Yurimeta19

Good evening everyone, I'll start off with saying that I just joined the forums and own a 2008 v6 premium mustang. I have had it for about 2 years now and have never really done anything to it, or even looked into any mods. My main focus was on my 2006 gsxr but that is pretty much where I want it now, and I am turning my attention toward my car.

I'll try to get some pictures up a bit later, but I purchased the car used with 11k miles on it, and basically the previous owner went ***** to the wall with visual mods. I've seen only two mods performance wise on the car so far ( an exhaust, and a CAI). The CAI isn't even done correctly. There is no housing for it. He just slapped it on there and put a rubber hose with a hook around it into one of the frame holes to hold it in place.

Needless to say I am looking at getting into the game with a few cheap mods to begin with. Price isn't really an option but I intend on doing most of this myself and if something goes wrong I don't want to have paid out the *** for the part with this being my "intro into DYI cars."

Any advice would be great and I will do my best to get pictures of the car, and the current exhaust / CAI up as soon as possible.

baddog671

A cai+tuner package is the best bang for the buck. Look into cai that "require tuning". If it's not required, it's not worth buying. AmericanMuscle and Brenspeed are excellent sites to start looking at.

Where at in MD?

Yurimeta19

I'm in Columbia MD right now. Yes I may look into a tune, and possibly redoing the CAI that is currently installed, or just getting a housing for it myself. I was reading around and I hear a lot of people talking about changing your gears. I suppose I'd need to see what stock gears I have at the moment.

I mostly use this as a daily driver, but having that extra acceleration would be very nice considering right now it accelerates fairly slowly.

aaquib1992

Are you auto or manual? If you're going gears, I would recommend just shopping around a bit and finding an 8.8in rear end off of a GT/GT500 so you can get the gears, and limited slip diff, without worrying about breaking the stock V6 7.5" if you were to just go gears.

My suggestion if you want to stay on the less spendy side is CAI/tune (from AM, as they offer a great tunes for life program), and some nice LCAs, with a lowering and you have a fun/capable daily driver.

Yurimeta19

It is a 5 speed manual. Now what exactly are LCA's ? I'm looking at this as a completely new undertaking. Most of my knowledge is in sports bikes so bear with me. Would finding the gears off a GT/GT500 be very different from just ordering a different size set of gears directly?

aaquib1992

Sorry, they're lower control arms. They essentially get the tires to hook better as they have better bushings, and stiffer structure than the stock units. It will keep wheel hop at bay, and give you better launches.

No finding the full rear end (8.8in assembly, as these cars have a solid rear axle) usually is a little harder, but I'd think someone in your area would be better suited to helping you there as I only know of craigslist, and ebay for a good start on tracking them down. I am not sure if you can order the full assembly from Ford, and I would guess they'd price gouge you.

Now the full 8.8in assembly is very different from just getting gears to fit into your stock V6 7.5in assembly. This would afford you the better acceleration, but the open differential of the stock 7.5in makes it so that you have power going to only one wheel, and generally the 7.5 has been known across the forum as very weak and breakable once major power adders are installed. This is why the "7.5 to 8.8" swap are so popular with the sixxers.

If you do want to go the route of just getting gears and not the full rear end, I would recommend you buy them off of americanmuscle.com as they have great customer service, and I believe they do carry the 7.5in rear end gears in stock on their site (not sure on this though, as I've never searched for them specifically). But just be wary of that stock rear end possibly causing you problems in the future, and should it do that- you'd just have to replace everything again with either a new 7.5in or make the upgrade to an 8.8in. which could become a costly mistake.

Yurimeta19

I will probably look around and see if I can find an 8.8 in then if that is the case. I don't really want to run into any axel problems down the road.

aaquib1992

It will cost you a little more, and cause a little more hassle initially. But it will be well worth the trouble down the road when you have peace of mind with the stronger rear end. There is a member on here by the name of JimC, who had an 05 V6 with only (I believe?) boltons and drag radials and his rear end crapped out on him with just those basic mods, if you have questions I would try to PM him, he is also a moderator on this site so it shouldn't be too hard to find him if you have some really specific install/trouble-shooting questions down the road.

Yurimeta19

So are we talking about something like this just so I am clear.

http://www.americanmuscle.com/moser-...axle-2005.html

aaquib1992

I'm not sure if those would fit the V6 (hopefully another member can chime in on this) as I have never seen them listed as a mod around the forum. However, the rear end I was referring to was (similar to) this (link), that unit will require a "cobra flange" however (about $40 and it's explained better in the questions portion of that webpage if you scroll down, along with where to buy it). The price is high, as it is a Ford Racing part or whatever and not at all a GT take off rear end.

The takeoffs are much cheaper, I don't know of your area but here is an example of one I would purchase (ebay) however it is a bit on the pricey side, so take a look at your local craigslist, and if you wait it out/shop around generally you can get these a little cheaper. I saw one in my local craigslist for about $400 a few months ago.