i have got to stop driving my car so hard.

wow,.. i really shouldnt comment on this but here goes,


I have broken more crap on my car since I bought it than I have broken on every other car i have owned combined! this is not because it is a lemon or because ford made a POS, it is because I bought it to race and have fun , thats what i do.

my forged engine isnt because i was getting a blower but because i hit the patented 3-2 shift while putting the spanking on a ZR-1.

I am haaaarrrddd on my car because i love it lol.

-my stock tires lasted me 11k miles
-my stock clutch blew at 27k miles
-my stock front pads were replaced at 30k miles
-my tranny has needed a rebuilt since 35k miles
-the clutches in my rearend blew at 40k miles
-my second set of pads (aftermarket) were replaced at 42k miles
-im getting ready to mount my 5th set of tires

my car currently has 49k miles

do i drive my car hard? yes

do i have a hell of a time in my car? HELL YES

My 99 LE is my dd for now, and, well, with 109 on the clock I expect things to break, but nothing does. However, I like to drive...how should I say...."gingerly", like, I really baby it, I dunno, it just feels nice. Then when I do get on it hard, I dont feel bad about it, because 99% of the time I treat the car very well.

It has the original tranny, clutch....pretty much all original, except brakes/tires. Even the battery is original.
When I do decide to beat on it, i'm very mean tho, power shifting, on a stock shifter too, but, i've had enough practice that I dont destroy the syncro's.
I got 187k out of a T5 in my last 5.0 I had, I put about 120k on it, never replaced the clutch or tranny, and always used a stock shifter.

I really do want a better shifter tho...shorter throws are nice, plus 3rd and 5th have always been kind of a reach in mustangs....

Anyways I have no problem running it into the red through 4 gears, atleast 5-10 times per week, and I put about 200 miles per week on her, she takes it very well. Right now I just need brakes, and sometimes the coolent reservoir light comes on for no reason, but if I shut it off and start it back up, it stays off, this happens like once a month.

I drive my car like a grandma. I rarely get above 2.5k while driving, and its always in overdrive. I never go WOT on the streets or highway. I will take it to a parkinglot to beat on it once every two months. The only time I have fun with it is at the track.

I got stock tires on at 38k. They're a bit low though.

Pennywise2 said:

Agreed Mike if you become a Ford Tech don't think you will be installing
KB's a mustangs all day.I talked to a Ford Tech in a medium income
area and he told me we will get to work on mustangs very rarely.
He says that he works on Focus's,Freestar's,Taurus's,and Fusion's
mostly does that sound normal to you Mike?

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Yeah I see pleanty of those cars too, hardly any mustangs at this dealer.. You will never get into installing aftermarket parts at a dealer, but you will get lots of experience fixing cars. installing aftermarket parts is not hard, the hard part is knowing what to do when somthing goes wrong. If your going to become a tech I will warn you. It takes about 5 years to get good and you will spend tens of thousands of dollars on tools and you will always be replacing lost and stolen ones.

DerekStangGT said:

-my stock tires lasted me 11k miles
-my stock clutch blew at 27k miles
-my stock front pads were replaced at 30k miles
-my tranny has needed a rebuilt since 35k miles
-the clutches in my rearend blew at 40k miles
-my second set of pads (aftermarket) were replaced at 42k miles
-im getting ready to mount my 5th set of tires

my car currently has 49k miles

do i drive my car hard? yes

do i have a hell of a time in my car? HELL YES

Click to expand...

WOW dude! Lets compare my car....and see what corner carving will get you! J/K

Stock tires- fronts lasted around 35K. Took rears off @ 14K (PLENTY of tread...those are now my front tires), then got 30K out of my 285 kumhos and still have some tread.

Stock clutch- still going strong @ 50K...beind replaced with spec stg 3 now to handle the turbos

Stock pads- 50K and still have plenty of pad left

Stock tranny- 50K, 0 problems

rear clutch packs- 50K, 0 problems and still leaves double stripes

Dang I thought I drove my car hard derek...guess I dont . And im all telling everyone to drive it like you stole it...next time ill tell them to PM you for the best way to drive their car fast

hotmustang331 said:

WOW dude! Lets compare my car....and see what corner carving will get you!

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i think thats it right there. stupid corner carving. when i was in school for a little over a year, i used to take this real windy road to and from class. it wasnt very long, maybe only ~3 miles, but i used to beat my car around those corners. now i know the road pretty well, braking points and everything. it was damn fun. nothing, and i mean nothing gets my adrenalin pumping like corner carving. pure bliss IMO.

hotmustang331 said:

Stock tires- fronts lasted around 35K. Took rears off @ 14K (PLENTY of tread...those are now my front tires), then got 30K out of my 285 kumhos and still have some tread.

Stock clutch- still going strong @ 50K...beind replaced with spec stg 3 now to handle the turbos

Stock pads- 50K and still have plenty of pad left

Stock tranny- 50K, 0 problems

rear clutch packs- 50K, 0 problems and still leaves double stripes

Dang I thought I drove my car hard derek...guess I dont . And im all telling everyone to drive it like you stole it...next time ill tell them to PM you for the best way to drive their car fast

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dang Cody, i woulda thought only Kilgore would still have the stock tires and pads at 50k.

in all honesty, I think I have lost my nerve when it comes to driving this car hard. It seems like every time I give it more than 1/8 throttle, a cop will come out of a side street, around a bend, just pretty much out of nowhere. Don't get me wrong, theres nothing like banging gears but I'm actually scared to do it, not for fear of breaking stuff, but for fear of tickets and interaction with the police

billfisher said:

buy a spare motor to swap now, so when you blow it up your only out a few days.

