How am I doing so far?
 

The wheels and the tint helped it look prettier. The single GT500(7991) take off muffler helped it sound better. The drop in K&N filter pretty much didn't do anything.

In the past week I have bought:

GT take off front and rear sway bars.
New Moss Motors front and rear sway bar bushing kits.
New Steeda rear sway bar hardware kit.
A pair of GT m/t(7849) take off mufflers(going to convert to H pipe/duals).
Steeda cold air intake kit.
Used unlocked SCT X3 tuner.

By buying some used and some take off parts from both ebay and this forum, I am out about $500. Probably looking at another $200-300 to finish the exhaust and install the sway bars. $800 sounds like a lot but I think I'm getting a lot for my money.

I've tried to read a lot of advice from here and I am trying to get the best bang for the buck on mods that will help it run better, sound better and handle better.

How do you think I'm doing so far?

Can you pull off the trim on the door pane? I think the car looks much cleaner...sharper...without that detail. Not sure what Ford was thinking on that. I think those wheels look sharp.

need to lower it next

That trim is put on cars that were built for fleets like rental cars and company vehicles. They end up being sold in dealerships after their run is up.

I could...but who wants door dings??

Thanks, I really like the wheels. I almost settled for something else but I'm glad I held out for these.

Yeah, that's a possibility. We'll see how rough the ride is with having the GT sway bars and my 18"'s. If it's not too bad, I'll have to research different types of springs and see if I can lower it without the ride quality suffering too much.

It's funny, when I sold new cars 20 years ago the only way to buy a new Oldsmobile WITHOUT body side moldings was to buy the base Calais or the base Ciera. I even sold a couple base models where the people wanted us to put them on. Every other car in the line and any option package on both the Calais and Ciera included body side moldings.

Nowadays people would rather have their door paint all dinged up than "ruin" the "line".

In another 20 years I bet they build doors out of materials that are immune to parking lot dings.

People would rather take a chance with door dings, because the "door molding" looks terrible. Plus, if you still think that little piece of door molding is going to stop door dings, you are mistaken. It only stops dings if YOU open your door into someone elses car.

I would bet money that any ding you get will be from an SUV and will be above that door molding.

I agree. Ford did a particularly ugly job with the moldings for the Mustang. Nothing is 100% preventative, and I am not pretending to think it will magically stop "all" dings...but it will stop the majority of them. The ex wife used to open her car door into the molding of my Durango while parked in the garage. I had plenty of marks on the molding but none on the door. They can stop dings when people open their door into yours, it just depends on height and shape of the door that opens into you.

Yup, that is why I park wayyyy far out away from people :)