Blockhead R's Mustang

Since my daughter has gotten her license, she has been borrowing my '04 B-ranger. For whatever reason, this is not seen as ideal in her mind. She has been shopping 'sporty coupes' for the past few months while trying to save up some cash. The largest issue being that everything in her price range is trash.
After an intense couple weeks of Great RX8 Debates, BHR shifted focus heavily to RSX's and Integras. I finally showed her enough instances where ownership was going to cost much more than the initial buy-in, trying to convince her that if she wants to buy now rather than wait and increase her budget, she needs to be looking at cars I am familiar with; preferably something I have a ton of parts for or a network to acquire them cheaply. I claim to not be a Mustang guy, but I have certainly bought a few as donors thru the years. If all goes to plan this afternoon, I will be bringing home a purpose for purchasing Rainbow Dash from Patrick.

Obligatory FBMP ad pictures, cropped by me to make them less awful:

$1500 with a broken T5. I have a few backup T5's...

We also went to BHR's first autoX school yesterday. She did very well and enjoyed the event, using Mrs. gumby's FoST as a novice tool.

There are adjustable Koni's and fatty sta-bars on Rainbow Dash which are likely to make their way onto BHR's Mustang if she continues to pursue autoX adventures.

That was an experience. First time I have started a thread before taking possession of a car, and NOT brought the car home. 3hr round trip + 35mins talking to seller's dad.

I was aware the seller gave $2500 for the car 5mos ago, and then broke it. I expected to see a $2500 car at a discounted price due to the bad trans. What I found was an $800 beater that a group of teenagers had already tried to repair themselves. I also learned while I was there that the PO was attempting to make this particular turd into a drift car....

Cracked windshield
Ebay headers with cats cut out
Engine w/rough high idle and MIL on
Rust in the quarters, dents everywhere
Cobra airbag in the steering wheel
Giant burn hole in the rear seat
A/C removed, belt running on 4 ribs
Replacement trans installed(also non-op) with broken one in the trunk
Etc etc

This is not the droid we are looking for. The search continues

Good job saying no....   I'm a recurring victim of the sunk cost fallacy and that would have probably led to a crappy mustang on my trailer. 
 

ie if I'm going to spend 3 hours driving, I'm coming home with something, instead of just cutting bait. 

That was the smart decision.

And one that is usually clouded behind the excitement that makes us dismiss huge tell tell signs simply because we've traveled far to get the damned car.

A much better car will follow 

Piguin said:

A much better car will follow 

I hope you are correct.

I have been informed that BHR bought a Mustang and is on the way home






She has gotten sniped on a couple decent looking ones over the last couple weeks, so she didn't wait around. She took a friend and FaceTime'd me on location. Someone got the converters. It needs tires. Reports are, otherwise, it appears as clean as advertised.

Pretty red. Is it V6? 

Looks to be a v6. Has v6 fender emblems, wheels and rear bumper.

Looks like a clean car though, paint and interior look nice. Getting hard to find any 94-04 Mustangs that are still in good condition for a fair price. 

Yep, v6/5spd car. That, loud, and red was mostly all I knew about the car until today. After a trip to the BMV for a title transfer this morning, the Mustang got a shot at the lift for a once over.

Battery tray removed(??), and wrong size battery sitting loose on the inner apron; laying against the power steering pulley!

It appears some lost soul deleted the exhaust long ago. The cuts are not fresh, and there are soot markings on the body and bellhousing. At least they did me a favor and cut the sensor side of all four o2's, not the harness side. Right side manifold is cracked, and the EGR tube cut.

Tires are trash. Front brake pads are nearly done. Right balljoint squeaks. RF fender liner MIA. Fluids all appear reasonable, and generally staying inside their respective containments. Rust is.....present. I haven't tried to turn many bolts yet, but more than a few look like the fighting type.

Aftermarket stereo tossed in the dash without a mounting kit, harness connections twisted and taped.

Cosmetically, the tail lights have too much Nightshade and the headlights need polished. I have voted for replacing the headlights with the later style. The tails will get wet sanded and cleared. The DIY window tint is not great, but also not of major concern.

Overall, it is fine. Patience would have yielded a better car for the same money, but we could have done a lot worse too. It needs a few things before BHR will be able to start using it, and she is certainly going to get an education in maintaining a vehicle. There is a secondary list of wants, some of which can be handled as 'while we are in there,' but needs take priority.

