Help design my 1965 Fastback suspension and drivetrain

[Chicago1965]

Hi Everyone,

I’m new to this forum and have recently purchased a 65 Fastback. Body, paint and interior is in great shape, rebuilt 302 engine is fair to good. Everything else is stock. Primary goal is to improve the drivability. I have a budget of $25k for parts and labor and am looking for advice from more experienced Mustang owners on what they would do with this budget. The areas I want to concentrate on are as follows: suspension (IFS & IRS), steering, brakes. If the budget allows, I would also like to update the transmission from an automatic to manual (Tremec T5?) I have been looking at the same suspension kits as everyone else (Heidts, RRS, Total Control Products, Ron Morris Street Force, Rod & Custom , and CTM IRS). Breaking down items by parts budget and labor budget is where I am getting stuck. I will be having everything professionally done. So if you were in my shoes, how would you maximize my budget of $25k?

 

[BarnStang]

To maximise your $25k budget? Do as much of the mods yourself. You can buy a lot of suspension parts for that. Farm out the bigger stuff like welding. You can almost do most of the front suspension work with an adustable wrench, a pickle fork and a spring compressor. Besides, you will learn a lot about your car, and thats most of the fun anyway. You should get lot of recomendations. There are already a few threads on this that have run recently.
http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=731558
http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=731848
http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=731685
http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=731302
http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=673899
http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=730402
http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=728197
http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=725668
http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=720194
http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=719507

The last two have a lot of info.
And welcome to Stangnet!

 

[coolblue65]

Like said above, try to do some of the work yourself (paticularly the nuts and bolts type stuff), and your 25k will go a lot farther.

As a side note there are lots of local ways to get help, check out http://chicago-mustang.com/ its a local vintage mustang club that I am part of, we do a couple of tech meetings in the winter time where we will do a project on someones stang (last one we put in a T-5).

 

[68FBJJZ109]

I would defiantly do most of the work yourself my first budget of 20k went far buy me doing everything myself, and making the right deal. I was able to get the complete suspension, motor, and roll cage out of the way. It really depends on what you plan to use the car for, because certain things are not really necessary. If you truly want a IRS setup, and and a modded front that will suck most of your money up having some one else do it.