End Of An Era.

Three50won

10 Year Member
Jul 11, 2010
1,135
64
69
Well, my 2V days are over. 11 years and it ended a few days ago. Over the years my GT started becoming more and more of a problem. It seemed that every time I got it running right, something would break on me. That car has left me stranded many different times. It has broken down on the road many times. Sometimes it ran right. Sometimes it didn't. There were times when it sat for months if not over a year at one point. I got it with 18,000 miles 11 years ago. In that time I put only 45,000 miles on it. And over the years I slowly began to realize that she was never ever gonna be what I wanted out of her. All my efforts to add hp or make it faster or sometimes just to get it to even run was met with stiff opposition from her. Simple jobs, no matter how simple, often turned into a nightmare culminating in it having to sit again. After all the years. my best friend told me that he seriously thought she was cursed. If I told you some of the stories, you'd swear that thing had a curse on her.

Even when I added the supercharger, that ended in the one-bolt tensioner hole stripping out with less than the recommended torque spec. I was super careful to not strip it. So I figured I'd tighten it in stages. So I set my wrench to 10, and it stripped right off the bat, lol! That cause it to sit again. Then when it was all fixed I got the blower on and it would make max boost. Turns out the water pump bolts decided to back out and the tensioner again (this time a new tensioner and a different front cover) started to let go. I had fuel injectors go bad on me. I had ignition coils blow and snap at the bracket on me. I've had spark plugs close on me. I've had fuel pumps fail. And that isn't even the tip of the ice berg. Even when I gave up on performance stuff and just tried to run a bone stock 4.6 it still gave me problems. It almost caught on fire on a highway on me. Something started burning and gave off tremendous smoke. And to this day I still never found out what it was that burned. I had my valve cover gaskets start leaking, replaced them, still leaked, took the valve covers back off and carefully re-sat them, and they leaked even worse. And even on the day I sold it, of course it rained that day and that was when out of nowhere the convertible top, which never leaked before, started leaking. The engine, which was running right, decided to start backfiring and smoking. SMH.

But despite it all, this car taught me a lot about performance, how to build engines, how to properly spec cams for a specific build, different ways to make power, etc. I learned a lot. And I made a lot of mistakes too. There were things I did and attempted to do that I would never do again if I could go back in time. Lots of love, hate, enjoyment, pain, tears, blood, time, sweat, frustrations, and of course money went into this car. But it is the end of an era. Personally, my 2V days are over unless it is to flip the car and make some money. There will never be another car like my Esmeralda. There were times when I thought she actually had a soul and hated me, lol!!

With all this said, last month I bought a 2015 Oxford White GT Premium Convertible with M6 trans. It had only 619 miles when I signed away and only 1 previous owner who barely drove it. At the time I bought it, the car went thru barely 2 tanks of gas, lol! Now it has about 1300 miles. It is bone stock and I'll be keeping it that way for a while. I'll post some pics later. I absolutely love the car even in bone stock form. And I'll put all those lessons I learned from my 03 GT to good use with this one. Thanks for reading this book, lol!!
 
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I had the same experience. Its sad to let go of a car you've done and been through so much with. You will love the S550 though.

When I took my 04 GT apart and sold everything, I used the money to buy a 15 black GT PP. The S550 is so incredibly capable, it will make you wonder why your 04 couldn't do more. My 04 had 400 rwhp but it was not easy to drive anymore. It was temperamental and the ride was so harsh. The 15 made 370 rwhp feel like easy work. 80 mph is a comfortable and easily controlled speed for the S550. The 04 was screaming in my ear at 80 mph.

Unfortunately my 15 was totaled. I've come back to the 04 Mach 1 but I'm not going to mod the car as far as the 04 GT. It will likely never see the power levels of the 15 or the ease with which it handled that power.

Enjoy that S550. They are wicked.
 
I feel ya. I got rid of my '04 for a '15. For me it was a bitter pill to swallow and I only sold it because I needed $ for the down payment... Besides, I didn't trust to drive it cross country and couldn't really ship it everywhere for the rest of my career.

I told the guy I sold it to that if he ever decides to sell it, to give me first dibs and if the price is right, I'll buy it back.

The '15 is definitely a far better car all around. I already installed stainless power longtubes w/ cats and factory connect delete, magnaflow competition cat-back, JLT cai, nGauge w/ Lund tune, and an MGW shifter.

It's amazing.


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I will never be going back to 2Vs unless I come across a good deal and can flip the car to make some money. Not trashing the 2Vs at all...or the older 4Vs. I'm just discontent with everything my 03 GT put me thru over the years. Plus at this level of performance it would be difficult to go back.
 
I here that. The Coyotes in any year make it so easy to go fast. Don't get me started on the comfort and capabilities in handling with the new IRS and suspension. The car is comfortable and yet more capable of going fast than ever. Ford really did a good job with the S550. I couldn't even care that Chevy waited until the S550 release so they could put out the Camaro with more power. The new Mustang is very well rounded.