Sold the Porsche, bought a Ford....

[Peerzy]

Evening all,

Thought it would be worth posting a quick thread about my new car. Picked it up last Friday after a few weeks wait from first seeing it online. I'd been to look at it twice and had it checked over by my mechanic.

In terms of what it's like compared to the Porsche, well it's completely chalk and cheese. The Porsche is probably ever so slightly quicker, is easier to drive, handles better, stops better, is newer and has more mod cons but the new car puts such a big smile on my face!

The Porsche sold a day after I advertised it for asking price and the buyer picked it up on Monday, in total the cost to change to was £2k my way (not that finances paid any part in the change).

I'm not massively keen on the black wheels but the tyres have decent tread on them so I'll see how I go. I have the original 17" Ford alloys if I want to swap back.






I'll grab some better photos once I get time to clean it, or can bribe someone local to do a quick photo shoot (Howard ?)!

For those who can't work it out, it's a 2005 Ford Mustang GT (4.6L V8), it's got 50k on the clock, has had some decent suspension mods done and a nice exhaust fitted. The engine is worth 300bhp and 433nm of torque. I've averaged 14.7 (US) mpg which is about 17 (UK) mpg.

It's incredibly loud and amazingly fun to drive. As many of you know I've always dreamed of owning one. At a guess I'd say it'll be a long term car with me working through a 'wish list' to make it perfect (potentially ending with a supercharger).

Any questions fire away

 

[Peerzy]

This will be my daily, but I hardly do more than 5k a year anyway so the mpg isn't really an issue.

The driveway is being done eventually, it's our first house and we've only been in 3 months!

The Mustang was less than you would think due to the 'high' miles (not many tend to get used as daily drives for obvious reasons). I ended up paying £11.5k which is very cheap for a V8 GT, others up for sale at the moment have been sitting around £14k but not selling quickly.

Ideally the black wheels would come off, I'd get a few tiny marks touched up and the stripes re-doing. The brakes feel awful compared to the Boxster so I'm bound to swap those over and then start doing a few easy bolt on power mods before deciding to supercharge or not. Nothing too soon though.

As previously mentioned I've always dreamt of owning one and I'm glad I've been able to now.

 

[Peerzy]

The current black alloys are 18" 'Borbet' which I've never heard of either, standard 17" Ford alloys look like THESE.

I'm getting use to LHD a lot quicker than I expected, being a manual has probably forced me to pay extra attention. A few junctions have been made nearly impossible due to the blacked out rear windows (which I may take off) but aside from that I've not had any real problems.

In terms of LHD hindering the ability to overtake - it's not impossible, and the car has enough power to make life easier but to be honest aside from on duel carriageways and motorways I don't really tend to overtake much.

Video of the exhaust and sound to come next week as I'm off work.

 

[Peerzy]

Not sure about the small house comment

Bonnet was completely resprayed in 2010, no sign of any other rust on the bodywork.

 

[Peerzy]

Hope you enjoy the car.

So how much did the Porsche cost to own in the end?

Very little;

3x RFL @ £480 a year = £1.5k
1x Service = £500
2x 2 year warranty = £2.5k
2x MOT = £100
Misc work = £90
Depreciation = £6.5k

Plus fuel for 12k at 21mpg costing £1.40ish a litre.

So just over £11k for 3 years all in (minus fuel). The warranty did pay for itself in my ownership time and still had 15 months remaining which helped me get skiing price in the sale.

I expect the Mustang to be cheaper to run, but will spend about the same due to mods etc.

 

[Peerzy]

Very nice, what suspension are you running and what interior spec did it come with?

Also have you checked who did the SVA conversion? The condonsation build up in the front light could be a sign of a poor job (hopefully not).

It's had some suspension work done, new polybushes and a few other bits I think.

Interior - erm it's pretty basic, lots of horrible plastic, a bit of silver trim, cruise, leather seats, air con, shaker 500. All pretty basic I think for the GT.

SVA conversion all checked out and was done to a high quality. The lights will be getting sorted and properly sealed when I get time.

Must take some better photos and a video or two in the next few days.

 

[Peerzy]

Good stuff, I know a lot of the earlier models had poor conversions with lots of inline bulbs wired in series to lower power. Expensive job to replace a fried ECU.

All the wiring looked fine and it's been passing MOT's for the past 7 years.

Just managed to get a second hand tuner and (I think) CAI, should help remove the throttle lag and give the car a bit of extra power!

 

[Peerzy]

Who's tune is it, please ensure its from one of the well known tuners, doug at bamachips, JDM engineering are amongst some of the best tuners for Mustang and email tunes.
Also second hand? These are normally locked down to the cars ECU, so what exactly do you have?

Haven't decided on where to get the email tune from yet, will take a look at those places.

The tuner comes as unlocked so I'm guessing it's fine, the owner sold his Mustang recently so maybe he never got round to using it or got it unlocked after he sold the car.

