Harder and Harder to be relevant

ttocs · May 8, 2015

I have not heard anyone say anything bad about the new vettes as they certainly are cool lookin and still has some possibilities available to it under the hood. Recently I have been seeing more Porsches then normal and their newest lines are sharp as hell as well.

But again I still thing car parts are more fun then car payments. I can remember sweating to make the payment and the horrible insurance I was paying on a new vehicle at 20 and now just planning ahead enough to have cash to pay for the fun parts is much better.

1996GTKB · May 9, 2015

I was in the same boat, I could have bought a new mustang and would have had to wait to afford the go fast parts or buy my 96 and make it the way I wanted it to be. I'm glad I did it the way I did, gives me a sense of pride.

1998cobrasvt · May 9, 2015

Glad i found this site, much better then the rest. It seems the other guys around the interweb-block love to only focus on the "newest and greatest toys" The guy who goes out and trades his 14 for a 15. Only a small 5% was into resto modding. Nice to see so many others on here feeling the same way i do about the car. #SN95love

Tony · May 9, 2015

everyone freaking out about going super fast...i'm like i need the slow so i can be seen

ttocs · May 9, 2015

and yet your not in a v6

you can't say it isn't a little bit about the power/sound.

Tony · May 9, 2015

ttocs said:
and yet your not in a v6 you can't say it isn't a little bit about the power/sound.

aw yea definitely couldn't do a 6er for those reasons....however even if i had 1000 hp i'd still be crawling around showing off some shiny paint :grin:

vermilion · May 9, 2015

i'll ride my dirty v6. all day long.

JerZeyStangz · May 12, 2015

1998cobrasvt said:
Glad i found this site, much better then the rest. It seems the other guys around the interweb-block love to only focus on the "newest and greatest toys" The guy who goes out and trades his 14 for a 15. Only a small 5% was into resto modding. Nice to see so many others on here feeling the same way i do about the car. #SN95love

I am heavily into resto modding and power modding. This is why I love this site. Some forums have there pros and cons as well, but if you hang around a forum that people are always trading there older models for new, it will get really depressing.

DavidBoren · May 12, 2015

Relevance, in the context of this discussion, seems to boil down to two things... The measure of your commitment, and the depth of your wallet. Excellent builds require both, but you need AT LEAST ONE of those things to be relevant today.

People with deep pockets don't need to be very committed. They are the buy not build crowd, trading their '14 for a '15.

If you are broke like the rest of us, you better be damn committed. And that is where most people fail.

Everyone not willing to spend $6k on a suspension package for their $600 craigslist special SN, honestly doesn't have any right to complain about not being relevant. The SN isn't going to be relevant with its antiquated, archaic Flintstones suspension. It's just not. You have to pay to play, end of story. If you aren't committed enough to do what it takes, then you aren't in a position to complain about relevance... because, to be honest, the uncommitted are irrelevant.

1998cobrasvt · May 12, 2015

DavidBoren said:
Relevance, in the context of this discussion, seems to boil down to two things... The measure of your commitment, and the depth of your wallet. Excellent builds require both, but you need AT LEAST ONE of those things to be relevant today.

People with deep pockets don't need to be very committed. They are the buy not build crowd, trading their '14 for a '15.

If you are broke like the rest of us, you better be damn committed. And that is where most people fail.

Everyone not willing to spend $6k on a suspension package for their $600 craigslist special SN, honestly doesn't have any right to complain about not being relevant. The SN isn't going to be relevant with its antiquated, archaic Flintstones suspension. It's just not. You have to pay to play, end of story. If you aren't committed enough to do what it takes, then you aren't in a position to complain about relevance... because, to be honest, the uncommitted are irrelevant.

Agreed, i already told myself when i bought the car that no matter what the cost im doing a full build, even if its not all done at once i will complete it within the next few years one piece at a time. My goal is to be a streetable 10-9 second sn95. Wish me luck :grin:

DavidBoren · May 12, 2015

I don't know what your plans are for the 4v, but if you're going to throw some forged steel in it, do so with an all stroke 5.0L kit. Then a hellion single turbo gets you into your desired time bracket.

But honestly, I would focus on the suspension/ brakes first and foremost. Followed by an adequate cooling system.

JerZeyStangz · May 12, 2015

I'm just sitting here with my 2V trying to do F1-A conversion when I have a built motor

The suspension and brakes are 100% true.

1998cobrasvt · May 12, 2015

DavidBoren said:
I don't know what your plans are for the 4v, but if you're going to throw some forged steel in it, do so with an all stroke 5.0L kit. Then a hellion single turbo gets you into your desired time bracket.

But honestly, I would focus on the suspension/ brakes first and foremost. Followed by an adequate cooling system.

Definitely going to do it right, a few ideas have crossed my mind one of them being yours. Just haven't sat down and made the final decision yet. Plenty of time before more work next winter :grin:. Def going to upgrade the trans the rear and the fuel pump brakes etc everything it needs. Just haven't decided how i want to put down the power yet. Always open to suggestions. Got some suspension goodies in right now. (see sig)

DavidBoren · May 12, 2015

With a goal set for your build that includes breaking tens, I can only assume that boost is in the future. If you are adding boost, you should definitely get a forged rotating assembly. And unless you find a good deal on some terminator guts, you are going to be spending some coin. If you are buying a new forged rotating assembly, you might as well add some cubes.

