After a search that began in August of 2023, I finally found the right IROC right here in Texas less than 3 hours from me. During my search, I looked at and test drove IROCs in NYC, San Diego, Philadelphia and Atlanta. I even had my brother look at one in Charleston, SC for me. I found my car just north of Austin in Georgetown, TX in early February, 2025.

I was looking for a specific car. Nothing all that special except it had to have great paint and body. That's hard to find when a car is approaching 40 years old! I made the mistake of buying a roller, 1991 Foxbody Mustang coupe in December 2018 that needed, and still needs, paint and body work. I'm really, really picky about paint and body. A huge pet peeve of mine is waviness in the body work that can be seen under most paint jobs. You don't see this waviness under OEM paint but it's almost always visible under all but high dollar paint jobs. All that block sanding with long boards to eliminate waviness really requires a lot of hours of work and that results in a high body shop bill! I took my Fox coupe to a high end paint and body shop in September 2024 and they quoted me $30K+ ! Needless to say, I'm going to continue to shop around.

Because of that paint shop experience, my new philosophy on buying a project car is to buy a car that's already got about the best paint and body that I can find. If I buy a car that is really nice for $30K, then I just paid for the paint job and "got the car for free!"

Here is what you really want to see:


About to be towed home about 2 1/2 hours.



It misted/light rained on me the whole tow home. The next morning, I had to wash all the grime off the car!



Really, really nice!!









I'm not new to LS swapping as I finished a 5-year project that involved a complete tear down and an aftermarket rebuild of my 1991 Foxbody Mustang coupe. I completely gutted the car and built it up with Maximum Motorsports' suspension pieces and a crate LS376/480 managed by a Holley Dominator ECU. I also installed a Tremec T56 Magnum 6-speed. The car finally hit the road in late November 2023 and, at the time of this writing, has about 1700 miles on it.




For the "new to me, 1987 IROC," I've already got a brand new crate LS7 (570hp,) a brand new Tremec T56 Magnum F 6-speed and a Holley Dominator to run the engine. These items I've had for a while but now that I have the car, I've been ordering other items and they've been arriving at my house. They include Jegs SFCs, a Holley LS engine swap transmission crossmember and a Tilton twin disc clutch,

The short term plan for the car is to remove the original TPI 350 SBC and the four speed automatic. I'm planning on respraying the engine compartment 81U, Bright Red. From the factory, it appears the OEM underhood red paint was shot with no clear coat. It's decent looking but has no shine and has a number of chips/scratches in it. If I'm removing the engine, that's the time to paint the engine compartment and making it look good for the new engine.

 

Some more pictures:





The previous owner installed some really good stereo equipment into this car. That's a high end Kenwood head unit. I'm going to buy the Screaming Chicken kit to swap the head unit to the top and put the HVAC controls on the bottom.



JL Audio subwoofer

 

Awesome. Can’t wait to see it built. 87 had the best interior.

 

dm3k, is my interior a 1987 only interior? Of all the IROC interiors, I like this one the best. Well, to be honest, I like the "loud, in your face" Lear Siegler seats! My wife and daughters hate the Lear Siegler interiors.