Tired of the loonnngggg travel clutch (Mustang Steve conversion)... any options?

Those of you out there who have or have had used the Mustang Steve cable clutch conversion, does your clutch pedal have a loonnngggg travel like mine? and is there a way to adjust or modify it to make it a shorter pedal throw? It feels like I'm driving a truck. I have never driven a fox body mustang but it's hard for me to believe that a late '80's to early '90's mustang would have that long of a pedal travel... any ideas besides converting to hydrolic? thanks.

 

I have the Mustang Steve clutch setup, and yes, it has a long pedal travel. Never gave it much thought till you said something. I am looking into hydraulics, but not much to report. Seems very expensive. One thing, use the cable from a 2001-2004 Cobra and the pedal is better......not shorter, just smoother and the cable is longer, so easier to thread over the shock towers and down past the header. Good luck!

 

I'll repeat what Earl said, get the longer cable. I got mine after my headers melted the short cable I had and its definitely an improvement. Still not as good as hydraulic, but at a a fraction of the price.

 

if you lengthen the distance from the pivot point to the cable attachment point you will will shorten the effort. it will require more pedal effort. i dont know if there is room in the car for this.

 

I am using the 2001-2004 cable, but thats besides the point... Have you all also noticed the length of "used" travel? it seems like mine is only actuating from full up till around the 1/2-3/4 travel position. So my question is if what I'm feeling is true than could I make a spacer at the pedal/pedal-hanger bracket to lower the full up position? Anyone ever tried this? thanks.

 

the long travel was the reason I did mine the way I did. I did the math years ago when I did the conversion and realized it was longer than the Mustang set up and the upper portion of the rod where the cable attaches seemed to be too close to the lower floor of the cowl panel to lengthen. I added a second tube behind and slightly down of the brake pedal pivot to use the stock (or adjustable) quadrant arrangement.





this makes it necessary to mount the quadrant to the RH side of the pedal bracket and trim the wiper motor bracket slightly but it works.

 

Thats exactly how we did a buddie of mines sprint, but with the aluminum bbk piece

 

Than it isn't my imagination that it's only the first bit of travel that actually does anything the the last bit is only extra/over travel? so I guess I could make a spacer to go where the normal bump stop is for a manual pedal hanger to stop the pedal from coming back up so high.

 

You need to make sure that when the clutch pedal is up that the clutch is fully released. You don't want to limit the up travel and have the throwout bearing loaded all the time.

Just to clarify, as I have not done the cable conversion, does the clutch engage too soon (pedal just off the floor) or does it engage too late (pedal almost all the way up). Just trying to understand what you mean by "excessive travel".

 

I have a adjustable cable and a firewall adjuster so I can set the required "preload" on the cable. I thought I mentioned earlier that the clutch is actuating from full up to the 1/2-3/4 travel position... another words it's full disengaged at the 1/2-3/4 position and is engaged/released at the full up or abit before that.

 

Ok, I gotcha. Yeah I re-read your original post a few times, but it was unclear to me what you meant by 'actuating'. Sounds like you are on the right track by loosening up your clutch setup (lowering your pedal) and limiting the up travel. Like you said, be sure to check the preload at the fork to make sure your released position is fully released.

Let us know how it works out.

 

Im trying to figure out where this expensive part of the hydraulic clutches come in that you guys keep talking about.....

The only way the hydraulic clutches are expensive is if you use an internal slave cylinder setup, and those bearings can range into the several hundred dollars alone.
My hydraulic setup was actually a little cheaper then some of the T5 cable setups I was looking at. And allot less of a pain in the butt then considering I needed a TKO setup.
Doing a hydraulic conversion using the current throwout bearing and clutch fork would cost you about $275 from rosehill performance. That includes a cnc slave cylinder and bracket for your T5 (which I assume you are using since you have a cable clutch) a willwood 3/4" master cylinder, and a braided stainless steel line. I did have to buy a 5/16"-24 threaded heim joint and that cost me $5, but that, brake fluid and a 5/16 bolt and a couple of 5/16 nuts are the only other things I had to buy seperate from the stuff from rosehill.

I did notice the Mustang Steve kits are selling for $245 on ebay for the 67-68 mustang so there is a $30-$40 difference between the two different methods.
So for me the extra pain in the butt of setting the cable assembly quadrent up and the extraammount of time I would have spent routing the cable so it would clear the headers and the cable wouldnt bind If I had gone the cable setup. I decided it is definitely worth the $40 extra dollars I spent on the hydraulics.

 

With current parts and kit availability, Hydraulic is the way to go if you are just now doing this conversion, mainly for the reasons you stated. I did my conversion in 1998/99 when I didn't have nearly the resources or expertise that I/we currently have, and the Fox chassis was still relatively current. To change it now that I have most of the bugs worked out wouldn't be cost effective now since I have so many other irons in the fire so to speak but if I were to do it again from scratch, I would go hydraulic, especially since there are so many of the members here that have successfully worked through the learning curve for us.

 

I will probably go the hydraulic route in the future, but if I remember correctly I only spent $70 on the quadrant, and $45 or so on the cable (didn't buy it from Mustang Steve). I fabbed my own firewall support and did all the work myself. If I was looking at the kit price, then yes there would be no reason to go the cable route, other than its simplicity. Like I said though, I will probably upgrade eventually, now that the hydraulic setup has been proven so easy.

 

well as they say hind sight is always 20/20... coulda shoulda woulda... I currently have a cable setup that is why I started this thread... thnking back on it I wish I did spend the extra money for hydro but I didn't.