Hi guys.
First post on this forum - 2 months after I bought my first Stang. She's a 2004 V6, all red, shiny, and very, very stock... Which I'm planning on doing something about.

Now, a bit of background about me is in order. I'm a Norwegian officer temporarily posted to Canada. I'll be here until early '07, then I'm leaving for Florida for 6 months before going back to Norway. Naturally, I want to bring my car along for the ride, but seeing as I'll have to pay per HP when I import my car into Norway, I don't think I'll be modifying it performance-wise until I get back. Also, Norway is supremely fond of speedbumps. I definitely want to lower my car, preferrably by 1.5", but I also want a body-kit fitted. Anyway, more about that later.

My first "mod" will almost certainly be the tires. I have 16" rims now, planning on getting 18". I must say I really like the look of the Steeda Ultra-Lite II 18x9.5 but (and here's where my complete beginnerness starts to come in to play) what are the practical differences between 9, 9.5 and 10"?

Next - springs, shocks and struts. The Steeda Sport Springs are the #1 seller of StangSuspension, and they'll give me a 1 - 1 1/4" drop. I've heard a lot of good things about the Eibach ones, though, and those are available in a package with shocks and struts included. These will give me a 1.5" drop, though, and again, with the love of speedbumps in Norway, I'm really not sure how low I should go.

Finally, I'm looking at a Body Kit. This is last on my list and probably won't happen for a while, but when the time comes, it'll probably be one of the ones featured at Mr Bodykit. I find it kind of hard to see which of these ones really scrape the ground and which have a bit of clearance. I'd really not like to have to do a paintjob after each speedbump... Any tips?

Solo

P.S: There's no snow here now, no....

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I can be of some assistance to you. As far as the wheels go, for a V6, the 9 inch wheels are just fine. The wider the wheel, the wider the tire you can put on it obviously, but for a Sixer it really isnt that important to have huge tires because our cars dont put crazy amounts of power to the wheels. So the wider ones, especially the 10" are just gonna be extra weight that you really don't need. Next to the drop, I don't know just how big the speed bumps in Norway are. I would assume that a 1.5" drop would be alright, but like I said I don't know how bad those bumps are. You may wanna just stick with a 1" drop. It would still look better than stock and handle better too. Lastly the bodykit. Most kits arent a whole lot lower than stock, maybe an inch or two, but not a lot. If you just drop it an inch and put a kit on it, you shouldnt have any problems. Hope this helps you some.

 

Nice ride solo. I like that color. Very nice!

My only tip would be- Post here, there are a lot of very informative people here. I'm pretty new as well and have learned alot checking and asking questions here. Good luck. Later.
S W

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+1

 

Def. keep checkin out the site, there is a lot of good info on it and a lot of very helpful people on here. Check through some of the old topics too, there is a lot of good stuff on them too.

 

power mods

www.rpm-mustangs.com
www.vmptuning.com
www.supersixmotorsports.com
www.moranav6racing.com
www.tmaturbo.com
www.gefracing.com

there are many more for parts but for Tech knowledge go to
www.3.8mustang.com or
www.v6power.net

 

do one of those instead of the body kit

 

Hey, I'd love to. Unfortunately, as I said, I'm gonna bring it back to Norway - and it'll be a lot cheaper to wait until I get back there before I mod it performance-wise.

For now, only looks....

Thanks for the replies so far, guys - you're really a friendly and helpful bunch. Not every forum I've been to can say that

Solo

 

Well if thats the case just get the wheels/tires and get it lowered, then save the money from the bodykit and use it when you get the car back to norway. If you do wanna make it look different than just do something like a Mach 1 chin spoiler. It looks cleaner than a bodykit and costs a lot less too.

 

Who/how do they check the hp when you take it back