zuritausmc
I love Red Bull
This thread is to document the life and mods of my car, the Yellow Jacket.
Its a 2006 Mustang GT,automatic. My wife came up with the name since everyone calls it bumblebee. And since we all know a Mustang spanks the Camaro, Yellow Jacket came too mind
I bought the car in 2009 while I was deployed in Iraq. I flew my wife down to Florida to pick it up.
The only mods at the time were the black racing stripes, Roush Wing, Bullit rims and lowering springs. Before I even left Iraq, I bought a Saleen supercharger for it.
My wife and the car
Withing the first few weeks of being home, the supercharger was installed and ready for my cross country trip. This build consisted of the supercharger, 60lb injectors, saleen extreme intake, autometer cobalt digital gauges and SOS gauge pod, gt500 fuel pumps and SLP loud mouth exhaust. When I reached California, I finally got a dyno tune and was at 415 rwhp.
At that point, I got bit by the bug. I needed more power and I was dying to go down the 1320. I started on my suspension. All BMR products. The first things were lower control arms to eliminate wheel hop. Then an aluminum driveshaft, BMR upper control arms, front sway bar delete/lightweight radiator support, cobra jet drag racing springs and strang adjustable rear shocks. My first outing at the strip was a failure on stock tires. I didn't know what I was doing so and was spinning everywhere. After one pass I called it quits.
My next mod was a set of BBK longtube headers and offroad x pipe. The exhaust combo was waaay too loud. I ended up trading my SLP exhaust for Magnaflows. I got my hands on some bogarts and MT slicks, switched my gears from 3.31 to 4.10s. My dyno was 440 but I couldn't break into 11s at the track to save my life. My best time being 12.007.
12.007
I also had the a problem with american muscle so I ended up getting some hot rod cams from them for quite a deal. These were by far my favorite mod. After tuning, the car made an impressive 495 rwhp thru the stock motor and trans. I also added a 2 step to make it easier for me to launch. I finally broke into the 11s with an 11.999 but obviously there was more behind it. A couple months later I ran 11.658 which is my fastest time to date.
I got a screaming deal on a whipple and I ended up switching out the saleen. I also picked up a ptc 2800 stall converter to lower my times even more. Sadly, I never made it to the track with this combo. I had bought a forum members car with a built motor, custom 3.4 whipple and a built 4r70w. The plan was to swap it in to the yellow jacket and resell the red mustang. Again, this never happened.
Thru a series of misfortunate events, my mother in law coming down with cancer and myself paying medical bills, and the fact that I had to fund the move for my wife to move across country, I ended up selling both the superchargers, the built motor and most of my other stuff. It sucked but family comes first and id do it all over again if I had to.
For now, the only mods on the car are the exhaust, headers, cams, all the suspension work, stall converter and 4.10s. I also picked up a jlt intake and made my own delete plates since Im NA now and I have no idea on how much power she's making.
Now that things have settled down a bit, its time for a rebuild. I debated doing a 5.4 swap just because but I wasn't set in stone until I found myself a gt500 short block. I scored it for $750. The original owner said he blew a head gasket and his tuner pulled the motor and says he needs new rings. The block looks in great shape and the cylinders still show some crosshatch marks. So my plans are to take the block apart, inspect it, take it to a machine shop and see if it needs to be bored or if I can just get away with a nice hone, replace the rings and put the stock pistons in it. Gt500 blocks hold 650ish hp easily in stock form so I have no intent on changing the rods etc. I may upgrade if I find some good deals. Pics of the block are below. The biggest thing in my eyes are to make sure the hot rod cams wont be a factor with the pistons since there are no reliefs in the 4v pistons. I also picked up a custom manifold from a member here for $330. I believe it was a roush supercharger manifold for a 5.4 3v and a custom made upper. Its not beautiful but it works and he was making 1200hp thru it. At this point im just kind of winging the build. Since the bottom end is forged I've been debating on a turbo(s). Twins are expensive so that's kind of shying me away from it. Im thinking of a 76mm and will make some money back selling the headers, intake and delete plates. This will also be the first motor I build myslef. I've given helping hand doing one before. I also do all my own installs, learning as I go. The work doesn't look too hard, just time consuming. I also got my 5.4 3v timing cover this weekfor $50, 8 bolt flexplate $35 and picked up some stock heads $300 to make the transition easier. The first thing I need to do though like I said earlier is take the block apart and get it to a machine shop. I made this thread to document my progress, ask questions and get advice and also to hopefully encourage others who may be debating the same thing. So here we go. Wish me luck!
