OLD CROW 3V Mustang: Tries on Slicks, Winter Wheels, Safety Washer and Car Show

 OLD CROW Mustang update time... 

I'll start off with the purchase of some winter wheels. I've been hunting on Facebook Marketplace locally here in Salt Lake for some 18" winter wheels for months. Due to installing the 14" 4 piston brake upgrade, my 17x8 stock wheels no longer fit up front. I sold those for $200 for the set. 

I ended up buying a set of Ford OEM GT500 wheels from the 2007-2009 Shelby GT500 which measure 18x9.5 +45mm. I definitely wanted to have a winter wheel that looks cool and wasn't narrow, like an 18x8, which would have looked just silly on the car. So, I'm happy I found a Mustang wheel that will look great but due to being used, wasn't going to break the bank. I bought these for $380 from a guy in Salt Lake who used them on his Foxbody Mustang. He bought them with a used set of 245/40/18 BFG G-Force R1 slicks and attempted to use them for an autox event and they ended up rubbing like crazy on the front fenders. 

The car looks really good with the GT500 polished wheels. They look pretty dang good in the photo here, but they're kinda rough up close. I did scrub them down good and tried to handle polish them. They definitely need a good polishing wheel. They're perfect for a winter wheel. I plan to put a 275/40/18 or a 285/35/18 on them. The 2009 GT500 ran a 285/40/18 rear tire on it from the factory and a 255/45/18 front tire on the same size wheel. 

I ran this wheel and tire setup for 1 week a couple weeks ago just for fun to see what the wheels looked like on the car and maybe more importantly, how the car handled with slicks. I did the ol' "slalom" back and forth swerving motions to warm up the tires on a back road and man, once the tires got nice and warm, were SUPER responsive on turn in and front grip. The 245/40/18 tires are too narrow and short for the car and looked a little funny. While they are marked as 245 wide, from the picture sitting next to a 295mm wide 200 treadwear tire, they probably measure more like a 265 or 275 wide street tire. 

Next up, I've had a set of Mezier brand "safety washers" that Corey picked up for me from Summit Racing. It took me a bit to understand how these actually worked. Here's a pic of the washer installed. So, the thought process is, if this Cortex bump steer tie rod joint fails, the hoop of the tie rod end could slide right off and the nut on the end would slip right through the hoop and you would not have any steering mechanism any longer. So, with this safety washer, it will keep the tie rod end at least attached so that you will have control of the car to get it off the road and to a safe spot. 

My friend who has autox'd a bunch of Mustangs actually had a bump steer tie rod end fail like this in his driveway. He installed the parts, went to back out of his driveway to go for a test drive and heard a noise and then no longer had steering. So, he highly recommended it.

Here's a quick view from under the car showing the clearance between the wheel and the tie rod end bolt and washer. 

I took advantage while I was under the front of the car to do a nut and bolt check and a general clean up of the hard parts. While there I noticed the passenger side inner fender liner plastic had some rubbing marks from the wide wheel and tire package. Honestly I'll take it. This isn't bad at all for running a 19x11 +50 with a 295/30/19 tire up front. These S197 Mustangs can soak up a lot of tire. Heck, Brent runs a 315/30/19 on his 2005 Mustang track car. He probably has a little bit more rubbing than I do, but still, its minimal and really doesn't need a lot to be able to run that much width up front.

I took the Mustang to the Utah State Layton Autocenter Annual Car Show last weekend. It was a small show, but was fun to get the car detailed the night before and go show it off. 

One of my favorite cars at the show was this 1930 Ford 5 Window Coupe in a 1959 Pontiac color. The car goes with the Pontiac 389 V8 with 3 deuce card set up. I talked to the owner, Joe, for a few minutes, talking cars and asking about the car. He said he built it with his dad who ha since passed away. He finished it about 5 years ago and said he's probably only into it about $6-7k. He had been collecting parts for years. It's an original Ford steel frame from 1930. I love the "traditional hot rod" style this was built in. Traditional means loosely that the car looks like it could have been built in the 40's - 50's using OEM parts from various manufacturers. This is my favorite style of hot rod and it would be so fun to build something like this in the future.

