i just bought an 02 mustang gt

I'd do gears (3.73 or 4.10) and a short throw shifter before I'd do any of things you mentioned. Both will offer an immediate and noticable improvement.

Barnaby said:

I'd do gears (3.73 or 4.10) and a short throw shifter before I'd do any of things you mentioned. Both will offer an immediate and noticable improvement.

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The best bang for your buck is gears. I'd suggest 4.10's. also a short throw would be another good one as Barnaby mentioned. You'll be missing 3rd quite often with the stock shifter, if it's a manual.

This is what I would do if I had a bone stock car like yours....

1. weld in some mufflers - relatively cheap and gives you a nice sound

....then

2. gears (as stated above, best bang for the buck)

Exhaust won't help that much for the dollars spent. I would fix the deficiencies first before going after more performance. So here is my 2 cents worth.

1) Upgrade the shifter.
2) Get subframes. This will save you from sticky doors, body squeaks, and will help in the handling.
3) Get a handling kit, even a level 1 type of kit from Steeda, Maximum, Eibach, etc... Rear control arms and new shocks work wonders. A coil-over setup is even better.
4) Get a cold air kit with a new tune.

These changes alone are worth quite a bit in the performance department. You will think you bought a different car and it will be so much more enjoyable.

Once you get past that, save your money for a supercharger or turbo kit. You could spend $1500 with all sorts of minor upgrades and pick up 30hp. Although gears are the best bang for the buck, gas is really expensive and unless you run lots of 1/4 miles, you don't want to go above 3.55's in my opinion for street driven car. With the stock gearing, you won't get out of 3rd gear in a 1/4 mile since you hit 110mph at 6400rpm's or so. With 3.70's, you will get about 110 at redline in 4th gear I think. It's been a while so I'm guessing here.

I can tell you that a vortech s/c with a steeda tune will get you around 350rwhp, a totally streetable and well running car, and can use the stock exhaust. Changing the exhaust and headers were worth 20-30 horspower in that setup. Throw in bigger MAF, and I saw about 410 at the rear wheels.

Later upgrade the heads, cams (go Livernois here, saw 643rwhp and still working on it), and go nuts.

my 3.90's will take me to 125 mph in the 1/4, so 3.73's would top out around the 135 range in 4th i'd think

Weird. I know stock gearing was 110 in 3rd, 135 in 4th. My 3.70's were 110 in 4th with a 6000 redline.

From one of the online spee/rpm calcs.

3.27s in 4th gear at 6000RPM = 140MPH
3.55s in 4th gear at 6000RPM = 129MPH
3.73s in 4th gear at 6000RPM = 122MPH
4.10s in 4th gear at 6000RPM = 111MPH

Don't fear the gear! I was afraid of it at first, but listened to people on this site & got 4.10s. Even with a Kenne Belle blower on it now I still would recommend it. It's still my summer daily-driver, too (mostly highway).

As far as mods go, stick with gears & exhaust. Then save your money for the blower.

rconaway said:

1) Upgrade the shifter.
2) Get subframes. This will save you from sticky doors, body squeaks, and will help in the handling.

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Agreed.

rconaway said:

Although gears are the best bang for the buck, gas is really expensive and unless you run lots of 1/4 miles, you don't want to go above 3.55's in my opinion for street driven car.

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I disagree. 3.55s are almost a waste of money, 3.73s at a minimum. 4.10s get my vote.

I drove 200 miles round trip to work with 3.73's all interstate 75 to 80 with a couple throttling to merge onto the interstate... I got about 275-300 (down from 325) on a tank. I think I put in about 8 gallons a night.

Since then though I've had 2 transmission (5th gear went out both times) and shortly after the 1st transmission the rear end went out. Ford said lack of gear oil...but it never leaked so I'm not really sure what exactly happened. Now I'm back down to a 3.27 rear end out of a wrecked 2001. When I get a new one I'll probably go to a 4.10 gear set. The different between 3.27 and 3.73's is night and day on the get up and go. You top out first pretty quick. Many times in the rain I just started out in 2nd. It's easier to drive with the lower gear in it too.


