"OLD CROW" the 2008 Mustang GT added to the stable!!!

 Time for an update. I bought a Mustang!!! It's a 2008 Mustang GT with 5 speed manual and the 4.6L 3V engine. I bought it for $8800. After tax, registration and smog, it totaled about $9500. It's 100% stock, for now. I am the 2nd owner. The first owner, a lady, bought it off the showroom floor here in Utah and drove it about 131,000 miles. The last 4 years or so its gone less than 2,000 miles total and has sat parked in the KSL downtown Salt Lake City parking garage. Before that it spent its whole life in the garage. The paint is nice and shiny. I did test drive 2 other Mustangs, both blue, but they were rough around the edges and were going to be more work than I had planned. This was the first one I drove and I actually drove it here at my house and around my neighborhood. The owners were on their way through my town and they stopped by so I could test drive it. At that time, they were asking $10,000 and I was annoyed by the dent in the front passenger fender. 

Here's some pics the day I brought it home, September 25, 2023.

Here it is parked next to my 2002 Subaru WRX. I ended up selling the WRX for $11,000 to the 16 year old across the street. It's his first car. And he's learning to drive stick on it! Very cool! It is pretty weird to hear the car and see it parked in their driveway. 

The black leather interior is pristine! I've already put some conditioner/protectant on it to keep it nice! All the plastics, vinyl's and leathers were wiped down with the E303 protectant.

After the interior detail, a few days later I spent a couple hours cleaning up the engine bay. Here is a before and after view. So much better!

I also changed the oil! While it hadn't gone even 3,000 miles since the last oil change, it had been like 4 years. Yikes! Some fresh 5w-30 Valvoline Synthetic "High Mileage" oil and "Ford Motorsport" oem oil filter.

At some point in this first month, a few weeks ago, I removed the rear stock GT spoiler. It has 4 bolts, which are easy. The hard part is removing the thick adhesive tape that goes in between the trunk surface and the bottom mounting surface of the spoiler. It took like an hour of soaking and wiping the adhesive in some gold ol' Goo-B-Gone. Gave the trunk a coat of wax for good measure. I still haven't actually washed the car yet. Maybe today. 

I've definitely been drafting up my modification plans. I've spent time researching what I want to do. Clearly my brother's red 2005 Mustang GT "Red Baron" has been the biggest inspiration to what I'm doing here by selling the WRX and getting a similar S197 generation Mustang GT. These 3v S197 Mustangs are such a performance bargain and are the best tribute to the 67-70 Mustang Fastbacks that raced in Trans Am road racing. They look the most like those classic Mustangs and have a great combination of modern and classic. They have all the things a modern car has, good brakes, safety, efficency and technology but it still has a manual transmission, a V8 with 300hp and the tried and true solid rear axle. The interior is one of my favorite parts of the S197 Mustang so far. Its a really nice place to be and looks cool with that double brow dashboard design. With a few modifications, these cars are very capable sports cars and coupled with the torquey and great sounding SOHC 3 valve per cylinder V8, they look and sound like a modern Trans Am car. So, that's the plan. Enhance what's there. Improve the suspension, add bigger brakes, wider wheels and tires and some very basic engine/power mods to better hear the V8 sounds and improve the throttle-by-wire throttle response with a tune.

Following in Red Baron's foot steps are some Rockauto.com 14" 4 piston Brembos. These are the bigger brakes used on the 2007-09 GT500s, as well as the 2011-14 Performance Pack GTs with Brembos or the 2012-13 Boss 302s brakes. These are a bolt on affair and cost me $289 shipped, for both the 2 front calipers in a nice gloss black paint and blank 14" rotors. The rotors were some kind of last in stock $12/rotor price. I ordered them and then asked for forgiveness. I still need to order up SS lines, fluid and pads, but I'll save about $900 or so by going this route. These are "remanufactured" calipers, but as you can see from the pics, they are like new.

Ok, so the Ford Racing Intake Manifold was an impulse purchase from the local KSL classifieds. It was $350 picked up about 15 minutes from my house. I thought, it looks great and will allow future modability down the road. The bummer is, rookie mistake, the guy didn't have the hardware and I assumed it would use stock manifold stuff. Wrong! I'm hoping I can get the hardware from Ford Performance? We'll see. 

