S/C" models that had the rectangular Hillman tail lamps.

Different strokes.....

[buddyg]

Exactly I hate the round lights and only would want my car with the rectangular ones.

[jeffnolan]

Yes, the round stacked lights bring the quarter panels to a finish while the rectangular lights look like afterthought. As you say, different strokes.... and I am pretty particular about small details (I had backdraft build the dash with the switches mounted under dash in order clean it up, who needs to look at switches i won't using, like wipers?)

More to the point, I didn't want a replica. I wanted a better car than the original while being thematically consistent with the original. Longer wheelbase, the aggressive stance, and modern suspension was a winner for me. Who knows, in a year or so I'll be bored and looking for something else... lately I have been looking for vintage Broncos but my wife really wants a DB9, much to my dismay.

Originally Posted by Mark IV

So you like the stacked round lamps? Superformance offers them at no cost, it's just that most people are looking to replicate the "S/C" models that had the rectangular Hillman tail lamps.

Different strokes.....

[Cashburn]

Originally Posted by Sunny66

Thought I'd chime in here, as I had initially contacted Lund about installing the Ghost Tune for the build of my BDR #1234 with Coyote in S. Florida last June. I wanted the reliability of the Coyote with the lopey idle "cam" sound of an old school engine. Here is my real world impression of the tune...

Sounds awesome at idle. However, as Jay indicates, there are "drive ability" issues. Namely, it will stumble and backfire something nasty when driving and more importantly, it WILL stall out quite a bit (had some close calls on the road with this!). Upon contacting Lund, and only after the fact, he mentions that the ghost tune is not really meant for real world driving, more for just shows (would have been nice if he stated this before we installed it!). As a result, I pretty much now just keep it in the regular tune and switch it to the Ghost tune when I feel like turning some heads Point of note...if you do go for the tune, make sure you have a manual fuel pump shutoff switch installed. The tune download requires "key on" for quite some time which always drained my battery. Needed to jump start after every download until I got the switch installed.

Jay, as I understand from Reg that you guys are working a lot with Lund these days, have you gotten him to improve these drive ability characteristics at all? Seems like he just needed some prodding to invest the time to improve the tune. Would be great to be able to drive more reliably in Ghost Tune mode.

Feel free to contact me with any questions on this.

Here's where our approach is unique, every single coyote car we deliver is uniquely tuned by Lund on our Dynojet. Let me type that again... Every Coyote car we deliver now is run on our Dynojet with a base tune and then tweeked and retuned by Lund.

We now have a priceless library of results on the chassis dyno in these cars and it's paying off.

The Cobra oval air cleaner eats 50rwhp or more, the Roush oval air cleaner eats 40rwhp, the small block BDR factory headers will not support over 500rwhp, the drivetrain loss of a tremec in a BDR is below 15%...

We are now entering the modified Coyote realm with some new builds. Hold on...

[Sunny66]

Originally Posted by Cashburn

Here's where our approach is unique, every single coyote car we deliver is uniquely tuned by Lund on our Dynojet. Let me type that again... Every Coyote car we deliver now is run on our Dynojet with a base tune and then tweeked and retuned by Lund.

We now have a priceless library of results on the chassis dyno in these cars and it's paying off.

The Cobra oval air cleaner eats 50rwhp or more, the Roush oval air cleaner eats 40rwhp, the small block BDR factory headers will not support over 500rwhp, the drivetrain loss of a tremec in a BDR is below 15%...

We are now entering the modified Coyote realm with some new builds. Hold on...

Thats great to hear. Have you been able to eliminate the stalling and excessive backfire when in Ghost Tune? If so, are you able to pass this info
to Reg down here in FL so that my car can be set up to run better?

[Cashburn]

Originally Posted by Sunny66

Thats great to hear. Have you been able to eliminate the stalling and excessive backfire when in Ghost Tune? If so, are you able to pass this info
to Reg down here in FL so that my car can be set up to run better?

We are not supporting the ghost tune.

[lovehamr]

Originally Posted by Cashburn

We are not supporting the ghost tune.

So what you're saying is that you won't intentionally make it run like crap?

[Cashburn]

Originally Posted by lovehamr

So what you're saying is that you won't intentionally make it run like crap?

Are you saying your big block runs like crap?

[Ace23]

Originally Posted by Cashburn

Here's where our approach is unique, every single coyote car we deliver is uniquely tuned by Lund on our Dynojet. Let me type that again... Every Coyote car we deliver now is run on our Dynojet with a base tune and then tweeked and retuned by Lund.

We now have a priceless library of results on the chassis dyno in these cars and it's paying off.

The Cobra oval air cleaner eats 50rwhp or more, the Roush oval air cleaner eats 40rwhp, the small block BDR factory headers will not support over 500rwhp, the drivetrain loss of a tremec in a BDR is below 15%...

We are now entering the modified Coyote realm with some new builds. Hold on...

