My Winter 2012/2013 Project (03 GT) UPDATED 2-12-13 post #55

JonBeast · Jan 3, 2013

This car is SICK...01 bumper/03 lip looks SO clean, love the cobra skirts/mirrors...bullitt scoops, 99/01 tails...DAMN I love it all!

Almost exactly what I would do if I had a 99/01 cobra or 99-04 GT.

You should throw some stock amber corner headlights on to tie in the amber tails.

03DSGGT · Jan 3, 2013

Thanks man, Ive followed your build up on the white car from page 1...I absolutely love it...so thats a big compliment coming from you...not a lot of people pick up on all the sublte mods. Most dont notice the mach/Bullitt C pillars and quarter galss until I point it out, same with the side skirts....and funny you mention the stock headlights...in the pic below, the box that the tail lights are sitting on have a brand new set of stock headlights with the amber corners lol

Tally_4.6 · Jan 3, 2013

chris91 said:
I always thought the Bullit and Cobra sides were the same. Learn somethin new everyday!

I thought they were the same? They look exactly the same minus the front flap, i don't understand.

JonBeast said:
This car is SICK...01 bumper/03 lip looks SO clean, love the cobra skirts/mirrors...bullitt scoops, 99/01 tails...DAMN I love it all!

See ^

03DSGGT · Jan 3, 2013

No, they are different believe it or not. It took me a long time until I realized, but the Bullitt skirts are more chisled than the Cobra skirts. The Cobra skirts have a soft radius at the bottom, and the Bullitt skirts have a sharp 90* at the bottom. Its minor and most people dont notice because the two are so similar, but the more I see the Bullitt skirts, the more I think they would go with my car...If you google them, you can see the difference...

chris91 · Jan 3, 2013

I can tell now that you said what the differences are. I like em too. If my car didnt have the special 35th Anniversary ones on it Id go with those too.

m5lp_1104_01+2004_Ford_Mustang_Cobra+.jpg

KillNThrill24 · Jan 3, 2013

Alright another fellow Ohio Mustang-er! Nice lookin ride you got man. I too run dumps and was thinking about switching to a V6 bumper myself. Either that or go with the roush rear skirts. I'm liking what I'm seeing so far keep up the good work hope to see it all together

03DSGGT · Jan 4, 2013

Thanks fellas, seems to be a lot of us Ohio stangers on here. We should plan to all meet up this coming summer. I just got my buddy with the 96 Tangerine vert to join last week, and I know he would be down to get together as well...mabye we could meet up for the Summit Racing Mustang Show thats in late July/early August.

And Chris, good comparison pics for the side skirts. I was going to post some up, but ran out of time. I have every pic saved to my computer of that Tunerzine Bullit photo shoot. That exact car is what inspired me to go the direction if did with my car body wise.

chris91 · Jan 4, 2013

Personally I think your car looks better than the Bullitt I posted.

Any word back about the sideskirts?

03DSGGT · Jan 4, 2013

thanks dude, I appreciate that!

Well we texted a few times. He gave me a price and said that they are unharmed from the accident. I sent him my email address and told him to send me some pics when he gets time. He said he would get some to me soon. So thats where were at right now. Im debating on getting rid of the mudflap now. I love the clean look, but thats kinda what makes a Bullitt a Bullitt...and while Im not trying to make my car into a Bullitt by any means, its kind of taken on that look, so I dont know if I should just embrace it and keep the mudflap, or stick with my smooth and simple theme and shave it....

Black Ice · Jan 5, 2013

Hey are you going to be selling the front bumper,headlights and sideskirts?

chris91 · Jan 5, 2013

I think theyd look better with it shaved. Looks cleaner that way.

KillNThrill24 · Jan 5, 2013

For sure bro! Me and my buddies go to Summit all the time in the warmer weather. It's freakin sweet having Summit within driving distance lol. If you could find a date I'll hook it up and get all my fellow Mustang-ers to meet up down there. I have a Ohio Mustangs group on the FB

The more I see it the more I like the 99/01 bumper. I really like the look they give these cars!

03DSGGT · Jan 5, 2013

Black Ice said:
Hey are you going to be selling the front bumper,headlights and sideskirts?

As for now, Im gonna hang on to everything. The bumper for sure, but if I can find a set of Bullitt side skirts I may end up selling the Cobra side skirts eventually, same with the head lights. The head lights are starting s show theor age tho...getting hazy and clear coat is peeling if you examine them closely...

chris91 said:
I think theyd look better with it shaved. Looks cleaner that way.

I think youre right...I was just trying to convince myself that it looked better with them so I would have less work to do lol

KillNThrill24 said:
For sure bro! Me and my buddies go to Summit all the time in the warmer weather. It's freakin sweet having Summit within driving distance lol. If you could find a date I'll hook it up and get all my fellow Mustang-ers to meet up down there. I have a Ohio Mustangs group on the FB

The more I see it the more I like the 99/01 bumper. I really like the look they give these cars!