 

[Peerzy]

A couple of quick videos;

Exhaust
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70236751/Exhaust.MP4

Driving Off
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70236751/Driving Off.MP4

 

[Peerzy]

Clutch slip?

What makes you say that?

 

[Peerzy]

300bhp isn't horrific (the 4.0l V6 is 210bhp!) but it's not brilliant either. It's going shed loads of torque and the fact that a few hundred quid will get you close to 350bhp shows the engine has plenty to give.

It's a completely different type of engine to others which have smaller displacement but the same level of bhp output. I know Honda got 240bhp ish out of the 2.0l S2000 but the Mustang has so much grunt available from literally 1k rpm.

A CAI and tune will take me to around 330bhp and that's gonna end up costing around £300 I think.

Handling seems fine, not brilliant but now awful. It's obviously much bigger than the Porsche (and thus feels heavier, even if it isn't a great deal) and being LHD I've not tended to push myself in it yet. I'm sure on a race track I'd notice a massive difference but doing my day to day driving it feels more than fine. The Porsche was out of this world for handling and driving feel so I always knew it was never going to be as good.


The wheels did spin on the video when I changed into 2nd at about 25mph (which I did not expect at all), I wasn't redlining it nor did I completely drop the clutch so I was surprised but I guess that's just the torque kicking in.

Glad the alloys are a decent brand, still undecided on them. I've just never been a fan of black on black. In terms of living with a LHD car as a daily - no issues so far and it's starting to feel quite natural.

 

[Peerzy]

The Americans leave a lot on the table engine tuning wise for the customer to get.

I did CAI, Headers, exhaust, deleted pre-cat in the intake and a tune for UK fuel netted me 388BHP.
Not many NA cars that can get your nearly 100BHP from just bolt-ons for less than a couple of grand.

If you want big power, supercharger, 500-600BHP on stock internals then and for under 4k.

I've seen supercharger kits but they looked to be a lot more than £4k. I guess you fitted yours so probably saved a bit doing that, the stuff I've seen is £5k-£6k.

I'll be happy with the CAI and tune for now, which should take me to roughly 330bhp.

 

[Peerzy]

Mine cost me £2800, fitted myself.

Kit was something like $6000 new shipped for Saleen 2.3l supercharger, plugs, fuel pump, radiators, intake the whole lot. At time exchange rates were stunning in our favour, so a 6k kit cost me less than 3k landed in the UK.

Fit it yourself, its just like fitting an intake manifold, doing a plug change, it is easy and these cars have so much room to work on them.

Don't get too tempted:-
http://www.teamjdm.com/

Roush 550bhp kit comes to £4k, but then I'm guessing VAT, shipping and fitting (no way I could do an oil change, let alone fit a supercharger!) would probably add another couple of grand in total.

The tunes on that website are expensive, $285! Other websites that I've been recommended by owners are $99 a tune!

 

[Peerzy]

The other website is?

The tune is the most important part, get that wrong and engine is kabooom.

JDM are amongst the best if not the best tuner in the states. My car went straight to 510BHP, Andy checked it on the dyno, fuelling, det, etc. and the tune was absolute spot on!

When I went to smaller pulley, we had some fuelling/det issues, a few emails to JDM and all was sorted for no extra charge. Sometimes you pay extra to get damn good service.

Brenspeed and VMPTuning are the two companies that people on MOCGB seem to use, $99 email tunes and very happy with them. I can see the use in spending $300 on a tune with a supercharger but just a standard CAI then a $99 tune should be fine.

I'd seriously be temped to have a try at this myself.

These american muscle cars are deliberately easy to work on, as the modding scene for them in america is huge. They have to be home mechanic friendly or they simply won't sell.

If you've ever built a computer it won't be much different. Its just removing and refitting parts.

I've got a mechanic who would do the work very cheap, it's still going to cost the best part of £6k which is 50% of the cars value!

 

[Peerzy]

Yeah, to be honest a supercharge is massively overkill. I found the current power of the car perfectly adequate. For a few hundred pounds it makes sense to get the CAI and tune to remove the throttle lag and make the bhp / tonne similar to my Boxster. Anything over and above that will be years down the line, but it's great knowing there is such a big modding scene.

 

[Peerzy]

BMW didn't get much more out of a 4.4 V8 in a 2005 6 Series. Even a 2009 4.8 650i only had 360bhp.

The new (2011 onwards I think) engines are suppose to be really great, the 3.7l V6 puts out 305bhp (so more than my 'old' 4.6l V8) and the 5.0l V8 puts out about 410bhp.

Go with Brenspeed tune, being around since I had mine.
Really £70 for 30-40BHP is superb value.

It's a bit more than that, I've managed to get a CAI for £155, the tuner was £120 and then it'll be £70 for the tune - but I agree it's peanuts for the difference it's going to make with throttle response and the extra power int he mid range.

Brenspeed came very highly recommended from a few members.