Allons-y

I have a manual 2000 mustang gt (bone stock at the moment), and I've been scouring forums and reading reviews like crazy in an effort to make sure that when I do buy my mods, that they will be compatible with each other and for daily driving.
My first concern is with exhaust, and my current plan is to buy a kooks long tube header and x-pipe combo,however,I don't know which catback I should get to complement my headers and mid-pipe.
My second concern deals with suspension, and I'm currently in favor of getting Maximum Motorsports SBF's, BBK LCA's and UCA's, and some sort of spring set that'll help me in the 1/4 mile.
In case you're wondering, this car is my daily driver and my goal is to make it a 13 second car that is still very street-able.

bluebeastsrt

Are you an auto or manual? First mod should be gears and drag radials when chasing a time at the strip. There is a lot better control arms out there than BBK. Try UPR or Team Z.

uberstang1

Just throw a centrifical supercharger on it with 8psi and you can run a 13 with everything else stock with a decent tire.

CalBoy101

Long tube headers cost a lot of money for a pretty small gain, maybe 10 hp if that.
As mentioned you will get much more gain from gears and tires.

You can keep the stock exhaust manifolds and gain 10hp or so with a good catted x-pipe, the Magnaflow ones work well. Pick any catback exhaust you like, they all work pretty well, the bigger gain is from the x-pipe.

Get some poly bushing LCA's but keep the stock rubber bushing UCA's, for a daily driver going poly on the UCA's also isn't a good idea and at your HP level staying with the stock UCA's is fine.

For springs when you are installing the LCA's take the rear springs out and cut 1/2 turn off the top of them. This both lowers the car and increases the rear spring rate a little, both of which will help your hook. Some adjustable rear shocks with the compression rate turned up will also help your hook.

A tune will get you another 10hp or so. When I was running bolt ons I used the Bama tune service and it gave me a little on the top end but there are other mail order tunes services you should check out also. Or if you can afford it have a dyno tune. There's not a ton to gain from these tunes, basically they are just bumping your timing up and you'll need to run premium gas, but you do gain a little. In addition to some WOT gain the Bama tune also improved the low to medium throttle response. On my auto car it also stiffened the shifts a lot, which made it a lot more fun to drive.

You can gain a little (maybe 5 to 10) hp by replacing your intake plenum. I ran a C&L with a 75mm Accufab TB and that combo gave me a little gain. Some say that a 75mm TB is too big for a bolt-on car but it worked well for me, both WOT and around town.

Cold air intakes are controversial, many claim that there is zero to gain over the stock system. I think you do get a little gain with large tube system that keeps the air filter located in the fenderwell, don't get one that locates the air filter in the engine compartment, with or without a separation baffle those suck in too much hot engine bay air.

Definitely get some drag radials. The Nitto nt555r's are a good choice if you need to get at least 10,000 miles from them and will be doing rain driving. The 275/40R17's work well and the Nittos run small so you can get away putting them on the stock 17x8" rim although a 9" rim would be better. The next size up would be the 315/35R17's on a 10.5" rim.

If you can handle 3000 miles or so on the tires and can avoid (or go really slow) rain driving then look at the Mickey Thompson Street Radials.

The next step above that is the M&H drag radials but these are for pretty limited street driving, they don't have a steel belt and would be crazy on wet surfaces. But they hook on the street and strip very hard.

Keep in mind that for a stick car the increased side wall flexibility of tires on 15" rims helps so some 275/50R15's (26" diam) or 275/60R15's (28" diam) would give you better hook. You would need a 15"x8" rim with 5.5" backspacing for these. The 28" tires would hook the best but would need 4.10 or 3.73 gears to work well. These sizes are available in both the nt555r's and Mickey Thompsons.

WJL

centrifical? Centrifugal, the part you left out is you better be ready to part with $4K or more.

Just MAO.

Soldier GT

Or he could do like a bunch of us here did (me incuded) and spend about 1700 bucks and build a used Centrifigual SC setup.

UPRSharad

I ran 13.89 @ 99 in my bone stock 99 GT manual on stock tires. That's just a practice thing. (gotta pull a 2.0 60-foot which isn't easy on the stock tires)

Now, if you run UPR control arms and sticky tires (like M/T ET Street or ET Drag) it'll run DEEP into the 13s every time.

WJL

i agree if you can find a used one and have the skill to build it, in fact when it comes to horsepower it may be the best money per horsepower you can get

uberstang1

I spent 2k on a used p600b and went 11.90s at 121 on a stock b head 4v along with nitto drag radials and cheap rear control arms off road mid pip and a cat back. 2k for a used blower or 1.2ish k for a full exhaust setup, might as well toss 800$ more in and get 120rwhp over 20rwhp just my two cents

Allons-y

When I said 13 seconds, I meant low 13s (13.0-13.2)
However, I'm second-guessing aftermarket mods for my car, because it has 182k miles on it, and wasn't cared for by its previous owners (who did not seem to have much of a car budget either)