Let's begin, this is only my second thread to start on here, besides my into, and I'll mainly be adding progress of my 1989 Mustang that I am currently daily driving beside my 1990 bronco. I have quite a few project vehicles, so I figured posting about at least one of them would be worth while. Besides the two mentioned, I have a 1988 Mustang convertible that isn't much more than a parts car collecting rust in my backyard. I'd be open to the idea of parting it out if anyone need anything, but I find its nice to use as a test car for certain parts. My other truck is a 1950 Ford F1 that is my long term project I've had since I was 15 and its on its way to being a 10 second truck one day. I also have an old Harley collecting dust in the corner of my shop.
I'm mainly going to post just on the Fox Bodies since this a mustang forum, but I'm sure a few up-dates on the others wouldn't go unappreciated either. I know I'm one that likes to see something a little different from time to time. But, only as time goes by I'll see how I post on here.
Now, for the main car of this thread. Obviously it's the 1989 Mustang hatchback featuring, the one day to be replaced, 2.3 lima with 5-speed tremec and a 7.5 rear end with stock brakes all the way around. I usually aim pretty high when it comes to my projects, tends to be the reason I have such slow progress on them. This little car will have every inch of it altered in one way or another without going over the top and ending up with an outrageous, build such as the Ring Brothers. I'm wanting to modernize and keep the whole car very serviceable.
The major goal of the car is to convert it to look like an 1986 Four eyes. I currently have most of the body parts, such as rear bumper, window trim and side trim. I'm still looking the front bumper assembly and hood, so if anyone has leads to any in Oklahoma please let me know. For serviceability, reliability and performance of the car I plan on converting the brakes from the standard Fox or sn95 swapped brakes to the much more modern and powerful s550 4 piston front caliper and stock rear calipers. This allows to have a much wider choice of brake pads, rotors, and even cheaper big brake kits. I may start another thread focused on the process which is involved with that fabrication, I'll eventually do that with some of the major modifications of this build, in-case anyone else want to copy off my progress.
The suspension will be QA1 single or double adjustable coil-overs front and rear. For the front suspension I'll be using modified sn95 spindles with sn95 lower control arms, and eventually a Maximum Motorsports front k-member with their front sway bar, so nothing too over the top. The rear suspension will be an 8.8 running mark 7 axles to get it a little wider in the back and to help with mounting the modern mustang rear brakes. I'll eventually swap to an IRS setup but the solid axle will serve me well in this application, at least for now, and ill be running stronger rear control arms and a heavier rear sway bar.
As for the interior, plan on modifying every panel to be a little cleaner and simpler to help modernize it and help it feel a little higher quality. I'll end up wrapping every panel in black vinyl and red alcantara or micro-suede(which ever is available). I'll get more into the interior when I finally get to it, and I'll draw up some rough sketches of my vision of it.
Lastly the engine, I'm not too sure what I'll end up running but I know it won't be the 2.3. I want to try and keep my fuel economy as good as possible, over 20 mpg, I've looked at 4.6 2v and 3v swaps, coyote, ecoboost and some sacrilegious options, not chevy though. Power wise I'd like to be over 400hp at the crank but fuel economy and power never go well hand-in-hand. We'll just have to see how time goes and what becomes available to me.
I think overall that's the jist of the entire project, I hope y'all will enjoy the progress and hope y'all enjoy reading my future post.
I'm mainly going to post just on the Fox Bodies since this a mustang forum, but I'm sure a few up-dates on the others wouldn't go unappreciated either. I know I'm one that likes to see something a little different from time to time. But, only as time goes by I'll see how I post on here.
Now, for the main car of this thread. Obviously it's the 1989 Mustang hatchback featuring, the one day to be replaced, 2.3 lima with 5-speed tremec and a 7.5 rear end with stock brakes all the way around. I usually aim pretty high when it comes to my projects, tends to be the reason I have such slow progress on them. This little car will have every inch of it altered in one way or another without going over the top and ending up with an outrageous, build such as the Ring Brothers. I'm wanting to modernize and keep the whole car very serviceable.
The major goal of the car is to convert it to look like an 1986 Four eyes. I currently have most of the body parts, such as rear bumper, window trim and side trim. I'm still looking the front bumper assembly and hood, so if anyone has leads to any in Oklahoma please let me know. For serviceability, reliability and performance of the car I plan on converting the brakes from the standard Fox or sn95 swapped brakes to the much more modern and powerful s550 4 piston front caliper and stock rear calipers. This allows to have a much wider choice of brake pads, rotors, and even cheaper big brake kits. I may start another thread focused on the process which is involved with that fabrication, I'll eventually do that with some of the major modifications of this build, in-case anyone else want to copy off my progress.
The suspension will be QA1 single or double adjustable coil-overs front and rear. For the front suspension I'll be using modified sn95 spindles with sn95 lower control arms, and eventually a Maximum Motorsports front k-member with their front sway bar, so nothing too over the top. The rear suspension will be an 8.8 running mark 7 axles to get it a little wider in the back and to help with mounting the modern mustang rear brakes. I'll eventually swap to an IRS setup but the solid axle will serve me well in this application, at least for now, and ill be running stronger rear control arms and a heavier rear sway bar.
As for the interior, plan on modifying every panel to be a little cleaner and simpler to help modernize it and help it feel a little higher quality. I'll end up wrapping every panel in black vinyl and red alcantara or micro-suede(which ever is available). I'll get more into the interior when I finally get to it, and I'll draw up some rough sketches of my vision of it.
Lastly the engine, I'm not too sure what I'll end up running but I know it won't be the 2.3. I want to try and keep my fuel economy as good as possible, over 20 mpg, I've looked at 4.6 2v and 3v swaps, coyote, ecoboost and some sacrilegious options, not chevy though. Power wise I'd like to be over 400hp at the crank but fuel economy and power never go well hand-in-hand. We'll just have to see how time goes and what becomes available to me.
I think overall that's the jist of the entire project, I hope y'all will enjoy the progress and hope y'all enjoy reading my future post.
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