And in my opinion, there's no better way to add displacement other than increasing stroke. The 4.6 is square by design, so increasing stroke without increasing bore makes it undersquare. Undersquare engines tend to have all the low down torque you need, so adding a turbo for that up top oomph makes the most sense (to me, at least).

ttocs · May 13, 2015

When I had my wreck and decided to rebuild it I had NO intention of taking it as far as I have now. originally it was just going to be a semi-fast repair to get it on the road but I have always had a long list of things I would like to do it as I am sure most of us do. I think if I had not internet connection it would have been done in 5 months but that didn't happen. I mean I had been wanting to get some new wheels and was wanting them to be as wide as possible but until I found a link showing how to do the fender flare it was just a dream. I had always wanted to supercharge or turbo it and when I found a new vortech kit being sold as used since he sold the car before installing it for $1500 less then any new kit I had seen. Then when I mocked it up I realized it relocated the alt and it would allow me to use that big mofo 200 amp I had been wanting to use. The wire tuck and smoothing out the bay were not really planned either but after seeing how nice it looked and because the car was already down, why not? But after that then I could not just slap the old looking motor in there so I started to pay attention to the little details on it. Sent he valve covers and mounting brackets all out for gloss black powder. I had been porting and polishing that cobra intake for 2 years by that point and of course it had to go in and after a little research on ceramic coating it seemed like the way to go for both durability and to keep the intake air as cool as possible. I could have just painted the lower since its barely going to be seen but since I was sending stuff off for ceramic coating already again the idea of the durability of it as well as the cooler intake air charge again just seemed to make sence. OF course the throttle body had to go as well and of course why not the new set of headers then because of all this shiny crap it only seemed natural to polish the supercharger. Making the motor both look good and as functional as possible slowed things a lot for me just from sending parts out and all the changes made to it now. I have done as much of it as I could myself from porting the upper(after touching up the lower I got back from being ported should have just done it myself) and of course polishing it myself saved a lot of $$$$ but took a lot of time. Now all the other custom stuff like the door handles and the laser cut fender badges was not cheap as well but I know they are both pieces that will be seen and get attention so its worth it in my opinion.

I am not sure if I am weird that this build that has got out of hand or if this happens often to others. I imagine there are people that buy a specific car and already have a list of parts they are going to put on it from front/back, I am just trying to do it right and do it once so that I don't have to go change something later that bugs me or that needs it from the performance gain its going to get to make it run. Deep down every day I get out there I am just afraid that I am going to screw something up really good as I am sure that most of the people watching might think I have done this stuff before but honestly from pulling the motor out for the first time to painting a car for the first time I am learning 10x more during this build then I ever knew before.

The time spent on all these projects would have cost a fortune if I had paid others to do it. Thankfully I have time because of being disabled and it gives me something to do and keep busy with when I don't feel bad.

JerZeyStangz · May 13, 2015

ttocs said:
When I had my wreck and decided to rebuild it I had NO intention of taking it as far as I have now. originally it was just going to be a semi-fast repair to get it on the road but I have always had a long list of things I would like to do it as I am sure most of us do. I think if I had not internet connection it would have been done in 5 months but that didn't happen. I mean I had been wanting to get some new wheels and was wanting them to be as wide as possible but until I found a link showing how to do the fender flare it was just a dream. I had always wanted to supercharge or turbo it and when I found a new vortech kit being sold as used since he sold the car before installing it for $1500 less then any new kit I had seen. Then when I mocked it up I realized it relocated the alt and it would allow me to use that big mofo 200 amp I had been wanting to use. The wire tuck and smoothing out the bay were not really planned either but after seeing how nice it looked and because the car was already down, why not? But after that then I could not just slap the old looking motor in there so I started to pay attention to the little details on it. Sent he valve covers and mounting brackets all out for gloss black powder. I had been porting and polishing that cobra intake for 2 years by that point and of course it had to go in and after a little research on ceramic coating it seemed like the way to go for both durability and to keep the intake air as cool as possible. I could have just painted the lower since its barely going to be seen but since I was sending stuff off for ceramic coating already again the idea of the durability of it as well as the cooler intake air charge again just seemed to make sence. OF course the throttle body had to go as well and of course why not the new set of headers then because of all this shiny crap it only seemed natural to polish the supercharger. Making the motor both look good and as functional as possible slowed things a lot for me just from sending parts out and all the changes made to it now. I have done as much of it as I could myself from porting the upper(after touching up the lower I got back from being ported should have just done it myself) and of course polishing it myself saved a lot of $$$$ but took a lot of time. Now all the other custom stuff like the door handles and the laser cut fender badges was not cheap as well but I know they are both pieces that will be seen and get attention so its worth it in my opinion.

I am not sure if I am weird that this build that has got out of hand or if this happens often to others. I imagine there are people that buy a specific car and already have a list of parts they are going to put on it from front/back, I am just trying to do it right and do it once so that I don't have to go change something later that bugs me or that needs it from the performance gain its going to get to make it run. Deep down every day I get out there I am just afraid that I am going to screw something up really good as I am sure that most of the people watching might think I have done this stuff before but honestly from pulling the motor out for the first time to painting a car for the first time I am learning 10x more during this build then I ever knew before.

The time spent on all these projects would have cost a fortune if I had paid others to do it. Thankfully I have time because of being disabled and it gives me something to do and keep busy with when I don't feel bad.

There are plenty of people around like you, for starters I am one of them and I like to do it myself. It cost to much money to get cars built by others and you run the risk of them not doing it right.

DavidBoren · May 22, 2015

ttocs, I am not going to quote all that, but I think your build is the very definition of "scope creep". But it is truly inspiring. Like that you taught yourself how to weld in the process, and even though it's your first time, you still have done things people don't think to try even with multiple full builds under their belts... Like laser cut fender badges or shaved door handles on a mid-90's pony car.

slow90coupe · May 22, 2015

All I know is that I'm absolutely 100% content in my sub 300rwhp foxbody. It sounds like a racecar and will cut a better 60 foot than almost any "new" car out there bone stock, so I'm happy with that. Plus, I really don't give two shits if someone is faster than me, I just want a decent car with nice stance that sounds good.