wthalliii

My engine is bone stock and I think it has plenty of power. But then I guess I'm just an old fart.

Unless maybe there were some mods that would get me better gas mileage without any HP penalty. I might go for something like that.

vsop

CAI And tune will get you better MPG

johnnyv8

bone stock...not by choice...still saving up

UrS4

A major reason when considering purchasing a mustang was knowing there was a large aftermarket for it. I knew I was going to mod it before I even bought the car. I have always modded my cars and just because this one still had its warranty intact, I wasn't going to let that stop me. Plus my old Audi was considerably faster than my mustang in stock form so I had to quickly start modding it.

RetroS197

I also think everyone should at least pick some mufflers, way to quiet stock. When I got mine, my first concern was getting the audio right. Everyone here me drive by. LOL

forensicsteve

Nothing wrong with stock. If I had two cars,one would be 100% stock and the other non-streetable, but since I only have the one, it's a compromise between street and track.

vsop

do you even remember driving it stock..? A cai & tune is a req for me to drive one

techmanBDsStang

I was going to leave it stock, But then I bought 1 mod- my short throw shifter, and that's all she wrote. I don't have much. That is yet, but I have a list of what I want to do. To me it is fun, since so far the mods have been installed by myself. Gets me in teh garage doing some mechanical work, and when I get it down, the good feeling I have of accomplishment.

Pony Ride

Mods are like Lays potato chips... nobody can have just one....

Man! That gives away my age!

wthalliii

The only reason for doing a mod for mileage is if it pays for itself. Otherwise, why do it?

A CAI is about, what, $200 or so? That's the American Muscle price for a JLT. But then you have to have a tune. AM's price for the SCT XCalibrator 2 is around $400. So, that would cost me about $600. Now, I drive about 2000 miles a month and get about 22 MPG. A CAI will get me, what, 2-5 MPG? Let's be generous and say it gets me from 22 MPG to 27 MPG. Right now with stock engine, and with gas at $2 / gal here, I'm spending about $180 a month on gas. At 27 MPG, I would be spending $150, a savings of $30 a month. Divide that into the $600, and you get 20 months to break even. After that, I'd save $30 a month And if its really more like 2 MPG as I suspect, then the break even point would be in about 42 months, and I'd save only about $15 a month.. (I'm rounding all my figures, since they're guesses anyway.)

A C&L with tuner from ebay is $750. That works out to 25 months break even for 5 MPG gain or 53 months for 2 MPG gain.

And that's all assuming that I use a tune that lets me keep using 87 octane. Premium is about $2.20 here right now. That means assuming 2 MPG increase and I have to switch to premium, gas would cost me about the same per month. In other words, I'd get a little more HP, but it wouldn't help with the cost of gas. It wouldn't pay for itself. And in this case, it wouldn't matter which CAI or tuner I choose. Money wise, I'd just get a little more HP for whatever I paid for the CAI & tuner.

Or am I missing something? I realize that this is only a couple of examples, and some CAI's don't require a tune.

Oh, and you have to remove the tune and CAI if you take the car back to Ford for warranty work, right? That would be a PITA. Of course, that wouldn't be a problem if I got the Ford CAI.

Doesn't seem worth it to me just to get a little bit better gas mileage - or maybe no improvement at all in the price I pay for gas. And it sounds like a relative mild boost in HP, too.

Not trying to discount the whole thing, but it just doesn't seem worth the money to me. Of course, I realize that the reason most of you guys get the CAI is for more power, and it's hard to put a dollar value on that.