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Old 04-09-2012, 01:12 PM   #161
Jah1mon
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Wheels look sharp, especially with this color car.
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Old 04-11-2012, 04:55 PM   #162
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Back in February, a woman who shouldn't be driving backed into my car at the gas station. Not that she shouldn't be driving because she is a woman, but because she has a torn ligament and a leg brace and she has had difficulty hitting the brake pedal. She told me that this isn't her first accident caused by the torn ligament and leg brace. She dented the front of the hood and scuffed up the paint on the front bumper on the Mustang. Originally they wanted to pay for it out of pocked instead of involving insurance, but after 3 and a half weeks I didn't receive a penny toward the repairs, so I filed a claim with their insurance company. I recently received a check from their insurance company for the damages.

The 2005-2009 Mustangs have an issue with the hood lifting and wobbling at high speeds due to air being trapped under the hood. The hood never becomes unlatched and its not a safety issue. The 2010+ models have this happen less frequently due to differences in aerodynamics. For the 2005-2009 cars, adding a longer belly pan from under the front bumper to the rear of the oil pan helps and so does adding a louvered hood. This reduces front end lift and also reduces drag. I originally was going to have the hood and bumper repaired and repainted. However, I'm thinking of getting an aftermarket carbon fiber hood and maybe and aftermarket bumper cover.

Because the stock Mustang hood is aluminum, most of the aftermarket fiberglass hoods weigh more than the stock aluminum hood. To prevent adding unnecessary weight to the car, I'd need to add a carbon fiber hood if I went with an aftermarket hood. Most of the carbon fiber hoods of good quality are in the $700-$900 price range.

Some of the aftermarket front bumper covers have larger brake duct cooling air scoops than I can fit easily in the stock bumper. This may be beneficial for track days.

Between the cost of the carbon fiber hood, locking hood pins, aftermarket bumper cover, and paint for the aftermarket bumper cover, it would cost a few hundred dollars more than repairs to the stock parts. I'm undecided if its worth the cost.
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Old 05-14-2012, 07:47 PM   #163
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I vote for powdercoating to somewhat replicate this monster:




More pics: http://www.speedhunters.com/2010/01/...ng_rtr_gittin/
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Old 05-15-2012, 10:47 PM   #164
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I vote for powdercoating to somewhat replicate this monster:




More pics: http://www.speedhunters.com/2010/01/...ng_rtr_gittin/
I actually can get 18" RTR wheels or I could have bought the wheels I have int hat color, but I think the wheels don't look as good in the darker color with the dark, pearl coat shifting paint my car has.
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Old 05-29-2012, 04:04 PM   #165
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The Mustang's odometer rolled past 64,000 miles on memorial day. I bought the car with a hair over 39,000 miles last year on Memorial day weekend. 25,000 miles in the first year I owned it!

Unfortunately, due to my work schedule, not as many of those miles were on the track as I planned. I'll have to change that this year. In the next few weeks I'll be installing some new parts on the car to get ready for many track days this year.
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Old 05-29-2012, 08:08 PM   #166
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The Mustang's odometer rolled past 64,000 miles on memorial day. I bought the car with a hair over 39,000 miles last year on Memorial day weekend. 25,000 miles in the first year I owned it!
Nice! You do alot of driving! I got mine last June with 26k and just rolled 37k last week.
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Old 07-08-2012, 02:51 PM   #167
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I ended up going with getting the stock hood and stock bumper repaired and repainted instead of going with aftermarket parts when getting the car repaired after the lady backed into me. The hood I wanted is the Tiger Racing Super Louver hood. Its one of the few lightweight and functional hoods for the S197. However, its about $1,200 plus shipping, hood pins, and paint. Its a real race car part and not a look at me I'm fancy carbon fiber part. Its meant to be painted. Even though it reduces front end lift and is lighter than the stock hood, I wasn't ready to invest that much money in a hood at this time. I also can reduce front end lift by making my own front end under tray like I mentioned before.

