My 86 foxbody mustang build.

Some guy posted this on one of the local mustang page. At the time I was building an 95 gt and my bro n law was really getting into it. He's an IT nerd, but started talking about maybe getting a mustang. So I called him up and told him about this car. He wanted it, but they just relocated down here from stl for his new job and didn't really have the money.

A few days passed and I couldn't stand it anymore. I shot the guy a low ball offer. Told him I'd show up with a trailer and if the car was what he said it was, I wouldn't nit pick it or try to haggle him down any lower... I'd just hand him cash and load it on the trailer... a hassle free deal! He said okay, but tonight only.. Bring cash and a trailer, you'll like the car.

Hauled butt to the bank, got there 5 mins before they closed. Went home, loaded up the trailer and started up there. Pulled into the driveway, he had the car in the garage, said there's a jack in the corner if you want to jack it up. I did a quick walk around to check the strut towers, torque boxes and floor pans. Looked pretty decent. Paid him cash, loaded the car up and head home. I bought the car so i coule sell it to my bro n law on payments.

Fast foward, I sold my sn95 project to my buddy and bought a really clean foxbody vert. The vert was a head turner, a really solid car... but it was a vert. I thought I could learn to like it, but it just didn't grow on me. I kept it a few months and then sold it to my cousin.

Mean while, my brother n law would always talk about about sn95s, so I asked if he wanted a fox or sn95... he said you know, I think I want a sn95... I really wanted abother fox, so I gave him his money back and took the 86 home...

I stripped the interior out to check for any hidden rust and to change things around some. While the interior was out, I wanted to removed the sound deadener so I could paint the floor pans for rust protection.

Removing the sound deadener reviled a soft spot, poked around on it and it turned into a hole. But overall I'm real happy, there's just a small rusty section that will be really easy to cut out and patch.

I'm doing this build in sections. I'm going to start with the interior.

1. Patch floor pan

2. Paint floor pan (rustoleum)

3. New sound deadener.

4. New carpet.

5. Sn95 front seats

6. Rear seat delete

7. Re-dye a few panels

8. Console delete

9. Recover headliner

10. New/used door panels (scored some nice ones for 20 bucks.)

11. Nice stereo system

12. 4 point roll bars.

Body.

1. Fix any rust (cut out and weld in new mental.)

2. Replace hatch, 87+ gt spoiler

3. Cowl hood

4. Body work

5. Satin Drab olive green paint job, matte black trim and gt strip and head light buckets.

Suspension/wheels.

1. Sn95 front 5 lug parts.

2. Pbr front brakes

3. Cobra master cylinder

4. Sn95 rearend with 3:73s or 4:10s

5. Upper and lower tubular rear control arms.

6. Bullitt wheels?

7. Lowering springs

8. New shocks, struts, bushings. Just some decent kyb's or something daily driver friendly.

Engine 1. Low mileage explorer long block with gt40p heads and gt40 intake.

1. Alex valve springs

2. Stock mustang h.o cam with 1.7 rr

3. Taurus Efan

4. 3g alternator upgrade

And that's about it, just a cheap build. Nothing fancy, just a fun daily driver.

This is the sn95 I was putting together when the 86 popped up.

I found an explorer long block with 98,xxx miles for 280 bucks. Original plan was to throw stock h.o cam in it, upgrade valve springs, and run it... but I got curious and tore it apart. Still looked new, bearings were great, cylinders still had cross hatches, really solI'd motor. Resealed it with new gaskets, lapped the valves, replaced the valve seals and upgraded the valve springs to some trick flows, tossed in a tfs1 cam, and finished it off with a new timing chain. Got the engine all finished up and ready to drop in and then my buddy made a generous offer on the car, so he took it home and finished it up.

I was browsing Craigslist and found this vert. Super clean car for a really good price.

Having owned one foxbody vert before, I figured I wouldnt like it, but it was so clean and it had a/c and a really nice black leather interior, so maybe I could learn to love it?

Kept it a few months and I really did enjoy it, but my cousin called from Wisconsin and wanted to buy it. I hadn't done a road trip in a while, so I decided to sell it him. It was a fun, but quick 1600 mile or so weekend trip.

Convertibles seem to be that way. Hate 'em or love 'em or.... I'm still not sure either, but see a lot of convertibles for sale cheap, so it looks like a lot of others have the same mixed feelings.

Looking forward to your finished paint scheme. Not sure why, but I seem to be "into" subtle paint schemes these days and your car sounds like it will look great.

Took my vert over to my sister's and my brother n law and I cleaned up our babies.

After I obtained my the car, I made a to do list, first was getting the interior sorted out. First things first, gut the interior and remove the old sound deadener so I could make any repairs and then paint the floor pans.

Since I had no plans to use the factory seats, i traded them for some other goodies.

As I mentioned before, i had no plans of reusing the stock seats or carpet, so I did some horse trading. I got a rust free hatch (hard to find in my area.) This hatch is from a 87 gt, which has a slightly more aggressive looking spoiler than the four eyed cars had. Also got some pony wheels for a b303 cam I had sitting around. These wheels will hold me over until I do the 5 lug swap.

