Long story short, I have a 2.3l 1989 Mustang hatchback in my garage that isn't going to be moving for a while.

So, what to do? I want to start working on it and make this thing a beast. Unfortunately, seeing as I can't get a half-*** job for the next six weeks, I don't have corpus amounts of money for it. I only have about $3,000. I'm not expecting a complete 8 second car for that by any means; I know you have to pay to play. But I was planing on getting most/if not all parts from eBay or Craigslist and doing all the work possible myself.

My ultimate goal is spending as little as possible for the most car possible(isn't that everyone's goal?) that is reliable enough to be a daily driver if needed.

I'm sure most of you have thought about doing this before, and I'm looking for some opinions.

 

what condition is the body, interrior in? if thats in good condition, and the engine runs, then you should be good with just a good tune up, Hurst short shift, 3.73 gears, uluminum driveshaft, headers and intake.. that be probably about what you got. if rest of car is in fairly good shape.

 

The body has no rust and only small dents. The interior could use some work, but it isn't completely trashed. The engine was rebuilt about 20,000 miles ago, but I guess you missed the fact that it's a 4 cylinder. I'd probably get close to 100hp if I did all of that, which isn't exactly what I meant by "weekend warrior."

 

Search the junk yards for a turbo setup. With an adjustable waste gate, you can get a variable on performance. You'll need to know what kind of rebuild the engine has and if the compression is stock.

To try for a V8, you'd need a suspension upgrade, which will eat through your $3k pretty quick.