^^^I think you are the only one I've ever seen with over 500rwhp with a stage IV Steggy... In heat and elevation at that!!
I've had mine for almost 3.5 years now, and I still love driving it, looking at it and listening to it. As it sits mine makes 444rwhp
and 499rwtq
. The bang for the buck can't be beat, but IMO there is a lot to be desired as far as build quality and fit and finish of parts. For 12 years I was a car audio installer, so I was taking every type of car apart on a daily basis. I figure I will get heat for this but untill the last couple years there really was no comparison between pretty much any import car and the domestics, and I find that the 79 to 04 Mustang was near the bottom of the quality list. As far as the engine/drivetrain I've had no issues with mine, other than the squeeky throw-out bearing on the clutch and all the slop/clunking on the driveshaft/rearend, but found that after driving the car for a couple weeks you really get good at avoiding the noise. When I first bought mine I took it in for warranty work on several things, and the slop was so bad that I thought something was wrong with the car. It only had 6000 miles at the time, and there were several other things that needed to be fixed so I mentioned to them to look at the driveshaft. They said that it was "normal", and after browsing some forums I found out that it was in fact common to all 03-04 Cobras...
Here is a list of what I have had problems and issues/complaints with up to the 40,000 miles that mine has had or currently has...
-Driveline slop...Normal according to Ford...
-Noisy throw-out bearing...Common with T56's with as little as 500 miles, mine didn't start till about 35,000 miles
-Moisture in both taillights at 6000 miles...Fixed under warranty
-Moisture in both foglights...Fixed myself
-Engine stalling when comming to a stop about 5% of the time...Fixed with a new tune
-E-Brake boot gets caught up in the ratchet and gets ripped up...Design flaw
-Headliner doesn't fit right...Has a gap on the passenger side and Ford glued it in so it can't be fixed without replacing the entire headliner...Design flaw and poor build quality
-Paint on sideskirts and side scoops doesn't match the rest of he car...Normal problem found with Silver Mustangs...Go Ford!!!
-Headlight reflectors are not mounted well so the beams bounce badly on rough roads...Design flaw
-Driver seat touches door panel and sqeaks badly on rough roads...Design flaw
-Traction control was worthless...Before I permanently deleted it it would allow me to pitch the car sideways before cutting power, causing me to regain traction while pointed directly at the curb/ditch/sidewalk/opposing lane. It in itself nearly caused at least 5 accidents due to the delay in activating. I found that it wasn't safe compared to the traction control systems on any other vehicle I've owned, and Ford says that it was working properly...Design flaw
-Soft rubber rear IRS bushings...In an attempt to reduce road noise, Ford used soft rubber bushings to mount the entire rear IRS assembly. The main problem with them is massive wheel hop. Better tires help, but urethane bushings and subframe connectors are the best way to minimize, not eliminate the problem...Design flaw
-Poor coolant flow on rear 2 drivers side piston heads. Fords head design allows coolant to pool up and not flow properly through ths area of the head...Design flaw
-Interior panels sqeak and rattle badly on rough roads. This started at only about 8000 miles and has only gotten worse over time...Design flaw
-Side skirts, scoops and rear bumper don't fit very well. There are gaps or areas that the panels don't fit properly and I've had to remove them to modify the mounts to get them to fit better...Design flaw and poor build quality
-Factory in-dash CD changer failed with less than 7000 miles on the car...Fixed under warranty
-Water "gutters" arount the trunk have no drains. This is not a problem if you are parked facing up a hill. Otherwise water and any dirt/pine needles etc will pool up and stay in the "gutters" untill the car is pointing up a hill. My driveway is downhill so there is constatly water and debris caught up in the gutters. Mine has gotten so bad that the paint is starting to lift off in these areas. Almost every 99 to 04 Mustang that I have worked on has this same problem, dirt/missing paint/rust etc covering the entire areas on the sides of the truck....Design flaw
-No type of moisture barriers on the doors. This is more of a complaint, but it is impossible to have the window down even half an inch with the wipers on without having water pour into the window. I cannot drive without having the window down a little bit (bad habit) and with the amount of rain we get up here it's pretty annoying that my inside door handle will fill with water in just a few minutes...
Overall I'm very happy with my Cobra, just a bit dissapointed with some of the little things that have gone wrong or were overlooked during design. Every car has them, but with my experiences with my old job, this particular version of Mustang (79-04) as a few more than most others. I've had a couple other high HP cars over the years, (94 TT Supra, turboed 95 Lexus SC300, fully built and blown 85 GT) and as far as instant tire smoking torque and knowing that you own one of the baddest Mustags ever built you can't go wrong. I am always getting people asking about mine, revving at me at stop lights and wanting to have some "fun" on the freeway. Also, as far as having a 800 hp daily driver that probably isn't going to happen. I have pretty much only heard of 2 Cobras making that kind of power without nitrous, and I would guess that both of them have at least around $40,000 in mods alone to get there. I don't know of any that will do it on pump gas either. Just over 600 is about the most you can get without going turbo and built motor.
Look for a low mile stocker, and I would recommend finding a late run 03 or any 04 as some of the early run 03s were more prone to have the head tick problem, along with the thow out bearing issue, although the problems seem to completely random. Mine was built in May of 03 and is one of the last 500 made for the 03s. I think production for the 03 started in April of 02.
On to the pics...