What a pair...

85_SS_302_Coupe

it sucks (I know) to be on the receiving end
15 Year Member
Nov 11, 2003
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Northern KY
I was standing outside my front door watching the rain fall...bored to death. I looked out across the lot at these two and just laughed to myself. What a F'ed up pair of cars i have.

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On one side, you've got a car that lives and dies by torque and wants to break the tires loose at 2k RPM, and on the other you've got a car that doesn't even show up to the party until 4000k RPM. The Mustang is a sort of steer with the throttle kind of handler, whereas the Merkur probably has the least amount of under steer of any car i've ever driven (doesn't say a WHOLE lot, but it does corner exceptionally well for having pizza cutter tires and the stock '88 suspension).


Stock vs. stock, i honestly think it would be a driver's race. The Mustang obviously is going to RAPE the Merkur from a stop, but once the T3 spools up, it pulls damn near as hard as a stock Mustang...ultimately the Mustang is definitely faster, but if you put the more experienced driver in the Merkur and the rookie in the Mustang, chances are the Mustang is going to fall about a fender short of the win.

Of these two cars in particular, the Merkur would walk away from my Mustang after about 120mph where the 4.10s and stock heads/cam run out of breath. In the quarter, the Mustang would have to do all the damage before half track (which it likely would). From that point on the Merkur would probably be closing in fast but wouldn't have enough to catch up by the finish line.


Turbo is really almost cheating when it boils down to it. My coupe is honestly not very fast (i don't think low 14s/high 13s is very fast these days) and it really wouldn't take much to get the Merkur into that ET range. I'm starting to become obsessed with turbo and i'd be lying out my ass if i said i haven't already been thinking of doing a DIY turbo setup on the coupe.


What's crazier is, can you believe these cars are only 3 years apart??? (well, yeah i guess i do have a '79 nose on the 'stang so that does change things a bit)
 
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I love that Notch. :hail2: :drool:

Thanks :D

wait till you put a ic on the merkur


That's what people are telling me. The one guy i know local who has a Merkur said that an intercooler, manual boost controller and 3 inch exhaust and it'll smoke my coupe. He's never rode in the coupe but i told him what it runs in the 1/4 and he said it'll at least be neck and neck. I guess we'll see.
 
I could have had the same MerKur as that for dirt cheap...needed a head gasket and I had no idea what the hell it was at the time...Then I got into the mustangs and started to look at the XR4Ti I could have for next to nothing and even asked about it on this site. Went to go see about getting it and they gave it away (it was leaving on a flatbed as I pulled in) The car sat at the garage I did my co-op at when I was 17 (now 24) and this was juts last year they got rid of it.
 
That sucks! My buddy just found another one sitting next to a barn out in the country where we grew up. It has tags on it dated for '99 so it's been sitting for a looong time. We're gonna look into it and see if it runs.
 
lol it looks like an old jetta got confused or the stang rubbed off on a jetta or something lol.

Those cars basicly inspired the look of the jetta and many other european cars of the late 80's/early 90's.

But anyway...if your Merkur is anywhere near stock, I'm pretty sure your coupe would walk all over it at any speed until you run out of gear. The turbo kinda makes the car feel faster than it is I found. You got no power down low and then all of a sudden you just have this huge lump of horsepower/torque come on and then you are like "****, this thing pulls pretty good"...but really it's just pulling a fair bit harder than when it had no boost, which isn't sayin much, haha.

I bet your Mustang would trap at least 5mph faster in the 1/4 mile.
 
Those cars basicly inspired the look of the jetta and many other european cars of the late 80's/early 90's.

But anyway...if your Merkur is anywhere near stock, I'm pretty sure your coupe would walk all over it at any speed until you run out of gear. The turbo kinda makes the car feel faster than it is I found. You got no power down low and then all of a sudden you just have this huge lump of horsepower/torque come on and then you are like "****, this thing pulls pretty good"...but really it's just pulling a fair bit harder than when it had no boost, which isn't sayin much, haha.

bet your Mustang would t Irap at least 5mph faster in the 1/4 mile.


Oh yeah, the way the two cars are right now it wouldn't be a contest at all. My main comparison was stock vs. stock. The thing about the Merkur is that it'll do 100mph in 3rd...and it's not really hurt by low gears either because it doesn't take long at all to get there. They did go 0-70 in 7 seconds IIRC which isn't too bad for 170hp stock.

Last week (i think i posted this somewhere?) i walked all over a turbo Neon (wasn't an SRT4 unless it was debadged but it didn't look like one). All i heard was his first shift and the BOV and then he was at my back bumper for the rest of the run.