On the other end of the spectrum from that sweet 1930 Ford Coupe is this 2001 Honda S2000 owned by my friend Daniel. I met Daniel a few years ago when I had the 1999 red Honda Hatchback. Daniel had the silver EK Hatchback with Enkei RPF1 wheels. Anyway, that car got wrecked and luckily Daniel and his wife were not too seriously injured. Daniel decided to get something he really wanted instead of starting with another base trim economy car like the Civic. He found this 2001 AP1 Honda S2000 locally in Utah and then started to add his touches to it. The Front lip, side spats and trunk spoiler are Honda OEM parts, along with a cool Spoon inspired hardtop. The wheels are 17x8 front and 17x9 rear Regamaster EVO wheels with 225 and 255 wide sticky tires. It looks great!

Rear view of the S2000. I took this pic because just look at that really nice wheel and tire fitment. 

Check out who else came! Yep, Max, my neighbor who bought my 2002 WRX, brought it out to the Car Show too. I texted probably 8 of my neighbors who are into cars to come show off their cars. It's interesting to me to see the difference in the silver colors of the WRX and the Mustang. 

Here's a great photo of OLD CROW going for a canyon/mountain/touge run 2 weekends ago. I got up early and took the Mustang up to East Canyon Park Reservoir (the lake you see in the background here) and then up to the top of the mountain and back down into Salt Lake passing Little Dell Reservoir. It was a great drive up, the car handled great and the news were beautiful. I probably should have turned around at the top and gone back down the back side, because going down the mountain from the Salt Lake side meant waiting behind bicyclists for miles. Those guys and gals are crazy!!! It's very impressive that they are cycling up that mountain. I didn't see another cool car on the drive, so I think the cyclists have claimed this hill for now. 

OLD CROW 3V Mustang gets a Polish, Wax and Rear Spoiler

 hen Brent comes into town, for the first time in like 8 years, what do we do? We play in the garage! YUGE shoutout to Brent for spending many hours buffing out OLD CROW's 15 year old paint! It looks AMAZING!!!! Thanks to Corey for lending your polish and buffer! 

Brent also sold me some of his aero parts that he custom fabricated for his RED BARON 3V Mustang. He is upgrading to a "big boy" track wing! (More on that project in the future) That means he wouldn't be needing his "duckbill" style fiberglass spoiler he fabbed up a couple years ago. So, he brought it up to Utah along with his original front canards, which will be installed later. The one thing to note with the look of the car now is it is screaming for some new wheels and lower stance. LOL I was able to sell off the Ford Racing Intake Manifold for $350 to a local guy who picked it up. That gave me the funds to buy Brent's aero parts. 

Let's get to some action shots of the day.

First job was to do a wet sand pass at the spoiler's surface. It had some minor wear and tear from use. Of course we had to put a new coat of paint on it.

Being that it is Nov 4th today, we got pretty lucky with some nice weather, which started out at like 50F and it made it to like 61F. Shortly the weather will turn to winter mode, so we were thankful for the great weather while we hung out in the garage for most of the day. 

While giving Brent a chance to drive OLD CROW, we grabbed some materials from the Kaysville Autozone, including some Rust-Oleum "Ultra Matte Black" acrylic enamel for the spoiler. We also grabbed some sand paper and double backed tape rolls for installation of the spoiler and future canards.

Brent's trick for an easier installation was to only pull up the corner of the tape's backing, fold it out of the way so it can be pulled out later. With the tape backing pulled off only partially, the spoiler was set in place. Then once in place, he pulled the tape backing off with just a little pressure in places to let the backing come out. Boom! Here's Brent cleaning up the spoiler after it had micro dust from the polishing process. 

Here's a finished look at the back end of OLD CROW with the spoiler mounted up! You'll also notice the trunk panel is blacked out with some vinyl. Brent brought some 3M Automotive grade vinyl as well to black out the trunk. It is an "easy" accent piece to the dark Vapor Silver and Black look I'm going for. Brent made quick work of the vinyl lay down and it looks very nice! 

So, the buffing and polishing of OLD CROW's 15 year old "Vapor Silver" paint was initially just an idea the night before. I think once Brent got a close up look of the scratches he wasn't having it and wanted to give the Mustang the "Hechtspeed" treatment!

