[BigEag205]

You know, I've been a member of MM for awhile now, but quite frankly I'm not too sure if i ever made an intro thread for myself...so, here it is, better late than never!

My names Austin, I'm from the Charleston WV area and am a student at WVU. My first vehicle was a red 2000 mustang v6 auto. I was in Florida visiting my brother and saw it on a small car lot off the side of the road and HAD to have it (man I still miss that car). It fell victim to a red light runner between a year or 2 after me purchasing it and right after cloning it to a cobra (a whole cobra swap was coming as at the age of 17 my parents weren't exactly looking to pay the insurance on a true Cobra VIN car. I had to cancel the drivetrain order and let insurance claim it as totaled.

After that, I purchased a 2002 wrx during one of my economics classes as a bunch of my buddies run wrx and sti's and I had seen the beauty of AWD and the extensive modifications available for them. As soon as I got it back from KY and in my garage, I pulled the factory 2.0 turbo motor out and swapped it with an 05 sti motor and turbo, then installed full bolt on's before it ever left my garage (all this being funded by me working at a local dealership, it being a subi dealership also helped with the price of parts for the swap). I kept the 5 spd tranny in it for the longer gear pulls. The ecu that came with the car had been flashed (I found this out by getting clocked at 163 by a cop that ended up knowing my buddy in the car which was on the Fire Department and randomly came up in convo...yea, that was my dumb reckless days).

While at the beach 3 months after completing that build, I ran across a black 2001 Cobra on ebay located in VA with a tick in the head. Upon calling the owner and chatting with them for a good hour, I was told the car had been in the shop for a 5.0 Eagle Stroker build with flat tops and supposed to be all forged (they had a bad experience with the shop and wasn't exactly sure what was actually put in it and i wasn't provided papers)...It was priced as a steal, so even if it was the stock motor, I'd be making out like a bandit so i decided to take a gamble on it. I told the owner "Give me a week, I'll dump my car as a loss if need be, and I'll be up to get it in 2 weeks." 2 weeks later, I was the proud owner of a 2001 Ford SVT Cobra with I believe 72k miles when i acquired it around mid August of '09. Had the head tick fixed (somehow, a fender clip had been sucked up or shoved up in the intake?? simple valve reseat and pulling the clip solved that), then that following winter, I pulled the motor and tore it down 1 because it was burning oil under WOT and 2 I wanted to see what was actually in the bottom end. Turns out, one of the rings was stamped upside down, there for resulting in it being placed upside down causing the oil burning problem, and indeed the car had Arias flat tops, forged Eagle rods and the 5.0 ltr Eagle stroker crank (but the crank ended up being cast). I had Toby Cunningham, a local hi-po motor builder, rebuild the motor with forged dished pistons and a forged stroker crank to make the bottom end near indestructible and fully ready for big boost. This winter I'm replacing all the poly bushing in the IRS the previous owner had installed which resulting in TERRIBLE wheel hop at the track, changing the exhaust (Ford racing headers, O/R H-Pipe, and FlowMaster catbacks) to an O/R X pipe and bassani's Race spec cat back (3" pipes with 4" tips). Next comes an F1A procharger as the prices on the Cog setups have seemed to drop a decent amount recently =D

I've thoroughly enjoyed the site and have had a decent amount of information given to me here. I was actually referred to the full tilt boogie bushing from this site and have only heard good things from them so that's the set up I believe I'll be going with. Thanks for all the help and welcoming me to the site!

[BigEag205]

Also, If anyone here is a member of SCSM, I attended one of their cruises last summer so you may have seen me there.

[Dereks197]

Nice to meet ya & welcome back to tha darkside

[02NightRider]

So long..so tired. Going to read it in a second.

In the mean time...welcome back?!

[02NightRider]

Glad I read it! Awesome story.

[BigEag205]

haha, yea it is kinda lengthy but i figured I'd give some background on my builds and at home mech. abilities. I've searched the site countless times since my join date for info and insight but for some reason never thought to make an intro thread on myself till now :/

[swervo]

Welcome back!

[Smoothgrandmama]

Fun read!

[01TB03AB]

welcome, i mean, uh, welcome again

[blackGTstang]

Welcome to modded mustangs

Cool car story. And glad you made it back in a ford