Hey, I just recently bought myself a 96 GT and was planning to do some small modifications, first and foremost an intake. I gather that without some reprogramming this may make the motor run undesirably lean. What do i need to fix this, and possibly the other mods i'll be doing?

 

Well with just an intake its highly unlikely that it will make enough of a difference to make the car actually run lean. The MAF will more than accommodate for something as small as that.

Later down the line, likely after your done with bolt-ons, you'll likely want a dyno tune. With that, the Air/fuel trims can be optimized for your setup and you can make the most out of your car.

 

+1, there's no need to retune for an after market intake on our cars, as it will not change anything--including engine performance. The fact is that the OEM intake is a CAI, and a pretty good one at that--I'm making 262rwHP/305lbft with the stock intake and a Purolator paper filter.

What you had heard was likely related to the '05+ Mustangs where the MAF housing is an integral part of the airbox:



Many after market intakes for the newer models relocate the MAF sensor into their intake assembly, which as the after market housings are larger alters the ratio between the sampled air flow and the total air flow.

The larger housing makes the flow sampled by the MAF sensor a smaller proportion of the total flow, so in reality there is more air flowing than the sensor is reporting = lean. The tune must then be altered to remap the MAF transfer function.


On the earlier Mustangs the MAF housing is a separate assembly which is retained when an after market intake is installed--so nothing changes, including engine performance as I said above as the stock airbox and filter are capable of flowing as much air as the MAF can meter without much restriction. Also, the stock intake tube is quite well engineered so as to do its job well.