So how did we do it? We started with a 1993 Subaru Justy that was sitting in the back of an auto-yard with a blown engine. It had a title and the owner was keeping it to "fix it", but it had been there so long the manager of the auto-yard wanted it gone, so we managed to get it for cheap. Real cheap. We then started looking for the Mustang donor, and originally planned on using a 5.0 Mustang as the donor
chassis and drivetrain, but after driving a few examples we quickly decided
more performance was needed so we started looking into newer model Mustangs. We looked for weeks before
scoring and found a guy parting out a 1999 Mustang Cobra with a “blown
transmission”, with only 176,823
miles. We went out on a limb and decided
to drive the 3 hours to go see it. After
a lot of haggling, and removing most of what was left of the Cobra parts for
the seller to keep, we got the car for a Challenge worthy price.
We started by cutting everything off of the original Justy chassis that we did not need. We then
took the 1999 Ford Mustang Cobra and removed the windshield the convertible top
and about 2 feet off the front and rear of the vehicle. We then grafted the
Justy body onto the Mustang chassis, giving us a proven V8 RWD drivetrain and
suspension layout, with a much smaller overall package. At that point we needed to widen
the fenders of the Justy to fit the new vehicle track, and creatively shorten
and lengthen other portions of the Justy in order to fit on the new Mustang
chassis.
A lot of blood, sweat, tears, and fabrication time have got into this project.
Long hours, mountains of pizza and a lot of positive reinforcement were needed
to meld the two vehicles together. The list of mods includes a rear radiator,
front splitter, wider fenders, deleted ABS, custom exhaust, roll bar with
firewall and rear mounted fuel cell and battery. Most of the budget went into
fixing the 176,000+ mile Mustang chassis and aging components. We had to upgrade
bushings and arms In the suspension just to get it to drive correctly, replace
a few gaskets, endlinks, bushings and wheel bearings. The brakes were also shot and needed
help. All in all, we didn’t really add
to many “performance” parts, just a lot of making it run right parts. We hoped the V8 power from Ford would be
enough to get us through the autocross and drag race in a hurry.
The 2 nights before the event were crunch time and a lot of the final prep work was done in the wee hours of the morning in order to make the Challenge. The rollbar was the final big project as well as the rear firewall. Wiring up the last needed switches, running the harness', securing loose items and making sure everything worked. Paint and vinyl was the last thing we did and it came out surprisingly well for a rattle-can job by 5 different people in the middle of our shop.
Taking over a year to build we made it to the $2015
Grassroots Motorsports Challenge with only hours to spare, as the paint was
still fresh the morning it rolled off our trailer into the Challenge pits. So 2 years in the making we have the world’s first
wide-body, V8 powered, RWD Subaru Justy.
We lovingly call it, The Justang.
Check in next week for the results from the Challenge and more pictures of the Justang in action!
Circuit Motorsports is a full-service performance shop located in Orlando, Florida who specializes in Subaru Performance. We offer full chassis builds, track setup, engine builds, tuning and more, check us out at www.circuitmotorsports.net
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