Checked some fitment on a few converter pipes I have. We found a left that would work, but nothing that fit the right side. Stock replacement y-pipe on RA is $700. There is now a debate between $200-250 eBay H-pipes vs. my hours to build something.

While going into the front end for a squawk on turns and bumps, this pile started making its way onto the car.

The noise ended up being an outer tie-rod, not the ball joint, so when I found the front LCA bolts seized in the bushings I was happy to not hafta swap control arms at this time. That can be a problem for future me. We stole an outer tie-rod from Rainbow Dash, tossed in the front BBK lowering springs and Koni struts.

In today's market you could definitely have done a LOT worse.

Looking forward to the updates :) And of course I'd vote for a fabricated exhaust so we could watch the construction, but your priorities might vary :D

Installed new pads, greased the slides, and....stuck both front calipers.
They felt a bit draggy and the mostly worn out pads had a fair amount of taper. I was hoping the slides were frozen, but no joy. Compressing the pistons for new pads did everything in. New Calipers on the way.

I couldn't make BHR pay $250 for a catless H-pipe. False economy. Especially considering it was an 87-93 5.0 part and I likely would have had to cut it apart to get the best fitment. Doubly so if adding converters. So, while we wait for calipers, we build exhaust.

Some old Flows from RD, a chunk of BBK x-pipe from JAM, and a pair of converters salvaged from my wagon. One side tacked up. 2¼" from the manifold into the converter, 2½" out to the X.

Mustang! I keep on saying I want a SN95 but they're hard to find cheaply in good condition as you've found out. This one looks like it's decent enough to work with at least.

I'm sad that first car pictured was a turd, the purple-lip wheels were awesome.

Replacement front calipers on and bled.
Rear springs swapped, rear shocks installed, rear sway bar added.

Custom v6 x-pipe completed and installed

Then, a round of musical wheels! On hand I have:

• (5) Tribars
• A set of Starfish, painted dark grey
• A set of '98 GT wheels
• A staggered set of Halibrands, 17x9 and 10.5"
• A couple Konig Villains and some 15" options

Staggered isn't a great option for A/S tires. Tribars were veto'd. Other mismatched and/or non-17" were all non-starters.

So, grey Starfish or '98GT wheels? No center caps for either.

In reply to slowbird :

It's like there is some crazy discrepancy between 10-15yrs ago when Fox Tbirds were at the bottom of their depreciation curve, where you could find cream puff cars no one wanted mixed in with the neglected versions for the same money, vs. sn95 v6 cars in the bottom of their curve now which are all abused and ragged out. Strange

Quick update as this car makes its way back into the shop. The throw-out bearing has been noisy, so we pulled the trans today. There is a LUK repset clutch kit here, and an aftermarket shifter, because sincuwas in there....

After the last post, we got tires mounted and released the car for normal duty. BHR bought some center caps for my wheels. She also bought the black housing headlights, pulled the chrome trim from around the emblem in the grille, and added some black vinyl in the rear bumper lettering. 1700miles so far, and a speeding ticket!

gumby said:

1700miles so far, and a speeding ticket!

LOL.
I still remember my first ticket.  Cop was not happy with me, but impressed at the speeds I got up to

Plug wire change. Car has a mild, intermittent misfire. PO had installed a coil pack at some point, and one plug wire. At least they left the other five new ones in the trunk.

If it doesn't clear up, we will look at the plugs next.

upgraaayyyded!

BHR decided she needed a GT. I convinced her to save up a bit and shop for s197's vs jumping at the available New Edge cars on FBMP. After a 4/6 day post made by the son of a good friend, I bullied the boy into selling this car.

MuthaThumpr cams
Holley intake
55lb injectors
Mid length headers into an x-pipe
Race bullets with turn downs
MGW shifter
4.30 gears
And a handful of other goodies

It made +400rwhp on a ragged-edge e85 tune.
Currently utilizing a much milder 93oct tune, it managed 25mpg average on the 3hr trip home.

True to form for this thread, it is. too. loud. We are keeping the race bullets as resonators, but I will be hanging a pair of mufflers after the axle to tone things down a bit. Gotta reinstall the sway bars too since we aren't drag racers.

Wow!!

That's quite an upgrade! Nice score

Much better now

trumant said:

That's quite an upgrade! Nice score

That's the understatement of the year!

Congrats to Blockhead R for leveling up.

Is she going to be heading to the autocross with Dad or the dragstrip with her new toy?

I am very jealous of your daughter! That's a nice car.