In following Brent and his Reno racer P51 Red Baron name for his Mustang, I too had to go with a P-51 themed name. I looked over various Reno racer P51's in silver, but for those who know, the best choice would have been the "Galloping Ghost", but yikes, if you know that story, we're not going there. That would be some bad karma right there! My car won't likely be to the racecar level that the Red Baron is, at least, not in the near term. So, I was looking at names that were classic WWII P51 names. I kept coming back to "OLD CROW". It started to stick and now that's its official name. 

One idea is to have my wife do a vinyl masking of the words "OLD CROW" so I can paint the logo on the black brake calipers. That'd be pretty cool eh?!

So, that's it for this intro I think. Stage 1 of the parts will be getting ordered over the next little bit and will start to install those parts during the winter here in Utah. 

Out with the Old: 2003 WRX 360k miles SOLD!!!

The time finally came for Poppi to sell the 2003 WRX to fund the Mustang Sally resurrection project. Dad bought this Suby brand new in 2003 for his 50th birthday. It was his commuter from Tehachapi to Edwards Air Force Base from May 2003 through his retirement in December 2019. The car had over 360k miles on it. 

Here it is on July 9th with the new owner getting ready to head back home to the Central Valley. I helped dad sell it by using Facebook Marketplace. I tried selling my 1999 Civic on FB Marketplace a couple years ago. We had a good amount of interest and we responded to various messages on FB and dad getting texts. We decided to list it for $4800. It sold for $4000 less than 24 hours later. We were pretty satisfied with that value and speed of the sale, especially with the fact that Tehachapi is a good 45 minutes from Bakersfield and kind of in the boonies. I think the buyer was 1.5 hours drive away. 

Here's a pic of the engine bay. The car was well worn on the outside. This comes with the territory of owning a car in the high desert/Mojave desert. The car was parked outside most of its life and spent many a hot day baking in the California desert sun at Edwards AFB. Yikes! 

You can see in the exterior pic above that the clearcoat was struggling to hang on. The car was taken care of and "adult driven" as they say. It did a few drag runs at Famoso early in its life and ran high 13's with some minor intake system mods and a muffler, downpipe and up pipe. It worked great in the occasional Tehachapi mountain snow on the commutes to EAFB. 

Later in its life, it experienced engine damage when mom was driving up the Tehachapi mountain (Highway 58) with some friend in the car, A/C pumping and pinging to death up the hill. Dad rebuilt the engine, but the wrong bearing clearances caused a 2nd rebuild 400miles later. Ouchy! I was able to assist in the reassembly process back in like 2016 or 17 (memory is fading). It ran another like 90k miles or so until it was sold. It had the Mishimoto big Top Mount, "Hechtspeed" intake mods/ram air, exhaust system mods and a 16G turbo and Cobb AccessPort off the shelf Stage 2 (or 3?) tune.

It received hand me down lowering springs and shocks/struts from my 2002 WRX when I bought BC Racing coilovers. It also got Brent's gold painted Rota Grids in 17x9 with some 225/45/17's that were kind of newer. 

Well, we say good bye to one Hechtspeed legend and use those funds to help restore another legend, Mustang Sally. Stay tuned!

Ultimate Street Car Challenge comes to Utah Motorsports Campus (UMC)

 A few Friday nights ago, I was doing my usual Instagram surfing. I came across a post by @utahmotorsportscampus page that the Optima Search for the Ultimate Street Car was coming to Utah. I don't think it clicked when I first saw it. I didn't have any plans on Saturday, but the neurons didn't connect that I should try and go. I got up at my usual 630am on Saturday and tried to go back to sleep. I picked up my phone and saw another post about the USCC event. I think it was seeing the bright orange 1970 Camaro of bdhobaugh, it finally clicked. I started thinking that I could get out there in 45 minutes and be there for a few hours. I figured everyone would be sleeping for a few more hours and so they wouldn't miss me or be annoyed that I ruined their Saturday. This was a chance to see many of my hero cars. Here's some photos of cars I've only seen on YouTube or Instagram.

I should mention that the previous 2 weeks before I would be driving out to Grantsville-Tooele area to the Utah Motorsports Campus, I was dealing with a clutch issue on my 2002 WRX. I got the clutch working properly like 1 or 2 days before I would make the 100 mi roundtrip drive. So, I was a little nervous to be driving so far from home. The Suby drove great and had 0 issues. I rolled the windows down, cranked up the Beach Boys music, which is a Saturday tradition and enjoyed the 50 mile drive west. Here's a picture I grabbed of the UMC sign before exiting Tooele. You can see the Great Salt Lake out the window.