I added the Quantum Motorsports brake cooling ducts to the car before the Tristate Tuners track day at NJMP. Unfortunately, my clutch slave cylinder and throwout bearing went out during the track day. Ford uses a combination hydraulic slave cylinder/throwout bearing assembly on the transmission input shaft. Usually it works well without any issues and lasts longer than the clutch. However mine started leaking and I left the track day early. On the way back to the hotel, the leak was bad enough that I couldn't bleed the air out of the system. I was able to make it back to the hotel by just using 2nd gear. I used AAA Plus and had the car towed to a shop near my home. I didn't want to lay on a hot black driveway and yank a transmission on a 90+ degree day to replace a slave cylinder, so I decided to pay someone else to do it. While the transmission was out to replace the slave cylinder, the shop owner asked if I wanted a new clutch. I thought about it and they offered me a very good price on the whole package deal of slave cylinder, clutch kit and flywheel resurfacing, so I had the clutch replaced with a Ram Powergrip clutch rated for 550+ HP/550+ lb-ft. at the wheels. The stock clutch looked like it had quite a few miles left on it, but I also wondered if any fluid leaked into it from the leaky slave cylinder.

I was thinking about going with a twin disc setup, but in reality, I don't need a clutch that can handle 800-1000 ft-lbs of torque at the wheels. The main advantage to a twin disc setup for me would be the clutch pedal is actually lighter than stock, which may be nice for daily driving in stop & go traffic. I'll probably not do any more than 5-8 PSI if I turbocharge or supercharge this car since I primarily use it for road course use and daily driving. Adding more than that much power will require brakes that are big enough that I'd need new wheels. The clutch will easily hold that increase in power if I do go with a low boost forced induction setup. The clutch pedal is a little stiffer than stock, but its not bad at all in stop & go traffic. It feels lighter than aftermarket clutches in most 4 cylinder turbo cars I've driven.

Yesterday, I saw the odometer roll over to 66,666.6 miles when I was coming home from the Air & Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center by Dulles Airport.

I also recently replaced the parking brake cables so that the car won't have any issues next winter. I got them on sale form a Ford dealer that gives a forum discount and ended up getting the cables for about 30% off. Now all my planned maintenance is completed.
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Last edited by Chris B.; 07-08-2012 at 06:21 PM. Reason: Additional info.
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Old 09-10-2012, 10:31 PM   #168
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Its been a while since I updated this. I have some new parts on the way.

The car handled 300 miles at Virginia International Raceway last month like it was my daily commute.

The odometer rolled over to 73,000 miles yesterday.
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Old 09-13-2012, 12:55 PM   #169
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Racking up the miles Chris, may be time to trade it in on a GT500 hehehe
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I know this is my work cutting into this, but they use a pretty expensive casket for the Dragula.

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Old 10-02-2012, 03:23 PM   #170
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Racking up the miles Chris, may be time to trade it in on a GT500 hehehe
The odometer rolled over to 75,000 miles last night. I'll have to see what the 2015 Mustang is like before I decide on getting a GT500 or Boss 302 LS.
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Old 10-03-2012, 07:28 AM   #171
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I saw that picture from Car and Driver. I wouldn't say no to it.
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I know this is my work cutting into this, but they use a pretty expensive casket for the Dragula.

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Old 10-07-2012, 05:11 PM   #172
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I bought my first Boss302/GT500 part for this Mustang. The 2013 GT500/Boss302 differential cover. It has the cooling fins to help keep the rear diff cooler. I had this one drilled and tapped for drain and fill plugs and to relocate the rear axle vent. The stock fill plug is located on the front of the diff and is hard to get to. This will make changing the differential fluid easier. Also, if I ever needed a rear differential cooler, I can easily hook one up.

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Old 10-07-2012, 06:06 PM   #173
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Send a message via AIM to sleeperSL2
Shiny!
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Old 01-11-2013, 09:46 PM   #174
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Back in the end of October, one of my front wheel bearings started getting noisy. I was thinking of getting the ARP wheels studs for the car. A pair of new hubs with the bearings was $132 from Ford and the ARP wheel studs normally cost $99-$109. Then I opened up the Ford Racing Performance Parts catalog and got the part number for the FR500 Mustang's wheel hubs and found a Ford dealer selling them for $175 plus shipping. They include the ARP wheel studs. Its nice when race car parts are cheaper than street car parts. I installed them in the beginning of November.

Out with the old...


In with the new...


I also replaced the tie rod ends. I stuck with an OEM style replacement. The roll center relocation kit won't allow me to use 17" wheels or else I would have installed one.