The last pics are from today. We're all caught up.

Is a manual trans conversion a possibility....in the future ?

The plan is to keep the a.o.d until it craps out, then swap in a 5 speed.

I went through the pain staking process of removing the factory sound deadening. I did that so I could undercoat the floor boards. The floors were really solid for being a Midwest car and for having t-tops.

There was 2 small areas that needed patches, roughly 2 inches by 4 inches each... I cut them out, made the patches, then borrowed a welder from my uncle and welded them in. I'm not a good welder, but got them welded in using a series tacks, about a million of them. It looked pretty decent, I grinded the welds smooth and finished undercoating the floor.

Since this is a budget build, I used rustoleum to coat the floor. I've used it before in similar situations and it worked well. 

I really want to make this car a fun driver. I want the interior to be quiet as far as road noise and squeaks are concerned. I'm going to add one layer of peel n seal over the whole floor. On top of that I'm going to add one layer of frost king. then I'll put some closed cell insulation in some of the trouble spots. 

I'm not really sure I trust peel n seal on vertical surfaces. Probably just stick with the frost king on the sides and roof. Maybe order some dynamat and use it in the trouble areas. 

Here's the start of the peel n seal.

I love these cars. I would love to get one and keep it on skinny tires and just drive it. As long as you don't overload the suspension with grip it seems to behave well. It would be slow but the noises and leaving 11's everywhere and sideways through the corners would be worth it.  

Cool project. 

The original plan was to find a low mileage explorer motor with gt40p heads, then toss in a decent cam, and upgrade the valve springs and be done. Hopefully make 270ish RWHP and that be good enough for a daily driver.

However, I think I've talked myself into building a budget friendly 331 stroker. Shoot for around 400hp at the crank. 

When I'm done with this car I really want to build a mustang 2 cobra.

Cool project!  I also have a couple of 4 eye projects around.  Where about are you located?  I'm in Columbia MO, myself.  Looking forward to following the progress.

Here's my '83 Mustang GT

and my '80 Fairmont Wagon (not an active project...yet.  Also technically only has 2 eyes).

I'm located in Sullivan, Mo.

I like your 83. I want a Fairmont wagon so bad. I'd keep it simple with an explorer motor with a comp cams xe270hr or similar, and a course a t5, along with an 8.8.

I also really want a mustang ii cobra. There so ugly, bit with a little metal work I think they could be pretty sweet. 

Ah, cool...we're not incredibly far apart.  

There's a Mustang II Cobra sitting at a shop in town here.  Yes...they are good-ugly.  If I could find one still in tact enough to do something with, it would be a cool project.

Yours is looking cool and I'm sure it's a bunch of fun to drive!  If you ever make it up this way, holler.  There are a few other GRMers up here in COMO.

stan said:

Convertibles seem to be that way. Hate 'em or love 'em or.... I'm still not sure either, but see a lot of convertibles for sale cheap, so it looks like a lot of others have the same mixed feelings.

I'm also not a convertible guy (or t-tops, unfortunately)...and yes, it seems any cheap-ish fox body for sale is a convertible.  I guess it's not just us, lol.

I'm honestly surprised you're not building it into some turbo drag monster... seems like that's what all the Fox body Mustangs are built into out here. You go to the local drag strip and a good 60% of the cars are Fox bodies running under 10 seconds all day long.

In reply to ClemSparks :

Yep, verts are usually pretty cheap around here. A nice coupe is what's going to cost ya.

If this thing will run high 12s, low 13s I'd be pretty happy. I also want it to handle good. Above all, I want to be able to take it on long trips with the a/c and music blasting.

My local craigslist (Columbus, OH) is also flooded with cheap convertibles. They just don't move. People looking for a DD don't want them and the performance crowd doesn't either. The convertible market is a completely different animal than the roadster one.

Yeah, I can see why the performance crowd wouldn't want convertibles... most tracks require helmets and/or cages for convertibles, regardless of how fast they are, so that increases the upfront cost considerably.

Digging the t-tops. They don't do any favors for body rigidity but damn if they don't look cool. 

I will have the Tokico shocks and springs from the car in my avatar for sale soon if you have any interest in them.  Just need to get the coilovers installed.

They are a matched set of shocks, struts and springs.  680# front 350# rear springs with Tokico numbers on them, the whole lot came as a package.

I would take $200 plus shipping.

TOHPK211Spring/Shock Kit - HPK Series : TOHPK211-TOHPK2111$895.41$424.14$471.27

Order Notes:

None

SubTotal:$471.27

Shipping:FedEx Ground Service$71.03

Tax:$0.00

Total:$542.30

Got about half of the sound deadener done. I'm going to finish the other half this weekend and order a new carpet. Probably going junk yard seat hunting. Ideally I'd like to find some super nice sn95 gt seats... But if I can't find any mint Ford seats a lot of imports got some nice seats. Since im not doing rear seats I can get away with pretty much anything, just have to fab up some seat tracks/mounts.