VistaBlueFrank68

If gas goes to 6$ I'll be looking into those dancing kia hamsters or a Briggs and Stratton.
The 3.7 may become the survivor of the next ice age. Wait till 2015 and the return of the 1974-78 Mustang II or a two door Taurus 4 banger.

cariacou

I use my v6 convertible as a daily driver (close to 50k miles on my 2011), and drive it like a race car.

just don't be too extreme.

a few tips:
- be careful on the exhaust ( if you reline the engine, you might want a quiet exaust, as a loud one redlined will likely go on your nerves on a daily basis).
- buy a CAI (yes, it's a mainstream mod, but it's one of the best)
- buy a tuner & custom tune (!!!). again, it's mainstream but totally needed on a mustang. put 93 if you can, 91 if not.
- change the gears. I had 2.73, changed to 4.10, total different car. 3.73 is probably better if you watch the mpgs. (I was doing 19.5 avg on 2.73, I am doing 17.1 now, but no more 30mpg road trips...)
- wider tires (!) . you won't believe the difference between the factory michelin pilot A/S and any other brand. Go wider (285+ on rear), and with better grip (nitto, ps2, ...). You won't regret it. I should have done that the very first day.
- buy a can of plasti dip and have fun with it. lots of safe appearance mods to do for super cheap with that stuff.
- if you have a fancy driving style, invest in a radar detector https://mustangforums.com/forum/2005-2014-mustangs/695153-pics-of-my-interior-mods-2011-v6.html. Much needed to know when to stand still.
- watch ebay & craigslists for good deals & take off parts.

Lil_Chef

I think you live in the same neighborhood as my grandparents. Certainly the same area.

Norm Peterson

First off, you need to understand that redline is a limit. Not a normal operating condition or a daily goal that must be attained. Don't try to confuse this issue with whatever mph you see around you.

On the street, there is little need (or benefit, for that matter) to running much past the revs where peak torque is developed. Assuming that you do manage to get past your teenage hooning, you might discover that playing tunes with the engine running between 3500 and 5500 is more satisfying than you now think. Give yourself a real chance here.

The next thing, from an autocross point of view, is that the order of importance goes "seat time, tires and wheels, everything else". Mostly, it applies to HPDE/open-tracking, except that brakes move up the list out of the "everything else" category.

You can't accomplish all of the above at once. Trust me on this point, even though you probably can't see it this way yet.

Seat time particularly applies to people your age. Part of that is to get you past the urge to play "GT5 Ferrari-driver", which takes some folks longer than others. Make that 'instructed seat time', because there is much more to track driving and even enthusiastic street driving than you apparently realize. Think smooth, drive smooth . . . which is about as far opposite to showing off as any kind of hard driving gets.

As your skills improve, your thoughts and preferences on various mods may change. I know that even at age 65 mine still do (and if you think that's because I'm slowing down, my avatar pic is only a little over a year old at this point). Maybe learning to resist the "must.spend.money.now" urge will save you a few cycles of buying, trying, not liking, and buying/trying again. Hopefully it gets you past simply throwing money and parts at the car while it's still way more capable than you are.


Actually that probably was my top reason. Good handling has been a high priority item since about . . . forever.

Even in stock form it's better than what the people who complain about understeer in street driving would have you believe.


Norm

dpr8ter

I was referring to it in the "I want a car that I can take to the track and has great handling (and redline on a daily basis...)" sense. No, the handling isn't bad by any means, but there are cars out there with much better handling if track lap times are what you are interested in.
Not that I would recommend somebody buying anything else on a Mustang forum though...
(Unless they are going to destroy it/themselves)

Norm Peterson

On an absolute scale, for a pure track toy or maybe even more so for a serious autocross effort there are better choices.

That really wasn't my point. I was ranking handling above things like acceleration and exhaust sound, and way above feature content and all the infotainment and connectivity stuff that seems to be the current rage (and that much beyond A/C and FM/CD capability I could hardly care less about).

IOW, pretty much above everything besides having a real metal roof, 2+2 seating, and a conventional manual transmission. Not necessarily in that order.

If I was car shopping today, a 1LE-optioned 1SS Camaro would get serious consideration, despite that car's extra bulk and weight. At the next higher price point, I'd take the upcoming Z/28 over the GT500 every time (and also over any other Camaro, Mustang, or Challenger). Ford would do well to pay close attention to that one.


Norm

bakerjd

It's like you want the OP to die, lol...future proof your driving record and buy a civic


oh, almost forgot...





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20binafd

The best thing you can do to have your engine run forever is to never drive hard on old oil and never drive hard when your engine is still cold.

And I take my stang up to the redline almost on the daily. I take an off ramp that has two sweeping turns and a 1000 ft straight and it's the highlight of my day. Hitting 5500 rpm in my 4.6 and I'm not worried one bit considering there are porsche flat sixes that go up to 8000.

danzcool

color me stupid, but what the hell does that mean?

Lem-06

hes implying that this thread has no true technical details simply because the owner is asking how to treat his engine to last long, yet also wants to beat on it