Project Question
 

Well, here's my question, in a round about way. I bought a GT last week and am wanting to do a few modifications to it. Its my 8th mustang, #7 is my mach, which stays in the garage most days. When I got the mach, all the mods done to it were done at a performance shop, incurring some substantial labor costs. With the GT, I'm wanting to do most of the work myself. I'm very mechanically inclined and back in HS, did alot of the work on my '82 LX, i.e. transmission, clutch, fuel system and such, but these newer cars are a bit more intimidating. Thankfully, I have more than half a brain, I work as cardiovascular specialist, very high tech edgy stuff.
My question(s) is this: Where on the car would be a good place to start? and What areas should I leave to more experienced hands?.

Mod list is as follows:

Heads/Cams/PI Intake, springs/shocks/struts, 3.73 gears (not going to mess with this), brakes/line lock, headers/X-pipe/catback.

Its not that I'm so interested in saving $$$ on the labor costs, its more that I want the satisfaction of actually building up my car.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Joe

Those are good mods minus the PI intake. All 99-04 cars are PI motors so you have all PI heads/intake parts. You cna do ported stock heads,and aftermarket cams but you allready have the mach so i dont know if you really wanna bother doing that to the GT as its your daily driver.

You can easily install springs and shocks yourself its not very hard. If you search there are some how tos on spring installs on here.

The gears i would get installed at a shop as they are tricky to setup and without a dial indicator its just guessing on the backlash, and they could end up whinning which sucks. Also because its an auto i think you should go with 4.10 gears. You will like them alot more then the 3.73's in your car.

The exhuast can be done in a garage easy. The hardpart is doing the headers as they are a pain to get in there. I would say dont bother with shorties really the most power gains are going to come from Long tube headers. You have an auto so your really limited to either MAC long tubes or flowtech/hookers. I would go MAc as you can run an h-pipe still and me i dont like the sounds of x-pipes but that part is up to you. Same as the headers any catback you want is good there is no bad catback they are all better then stock and flow better.

After those mods i would put a drop in K&N filter in the stock airbox remove the silencer and call that a day. as there is little power to be had from that side.

Then get a good tune to fix the speedo for the gear swap and you will have a great fast fun car.

I agree with Dustin. You can also tackle the line lock by yourself.

when you get beneath all the things that just plain look out of place, it's the same as any other RWD front engine car. All the parts operate in the same way. There's a lot that has no obvious purpose but you shouldn't be intimidated by it. Just spend some time familiarizing yourself with all the little bits.

thanks alot, thats pretty much what I needed to hear. I'm wanting a beefy daily driver, not a drag strip monster. As for the gears, the 4.10 do sound like a better idea. Hopefully, I'll be able to get started on it in the next few weeks. Shoot, half then fun is just going out and buying tools again, been a long time since I've had a decent set of automotive tools.

Thanks again,

Joe