Here is Brent on the buffer. In the background is cousin Ben Hecht all the way out from Indiana getting convinced to sell his 2000 Mazda Miata and to pick up an S197 Mustang 3V GT! HEH HEH

Another angle of Brent polishing away!

Here is a shot of Brent working this section of the trunk that had a pretty deep set of scratches. I remember the original owner saying they were so upset when they put a pot on the trunk and when setting it down or pulling it off, scratching the crap out of the Mustang. Well, the scratches aren't gone gone, but they're much improved and harder to spot.

After polishing, we headed over to check out Corey's 1973 DeTomaso Pantera so Brent could get a close up view of it. After that, we headed over to Autozone again. Brent wasn't impressed with my wax paste selection that was honestly, probably about 10 years old at this point. haha Brent recommended we pick up some quality wax and detail spray. We picked up this "liquid gold" (at $21 on sale, normally $39.99 holy crap) Chemical Guys Hydro Slick ceramic coating "hyperwax". haha I love all the adjectives the marketing people use to sell this stuff. 

So, its pretty hard to pick up the level of improvement and shininess of the paint but here's a picture attempting to capture the look after the polish and wax job. It looks so much better than it did earlier in the morning. As Brent left, he commented that now OLD CROW has a good baseline from which to build from and that "now that fun starts"! 

After we were done, we commented to each other how simple and cool looking the 2005-2009 S197 Mustang GT is. That the 3V Mustang GT is a mostly unknown sweet spot in the Mustang's history. It gets out shadowed by the 2011-2014 5.0L Coyote powered S197 and then even more surpassed by the 2015-2023 S550. Just months ago the next generation of Mustang, the S650, has been available from dealerships. So, the 3V S197 is now 3 generations behind and is about 15 years old. The fact that I can pick up a 300hp rearwheel drive muscle car for $8800 is pretty cool to me! Obviously, I'd love to have a 450-500hp factory hot rod, but at $25k for a good 2011-14 GT and on up to like $50-60k for a regular S650 GT, that's just insane money for a regular Joe like me. Throw in the fact that I want to start doing autox and track days, the idea of something happening to a car that expensive really makes it not an option.

I'll add that my favorite part about my passion for cars is my ability to be able to modify a car myself in the garage and transform its whole look and driving characteristics! I guess its the "built not bought" mentality. 

Stay tuned, I'm hoping to be able to show up some parts soon and take the OLD CROW to the next level in looks and performance!

Thanks again Brent! It turned out amazing and I appreciate the hard work and attention to detail!

What it takes to go 1:59 at CW13 in a Mustang

1:59 lap time in a Mustang at CW13 (Buttonwillow Clockwise #13). I purposely didn't say "in an S197 Mustang 4.6L 3valve" or "in an S550 Mustang GT" or any other flavor of Mustang. That fact is to me the most interesting thing about this statement.

It's probably much more obvious for those drivers who actually track their cars than for guys like me who dream about it and "internet bench race" about tracking a car. That fact is that, the number of variables that determine your personal fastest laps at a track are "infinity and beyond"! 

Here's a few of those variables I've observed Brent deal with in his now 12 track days in the Red Baron.

-Weather: (cold vs hot days, cold means more engine power, cooler temps for the engine and brakes, intake air, less tire grip, etc. Hot days mean more grip (up to a point, then tires get greasy), but more heat soak to the engine, brakes, cooling system, driver, intake air is hotter meaning less hp)

-Condition of your critical components: Worn or new brakes, tires, clutch, engine, etc.

-Other drivers: Peer pressure to push harder because your friend is driving with you, comparing yourself to other cars, trying to turn faster laps

-Yourself: Pressure you put on yourself to go faster, beat your previous best. We're usually our own worst enemy. Your skill level, your experience with pushing cars in general, your experience pushing the car you are tracking to the limit, your understanding of physics, skills in car control, etc. THIS IS THE BIGGEST SINGLE VARIABLE!

-What car you drive: This may sound like the biggest variable that determines how fast you go, but I'm trying to point out that it really is not. See below!