Glad to hear your are going down the road of a performance shop. The ONLY way to do this correctly and provide each coyote equipped car as refined as you can is do provide a tune per car. The whole idea of a "generic map" for every coyote car is ridiculous. I'm understand the need for base maps to get tune started but each car needs its own tune to be the best it can be. Is Jon Lund tuning remotely for you or does he come to your shop? I know he in the North East I just wasn't sure. The tests that your are running and the library of all the effects are going to be tremendous for specifying future builds for your customers. When using the forged coyote crate motors are you guys turning up the boost on 93 octane? I noticed some of your videos were appearing to be putting down about 550rwhp.....not that its needed but I was thinking you probably aren't leaning on the blown coyote builds to hard considering they can put down 700+rwhp on pump gas in mustangs. Not sure if it was a drivetrain restriction or what. Congrats and keep up the great work. Looking forward to seeing a BDR coyote seems like an awful hard combo to beat for turnkey performance and efficiency / reliability.

[Cashburn]

Our sc Coyote builds so far have had restrictions. 1 was a Roush crate so we could do nothing without impacting warranty. The next 1 was destined for CA so it needed to run on 91 octane and it was with an automatic. Just did another as a winter upgrade that was on the 11.1 Aluminator so we had that restriction. However we've got some builds now that will open things up...

1 on the SC low compression Aluminator.
1 on the SC low comp Aluminator but with VMP blower and running on E85
1 on stock Coyote with stage 3 cams, cobra jet intake, and other tweaks.

Lund works remote with us, since we own the dyno it's not an issue to wait overnight for the optimal tune to come back.

[Ace23]

Originally Posted by Cashburn

Our sc Coyote builds so far have had restrictions. 1 was a Roush crate so we could do nothing without impacting warranty. The next 1 was destined for CA so it needed to run on 91 octane and it was with an automatic. Just did another as a winter upgrade that was on the 11.1 Aluminator so we had that restriction. However we've got some builds now that will open things up...

1 on the SC low compression Aluminator.
1 on the SC low comp Aluminator but with VMP blower and running on E85
1 on stock Coyote with stage 3 cams, cobra jet intake, and other tweaks.

Lund works remote with us, since we own the dyno it's not an issue to wait overnight for the optimal tune to come back.

Damn! This are going to be some great builds. That VMP is going to make some serious power and the N/A build will be interesting as well. These will be 3 great options....can't wait to see how they turn out. The blown builds should lay down 600rwhp like cake work. Unbelievable how much power you can reliably make out of the Coyote!

[Ace23]

Originally Posted by Cashburn

Our sc Coyote builds so far have had restrictions. 1 was a Roush crate so we could do nothing without impacting warranty. The next 1 was destined for CA so it needed to run on 91 octane and it was with an automatic. Just did another as a winter upgrade that was on the 11.1 Aluminator so we had that restriction. However we've got some builds now that will open things up...

1 on the SC low compression Aluminator.
1 on the SC low comp Aluminator but with VMP blower and running on E85
1 on stock Coyote with stage 3 cams, cobra jet intake, and other tweaks.

Lund works remote with us, since we own the dyno it's not an issue to wait overnight for the optimal tune to come back.

Damn! These are going to be some great builds. That VMP is going to make some serious power and the N/A build will be interesting as well. These will be 3 great options....can't wait to see how they turn out. The blown builds should lay down 600rwhp like cake work. Unbelievable how much power you can reliably make out of the Coyote! I have to assume Lund tunes for part throttle & mpg. I haven't been a fan of the EFI setups for the traditional motors but I know they must be night and day over the carb route when properly setup. I will go out on a ledge and say I bet the majority of the issues related to EFI you hear are from installers that are not proficient at what they are trying to achieve....I don't buy into the whole "auto tune" theory where you just slap on EFI and let it self calibrate and hit the road.

[anthonyL]

Originally Posted by Ace23

Damn! These are going to be some great builds. That VMP is going to make some serious power and the N/A build will be interesting as well. These will be 3 great options....can't wait to see how they turn out. The blown builds should lay down 600rwhp like cake work. Unbelievable how much power you can reliably make out of the Coyote! I have to assume Lund tunes for part throttle & mpg. I haven't been a fan of the EFI setups for the traditional motors but I know they must be night and day over the carb route when properly setup. I will go out on a ledge and say I bet the majority of the issues related to EFI you hear are from installers that are not proficient at what they are trying to achieve....I don't buy into the whole "auto tune" theory where you just slap on EFI and let it self calibrate and hit the road.

What did you buy? BDR or SPF?

[Ace23]

Originally Posted by anthonyL

What did you buy? BDR or SPF?

Neither at this point. I have some other stuff going on and quite frankly got burnt out kicking SPF and BDR back and forth. I was trying to squeeze to much stuff into to short of a time frame. I want this to be enjoyable and not a race to make a decision.