Intake: Cold Air or Manifold? Cold air...nothing but sound. I've got a fenderwell CAI that I got real cheap, only problem I've had is when driving in heavy rain behind someone the mist gets into it and causes a stumble. I also have the chrome pipe (looks) going to it which absorbs a ton of heat in the summer and kills the intake air temp which causes some power loss. Intake Manifold...$1,000 (I think) for the Trickflow and you'll get I think 30 or so HP. However, for another $2,000 you can make 150+ (S/C or turbo).

Plenum: I've got an Accufab w/ 70MM throttle body. No big performance gain, but SOTP you could notice a tad. On hotter days though I get some heatsoak (could be from the CAI).

Exhaust: Also mostly sound with some improvement. Remove the cats and you lose a tad bit of torque, gain horsepower. H-pipe for throaty sound, X-pipe for the racy, raw sound like on drag cars. Get a muffler you like the sound of. The H and X-pipes will change the sound. Long tube headers only, don't waste your money on short tubes. Long tube require a different kind of midpipe from what I remember.

Gears: No real performance gain HP/TQ wise, but gives you more acceleration (read: quicker, not faster).

Cams: $600 for MPH's cams and can give you pretty decen HP/TQ numbers.

Heads: Never checked into them, but on my race car better heads = more HP/TQ. For the modular motor I'm sure it'll probably cost too much to justify on a N/A motor.

Suspension: Haven't messed with that yet. Just got an Eibach lowering kit and it helped improve cornering. I have a set of Bilstein shocks/struts waiting to go on.

Forced induction: Best bang for the buck I'd say. $3,000 and you get tons of HP/TQ. Only issues is the stock 2v motors don't have forged internals so I think MPH recommended not going above 500HP (may have been 400) with their tunes. Even then it's a ticking time bomb. With forced induction pretty much any mod you do to the engine will enhance the performance of the car more so than non-forced induction.

That about covers it.

From one of the online spee/rpm calcs.
3.27s in 4th gear at 6000RPM = 140MPH

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That is accurate... Just about exact. I shifted at ~5900 into 5th and was right around 140.

4.10s baby yea

do the guys with the 4:10's know how much they reduced mpg?

My Livernois heads w/cams have added over 250+ HP with my vortech S-Trim. In fact, we haven't hit the top end yet but it's well over 650 rwhp. For $3K, it was the best bang for the buck but it needs a power adder to make it worth it.

3.73's made a huge difference in the quarter mile but my car was hitting 5500+ rpms at 150+ mph. Ended up destroying 2 pistons from oil starvation over 30 minutes. So, in my book, 3.27's work best since I have to run up there a couple times a year. However, I wasn't thrilled at the rpm levels at 80+ mph since I drive 5+ hours at a time so it's going to be a personal choice.

If you have the money, do a power adder first, then make a decision. If you are staying normally aspirated, then do the gears. Without a power adder, 10hp at a time isn't a great difference. If you do the power adder and leave the stock exhaust/heads, the most you will get is between 350-400rwhp on 91 octane fuel. If you go over that, you need to beef up the engine anyway so put about $12K aside and do heads/cams (I recommend Livernois after what I've seen), fuel system, and exhaust at the same time. Then hold on to your gonads.

With those mods, we ran out of fuel (pumps that have since been upgraded)at 6000rpms and 643 rwhp. With fuel and another 1000 rpms ahead of me. There is a good chance of hitting 700 rwhp. Probably can't get more than 600rwhp with 91 octane though. Who says 2v can't run with the big boys?

Congratulations! Another vote for 4.10 gears, shifter, sub frame connectors and exhaust. The car will be even more fun with these simple add ons.

Gears - FRPP, huge debate over what ratio to select...3.73 vs. 4.10 is the popular argument. With the 2V mod motor and it's poor torque down low, you really almost NEED the 4.10s. If you had the opportunity, I'd encourage anyone trying to make this decision to find friends with similar cars and these different gear sets. Take a ride. To me, the difference between 3.73s and 4.10s was night and day.
Shifter - Oh God, that debate again - Steeda Tri-Ax, Pro 5.0 Tower of Power, or MGW. (heck, even the UPR Blue Thunder is a good shifter)
Sub Frame Connectors - another debate, but for straight up simple subs, you cannot beat the very long SFCs from Maximum Motorsports. (www.maximummotorsports.com - everything from MM is top notch!)
Exhaust - catback or midpipe? I'd do both to save time, money, energy (if installing thyself). The midpipe will give you more umph and flow, but the mufflers define the sound. Check out MustangExhaust.com - Blog for a ton of different sound clips of different combos. Exhaust sound is so subjective.