-The modifications to your car: I think this is an important variable and maybe more important than the car you're driving. See below! Things like drivers controls/touch points (drivers seat, steering wheel, shifter, pedals), parts that effect the handing (tires, brakes, suspension), aerodynamics and of course power mods (maybe the least important of the mods?).

I think these categories above cover the key areas that determine your success and improvement in lap times. For this post, I wanted to showcase something that is very interesting to me and probably to many out there:

What car should you buy as your starting point for a street / track car? (Which Mustang should you guy?)

In one way, it really doesn't matter which car you pick (heard of "24 hours of Lemons"?). In another, this is the fun part of the track car process; so of course we over think it, we research it to death, we agonize over the pros and cons of all our options. Or is that just me? Selecting the car you want to turn into a track car does depend on your budget and what exactly you're trying to accomplish.

For me, I have a tight budget and I want a v8, rear wheel drive, manual transmission "muscle sports car" to be my daily driver and sometimes-track car/autox car.

So, if you are into muscle sports cars (notice I added a word), or shall I say, rear wheel drive, V8 powered sports coupes, then the Mustang is one of 2 options in my mind (the other is Camaro. I don't consider the Challenger a real option). Mustangs and Camaros from the last 10-15 years are much more like sports cars than they ever have been and can be fast, successful road course cars that can be driven on the street. Hence, I've added "sports" to the "muscle car" genre. Let's look at the Mustang specifically in this post.

We are entering the 7th generation of Mustang after 60 years. To quickly summarize, we have:

Gen 1: 1964 - 1972 Classic Mustang (GT, GT350, Mach 1, Boss 302, etc)

Gen 2: 1973-1978 Mustang II (who cares? LOLOL)

Gen 3: 1979-1993 Fox body Mustang (GT, Cobra, SVO)

Gen 4: 1994-2004 SN95/New Edge Mustang (GT Cobra, Terminator Cobra, Mach1, Bullit)

Gen 5: 2005-2014 S197 Mustang (3v 4.6L, 5.0 Coyote, GT, GT500, Boss 302, Bullit)

Gen 6: 2015-2023 S550 Mustang (GT, Bullit, GT350, GT500, Mach1)

Gen 7: 2024-2029 S650 Mustang (GT, Dark Horse, ???)

That was a lot of fun actually to search out and pick a Mustang to represent an entire generation. Of course, these aren't necessarily the top dogs in each generation (except for maybe the '65 GT350 ha) but a car that I could reasonably obtain and build into a fun street/track car. 

I've gotten very sidetracked from the focus of this post haha. 

The point here is, you could pick any of these generations of Mustang and make them a fun street/track car. To make that point, I'll just pick 2 generations and show you a comparison of 2 pretty different cars with 2 good drivers.

In the red corner, we have Red Baron, a Gen 5, S197 Mustang GT with the 4.6L 3valve engine and 5 speed transmission. Brent and his Baron have gone as fast as a 1:59.3 lap time at CW13. Last night Brent and I summarized all the modifications and the cost to build the car (so far). The car was purchased used for $9000 with about 100k miles about 4 years ago (this is a record eh Brent?). As I look locally, that's in the range I'm seeing for similar 2005-09 GTs here in Utah. The modifications  totaled about $16k, with the total about $25,000. See the list below.

In the blue corner, we have Mark Jager's, Gen 6, S550 Mustang GT with the Gen 2 5.0L coyote and MT82 6 speed transmission. I found Mark's car and the basic mods (probably not every single mod like what we did with Brent's car) listed on the @sub2club Instagram page. From the post you can see this car has gone 1:59.067. 

I took a shot at summarizing the cost to build Jager's S550. Here's his list posted on sub2club's Insta.

I made an assumption of about $30k to purchase a used 2015-2017 Mustang GT. Then I searched online for prices of the mods listed. The mods totaled $19,211. The total was just under $50k for the car and mods. Yowzer! 