This photo was taken as I was leaving the campus. It really is a campus. They have the big road course, a go-kart track, a couple off-road tracks for stadium trucks and motoX and a couple parking lots where they had AutoX for the Drive Optima event and a local drift event on the other side of the property. 

The suby is a good lookin' car eh? I love the simple silver on silver look! I love the Enkei NT-03M wheels too! Those "Falken" tire letters are holding on tight... hhhhhhhh :( Can't wait when they start to peel or I replace them with new tires.

Let's start off with the most recognizable car for me, Brian Hobaugh's 1973 monster Camaro. Just google this car and you will find feature articles for it going back to 2012. It has continued to evolve. It's a seriously cool machine! It sounds and looks aggressive. 

Hard to pick which one to go with next, but I'm going with this 1970 C3 Corvette nicknamed "Rambo"!

Rambo Pro-Touring C2 Vette article.

Read that article for more details and watch the video. The highlights include a 450hp LS6, T56 6 speed and JRI coilovers (best in the biz)! I love the green paint and fender flares. Serious cool grip machine!

Continuing with the 1970's Chevy theme, check out this 1969 K5 Blazer.

Laid-Back K5 Pro-Touring Blazer article.

Thank you to AutoXandTrack.com for putting up this article and for all the great YouTube video content from many autox and track events in the Southwest/California area. I'm a huge fan!

This Blazer is actually from Idaho and had its engine done at JDP Motorsports, which is based out of Salt Lake City, Utah. How about a SpeedTech frame, 560hp LS3 and 315/335mm wide tires front and rear! Beautiful hot rod!

OK, time for a Ford. John McKissack's 1966 Ford Fairlane is rad! He's nicknamed it "Riverside Spec" and you can find "RS" decals in a few places. Check out AutoXandTrack.com's YouTube video here: In The Paddock Ep.6 Video

Here's the highlights: 427 Dart block, T56 6 speed, JRI shocks with Mike Maier cantilever torque arm suspension, 18x12 wheels and 315/30/18 stickies! Nuff said! I love the flares and aggressive stance!

This S197 Shelby GT500 was very fast and finished in the top 5 for the entire event! I don't have any details, but it stood out and was one of the many modern Mustangs. 

What was odd was there was 0 Mustangs pre-Fox body. And there was only 1 Fox body Mustang. I found that kind of odd. I feel like there are way more 60's Mustangs (especially 64-66 model years) driving around the streets compared to 67-73 Camaros, but on track, there seems to be the opposite scenario. Not sure why that is?

Here are a few more hot rods that I was diggin. I'm not sure what it is, but I love Pro-touring hot rod trucks from the 60-70's. I'm also a big fan of the modern Camaros, especially the 2016 and newer with the newer chassis (aka lighter chassis). 

Out with the old, in with the...old

Get out the popcorn, this is gonna take a minute...

Where do I even start? I bought a Platinum Silver Metallic (PSM) 2002 Subaru WRX sedan. I sold my Roma Red 1999 Civic DX Hatchback. There it is!  :) LOL What happened to the Civic you ask? Ya...about that...it's a long story. It started last June when I got a nice bonus from work. I got clearance to spend a good chunk on my car hobby. #partyhatemoji!!!! #allthehappyemojis!!!! Stoked, right?! Well, it started out great! So, the Civic was modified only minimally. With the coilovers, upper control arms with camber adjustment and lightweight 15x7 949Racing wheels, it had a good start. The obvious area needing attention to really become a performance car is more power and torque. Herein lies my problem. This was the beginning of the end of the Civic for me. "Just do an engine swap! Duh!!" Ya, engine swap. Well, there's this thing called Smog, emissions testing, CARB E.O., etc etc. Hhhhhhhhhh :( So, yes, I could do a swap and just skirt the system. Then get pulled over and get my car impounded, big expensive ticket, blah blah, basically big problems for me. Sure, others don't care and make it happen. So, I talked to a local Honda guru who works at a shop and does emissions tests, etc. I couldn't find much online. There's not many doing emissions legal swaps and each state is a little different, so hard to get good details on what engines are legal to swap and what is all needed. This being my daily driver, having the car down for weeks was just not an option. I probably could have afforded a B series swap. I really wanted to do a K series swap. I think if I saved a little longer, a K swap would have been doable. I even found the number of the Davis County Emissions Test Center supervisor who is responsible for emissions in my county. I called him back in December. It was my last push to make it happen with the Civic. We talked on the phone one Friday afternoon for 30 minutes. He mentioned that the rule has been that the engine needs to have been offered in that chassis. The only engines offered in my chassis, which was 96-00, was my engine, the D16 non-vtec which makes 106hp, the D16 VTEC which makes 127hp and the B16A2 from the 99-00 Civic Si which made 160hp/111tq. The B16 is a great engine. But its a 1.6L just like the engine already in my car. Sure, yes, no doubt its an upgrade. There are issues with it for me and my goals. First, its hard to find as it was only available for 2 model years. Second, its only 160hp. The "bang for the buck" is not enough for the time, money and effort. I was trying to figure out if that was really the only swap option. The Davis County emissions guy was a car guy. He knew what I was doing and why. He wanted to help me. He was busy with end of year audits and reports and most importantly, he had received a new regulations book from EPA and when he looked up my car, it was not the same rules any longer. He said he would need time to research it. I left him a message in early February. He called back and left me a message saying he hadn't figured out anything yet and he even talked to the Weber county emissions guy and he didn't know the answer either. I think that was my answer. Through in all the issues noted above and the Civic was not going to get a swap. 