Best of Luck, Welcome and again CONGRATS!!!

twogts4us said:

Another vote for 4.10 gears...

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It seems to me there are really only 3 scenarios where 3.73 gears would be a better choice than 4.10s: someone driving a LOT of highway miles, someone with a pd blower, or someone concerned with their trap speed/gear. Other than that, 4.10s are the way to go.

I know I would have been disappointed with 3.73s.

It's a tough call. With a power adder, 3:73's are as high as I would go. I hit 110mph at the end of the quarter at 6000rpm's with the 3:73's. The problem was the car would pull up to 119 which put my rpm's at 6500 or so. That was when the car was about 400rwhp. Now it's over 600 so the reality is that 3:73's are too much. 3:27's would put the 1/4 mile in the 120's and 135mph is where the 4th gear signs off at redline.

I would also think through the application. If it's drag-racing, go 4.10's. If it's road-racing, I would look at 3.55's or 3.73's because you don't want to be shifting all the time. I have found the 3.27's work great at some tracks where my speed ranges from 40mph to 110 which is perfect for third gear. For what it's worth, I have gone back to the 3.27's for now since I'm hoping to hit 130 in the 1/4 mile and 200mph on the straights. If that doesn't work, I'll have to move to a 6-speed.

In terms of gears, it's all about your application as rconway says. If this is your daily driver you probably wouldn't want to go higher than 3.73s, RPMs will just be higher than you'd want on the highway. You WILL notice a significant difference between the stock 3.27s and 3.73s, the 3.73s will let the engine get up in RPMs (into the power, and more importantly, torque band) quicker but obviously even more so with 4.11s. If drag racing, go with the 4.11s. BTW, this is all with the stock wheel and tire size which also matters. If you take your street car to the drag strip, you can put 15" wheels on the car at the strip and with your 3.73s you'll be darn close to equating a 4.11 gear ratio with the stock wheels. Best of both worlds but requires an extra set of wheels and tires, of course.

rconaway said:

Exhaust won't help that much for the dollars spent. I would fix the deficiencies first before going after more performance. So here is my 2 cents worth.

1) Upgrade the shifter.
2) Get subframes. This will save you from sticky doors, body squeaks, and will help in the handling.
3) Get a handling kit, even a level 1 type of kit from Steeda, Maximum, Eibach, etc... Rear control arms and new shocks work wonders. A coil-over setup is even better.
4) Get a cold air kit with a new tune.

These changes alone are worth quite a bit in the performance department. You will think you bought a different car and it will be so much more enjoyable.

Once you get past that, save your money for a supercharger or turbo kit. You could spend $1500 with all sorts of minor upgrades and pick up 30hp. Although gears are the best bang for the buck, gas is really expensive and unless you run lots of 1/4 miles, you don't want to go above 3.55's in my opinion for street driven car. With the stock gearing, you won't get out of 3rd gear in a 1/4 mile since you hit 110mph at 6400rpm's or so. With 3.70's, you will get about 110 at redline in 4th gear I think. It's been a while so I'm guessing here.

I can tell you that a vortech s/c with a steeda tune will get you around 350rwhp, a totally streetable and well running car, and can use the stock exhaust. Changing the exhaust and headers were worth 20-30 horspower in that setup. Throw in bigger MAF, and I saw about 410 at the rear wheels.

Later upgrade the heads, cams (go Livernois here, saw 643rwhp and still working on it), and go nuts.

Click to expand...

About 121-123 mph in 4th redline with 373's Bro, I usually trap out at 112-117 in the quarter, that's why I think 373's are perfect for a blown Mustang.

A cold air intake is one of the most common first mods out there because it is simple and dresses up the engine. But as far as performance gain it would have to be right near the bottom. I would do the 4.10 gear swap. In fact I am doing the swap as my first mod. If you plan for more mods down the road, definately buy a tuner so you can get the most out of the mods you do. Congrats on buying the car and good luck with whatever you decide to do first.