I need to mention, as part of the background and context of this discussion, Mark Jager, per the same Insta post has done a 1:41 lap at CW13 in an 800hp STi. What I'm trying to show is that we have to assume that Mark is a pretty good driver. 1:41 is a VERY FAST lap at CW13. Very Fast! Also, to go that fast, Mark likely has many track days and laps at this track to be able to go that fast in any car. (P.S. Insta-stalking Mark I can see he also races a Miata, so I'm confident when I consider him an experience driver)

Brent has done 6ea CW13 Track days so far (he's done 5 at Streets of Willow and 1 at Big Willow for reference). So, I'm going to assume that Brent has WAY less laps on this track than Mark. I think most will agree with that assumption.

Now, the other assumption I would have made before this analysis is that an S550 GT is going to be much faster than a S197 GT 3V. I mean, wouldn't you? Cars are progressing and getting faster all the time!

One way I like to compare cars is the power:weight ratio. So, let's look at that really quick.

Mark's S550: 3700lbs and 435hp (with his mods, we can estimate 450-460hp (intake, catback, tune, light driveshaft). 3700/455hp = 8.13lbs/hp

Brent's S197: 3300lbs and 300hp (with his mods, dyno'd at 344whp (410hp). 3300hp/395hp = 8.35lbs/hp.

Brent's mods definitely close the gap on power (very slight edge to Mark's S550) and the fact that Brent's car is 400lbs lighter than an S550 is also important, not only for the power:weight ratio but the benefits to handing and braking. Considering Red Baron has the same width tires but with 400lbs less to move around is going to really help the lap times. Note: A quick math calculation shows that 10hp more for Brent and they have the same 8.14 p:w ratio. That's really nothing at all. 

Another variable here is Brent has done his own aero parts; which include a rear spoiler, front splitter and canards. Of course, aero parts really only start coming into play on the higher speed corners, which is only at certain parts of the track, so its difficult to know the impact the aero has here, but besides Brent's time and some materials, he spent WAY less than the $5k that Mark spent on his aero parts.

So, 2 pretty skilled drivers, 2 Mustangs with similar power:weight ratios, 2 pretty different Mustangs (IRS vs solid rear, 5.0L 4v vs 4.6L 3v cammed, 5 speed vs 6 speed) and 1 costs about double the other.

Yet, the lap times at a track, where the lap is on the longer side, are identical. There are many variables that we just don't know, like weather/temperatures, tire life, etc to really be apples:to:apples, but this is the best we have.

So, what is my conclusion or summary or "so what" about all of this comparison and information. Well, I've been very back and forth on what car to get next and if it was to be a Mustang, which one? Since the S550 came out in late 2014, I was all over it. I was very pouty on my 40th birthday (sorry babe!) 5 years ago now because I was really wanting, some how, some way, to get an S550 Mustang GT for my 40th birthday. When the 2018 Perf Pack 2 came out, that became my next dream car. Then the Mach1 came out and it had all the GT350 handing/track parts but with the more regular-Joe coyote and I wanted/want it bad! The fact is, I just don't have S550 money right now.

What this shows me is that, a 2005-2010 S197 3v 4.6L car with the right mods and a solid driver (not sure that's me, only 1 way to find out eh?!) can be very very close to a S197/S550 coyote Mustang but without having to spend nearly as many total dollars. There are just so many variables to consider. The higher power coyote cars come with more weight than the 4.6L cars. The IRS vs Solid Rear Axle argument I think is debunked here as well. Sure, the IRS is probably more comfortable on the street and easier to drive on track than SRA, but if its better, its not very significant. 

The other explanation for why Brent's car is so fast could be Brent. It's really hard to compare drivers, especially when they're driving different cars. But, I've been on Touge runs with Brent in a few Mustangs through the years and he is able to push the car much harder than me. Pushing a car to its limits takes guts and skill and experience. Developing all of those is part of the fun!

So, there you have it, my Mustang Dissertation LOLOL I hope you enjoyed it!

Red Baron S197 Mustang GT 3V goes Sub 2 at CW13

 "Capt von Richthofen" (aka Brent) has piloted the Red Baron (aka 2005 Mustang GT 4.6L 3V) to a sub 2 minute lap time at Buttonwillow's CW13 track last Saturday!!! Of course it happened on the last lap of the last session of the day. 

