Is the Fox-Body Mustang the ultimate blank canvas?

My ideal would be a red 86 GT with T-tops, full MM suspension and chassis reinforcement, mild 331 with aluminum heads, Cobra 5-lug brake conversion. I love the 4-eye cars.

RacingComputers said:

Raced an  SVO back in the day/

 

Tail end was a;ways hanging out

 

FWIW

When the torque arm/Panhard setup was a new thing, one person reported watching someone driving a car so equipped accelerate/lift/accelerate mid corner, with the chassis not changing its set, just lifting the inside front tire off the ground, setting it back down, then lifting it again

Sounds right if the body seams were welded and the racking rails were installed

I would like to build an SVO with IRS and modern turbo 2.3.  Sadly that project would be prohibitively expensive now.

Nathan JansenvanDoorn said:

I would pay a fair bit for a clean notchback. 
Stockish, 5.0, manual. First 'fast' car I was in (12ish). 
 

Left an impression....

I had a similar, I was a Chevy guy in high school. A friend gave me a ride in his black SSP notch and I was hooked. I've owned Mustangs for a good chunk of my adulthood (92 GT, 92 SSP notch, and an 01 GT). As much as I love the Foxbodies, the New Edge did everything better!

In reply to dj06482 (Forum Supporter) :

I'm torn on the new edge. I love the cars especially with a mach 1 front end treatment, but I hate the cable clutch and the mod motor

Even better if you remove the whole foxbody part and just use the drivetrain 

Opti said:

In reply to dj06482 (Forum Supporter) :

I'm torn on the new edge. I love the cars especially with a mach 1 front end treatment, but I hate the cable clutch and the mod motor

I'm a big fan of the Mod motor, and I loved the 5.0.  A little lighter on torque down low, but a little more rear gear solves that.  Cable clutch never bothered me, the self adjustment trick always worked for me. My notch had a stock clutch, but a horrible aftermarket cable, quadrant, and firewall adjuster. The engagement was terrible and the pedal was super stiff. I installed the Maximum Motorsports kit and the clutch felt like stock again.

In reply to Opti :

I got rid of both of those, lol.

Thanks GRM for reminding me I have a fox body I need to keep working on.

*grumbles off to look at mustang parts*

Best blank canvas from the 1980s, but honestly a pretty terrible car in stock form.

We have this bone stock Fox 1988 Mustang LX notchback that we will be building up with some NEW suspension designs, which are needed to fix the many issues with the OEM designs. Can't wait!

In reply to Fair :

Cannot wait as well. :) 

Will Follow Along

Is this where we discuss our favorite Fox-body variants? I’m still a fan of the 5.0 notchback (with a stick, of course) on 10-holes. Make it Ford Racing Beige, please. 

David S. Wallens said:

Is this where we discuss our favorite Fox-body variants? I’m still a fan of the 5.0 notchback (with a stick, of course) on 10-holes. Make it Ford Racing Beige, please. 

I'd pay stupid money for one of these:

We put the Capri Front Fenders on our SVO for more Tire Clerance.  

David S. Wallens said:

Is this where we discuss our favorite Fox-body variants? I’m still a fan of the 5.0 notchback (with a stick, of course) on 10-holes. Make it Ford Racing Beige, please. 

2.3 notchback here.   The stock 2.3 is kind of a turd but so is the 5.0 in stock form.

My current crazy idea is a 2.3 notch, rip out all of the Ford front suspension and replace it with that from a Volvo 740 (I am 99% sure that I have a way to use 4x108 hubs on the Volvo spindles) and likewise rip out the stock rear suspension and replace it with a parallel 4 link and Panhard or Watts.

And then it gets weird.

In retrospect, if you are losing the stock K member, and the original engine, there is no reason to not start with a V6 car.  It's probably easier to find a V6 car than a 4 cylinder car that hasn't been V8 swapped at this point.

RacingComputers said:

We put the Capri Front Fenders on our SVO for more Tire Clerance.  

If you carry your tires to the track, could you also swap on the Capri bubble hatch for more "tire clearance"?  Or is the SVO especially weird in the hatch area?

In reply to Fair :

I bought a 90 LX for this reason. I'm constantly blown away by what's available.

My car already had the 5 lug conversion and suspension done. It also had a cold air intake, headers and cat back exhaust.

I am getting ready to install Cobra brakes and chassis stiffeners.

The above picture of the LSC reminding me of the day Chris Kaufman tossed me and my future wife the keys to the Executive Express,an 86 LSC with a 351w and 5spd. Chris was in one of the world challenge cars and we followed him to lunch! I think my wife learned more about our next 37 years(and counting) from that lunch than she would care to admit. 
As they say there were signs.

Cooper_Tired said:

They definitely are a great canvas to make your own masterpiece. 
I occasionally regret selling the one I had for 15yrs, but they're hard to find clean these days and it's a car that's more fun heavily modified.
Current prices dictate I'll likely not get another, but it's nice to see they're finally increasing in price. 

Funny to see this again. I'm bad at predictions as I bought it back 5 months after this post. 
Still agree it's a great canvas. 

For those of us "of a certain age", the 5.0 Fox Mustang was the light at the end of long years of darkness in enthusiast cars.  Fuel injected V8, RWD, manual transmission, cheap, and capable of a 13 second 1/4 mile with a only couple minor tweaks and a good driver.  And much more with some mods...  As 'bang for the buck' it was pretty hard to beat for a new car in the late 1980s.  And the aftermarket jumped in with both feet, almost immediately.  Was it a wet-noodle chassis with terrible brakes?  Absolutely.  But it was also a hell of a lot of fun.

Specifically this one
 

I'd want my dads old one. Me pictured on it.

If you watch amateur drag racing, it certainly seems to be the go-to platform for a lot of people. I had an '89 and took it to one (road) trackday event, finding its handling not to my liking. On the skidpad, it had understeer coming out its ears. Tossing it to get the back end out usually resulted in a spin, at least for me. Sure, it could be fixed, but I didn't want to dump more money into it.