Dominasian

So i may possibly get a job soon, and currently own 02 mustang gt that i absolutely love. Its got 93kmiles on the engine. I was thinking about putting eaton on that bad boy but then decided that its going to be too costly with a torqtech kit. Plus if i'd want to go pass 450hp ill need to modify bottom end.

My question is, will i be spending less money buying 01-02 cobra and putting eaton blower on it, or modifying my gt engine to 500hp+ capabilities and the blowing it ?

Cobras 01-2 run from 10-13k with 60-90k miles, i bought my gt for 7k and its got 93k. To me it seems like my engine is getting tired because i run this car hard, and when i am saying hard i mean it.

You suggestions: keep the Gt and building bottom end + blowing it, or going for 01-2 cobra and slap an eaton on that thing ?

crash

Not to be mean but forget about the eaton. It will be expensive to build no matter what car you end up modding. My Bullitt is at 140k and she still runs strong being just geared and a mid pipe. But if you find an 02 cobra that thing would be sweet.

cliffyk

You will most likely need to go to Australia to find an '02 Cobra. They only made 100 of them and that's where they all went...

xx10Gt

yeah forget the whole 02 cobra thing, unless that was a typo. Why not just buy a terminator? they come with 390hp/390tq(underrated) from the factory. Pully changes and basic mods and youll increase that number by alot

Soldier GT

If you're planning on starting a new job soon I would keep the 02 and mod it as the money starts rolling in. Last thing you want to do is incur a car payment especially with a new job. GL!

TomKat

keep the gt

smitty2919

4V parts are more expensive.

I went from a 04 GT to a 03 Mach 1 to a 04 GTO and now to a 99 Cobra.

With a 99/01 Cobra plan on doing around $700 worth of IRS bushing parts. 03/04 Cobra will most likely be out of your price range. Spark plug O ring gaskets are known to dry up and leak oil into spark plug pockets on the DOHC....my 99 Cobra is doing it. Need to pull valve covers to replace them which is not a simple task compared to the 2V.

My 04 GT, 03 Mach and 04 GTO got mods for one reason "just because". It was a decent amount of wasted money. Yes I learned things along the way about wrenching, but there is nothing worse than doing mods without a purpose.

My 99 Cobra is being turned into a AX/road race car. I wanted to find a "cheaper" car with a bigger aftermakrt so I can beat the **** out of it and enjoy it. So every mod I do will have a future purpose. FLSFC's for stiffness, brakes will get upgraded, clutch is being replaced right now. I will mod as my driving skill progress. But the motor will stay relatively untouched other than a custom made CAI and full exhaust.

If you want more power because you are trying to reach a certain ET at the track then great. But I suggest making a PLAN for your car, then mod accordingly.

Dominasian

My plan is to reach around 500rwhp which is plenty for a DD and yes i want it DD. The reason i dont want terminator is because they are too expensive in the state of Colorado around 20-23k, and 99-01 cobras are around 10-13 but they are hard to find.

I usually street race, do some dig racing and highway pulls, no biggies. But just recently took GT to back-roads and damn, even 260hp can get you in trouble on turns . So ill probably end up doing some suspension work too.

the reason i am looking for cobras is because 4v engines are capable of handling some serious power, at least terminators do, but i think its the same engine and internals as in 99-01. Slapping a blower on the cobra and make 500hp is not that hard as if you would try and do that to a GT, it needs some stronger bottom end parts.

If i end up keeping my gt, can you guys please help out and tell me exactly what should be upgraded internally to reach such powers. H/ow much money is approximately going to be spent on the car to reach such limits.

I also just looked at some mach1s and they have a cobra engine but with a GT tranny ? is that correct ? then maybe i should look for mach1 instead of cobra ? Suggest me something here

Personally id love to keep the GT if my plan is possible and will require less money. It brings no attention, and people think Ohh GT its an easy kill, but with 500rwhp, you can really surprise some people Like a driver of a stock STI yesterday, 40 roll i am in second gear, 3 honks and we started a race. As soon as his turbo spooled he started to pull on me, but hey i have stock 3.27 gears lol, while he goes through his 3rd and 4th, i was only at 4.5k RPM in 3rd lol. I end up pulling on him and won by a bumper, then he stopped the race cause saw now point in continuing.

needmorespeed

This is just my opinion but the Mach 1s were just away to make money from an older motor since Ford upped the cobra in 03. Not a bad thing, and they are slightly different factory 305hp vs cobra 320hp but both 4v's. The terminators came from the factory with an iron block, I don't know if the earlier cobras came with an iron block as well.

Starting a new job I would go with the GT as well. Payments suck, with mods you can wait month to month, and you will most likely mod the cobra as well.

There is also the option of getting a new 5.0 and putting that in there. Just saying that would be pretty sweet.

What part of CO are you in? Think about that as well cause N/A is a killer up here, boosted motors don't suffer nearly as bad.

smitty2919

I didn't mean a HP goal, I meant a goal for the car in general. If you reach 500 hp out of a GT( which will take a lot of time and $$) when/where are you going to USE it?

Highway pulls and dig pulls on the street are only fun for a little while. Plus DD a 500hp mustang in Colorado in the winter would not be the smartest move.

Give the CAR a purpose, don't give in to the "chasing HP" game because you will toss parts at it until you are broke.

Like you said, 260hp can get you in trouble quite easy if you are not cautious about it. And you want to almost double that HP??

Edit: I would keep the GT and grow with it. Become so familiar with the car as it sits now and as you driving skills improve, you will start to see/feel the weak points of the car. THEN start upgrading things. If you want to drag race, then do it until your skills exceed the cars ability. Then upgrade the shocks for better weight transfer etc. Drive it until you exceed the car again...so on and so on.