Remember, Brent "Richthofen" went 2:00.1 minutes at Buttonwillow's CW13 orientation back in December. That was his personal best (previous was 2:04? I think) up to that point. During the 1 month interval, Brent added an electric water pump and electric power steering set up, as well as installed the Ford Racing intake manifold (which required removing the Steeda strut tower bar due to clearance issues). The temps back in December were foggy and cold. This time the sun was out and temps were in the 60's. This meant that grip may have been higher, but engine heat soak also was a thing, so maybe they cancelled each other out. Brent ran 2:00.xx's all day and was getting frustrated that he wasn't breaking into the 1.59's. Throughout the day, he spun out 3 different times. Yikes! He was pushing! In the last session, Brent took son Bentley out for a quick "warm up" lap to give him a taste. Bentley was the "lucky charm" because on the last full hard lap of the last session, Brent ran a 1:59.3 sec lap!! #sub2club baby!!!

I stole this picture of Sub2Club stickers from the @sub2club Instagram account! I found this account in the last week, I don't even remember how, obviously searching Instagram for pics of track Mustangs and whatnot. haha After Brent ran the 1:59 lap, I was tagging him and the Sub2Club insta account so they could recognize his lap and his car. Sounds like they reached out and asked him for his basic mods so they could post his info on their page. Very cool!

Here's a couple pics from the pits and "rewards ceremony" for the Mustang Drivers Club "MDC2" street class portion of the event where Brent got 5th fastest Mustang in class. 

And here's good luck charm Bentley gettin' in the photo...

Photos from Grabber Blue/V6-Dave of Brent rollin' around the Buttonwillow pits...

Car looks amazing from all angles! Pretty cool that this was a $9000 used Mustang 3 years ago with some typical Street Mustang mods like Bullitt style wheels and intake and exhaust. 

My next post, I want to dig into what it takes to get a Mustang to go sub 2 minutes at CW13. We compare the Red Baron with a newer, more powerful, IRS equipped S550 that went only 0.2 seconds faster for a lot more money...

Mustang Sally Restoration: Short assembled!!!

 Big hassle averted! After the last blog, pops followed up with Reynolds Machine and here is the result: The machine shop did not pay attention to the number stamped on the factory rods. But, simply moving the left side piston-rod combo to the right and vice versa solves the issue. Apparently this is a standard process for machine shops to not care about the rod stamped #, but to set up 4 piston-rod combos one way and 4 the other way. This way the chamfered side of the rod faces the radius on the crank journal. So, as long as the piston to bore clearance stays the same and balance is the same, they are fine to be assembled like this. So, as you can see, dad wrote new numbers for the 8 cylinders.

It looks amazing! haha

Here is the 1-4 side...

...and here is 5-8...

Thanks to friend Corey, he took the specs and calculated an estimate of 9.8:1 compression ratio. The stock 5.0L from the 1994 Mustang GT came with 9.0:1 compression. 

A reminder on the set up now, we have AFR165 58cc heads (Head chamber volume), 0.030" overbored pistons (4.030"), stock stroke of 3.00", stock deck height 8.2" and piston height, 0.006" below deck height that dad measured, measured head gasket thickness of .039" and valve notch volume of 3cc. This is a nice increase in compression that will help response and power and will go well with the purpose of this car, which is street driving and the occasional drag strip runs. 

Mustang Sally Restoration: Some backstory and parts collection

 With some money in our pockets to burn, we'll take a look at what parts we're buying up to get Sally running better than ever. Here's a quick recap of Sally's story.

Dad picked up this 1994 Mustang GT in Deep Forest Green (Paint code "NA") May 17, 1997 (44th bday) for $13,965.17, while I was in Brazil on my mission. It had about 34k miles and was a lease return found at the "Barber Valley Motors" at the Kern County Fairgrounds. The stang replaced this little copper beauty, a 1975 Porsche 914 that he had for about 4 years. The 914 was one of the cars dad painted in the garage. He also rebuilt the type 4 VW engine, adding some fresh heads and camshaft from Mark Stephens High Performance, which was located in the hills in Tehachapi. I actually worked there for 2 weeks the summer I was 15 or 16. I swept floors, removed valve seals and removed the exhaust manifold from the boss' Jeep Cherokee LOL. I was deep into air cooled Vdubs at the time and this was a dream job, although very short lived. I can remember the stacks and stacks of cylinder heads in the old shop. They used to advertise in the Hot VWs and VW Trends magazines. Sorry, got distracted there.

