Kitsune
Junior Member
Hello, one and all, my name is Kitsune and I am a 19-year-old kid that does not know next to anything about mustangs or cars in general. So I am going to tell a story and see if any of your wonderful people could help me with my car. When I started my job a little under a year ago one of my friends sent me a message that he found a mustang that I was interested in for sale for cheap, It was in an accident and it was put back together and runs "mint" as he said. I went with my father who has been racing and has been working with cars for over 30 years to go and look at this car. When we arrived at the owner's house we went out back to look at the car. It was in pretty good condition and you honestly would not realize that it was in an accident if you weren't told. He told us that he drove it for a little over 3 years and the guy he bought it from owned it since it was new. Now back to the car, It is a silver 2006 Mustang GT. I knew the moment that I saw this car that I was going to buy it. We walked around it and of course, it had it few dents here and there on the car, but to me, it only seemed to add to the persona that I was building for this car. It was a fighter it got slugged around and it showed it but it made it out and it was still toughing it out. I bought it from the man for 4,750 bucks. It had 104k on the trip and had a rough ride to it. But honestly, I didn't care it was my first real purchase that I made as an adult and I was very proud of myself. So after bringing it home and giving it a proper first car giddy wash. I took it to the local farm and fleet and got new tires and well as getting it balanced, unfortunately, it didn't help the rough ride of the car. A little depressed I took it to the auto parts store to buy oil, filters, spark plugs, injector cleaner, just the usual car tuneup stuff. After my father gave it his own clean bill of health, we both went for a ride in it again down to my grandfather's house and he gave his own look around of the car and he came to the conclusion that it was most likely a bad wheel bearing that was making the ride rough. Taking his advice to heart and honestly putting new parts on the thing can't really make it worse(at least in my mind) we took off to the store and bought 2 new wheel bearings and returned to the shop. With me being the runner I watched as my father and grandfather took apart the wheel assemblies, and low and behold on the driver's side the wheel hub was broken and part of it fused to the spindle. After some cutting and a chisel and 5-pound hammer, it was off and the new parts were on and it now rides flawlessly. I then used it as my fun around car I went to the local race track and did a few passes which to my great surprise it ran stock at 14.13 at 97.83 mph. I was honestly kind of sad that it went under a hundred, but I still had a great time and an introduction to my own personal racing. It was completely different than watching my dad racing down the track. I kind of got hooked on it, I wanted to go faster and made a goal of going over a hundred in the stupid thing. I tossed the spare tire, tire changing kit, back seat, passenger seat. I even felt like an idiot for doing it but I bought a tuner and a cold air intake kit with my dad's and a friends advice. I installed both and headed to the track again. I was feeling good this time(to be honest I had worked for the last couple of weeks and was unable to test the car with everything I have done till that day I was worried and pumped for it). So I lined up and waited for the lights..........YELLOW........YELLOW........YELLOW........GREEN. I hit it as hard as I could and (at least to me took off like a missile and before I knew it I crossed the line. I made my fastest pass at a 13.662 at 101.09 mph. I was ecstatic and could honestly not be any happier with how it turned out.
Now I turn to my new problems, I had to get a helmet no real surprise I bought one from Summit and it all checks out with my track(for an FYI I race a Route 66 Speedway in Joliet Illinois). But I am not sure what I want to do with the car now, I had lots of fun with it and I would love to do more with it but with my limited knowledge as well as an unsure path on what to do with it I am finding it difficult to decide what I want to do with the car. It is not as if I overpaid for it or that I am in deep into the project. I have maybe 5,250 in the car without the cost of tires and other replaceable items i.e oil, filters, plugs. I know I could sell it and make money, but I do like the body style and the memories of the car too much to do that. In all honestly, I am looking for any ideas on what to do. My big idea would be to use it as a base to start my learning of cars by blowing the whole this apart piece by piece. But I am not sure what I would do after that. I am not sure of the engine's strengths what I could do to it to make it perform better. I would want to clean up and re-use anything that I could. I need Ideas on what to do to make 281 3v perform better. I am not completely incompetent, I know what heads, intake and such are for a vehicle but from what I seen anything that has to do with the mod ford motors is scare. If anyone could link me true information like a general rule of thumb for the engines would be very helpful i.e how much boost could a stock block take, should I worry about rebuilding the engine with forged parts or would the stock components be fine for low boost. Are the heads fine or are they restrictive to the rest of the engine?
I am so very sorry for this long winded message, I honestly just went back to re-read the whole thing that I have wrote and dam that is long. If you read all of it thank you very much and I apologise that I rambled at the end a lot. Really I like the car and the power it makes but I am looking for more without having to engine swap or blow up what I have. If I have to rebuild it would probs be a fun project with my father but I just don't want to kill what I have. Just throwing this out there I understand that adding power or doing most things to an engine means a shorter lifespan and I accept that I am just looking for knowledge on the engine platform and what is realistic of what the stock engine can do.
Ford Mustang 2006
Engine 4.6 281 3v
Now I turn to my new problems, I had to get a helmet no real surprise I bought one from Summit and it all checks out with my track(for an FYI I race a Route 66 Speedway in Joliet Illinois). But I am not sure what I want to do with the car now, I had lots of fun with it and I would love to do more with it but with my limited knowledge as well as an unsure path on what to do with it I am finding it difficult to decide what I want to do with the car. It is not as if I overpaid for it or that I am in deep into the project. I have maybe 5,250 in the car without the cost of tires and other replaceable items i.e oil, filters, plugs. I know I could sell it and make money, but I do like the body style and the memories of the car too much to do that. In all honestly, I am looking for any ideas on what to do. My big idea would be to use it as a base to start my learning of cars by blowing the whole this apart piece by piece. But I am not sure what I would do after that. I am not sure of the engine's strengths what I could do to it to make it perform better. I would want to clean up and re-use anything that I could. I need Ideas on what to do to make 281 3v perform better. I am not completely incompetent, I know what heads, intake and such are for a vehicle but from what I seen anything that has to do with the mod ford motors is scare. If anyone could link me true information like a general rule of thumb for the engines would be very helpful i.e how much boost could a stock block take, should I worry about rebuilding the engine with forged parts or would the stock components be fine for low boost. Are the heads fine or are they restrictive to the rest of the engine?
I am so very sorry for this long winded message, I honestly just went back to re-read the whole thing that I have wrote and dam that is long. If you read all of it thank you very much and I apologise that I rambled at the end a lot. Really I like the car and the power it makes but I am looking for more without having to engine swap or blow up what I have. If I have to rebuild it would probs be a fun project with my father but I just don't want to kill what I have. Just throwing this out there I understand that adding power or doing most things to an engine means a shorter lifespan and I accept that I am just looking for knowledge on the engine platform and what is realistic of what the stock engine can do.
Ford Mustang 2006
Engine 4.6 281 3v