It's nice to have power...my best power making combo made 700hp & 725lb/ft torque with a 76mm Hellion turbo on a well built 331. But...with all that power comes with many headaches. I could never get it to hook....going through tires every 250 miles, breaking transmissions every year (even with granny shifting) and one bad batch of gas will put holes through your pistons.
That said, my all time favorite combo hands down is the stock block, GT40 cast iron heads, GT40 intake, E303 cam, 24lb inj and short tube headers. Hands down. I hammered the the car mercilessly with no issues. Yeah, it would only click off high 12 sec 1/4 miles, but it was trouble free. As soon as I started bolting on those damn
Vortech's, nothing but heart ache. A, S, SC, and Y trim combos. Reading all those BS pipe dream magazine articles.... It seemed like everyone was riding around with trouble free high power combos and mine was the only one on jackstands 11 months out of the year.
If I were to do it all again, I would do the GT40 combo again.
As for the Viper, I bought mine with 3k miles and the prices were really good on these things as they just stopped making them. The prices since have hit the roof. It's like driving a mustang on steroids. It's fast, it handles like no other and it stops. I'm amazed at the mechanical traction (it has to be hotter than 70 degrees out for it to hook, but it hooks hard). The tires are 14" wide. I was always white knuckling the mustang over 90mph. The Viper is smoother than glass even at 140 mph. So much more confidence. The V10 is an animal. Mine is at 660hp. Sounds like a tractor at idle, but sounds like all hell is breaking loose at WOT. Getting a Viper has been a dream since the late 90's....just glad I waited for the best gen...gen V.
I pissed so much money away on my mustang builds over the years....I could have easily bought a new 911 turbo.