Longtime lurker, never posted much but mined a library’s worry of info from here. So none of you will be familiar with my build. But it’s time to introduce her! Wanted to wait til she was officially driving before making an intro post. This has been a long time coming as I started this project in the fall of 2018.

The concept is to have a hot street car to enjoy with the t tops down. Not into shaving 1/10ths, weight reduction, or trying to maximize horsepower. Not trying to find the limits of the motor or the trans or see how far I can push it on a dyno. I just want to be able to savor the precious few warm sunny days we get in this part of the country with a fast t top street machine that will destroy one of the many stock 302 mustangs that drive around revving their flowmaster cat backs obnoxiously. It will never see rain or snow, never be driven from October to April, and never be driven when it’s less than 75 out, and it will never have the t tops on unless a freak rainstorm requires it. It runs on 93, no interest in having to drive out of my way for ethanol to milk a few more horses out of it. I figure I have much more power than I have traction anyways so what’s the use?

92 RS 25th anniversary edition, originally a 305 TBI 5 speed.

What she is now:

LQ4/4L80 from a 2005 express van

3.73 posi Ford 8.8

7875 VS turbo/intercooler/accessories. Homemade hot side piping out of 304, homemade cold side piping out of thin wall aluminum

Holley motor mounts, trans mounts, and accessory drive system

BTR stage 2 turbo cam, BTR valve springs, stock bottom end except oil pump, stock heads

ACC interior carpet, new door panels, new weather stripping, t top seals, etc

Walbro hellcat fuel pump, Aeromotive FPR to scale with boost. Siemens deka 80 injectors.

Speedmaster aluminum intake so I can weld in bungs for boost reference lines etc in the future if needed. Speed engineering headers, homemade 3” stainless exhaust

Pretty much a new suspension minus stock front arms and k member. Subframe connectors, trac bar, end links, sway bars, wonder bar, bushings, rear arms

Alpine head unit and speakers, knockoff dynamat sound deadening on floor/trans tunnel, firewall, interior of doors, pretty much all the sheet metal I could reach

Glowshift trans temp and boost gauges, auto meter wideband o2. Originally bought an AEM wideband and both the sensor and the gauge were bad right out of the box. Pretty sad when glowshift works better than AEM!! Lol.

Frostbite radiator with flex a lite fans, big external trans cooler

Things yet to do:

Thorough detailing (I just couldn’t wait to post pictures!)

Body stuff- touching your rock chips, paint correction, the usual little scratches She’s a very straight car, I’ll take some pictures after detailing.

Waiting on my Dakota Digital dash

Big brake upgrade

Get her on the dyno for a proper tuning session

Upgrade to wider rear tires, maybe Nitto 555Rs? That package deal with wheels at hawks is mighty tempting!

Add a mini amplifier

Redo the hot side turbo piping. I originally fabbed it out of crappy 304 exhaust pipe. Got some leftover 3” high polish sanitary tubing from work and bought a bunch of food grade stainless weld fittings (can’t take those from work!) so I’ll go back through, backpurge it properly, and make a quality piece instead of the hackjob I have in now.

Tie in the wastegate to the exhaust instead of venting to atmosphere

Redo the wiring harness to clean it up. Used the stock van harness but had to lengthen a number of wires and it didn’t fit cleanly. This winter I’ll make a nice one that will sit in there better with fewer splices.

More pics to follow once I get her detailed!

 

Nice work. Welcome to the forum and looking forward to your progress as you get it finished up!

 

Thanks man! I’ll be making a comprehensive build thread once I’m happy with all the little details.