One of the last pics of the Civic taken by Keith

The other factor playing into my decision to sell the Civic was bringatrailer.com (BaT). In the first 2 weeks of February 2021 2 95 Civic Si hatchbacks sold for $9000 and $18000. The first was a white one with some rust and hail damage and yet still sold for $9k. The red Si that sold for $18k had 84k miles, clean title and an minor accident on the Carfax. My eyes saw dollar signs! These were both OEM factory fresh cars, not modified like mine. This ends up being my doom. I saw BaT my way to a different car with much more potential. I knew I could get $5-6K for my car locally, but thought if I could get $8-12k on BaT I could really get something cool. 

So, if I sold my Civic, my biggest dilemma would be what to replace it with. Back in August and September, I actually test drove 2 Mustangs. Originally, after realizing back in June-July that a swap was not a good use of my resources for the Civic, I went down a V8 rabbit hole. My budget was in the $5-11k range (sell Civic for $5-6k, add $5k of "fun" money). Brent has a 2005 Mustang GT 4.6L 3V and its rad. He's done 5-6 track days (between Willow Springs and Buttonwillow). That was my first focus. I found a light blue 2007 Mustang GT 5 speed in Bountiful on KSL for $10,500 with 82k miles. Decent car. Mostly stock, just a catback. I wanted to get it. I made the mistake and had Christy run a carfax before agreeing on a price. Paid the $40 for clean carfax and then started talking price. I offered $9300 or something and he immediately said he already turned down offers of $9500. Huh? I offered $10k and he said he'd go down to $10300. I was out at that point. I don't think he wanted to sell it, his wife was making him get rid of it. I told him I'd think about it but I didn't want it at that high of a price. I walked away from that liking the power and torque, but not liking the handling and heavy weight. It drives like a truck. 

A few weeks later I'm on KSL hunting again. I find a 2000 Mustang GT (New Edge). The guy had a "clean" 1994 GT too in white, all stock. It looked just like my 94 Mustang. By the time he got back to me, he had sold the New Edge but said the SN95 was available and in better shape he said. I went and checked it out and drove it. Again, nice power/torque but drove even more like a truck. Just not enjoyable, not my driving style at all. I dug my own grave by telling Christy "I'm not a Mustang guy". I do love Mustangs. Mustangs are in the Hechtspeed blood. I love what my dad and brother have done with there's. Even my nephew has a sick S550 Mustang GT. But, my driving style is not very compatible with a Mustang. I'm not comfortable drifting, hanging the tail out, doing burnouts. I'm a sissy that way. I'm a "grip" driver. FWD and AWD are much more my jam. 

So, a few months go by. I keep hunting KSL. I keep thinking maybe I just keep the Civic as is and slowly modify it, do Wilwood big brakes, maybe a Buddy Club or Corbeau race bucket, some sway bars and go autox it. You know, keep it simple, enjoy it as is with some minor upgrades over time. 

