Project '96 AKA White Lightning!

[whitelightning]

Here is My 1996 Mustang GT.
If you want to know a bit about the car be sure to check out my Intro thread.

Day One

This is the first pic I got in an email from the person I have deemed project Manager. I work a lot so most of the time the crappy photography isnt mine. please excuse

-Exterior

This Last one is after i Got it to my house and was actually home to start tuning it up.

Thats all the exterior photos I can post for now...I gotta get back to work and dont have time to post anymore right now but I got about 60 more photos of my progress so far and I will post as soon as I can.....(and when my droid has 3/4G haha.

 

[whitelightning]

So I wanted to go ahead and post just a tad bit more.....

Here is some interior and Engine shots.

-Interior

And obviously this is the trunk.

I'll Upload some Engine Pics the Next Round.

 

[whitelightning]

Here is a couple of engine shots before I did anything to it.

Yeah...not me taking the pics. Sorry. Im gone at work alot and I have to rely on others to take pics. >=/

So Finally I make it home and.......

A Quick Stop To Auto Zone and To GTR High Performance

Yeah This junk was toast....I dont need it anyway so it came off.

After a Full Tune Up Came a couple of performance parts C&L upper Intake Plenum and Mac Straight Shot CAI.

So aside from my Strut tower brace going back on, here was the final of the new parts that I put on.

I also had a CEL that I had to take care of so I got new Vac lines, FPR, Took off that fuel pressure gauge, new O2 sensors, new plugs n wires, and new IAC. I dont really have pics of all that being done but it was done.

 

[Ferocious]

I have that same steering wheel cover lol. I love it.

 

[whitelightning]

That was the first thing to come off. Haha

 

[whitelightning]

So I got home and have time to post more pics of my progress.
Here we are >>>

So I got bored one night and had some LED bulbs laying around so I decided to go and cleanup the dash a bit. Living in the desert we got a ton of dust n dirt and unless you park your car in the garage it eventually fills up your ride. the previous owner kept it outside and also smoked so there was a combo of dirt, dust and ashes throughout the car.

Here is a shot of the Gauge Cluster Before I cleaned it up.

I took everything apart and cleaned everything up as well as replace the gears inside the cluster.

And Here is the result

I replaced the Incandescent bulbs with Super White LED's so i got a cool blue color on my dash now.

I think they turned out really nice and am very happy with them.

 

[whitelightning]

So, a night of fun turned into a night of trying to find little asian people to drive me home.
haha, my mechanism broke on my driver seat and it broke all the way slid forward.

so I went to craigslist and scored a deal. I found a guy who lived nearby that was selling a full v6 seat set (front and back) for a few bux. I wound up getting the whole thing for $150 which is not bad at all.

here is the pics of the seats I got. They are gray but I am getting a custom upholstery in a few months.

The Drivers seat has a small tear on it but its cool i just need something to keep my a** in the car and driving. haha

 

[greenscobie86]

Great progress! Keep up the good work.

 

[whitelightning]

When I bought the car it had 4 blown speakers with the rears not even connected....and the head unit was a crap-tacular jensen with so much usage that the faceplate's buttons were rubbed/worn off. Me being as heavy into music as I am said F* this, I need a new stereo stat!
I went to my local overpriced audio store and picked up 2 sets of memphis audio 5x7's and a sony headunit with ipod connection.

that night I put in the stereo. Sorry the only pics I got are after its done. I am a really meticulous person and like to do things right so I totally redid the wires, soldered, heat shrinked and wrapped the wiring harness so its looks better than factory back there.

so I went to a house party with a friend and wound up staying up allllllllll night and in the morning I gave my friend a ride home. He asked about the car because he didnt know I had bought it and he wanted to know what I was going to do to it. I told him about my plans and then told him I had some speakers to put it so he said "well lets handle it" so we pulled up to his house and began tear down.

we replaced all 4 speakers with Memphis Audio 5x7's

upon teardown we found that the front door panel clips and back plastics were broken and there was blocks of wood holding things in place.

