96blackbetty1

Alright guys....I just joined but I have a few questions.

I've followed pretty much the board's opinion on getting gears as my first mod. I'm getting 3:73s as I have a manual, and SOMEDAY down the road this stang is gonna turn into my toy and not dd, and it's getting blown. It's paid for so why the hell not? haha

Anyways, I need to find me some good spark plug wires, I've had this car for about 4k miles, changed the oil (synthetic, has 96k on it) and air filter....but I looked the other day, and the spark plug wires have 1996 on them!!!I guess they are still stock! Where can I find some good ones?

Also, can anyone tell me the difference between running a K&N Filter, CAI, or just running a good clean air filter with the air silencer off? Would there be any diff between a K&N filter with the air silencer off compared to a CAI? Besides looks of course! I'd rather spend 50 and have the same results than spend 180 for CAI and look good haha!

What's next as far as mods? PI swap? I got quoted about 2100 for the whole shiwbang, install, new cam, heads and intake and tune. Good price?

But I was talking to the guy, and got to thinking, for 2100....I'm almost in S/C range....He said 3200 for a KB I believe blower...can't remember if he said installed. He said that would put me up there around 310 rwhp where as the pi swap would put me around 250ish? He did go on to say that both combined would be a smidgen over 400 rwhp! with a good tune. I'm thinking of doing that, saving up around 6k....and dropping the car off...and I'm predicting that when I pick it up, I won't believe it's my old 96 haha

With that plan in mind, anything else needs to be done? suspension of course right? (gotta get the power to the ground) What setup would ya'll recommend? My springs or shocks and struts are squeaking now....every time weight is transferred.....so I'm thinking its time to upgrade.

Wow this post is really long.....thanks for you guy's help in advance

yelw02GT

if you want some decent numbers do the PI swap first IMO, then look at a power adder down the road, you peice together a PI swap yourself for cheaper if you shop around...BTW...i have some PI cams forsale if your interested

96blackbetty1

Yea, that's all new parts from Ford Racing.....How much for the cam? Isswaping to the pi cam a15 rwhp add on like I've heard? And is it ok to run it with NPI heads? How much would the install cost me?

I did get a pretty damn good price on the gears tho....469.00 with gears from FR, install, lube, and speedo cal.

AJ06GT

3.73s are definitely plenty on that car if you plan on blowing it in the future. Remember, 3.73s on a T-45 are like 4.10s on a 3650.

As for wires, just get some 9mm FRPP wires and you'll be just fine. For now, just get a K&N filter and drop it in. No CAI or RAI will do anything for your car the way it is right not to be worth the money. If you S/C later you can get a CAI setup with it.

The PI swap really depends. The parts can cost as little as around $1000 or as much as $3000 (reasonably, a lot more depending on how crazy you want to go). $1000 of parts will turn your car into a 99-04 GT. The HP would be pretty much the same. If you spend more to get P&P'd heads and some stage 1 or 2 cams, you'll beat 99-04s easily and have at least as much HP at the wheels as they have at the crank. Depending on how aggressive you do everything, whether or not you do an aftermarket intake or just a PI intake, and depending on your other bolt ons, you can be around and over 300 RWHP pretty quick. That's going to cost you a good $3000 though, not including labor for install. Personally I'd do $3000 worth of work on an NA motor and hit 300 HP over putting an S/C on a plain old NPI engine any day. You're going to eventually want to do the H/C/I swap, so you might as well do it first.

Suspension is definitely an important thing on our cars when you get any power at all. I honestly haven't done much with mine so I can't tell you what the best route is there, but it's something to definitely look into, espcially if you end up hitting that much power. It will make the ride more fun and safe. I'd check that squeek out though, the tie rod ends and control arm bearings are the most common suspension squeeks on our cars. I had to replace my tie rod ends when I bought my car so I certainly have experience with Ford's lack of effort into making our cars worth a damn. They all go bad because they aren't greasable, they are just factory packed and once that dries out you're screwed and have to buy whole new tie rod ends. Oh well.

Hope some of this is helpful to you. This is a good place for information but I'll warn you that a lot of these guys are scared of big posts, so you might have to do a lot of little posts to get much of a reply.

96blackbetty1

Thanks for the reply AJ.....I just can't justify putting anything other than a K&N filter on a NPI motor until I get a PI swap or S/C to take advantage!

I can get my hands on a PI engine out of a wrecked Stang, 03....40k miles for 1100 bucks.....the guy at the local race shop will do a PI swap for 700 in labor. Engine swap can't be much more can it? hell there ain't much left after heads cam and intake to swap!

I mean 1k for the swap sound reasonable?1100 for the engine, theres 2100 totaland I got a PI engine with 40k miles. I would imagine I could sell my old NPI engine to SOMEONE

yelw02GT

100 dollars shipped, cheaper if you can meet me

AJ06GT

An engine swap would be easier than a PI swap haha. Honestly that would take any shop no time at all to do assuming everything matches up, which I'm not sure it does. You might need to check into the transmission to engine linkup. They might not be pefect and that's where you'd be spending a little more time/money doing the swap. I don't have a clue what most shops would charge for the engine swap though. It shouldn't be as much as the PI swap though considering it's easier to take the engine out for the PI swap anyway, so they are already taking an engine out and putting it back in. Doing an engine swap they don't have to do any work on the actual engine itself.

$1100 sounds like it may be a little much just for the engine though, check this out: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/4-6-F...spagenameZWDVW

That has less miles on the internals, you'd have to find out about the rest of the engine though, they SAY it's low mileage but who really knows. Granted that will surely end up much more expensive by end, probably over $1100 even, that was just an example since it's already built. I dunno though, never bought an engine whole, maybe $1100 isn't too much but it seems to me that you should be able to get a plain old SOHC 4.6 that's used for less. Then again, maybe I'm way off. *shrug*

203Mach1ne

Lose the Euro lights[:'(]

Crate engine FTW

96blackbetty1

haha I happen to like my euro lights! We'll just agree to disagree haha


Good point about the crate engine....when I have 5-6k to kick around I should be able to get on hell of a crate/used engine....

I just wanna get to 350 rwhp so I don't have to worry about these pesky ls1s.......a blower just seems to be the cheapest most efficient way to get there (I know it won't get me ALL the way there.....but 310 rwhp is a start!)

01GT4.6

I'd bet that motor has issues. Why build a motor and turn around 2k miles later to sell it?