There's my 1972 Bug (Standard, not Super Beetle) on ramps in the background. This would have been around 1996-97 (bought my Bug in summer of 1996, dad sold the 914 spring 1997).

Here's a beauty shot of dad and Sally in a blossoming field in Tehachapi above Highline Road. Clean machine!

Here's a cool pic of 3 Hechtspeed Mustangs in one shot. Here's Sally, the Legend, front and center. Brent's red 2005 S197 Mustang GT and his grey 2016 S550 V6 Mustang that he was doing some work on for the new owner.

In this pic, you can see Sally's faded green paint on the hood and roof. Koo koo!!! :( She's got the grey and black interior and is sporting a nice set of Bullitt wheels, 17s in front and 18s in the rear. Looks great! She has the Bullitt gas cap mod to go with the Bullitt theme. 

There's a few pics of Sally at the drags. This was at LACR (LA County Raceway) in Palmdale, probably at one of the New Years Bracket racing events dad did. She looks good with the Weld drag wheels and slicks with old 914 "skinnies" up front. haha 

Right, right, back to the story. So, dad began slowly but meticulously upgrading Sally over time to go faster and quicker in the 1/4 mile. The stock GT is a mid/high 15-second car. Not bad for 1994, but not good in today's world. The quickest run she ever made was a 12.85 @ 106.x mph at Bakersfield's Famoso Drag Strip around 2000-2002? How did it drop 3 seconds at the quarter mile? It wasn't with a cam, heads or aftermarket intake manifold. There were dudes who would come up to dad asking where's the nitrous bottle or supercharger. Then they'd find out he had none of that crap and no cam, heads or intake. Whaaaaa???!!! This is why Sally is a Legend! Dad studied out all the DIY mods he could find. He was on a tight budget, so any parts he was going to buy had to make the car faster. Here's the list of mods:

-Ported in the garage stock iron E7TE heads

-Ported Ford Explorer lower and upper Intake Manifold (includes the end cut off to allow access for porting and maybe a little volume increase) with phenolic spacer to increase plenum volume and cooling

-Custom ram-air scoop (home made mold and fiberglass part) and air filter box

-Ported and modified stock MAS sensor housing

-Ford Performance computer add on

-Hi Perf spark module (to increase dwell time) and high perf coil

-Adjustable fuel pressure regulator and 255lph fuel pump

-Underdrive pulleys (short belt used for drag runs to skip power steering)

-Stock modified/bored throttle body and home made aluminum throttle butterfly blade, opened up to about 63-64mm from stock of 60mm.

-1.7 Roller rockers

-MSD ignition

-Long tube headers (shorties are also in inventory when needed for smog set up with stock catted h pipe)

-Off-road H Pipe

-Stock Catback (dare I say best sound exhaust when paired with h pipe and headers?)

-3.73 gears (also tried 3.55s, 3.90s and 4.10s through the years)

-Homemade subframe connectors, reinforced torque boxes, drag shocks in rear, unbolt front struts (seriously), K member brace

-Aluminum driveshaft

-Eaton posi unit (4.10 when he ran the 12.85sec run)

-Short shifter, drag flywheel and King Cobra clutch

Here's the Pre-resto view of the engine bay. Pretty factory looking eh! 