I thought I had found my go-to, long termer, the BRZ/FRS/GT86. It is basically a newer version of my Civic, with a K swap (200hp) but with RWD without having to do all the swap work. They are going for about $13-16k. Win win! So, late January, early February I'm hunting KSL for a 86. I find a world rally blue 2013 BRZ with a Jackson Racing supercharger kit for $17500 with 2 sets of wheels or $16500 for just the winter set up (wrx wheels on Blizzak winter tires). I texted the guy and set up to go see it Monday, Presidents Day on a day off. Christy and I drove down to West Jordan to check it out. It was pretty sweet, pretty clean. Only 52k miles. I had equal length header and catback as well. So, it didn't have that suby rumble exhaust note, but it was pretty quick. Not as quick I was thinking it'd be, seeing as it was touted to be making 280whp. Felt more like 280 at the motor. Christy definitely noticed it had a non-existent backseat. When we got in the car and I put my seat in position, the back of my seat was literally touching the back seat. No bueno!  I was thinking "we can make that work". I wanted the car, agreed on a price and a day to do it. I'm stoked, a supercharged BRZ is way cool! So, we head home and stop off at Costco to get gas and pizza. I check my phone and there's a text from the seller saying "Um, talked to my wife that you're serious about the BRZ (ya, I said I want to buy it, I guess you could say things are getting pretty serious!) and we're not sure we want to let it go, we're super attached to it." Ummmmmm..... ok? Let me know what you decide? Question Marks!!!???? Hhhhhhhhh Really?! Who does that?

So, this was the tipping point in me ending up with another WRX. We talked it over and considering I need an actual backseat to carpool kids to baseball #dadtaxi 

So, the last chapter. If I'm not a Mustang guy, and now I'm also not a BRZ guy, what guy am I? Back to KSL I go..... Fiesta ST? Focus ST? GTi, GLi? Nope....WRX? Ya, let's look for a WRX. If you were to ask me back in June when I was starting to look for the next car, the WRX was the last one on the list. My thought was "Been there, done that". LOL Like that ever stopped me before. I owned 3 different 90's Civics. 95 EX Coupe, 98 LX Sedan and finally the 99 Hatchback.

I found a few 2008 and up WRXs in the $13-15k range with lots of miles and no mods. I like the hatchback models from '11-14 with the flares. The 2015 and newer are still too expensive and not very appealing to me with their looks. While KSL surfing for WRXs I spot this silver 2002 WRX. Honestly the 2002-03 Bugeye WRX is the best WRX in my opinion. But, I probably think that because the WRX came out when I was in college, at the beginning of my becoming a japanese car guy. It was so different and unique compared to anything on the road at the time. It responded so well to basic exhaust and boost up mods. I even convinced my Mustang loving dad to go look at one and he ended getting a 2003 WRX in World Rally Blue brand new. He still has it to this day, 360,000+ miles and a couple engine rebuilds later. 

The night the BRZ was maybe no longer for sale, I found this WRX and texted the guy. It had a long list of new parts, including a newer crate engine, newer paint, STi injectors and VF28 turbo, bigger Top Mount Intercool, FortuneAuto Coilovers, and the piece de resistance, Enkei NT03 M+ wheels in 18x9.5 +40mm with wide 255/35/18 Falken summer tires along with Prodrive P7 winter wheel/tire set up. I drove it Tuesday night and agreed to buy it for the asking price. A clean, well modded bugeye WRX doesn't come up for sale often, so I felt like I had to jump on it. We completed the transaction on Saturday at the America First inside the Harmons here in Farmington. Ironic, because that is exactly where I sold my first WRB 2002 WRX back in December 2013. Funny how that works. That's just over 7 years ago, but it feels way longer ago than that.

I'm lovin' the car so far. The first thing I did was remove all the window stickers. I love Speedhunters but I don't need more attention than the loud exhaust note and white tire lettering is giving it already. I also used my E303 plastic/vinyl protectant spray and detailed the interior. Looking great! I'll have to do another blog to give more details on the car and how it drives, what's been done to it and what my plans are. 

In the end, I basically broke even with selling the Civic, adding my "fun' money and buying the WRX. I need to tell some of the story of my experience selling the Civic. That was interesting...

2008 Subaru STi

Here are the latest specs for the new WRX STi for 2008.
-Power: 305 hp @ 6,000 RPMTorque: 290 lb/ft @ 4,000 RPM
-18x8.5 wheels and 245/40/18 tires
-US Spec weight is 3,395 lbs
-Motor has Dual AVCS (on both intake and exhaust)
-14.7 PSI is max boost
Front rotors 13 inches up front and 12.6 inches diameter in the rear
-EPA Mileage ratings: 17/23 city/highway
No more sedan STi, it only comes as a 5 door hatchback. Looks like its priced around $35k base.

GT Live

I finally made it out to the Miller Motorsports Park facilities at the GT Live event. My friend was there with his highly modified WRX. I spent most of my day watching the run sessions on the West Track and not the pros who were running on the East Track. More pictures to come...