Yea I was just there last night, living 10 minutes away is good and bad at the same time lol. As soon as the local forum Buckeye Stangs announces the 2013 date, Ill let ya know and we can figure something out. It seems that 9 out of 10 people go with the 03/04 bumper, and I think it looks good and all, but the 99/01 has the same slim profile as the 99-04 GT/V6 bumper. The bulkyness of the 03/04 bumper makes it almost look too big on a GT unless you do all the body pieces from the 03/04 IMO

Walking Tall · Jan 5, 2013

Awesome looking ride!

chris91 · Jan 5, 2013

You're on buckeye too? That's where I got my engine. You didn't buy your car as a shell did you? The guy I got the engine off of parted out his whole car.

03DSGGT · Jan 5, 2013

Yea, Im over on Buckeye as well. I joined there right after I got my car back in '05. But I didnt buy my car as a shell. I got mine bone stock back in December of 2005. I dont post a whole bunch over there anymore. Im really not feeling the crowd thats over there these days. I met a couple really cool dudes on that site that I became good friends with, but its just really clicky now. If you dont shoot guns or love GM trucks, your not really part of the in crowd IMO...

03DSGGT · Jan 6, 2013

1-6-13

Little bit of an update fellas. I havent been working on the car lately because Im waiting on parts that I ordered to come in, and I just started my new job this past week, so I havent had a lot of extra time, not to mention its been cold as balls here lately. So rather then let the thread go idle, I figured Id keep it alive by showing you guys the projects that Ive been doing to the car over the past couple years like rebuilding an engine, freshening up the rear end, plating and welding the torque boxes, and installing a roll cage. I mean, whats a build thread without some kind of pics, right??
First is the engine build. In an attempt to add some cheap horsepower, I decided to look for an NPI bottom end and put my TFS heads on it to raise the compression. I found a complete NPI engine out of a 97 GT for $300 bucks. The guy told me that it ran great and wouldnt need anything. My plan was to tear it down to the shortblock, clean it up and paint it, then put my top end on it. Well, after tearing it down, I noticed that one piston on each side had what looke to be an indent of bolt threads on the tops, like if somebody threw a couple bolts in the motor. So I decided to to a complete rebuild just to be safe. I took it down to the bare block, and decided to have the block hot tanked and clean up honed, and the crank cleaned and polished. I took it to a local machine shop, and as they were honing it, they saw that one cylinder was out of shape enough that it would have to get bored .020" over. He said that it looked like it was heated up pretty good at one point. So I bought new Speed Pro hypereutectic .020" over pistons, and rings. I had the new pistons pressed on to the stock rods as well. Then I bought Clevite tri metal main and rod bearings, and ARP 2000 rod bolts. I finished it off with a full length windage tray from a 3V, and a new 2V oil pump. So the bottom end is technically stock, but its a little bit better in the areas that they fail in with high rpm. I installed my TFS heads on the shortblock and had a compression ratio of 11.3:1. I bought some Stage 3 MHS cams, and am using GT40 Super Car cam followers which are lighter and boos oil pressure in the heads. The rest of the motor has the usual bolt ons. This was the first time that Ive ever built a bottom end, and being that I just did a cheap stockish rebuild, now was the time to learn. I busted out the Haynes manual, and with some extra hands from my buddy Russ (Tangerine 96), we got it handled. Car put down 325rwhp/325rwtq on 93 octane:

Heres the motor right after getting it home:

Tearing it down....lots of nastyness:

Block back from machining and painted:

Crank in:

Rods and pistons in:

Windage tray and pick up in:

Oil pan on:

Heads and cams installed:

Rest of the motor buttoned up:

Next up was plating and welding the torque boxes. I tore the interior out just to be safe, and took the rear end out so I had more room to work.

Interior is ripped out:

Torque boxes plated, bolted, and welded up:

03DSGGT · Jan 6, 2013

Since the rear end was out, I figured Id give it a good freshening. I started by cutting off and smoothing where the quad shock brackets were, then I took the housing down to bare metal, priming, and painting it. Specs of the rear end are FRPP 31 spline carrier with extra clutches, 31 spline Strange axles witn no ABS rings and Moroso 3" screw in wheel studs, FRPP 4.30 gears, Trick Flow girdle, CHE extreme axle brace, and Baseline Suspensions upper control arm relocation kit.

Here it is just pulled out and the quad shock mounts removed:

All primed and painted:

All back inthe car:

And here is the roll cage installed. Its a Maximum Motorsports 6 point with swing out door bars. I didnt take any pics of the install process because it was very frustrating, especially doing it alone, but here is what it looks like installed. I painted it with factory interior paint from Latemodel Resto. The pics make it look a little different in color, but the color is dead nuts to the rest of the interior.