So, the plan for Sally 2.0 is to totally upgrade and rebuild the engine and replace the already rebuilt and tired T5 transmission. The car now has 271k miles with lots of desert commuting and maybe about 100 drag launches, plus all the practice runs on Stuber Road (shhhhh!!!!). There is a set of GT40P heads from a Ford Explorer dad bought years ago from Central Coast Mustang. They're for sale on FB Marketplace, currently asking $500. ;) The P heads are iron (read: heavy) and are not a significant upgrade (maybe a down grade?) compared to the ported stock iron heads that are on the car. So, they're up for sale to help fund some AFR165 aluminum Renegade 20 degree, 58cc combustion chamber volume, 165cc intake runner and 68cc exhaust runner volumes, 1.900" intake valves and 1.600" exhaust valves with stud mounted rockers, p/n 1402, which are smog legal (Carb EO #D-250-3). Replacing the stock camshaft will be a Comp Cams XE264HR (p/n 35-349-8) hydraulic roller cam with 212/218 duration (Int/exh), 264 and 270 advertised duration and 0.512" valve lift on both Int and Exh and 114 degrees of lobe separation. Pair this with some 1.7 roller rockers and the lift should be about 0.541"-ish. This is a mildish cam. Compared to the smog legal, very mild Ford E303 cam, with 1.7 rockers would be at about 0.529" lift. Stock cam lift is .444 and with 1.7 rockers, about .473". So, getting .541" lift will be a nice upgrade, especially when paired with the AFR165 heads and supporting int and exh mods.

Here are some parts he's been collecting up for the restoration that will support the planned combination:

BBK 76mm mas air meter calibrated for 24lb injectors replaces the stock modified unit. You can see its longer than the stock piece so the customer cold air pipe has to be modified to fit the BBK unit. This cost $284.

Here are the Remanufactured LMR (Late Model Restoration), part number LRS-37263, we picked up for $214.

 Below is a picture of the stock 19lb OEM injector (almost 300k miles) and its single exit spray nozzle vs the multi-point nozzle of the LMR reman'd 24lb pink injector. This should make for better performance with improved atomization (??).

Here is the engine bay with the new BBK 76mm mas meter and injectors. After the computer was reset and some learning of the ECU could figure things out, its running well. It's ready for more air!!!

The Comp Cams XE264HR .512" lift cam has already arrived and is ready to rock! This was purchased from Summit Racing for $420 shipped. It has a "basic operating RPM range" of 1500-5500.

Also arrived are these Ford Performance roller lifters, M-6500-R302H, which are direct replacements and are a higher RPM, "severe-duty" version. Bring on the revs!

Look what else has showed up! This is a T5z, close ratio 5 speed transmission which will replace the abused and used T5, which was previously rebuilt a couple decades ago. We ordered this from moderndriveline.com. 

Their site says the following: 

"The 94-95 SN95 Mustang/Cobra Super Duty T-5z is a step up from the T5’s used in the 1994-95 Mustangs.
The gear sets in the earlier t5’s were built with a 3.35 first gear with a .68 overdrive.
The Super Duty T-5z is built with a 2.95 first and a .63 overdrive idea for 3.55:1 axle ratio"

In addition to the revised gear ratios, it has carbon fiber syncho rings and the Cobra pocket bearing mod. Nothing bums out a hot engine more than a grinding, worn out transmission. The trans is what brings that engine to life and gives the car its character! Especially the way dad power shifts, Sally needs a trans that is up to the task. This baby is listed at $2,505, but after shipping and some new AMSOIL gear oil it ends up being about $3000.

Dad is looking for his 4.10 gear set again knowing the T5z has the higher ratio 1st gear so that the launch can carry him out further down the track and not have to shift quite so soon. haha The longer 5th gear will help keep the Rs down when cruising on the freeway to the track or car show!

AMSOIL lubrication is ready to be put to work!

Here's the GT40P heads from an Explorer. Dang things need specific headers to clearance the spark plug and this turns some people away. The original owner of the heads had them on his Foxbody and within a few hundred miles and only running on 7 cylinders due to shorting out the plug he had them pulled off. All he needed to do was buy the P headers and he would have been golden, but I guess it was less work? to remove cylinder heads? haha Whatevs!

Here is what we ordered up, the AFR165 p/n 1402 stud mount aluminum cylinder heads! These are on a truck in the midwest heading to Tehachapi as I type. Summit Racing was so great to work with. I called on the phone to order these and I'll say that the whole order process was smooth. They even have a "beat-a-price" price match agreement and they honored it on the heads. CJPony.com had the same heads listed at $1947.42. The person on the phone taking the order looked at the cjpony.com site, confirmed the price and beat it by $1. So, that was $118 saved! The Summit Racing app is pretty nice too and has an easy link to the shipment tracking info, which I keep refreshing LOL. They're still in Illinois... hhhhhh