[Stratoblaster]

Hello all. I have just gone from a 98 toyota camery that was falling apart (i wont waste you time with detals just trust it was a piece of junk) to a 1995 Mustang GT. Major upgrade . Now for the first time in my life i actually enjoy driving. I am thinking of doing some small modification over time. Nothing too major and nothing too expensive. The car is an automatic and is stock except for a flowmaster exaust. Not sure what type it is. Doesn't sound too bad. I was wondering if you could recomend some modifications that would help with HP/TQ that would not bee too hard to install and not too expensive. Also the order which think i should do them in. Thank you for your time.

[Smoothgrandmama]

Well Let me congratulate you on buying the 2nd worst mustang built over the last 20 years!

Ok here are your basics

Exhaust:
Cat-back System $200-500
Mid-Pipe $200-500
Headers $200-1200

Induction:
Cold Air Intake $60-200

Pi swap!!! $Ask around

Other Mods:
Gears (I reccomend 3.73's) $130-220
Tune, With that Auto this is the best mod you can do PERIOD $400-600 (Dyno Tune) << I'm not sure if your car being a 95 if you can use an xcal or not to tune it so you may have to have a shop tune it for you. Also a tune is something you do to take advantage of your mods. So even though it's best mod on an auto you should wait untill you have mods to tune it

Suspension:
Sub frame connectors!! $70-150
Lower it!! $150-250


I left alot of diff stuff off of this list but this is most of the basics. Enjoy Your car man!

[Stratoblaster]

well i am very lucky than i didn't get the worst in the last 20 years. My luck is takeing a turn for the better. I got a good deal on it. Thank you for your quick response. I will do my research on what you recomended.

Any other recomendations from anyone else would be great.

[ReverendDexter]

Originally Posted by Smoothgrandmama Pi swap!!! around

Smooth, '95 is the last year of the 5.0, not the first year of the 4.6

Okay, so there are several paths you can take with this car.

I'm in the minority with this board, but in my opinion increasing power is worthless until you know you can't get any more out of what you've got already. To maximize what you currently have means suspension.

#1) Fix everything that's broken, and replace everything that's worn. If you can pull an upgrade out of a fix, then do it. Make sure that you have good brake pads (not cheap parts-house crap, non-Cobra Mustangs have HORRIBLE brakes, so you need the best pad you can get - I suggest Porterfield, EBC, or Hawks).

#2) Mustangs have a lot of chassis flex. A LOT. No matter what your goal for the car is, you need to minimize this. At the very least, get a set of full-length subframe connectors. Have them welded in (do a little research, there is a right way to install them, and a VERY VERY WRONG way to install them, and you don't want the latter, lol). Don't cheat yourself with bolt-ins here, they're NOT worth it. If you have the money, a k-member brace and strut-tower brace are helpful.

#3) You're gonna want to get some seat-of-the-pants feel. I'd suggest gears, and rebuilding the limited-slip. For a 5.0, I'd suggest 3.73s. DO NOT START A THREAD ASKING ABOUT WHAT GEARS YOU SHOULD GET. Do a search, this gets asked about every other day!.

#4) Shocks and tires. If you didn't replace the shocks in #1, now is the time. Worn shocks suck something fierce. I suggest getting the best non-adjustable shocks you can afford. I like tokico blues when I'm feeling cheap and bilsteins when I'm feeling spendy. For tires, it depends on your goals. Are you drag racing or hitting the twisties? For drag racing, ask, but I believe the Nitto 555Rs are the hot ticket (obviously, only on the rears, for fronts run whatever makes you happy). For the twisties, it depends on your budget and your needs, if you don't need an allseason tire, I'd go with a Falken RT-615 on the cheap end or Toyo RA1s if you've got the money and are okay with running an r-compound on the street.

#5) Lower contol arms. No matter what you're doing, the quad-shocks suck, and the LCAs are limiting. I suggest Maximum Motorsports non-adjustables, they're about $250 new for a set.

The above will get you a really solid platform to do whatever you would like with it, and make use of any power you build.

If you're chasing corners, at this point I'd start looking at getting rid of the UCAs.

If you're going down the strip, I'd be looking for more power, probably an H/C/I build to bring you up around 300hp.

And by all means, if you don't know something, search. If your search is unfruitful, ask!

Have fun with it!

[Stratoblaster]

I have done some research on gears already. So i wont start a new topic....i will just post it here. Problem. My car says i am going 55 Mph when my GPS says i am going 65. Its starts off lined up with the gps but a little after 20 its gets a few miles off then then as i get faster its gets further off. Now i read somewhere that that could happen when the gears are changed. Is this true? If it is how do i know what gears are currently on there? I am glad i had that GPS or i would have been paying the price if the form of a ticket.

[Bullitt95]

ReverendBaxter gave some very good advice.
As an automatic owner myself, I agree that you should fix anything that's broken and replace anything that's worn, upgrading at the same time where possible.
I'd definitely recommend a 3.73 gear and a shift kit as the first performance-oriented mods, though there are some mods you can do for free (or nearly free). Take a look at Free Modifications and Horsepower Gains

[ReverendDexter]

Originally Posted by Stratoblaster I have done some research on gears already. So i wont start a new topic....i will just post it here. Problem. My car says i am going 55 Mph when my GPS says i am going 65. Its starts off lined up with the gps but a little after 20 its gets a few miles off then then as i get faster its gets further off. Now i read somewhere that that could happen when the gears are changed. Is this true? If it is how do i know what gears are currently on there? I am glad i had that GPS or i would have been paying the price if the form of a ticket.

If the gears in the diff and the speedo gear in the tranny are mismatched, then yes, you are correct that the faster you go, the more "off" the spedometer is.

Assuming your GPS is correct, than the gears you have are 65/55ths of whatever the speedo gear in the transmission is set for. I'm not sure if all SN95s have 3.27s stock, or if the 5.0 cars still had the 2.73/3.08 gearsets that the foxbodies did. Unfortunately, this doesn't mean too much, because if the gears have been swapped, there's nothing to say that the speedo gear is stock (it could just be the wrong one for whatever gears you do have).

Quick way to check the gear ratio is to lift both rear tires, mark a spot on the driveshaft and on the tire, and count the driveshaft revolutions relative to the tire revolutions. This won't be exact, but you should be able to differentiate between 2.73s, 3.08s, 3.27s, 3.55s, 3.73s, and 4.10s.

The only exact way to check is to pull the inspection cover on the differential, and count the teeth on the ring gear and the pinion gear. Divide the ring gear count by the pinion gear count to get exactly what's in there.

What compounds the difficulty here, though, is that it's not just the differential gears that will make the speedo off. If the tires currently on the car are a non-stock outer diameter, that will also throw the speedo off. Smaller tires will give a higher-than-acutal reading, taller tires will give a lower-than-actual reading.

Hope that helps!