Hey guys, this is my first post! I'm 17 and I'm from Coatesville, Pennsylvania. I found a '99 Mustang for sale near me. The owner wants $1000 and if I pay that price, I get a free tow to the house.

As of now, the car needs an engine. It has 120,000 miles. It's the V6 automatic convertible, (Wanted a manual, but...) and it seems like a decent deal.

My main question, though, was, are there any changes from the '99 to '04 V6? Since the car needs a motor, I might put an 01 in, 04, etc.. Is there any conflicts with that?

The same goes with transmissions. I understand the '99 is a 4 speed automatic, and I think I read somewhere that the '04's can be 4 with overdrive?

I drove the car before the owner destroyed it. The transmission felt fine, and the suspension felt right. The steering felt responsive, and I didn't hear any weird noises. The engine was quick, and strong, even for the V6.

Also, I understand that if an engine died at 120,000 miles, (Don't know what's wrong with it, I haven't heard the engine try to run. Whatever the problem is, it's running on 5 cylinders. suspected to be low compression, but I'd have to listen for knocking or something.) something wasn't done quite right to the car. It's had two owners, I'll be the 3rd maybe. If you think it's a horrible idea to buy this, please explain why.

Finally, what is the cheapest way to have an engine put in? We have a pickup truck so transporting the engine isn't an issue.

The car will not be raced. I just need it to look nice, with a little extra power on the side.

Thanks so much guys, ~Todd

*If this is in the wrong section I apologize. Please message me with a link to the moved location so I can see answers. Thanks again

 

There are slight differences, but it will just drop right in. The transmissions should be exactly the same.

 

Thanks so much man. I've seen engines for 01's, and 04's, not '99 as often though. I can still use the '99 computer that came with the car, right? I figured there'd be some difference. And I would hate to find out the hard way $500 something later to see that they don't fit..

Is an automatic to manual conversion difficult? I read that I'd need a new drive shaft, and computer.

Todd

 

For the trouble - find a working car. I'd only get a 'project' like this if you were doing the work yourself. Being that the motor is shot, you might think twice about the way the entire car was treated.

That being said, the 99-00 motors have one major thing different from the 01-04 3.8L - lower inake runner controls (open and close the runners at various throttle positions. Kind of a pain in the butt feature if you want to improve performance later on.

Other thing (if you buy it) you can do is look into dropping the larger 4.2L V6 into it for about the same cost. You have much nicer hp and tq right off the bat.

 

SSM forged 4.3 with a top end power pack, done and done lol

 

midway through 2001 they made a few changes. the crankshaft on a pre-2001 is externally balanced while the post-2001 is internally. and they changed the speedometer from a gear driven setup to an electronic one. none of this means anything to you unless you want to swap rear end gears really. but like they're saying, you might as well just go 4.2L for the same price, much more torquey

 

99-00 were electronic speedos too

 

im thinking SN95 - New Edge. My bad

 

Don't forget 01-04 blocks are girdled, 99-00 blocks are not.

 

Probably the head gasket. Me though I wouldn't pay $1000 for an 11 year old car with no engine.