I also wanted to replace the 4.10 rear gears with 3.55 gears so that I'd have a 1st gear that was useable for something other than 7000 RPM launches on 315 width slicks and so that the car would be more useable on road courses. I ordered all the parts:
3.55 FRPP gear set
GT500 clutch pack diff rebuild kit
All new diff bearings and axle bearings
ARP wheels studs for the rear axle
friction modifier
synthetic gear oil
and a few other miscellaneous bits

Also I had that shiny new Boss302/GT500 differential cover I ordered over the summer and never put on the car.

I dropped it off at a friend's shop in December to have the new gears put in and the diff rebuilt Originally the job was only going to take a day. Unfortunately, the shop that put in the 4.10 gears when a previous owner had the car apparently damaged a bearing when they put the new diff in and didn't replace the bearing. The bearing started wearing in an unusual way and it left metal shavings and chunks all over and it also allowed the axle to wobble as it wore. The metal bits floating around damaged the differential gears. I was lucky I decided to get it replaced when I did because it wouldn't be much longer until large chunks started coming off the bearing and might have locked up the rear as I was driving the car. The wobbling form the worn bearing also wore an axle in an unusual way and damaged the pinion gear. The pinion gear splines actually had a wavy pattern to them.

I ended up also needing a new axle. I thought about getting a set of Moser axles, but I'm not going to be doing high RPM launches with a 700 WHP car, so I decided to get a new replacement from Ford. Luckily my friend had the stock diff from his 2003 Cobra sitting around the shop, so I didn't have to order a new diff carrier.

I didn't get good pictures of all the damage, but I here are a couple that show the damage to the teeth.



The axle assembly was completely disassembled and cleaned. The only original parts in it are the housing and the passenger side axle.

Here is the car before the rebuilt axle goes back in. You can see the shiny new diff cover with cooling fins.


Now the car has a useable 1st gear and I'm getting 2-3 MPG better gas mileage on the highway.
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Old 04-09-2014, 12:56 PM   #175
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I'm traveling a lot more for work now and don't have much time to do track days. I'm thinking about selling the car.
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Old 10-02-2016, 12:58 PM   #176
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I'm traveling a lot more for work now and don't have much time to do track days. I'm thinking about selling the car.
Because I haven't had much time for track days, I ended up trading in the Mustang. With the traveling for work I did, the car had over 134,000 miles on it before I traded it in. I towed 4x8 and 5x8 U-Haul trailers long distances with it including Allentown, PA to Houston, TX and back.

The Mustang needed a lot of regular maintenance work due to its age, track use, and miles(bushings, control arms, tie rod ends, etc...). Also, it needed new clutch packs for the rear diff. In addition to that, the Mustang was hit in the side, by the rear wheel, by an old lady who ignored a stop sign and drove out into a 4 lane main road. The car never felt right after that even though all the repairs were done properly according to a highly recommended body shop. I'm pretty sure something was bent in the rear, but I didn't have time to take everything apart in the rear suspension and axle assembly to compare it to a straight edge. The car needed an alignment to drive straight after the accident. Yet, the body shop couldn't find anything wrong with the rear suspension. I didn't feel safe taking the car to the track again until I could figure out what was wrong with the rear end. I was debating doing all that work or just getting something new and ended up getting a great deal on something new.

The dealer gave me a good price for the Mustang and I got a CPO 2016 Ford Fusion Titanium in Ruby Red Metallic for a daily driver. The Fusion was a dealership manager's car so he took the depreciation hit. I got the Fusion for $14,000+ under the original sticker price and a few thousand less than others with similar options sold for in the area recently. Not bad for a car that was hardly used and just turned 1 model year old. I ended up getting the Ford 7 year/100,000 mile extended warranty. The dealership gave me the lowest price I could find on the factory extended warranty. I'll be going back to school for another master's degree soon and need a reliable and comfortable daily driver.

I love the technology the Fusion has. Adaptive cruise control, lane keeping system, blind spot info system, cross traffic alert, etc..

I sometimes miss the Mustang. However I think the Fusion will be better for road trips and as a daily driver.

I read that some Fusion owners aren't getting the EPA mileage with the 2.0 Ecoboost. However I averaged 33+ MPG on 3+ hour road trip at 75+ MPH and I did a bunch of shopping and errands yesterday around town and got just under 22 MPG with a lot of time spent sitting at traffic lights in stop and go traffic.

I don't have much planned for the Fusion so I don't think there will be a member journal for it.
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