I agree with you Tinman. I have already spoken with my performance guys and they said it would be about $800 for the suspension work. Then I need to find a set of rear wheels that I can mount some Mickey Thompson Street radial slicks on. As far as the engine is concerned, there is over $20K in it. My father-in-law had it built by Sean Hyland Motorsports in Ontario Canada and then he passed away from cancer before having the suspension work done. He left the car to me and now I need to finish where he left off and then race the hell out of it because that is what he would want done.

 

You'll find that with the chassis work the differance will be like night and day.
I really don't know where any money spent will go further.
For some ideas, look at some of the cars used in NMRA and look at the performance levels.......

 

Funny you mention the NMRA, last time I talked about a Factory Stock car I am involved with everybody raised the BS flag on me. 97_GT get upper and lower control arms, sub frame connectors, take off the pinion snubber, and get a nice set of drag radials. The only thing I would pay to have done is the sub-frames as they need to be welded in, the rest are simple bolt ons that should only take a few hours to do. With those simple mods you should be able to cut 60 foots in the 1.7 range and with the power you are making a high 11 should be cake.

 

JD,

Where would one go to get the things that you referenced here? If you notice in my photos my car sits kinda high off the tires compared to many of the others cars and I have read refernces to changing out springs and shocks/struts to lower the car some. Is that something that would help or is that just for looks?

 

You can get those parts from Summit or Jegs or just about any mail order house. You could put springs in but then you need to worry about the control arm being at the correct angle. What are your goals with the car? Are you more concerned with performance at the track or all do want a more all around car?

 

My main objective with the car is to develop, and maintain, an awesome street presence. As far as the track is concerned, I would like to run into the 11's and then my desire to run at the track will wane. I enjoy much more meeting up with other muscle car enthusiasts, cruising the streets, shooting the bull, etc. So, if you were me would you put another $200 into the blower pulley swap to gain another 80rwhp? I figure that I will probably do that and get a new tune. The next step would be some level of suspension work. I am looking to others with experience to help me determine what I need to do further to achieve my objectives as stated above. I value your opinion JD. Thanks!

 

Personally if it were me I would focus on the suspension first, if you have trouble hooking now, it will be worse with more power. I think with a new tune and some suspension work and good tires you can get into the very high 11's, if at that point you need/want more power it is only a pullyswap and tune away. Look at it this way, my car with around 400 rwhp ran 12.25 @ 114.7, it has less than ideal gearing and weighs more than your car by about 100 lbs. I pulled that time with a 1.87 60'. You have a good 40 more rwhp than me so if you can get your 60' down into the 1.7's and take care of the sputtering you will be all set.

 

Good enough.. Thats the direction that I will take. Thank you!

 

Man that MPH is outstanding!!! At 114 with decent traction you should be in the mid to high 11's!

 

JD; I wish that we had NMRA events out here(Arizona), seems they want to stay back of the big mountians B/C they think there is only cowboy's and indians out here or something.
If we had an event or 2 out here there would get to be lots more interest in the Ford breed in this part of the country.
Heck, I'd even go 'legit' for that deal.....