I began to search Craigslist for some new door panels.........all i can say is wow!........Finding all black door panels for an sn95 is a PITA!

But! Here is what I found on CL and for not a bad price of $50 for both either. they are from a '98 GT.

I DID CLEAN THEM UP A BIT BEFORE THIS PIC CUZ THEY WERE DIRTY AS HELL!

This is the second one and as you can see it has some junk on it as well. but I got that handled.

Cleaned up these panels really nicely. I used Meguiars interior clean and shine soaked them in that stuff and let em sit over night. did wonders.

 

[whitelightning]

Just a small update. Originally I was not going to put a system in my Stang but I said "why not" so i got these in the mail shortly after I put the stereo in the car.

Here is what I got in the mail. BTW anyone wanting stereo equipment...EBAY is the place to go. As I said in the previous posts my local audio shop is way overpriced. these products at that place would have been around $1200 Dollars. Ebay gave me the price of $700 and its all brand new, and from authorized retailers so i still get full warranty.
The 700 is a 11ZX650.4, its a 4 channel amp, 700 is the RMS power.
The 1216 is a 11zx1000.1 its a mono amp, 1216 is the RMS power.

I also have 2 Kicker subwoofers: 07 CVR 12 2's they are 2 ohm DVC's. those are what take the load of the 1216 watt amp.
I am currently working on getting 2 sets of Kicker 09QS65.2 component systems. local audio shop wants $600+ a pair and ebay wants around $300.00 so when i got the dough I'll pick em up.

 

[whitelightning]

Got bored one day and decide that the black, baked on brake dust needed to go.

afterward this was the result

 

[whitelightning]

Decided to spend some money.....

So.....300 lbs of parts came in like 15 boxes.

 

[whitelightning]

New headlights and foggies.

 

[whitelightning]

Here are the rims i got. 17x9's

and some of the other stuff...

 

[US Soldier(stang 98)]

cant wait to see what its going to look like after everything is put on

 

[whitelightning]

I have plenty more pics..just really sh*tty signal right now. All the stuff is on and the car is currently in for paint. I have a bit of photos on the paint as well. You can search my youtube channel for a bit more info. YouTube name is jessehughes88

 

[whitelightning]

So Here are the Pics from when my friend and I decided to get all the products I purchased from Americanmuscle onto the car.

We got the a** end of the car jacked up off the ground like 10 feet high haha just to get under there and get that new Eibach pro kit on.

We didnt get alot of in depth pics cuz we had alot of things to do and a really limited amount of time, but here are the old and new shox tho. I got the Tokicko HP series all around the car.

here is the old springs and isolators. definitely glad i got these all replaced.

After we got the Back end all done we wound up having some problems with the front end. I used no spring compressors b/c it wouldnt have helped anyway.
we noticed my ball joints were blown so those are definitely on the list of to do very soon. thats the next thing after it comes back from the shop.
I talked to Gonzalo at GTR in Rancho Cucamonga and he gave me some ideas of some other things I should to to my suspension as well. I told him I want a reliable and safe performance car and he totally understood and pointed me in the right direction.
We had to cut off the Front Struts as they were spinning and we couldnt get a grip on em. after some time we decided to take a grinder and cut em off so we could progress.
although I dont have pics of that I do have some of what the front end looks like all apart.

We had to move alot of stuff outta the way in order to put the springs and struts on. the springs were given some "persuasion" to get into place via my foot and alot of cussing haha.

 

[whitelightning]

So here is the Car after we got everything on and set properly. This was taken on March 26th. Im happy I took my time to drive it carefully and really feel the improvement in the suspension and ride quality cuz I havent driven her since. Lame.

 

[whitelightning]

Ight, I dropped off the car for paint in hopes that I get it back in time for Fabulous Fords but unfortunately that didnt happen. I was totally bummed cuz I wanted to do the GTR rollout and see the show but I guess I will go next year.

Here is the pics of the car in the shop.

Got that front end all taken off.

Heres the Deck Lid

And the underside of the hood.

 

[whitelightning]

here are some progress pics of the paint n body.