BTW i'm sticking to 3v. some noted companies are getting it into the 280cfm area. that's more than enough for 500fwhp.

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...fwhp? What's that?

stangGT97 said:

Don't get me wrong, theres nothing like banging gears but I'm actually scared to do it, not for fear of breaking stuff, but for fear of tickets and interaction with the police

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dont be scurred. im 7/7 when getting pulled over. been flashed 7 times, been cited 7 times. me and the popo dont get along. why do i always get the @$$holes though?

Mine is my DD for the good months but she is put away in the winter. I usually go slow and take it easy for the first 1-2 minutes im in the car then i just beat on it. Average shift point is around 3-3500rpm, anything less is just making her mad. I feel when i shift at like 2500 it isnt right, the car just feels uneasy. usually bring it to 5-5500rpm every day just to let her know i love her

yea i was wot and missed 2nd 2x and felt bad lol

yeah my baby likes it rough. Hell it won't shift before 2800rpm if the throttles 1/16th of the way down. Dont think revving to 3500 is bad, dont even think that 5500 is bad... redlines are always set low... really low actually. In fact most cars hit the rev limiter before they get into rpms that are even remotely dangerous. My last car's redline was at 7000, rev limiter set at 7200... i had a stick and a tune so the rev limiter was set to 9200, car could be safely revved to 7500, probably even 8000 (never tried past 7500 though, power started dropping off anyways)... the auto's were set up to shift at a maximum of 6000rpm. They were losing 1200rpms, and it was a high revver, it made ALL its power up top. (in fact it DESTROYS the mustang from 140-240km/h) Not a thing broke in that car and i put 315,000km on the clock before it got rearended by an SUV and got totalled off... then someone bought the motor and put it into a Fiero and is currently making 220whp with no problems yet (no engine rebuild yet)... im speaking of a Z34 with a 3.4TDC by the way.

Nothings broken but the tranny in the stang, but that was the guy before me doing neutral drops... sigh, i want to drive to his house and floor it and then point out that with 302 ft/lbs you dont need to rev it up to get the tires spinning. But with the new tranny came new parts and alot more fun . Some cars are made to be driven hard, others aren't... dont think you can hit the rev limiter in your buick though, they're actually probably hitting dangerous RPMs 500rpm before redline.

Just think about roadgraders, skidsteers, rock haulers etc. you just hold the rpms at the rev limiter and shift... rev limiter is set at operating rpms. Same as a seadoo or boat, they're constantly bouncing off the rev limiter... because on a seadoo its basically full throttle or no throttle... unless your 90.

DerekStangGT said:

i think thats it right there. stupid corner carving. when i was in school for a little over a year, i used to take this real windy road to and from class. it wasnt very long, maybe only ~3 miles, but i used to beat my car around those corners. now i know the road pretty well, braking points and everything. it was damn fun. nothing, and i mean nothing gets my adrenalin pumping like corner carving. pure bliss IMO.


dang Cody, i woulda thought only Kilgore would still have the stock tires and pads at 50k.

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Yea I honestly like cornercarving....its fun as heck. I loved riding with my cousin in his 87 supra...just going straight @ 40-50MPH and just wail into a 90* turn LOL. FUN!
I just dont have the balls to do it . I dont want to slide off a corner and wreck the stang lol.

hotmustang331 said:

Yea I honestly like cornercarving....its fun as heck. I loved riding with my cousin in his 87 supra...just going straight @ 40-50MPH and just wail into a 90* turn LOL. FUN!
I just dont have the balls to do it . I dont want to slide off a corner and wreck the stang lol.

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i know what you mean man. you really have to push your car though, or else you'll never know its limits. im constantly testing my stangs limits. you can actually feel the car when youre going the fastest you can around a corner. the rear end will feel almost lighter, kinda floaty i guess. but there have been many times when i was younger when i didnt just reach the limits, i grabbed the limits by the balls and squeezed. lol. twice i went off the road in my old 98 GT-stock suspension. hit a concrete barrier once in my car when i first had it, stock suspension, stock tires, and 4.10s shock: ). and one time i took a turn too hard in my moms WRX, went off the road, and broke the right front tire loose from the bead. that was a tough explanation to the folks, being that i was 16, and had my buddy in the car with me. yeah, i did some really dumb things in my past.

I usually shift around 3000, but my work is at the end of a dead end that's a little over 1/4 mile, and the street's dead at 7am when I go in, so 3 or 4 days a week I take it up to the red on the way in

Yea I was driving my dads 00V6 when I was 16, and decided to practice my speedshifting while doing 65MPH down the highway. BAD idea lol.

Pushed in the clutch and rowed through the gears (1st-like 5th)...ok fine, but 1st seemed a little tough. Anyways I decided to do it again...5th-4th-3rd-2nd-and as soon as I went into 1st, my clutch pedal lost all tention and hit the floor . Blew the clutch into a 100 pieces LOL...my dad didnt like that too much HAHA.
And yes I DID have the clutch in, and the RPMs were at almost idle the entire time....It must have been turning everything way too fast. But in my defence, the clutch as DRY...like it had been sprayed with brake cleaner (we just had it at the dealer a few days before).