Its a 2006 Mustang GT,automatic. My wife came up with the name since everyone calls it bumblebee. And since we all know a Mustang spanks the Camaro, Yellow Jacket came too mind
I bought the car in 2009 while I was deployed in Iraq. I flew my wife down to Florida to pick it up.
The only mods at the time were the black racing stripes, Roush Wing, Bullit rims and lowering springs. Before I even left Iraq, I bought a Saleen supercharger for it.
My wife and the car
Withing the first few weeks of being home, the supercharger was installed and ready for my cross country trip. This build consisted of the supercharger, 60lb injectors, saleen extreme intake, autometer cobalt digital gauges and SOS gauge pod, gt500 fuel pumps and SLP loud mouth exhaust. When I reached California, I finally got a dyno tune and was at 415 rwhp.
At that point, I got bit by the bug. I needed more power and I was dying to go down the 1320. I started on my suspension. All BMR products. The first things were lower control arms to eliminate wheel hop. Then an aluminum driveshaft, BMR upper control arms, front sway bar delete/lightweight radiator support, cobra jet drag racing springs and strang adjustable rear shocks. My first outing at the strip was a failure on stock tires. I didn't know what I was doing so and was spinning everywhere. After one pass I called it quits.
My next mod was a set of BBK longtube headers and offroad x pipe. The exhaust combo was waaay too loud. I ended up trading my SLP exhaust for Magnaflows. I got my hands on some bogarts and MT slicks, switched my gears from 3.31 to 4.10s. My dyno was 440 but I couldn't break into 11s at the track to save my life. My best time being 12.007.
12.007
I also had the a problem with american muscle so I ended up getting some hot rod cams from them for quite a deal. These were by far my favorite mod. After tuning, the car made an impressive 495 rwhp thru the stock motor and trans. I also added a 2 step to make it easier for me to launch. I finally broke into the 11s with an 11.999 but obviously there was more behind it. A couple months later I ran 11.658 which is my fastest time to date.
I got a screaming deal on a whipple and I ended up switching out the saleen. I also picked up a ptc 2800 stall converter to lower my times even more. Sadly, I never made it to the track with this combo. I had bought a forum members car with a built motor, custom 3.4 whipple and a built 4r70w. The plan was to swap it in to the yellow jacket and resell the red mustang. Again, this never happened.
Thru a series of misfortunate events, my mother in law coming down with cancer and myself paying medical bills, and the fact that I had to fund the move for my wife to move across country, I ended up selling both the superchargers, the built motor and most of my other stuff. It sucked but family comes first and id do it all over again if I had to.
For now, the only mods on the car are the exhaust, headers, cams, all the suspension work, stall converter and 4.10s. I also picked up a jlt intake and made my own delete plates since Im NA now and I have no idea on how much power she's making.
Now that things have settled down a bit, its time for a rebuild. I debated doing a 5.4 swap just because but I wasn't set in stone until I found myself a gt500 short block. I scored it for $750. The original owner said he blew a head gasket and his tuner pulled the motor and says he needs new rings. The block looks in great shape and the cylinders still show some crosshatch marks. So my plans are to take the block apart, inspect it, take it to a machine shop and see if it needs to be bored or if I can just get away with a nice hone, replace the rings and put the stock pistons in it. Gt500 blocks hold 650ish hp easily in stock form so I have no intent on changing the rods etc. I may upgrade if I find some good deals. Pics of the block are below. The biggest thing in my eyes are to make sure the hot rod cams wont be a factor with the pistons since there are no reliefs in the 4v pistons. I also picked up a custom manifold from a member here for $330. I believe it was a roush supercharger manifold for a 5.4 3v and a custom made upper. Its not beautiful but it works and he was making 1200hp thru it. At this point im just kind of winging the build. Since the bottom end is forged I've been debating on a turbo(s). Twins are expensive so that's kind of shying me away from it. Im thinking of a 76mm and will make some money back selling the headers, intake and delete plates. This will also be the first motor I build myslef. I've given helping hand doing one before. I also do all my own installs, learning as I go. The work doesn't look too hard, just time consuming. I also got my 5.4 3v timing cover this weekfor $50, 8 bolt flexplate $35 and picked up some stock heads $300 to make the transition easier. The first thing I need to do though like I said earlier is take the block apart and get it to a machine shop. I made this thread to document my progress, ask questions and get advice and also to hopefully encourage others who may be debating the same thing. So here we go. Wish me luck!