Help me decide on what year mustang I want

[jmc01gt]

For simplicity I agree with everybody above, go 99-04.

The 94-95 5.0 cars have very sensitive computers and are not OBDII, so they are not as easy to tune even though they need it for some of the smallest mods. If Ford had put forged pistons in them I would say go 5.0, but 91 was the final year for those.

The 99-04 cars have a lot of improvements over the 96-98's, so I would just step into one of them...unless you go with a 96-98 Cobra as they can be had for the same price as a decent 99+ GT...then you have the bigger brakes and 4-valve heads.

There are so many great options, I hate that I can only choose one.

 

[fast97gt]

I went the 97gt route, and slapped in a 2005 pi motor in it. So I got the best of both worlds.

 

[Tripoli]

are you saying the 03-04 heads are better, less likely to blow out a spark plug?

Exactly. When I bought my Fox Lake Stage 2 heads, I paid the extra $100 for the 2003-2004 cores and ditched my 2002 cores. Having seen them side-by-side, I can tell you the spark plug threads are dramatically deeper.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

All 99-04 factory installed heads had 4 threads.

 

[Jceesmgt]

Whats the simplest supercharger set up to put on the 99-04 4.6Ls? The Kenne Bells? I mean whats bang for the buck and what else do you have to change for it to be non detrimental to the motor?

-JC

 

[32ValveRom]

You can make up to 550-600ish rwhp with an sq trim and supporting mods (ported heads, blower cams and 20# psi with full bolt-ons and maybe a meth kit and or intercooler). Plus the great thing about vortech is you can send your sq trim back to vortech along with 600$ and they will upgrade it to a T trim which is capable of 8-900rwhp...

Is this true for any scenario, say for example I buy a used kit online or buy a Vortech kit from a friend. They'll still upgrade it for that cheap?

Op, I say get a 95 with a 5.0 but I'm only saying that to stand out from everybody else's response. You can take 5.0 and stroke it, port the heads and intake and guess how many cams you'll need. Other than that I'd look at maybe a 96-99 Cobra with a Teksid. They come with over 300 hp at the crank as opposed to 210 in the 5.0s Really it all depends all on what you really want

 

[Tripoli]

All 99-04 factory installed heads had 4 threads.

I didn't actually count the threads on my new and old heads, but I sat them down side-by-side to compare them, and there's 50-100% more on my 2003-2004 heads as there were on my 2002 heads. It's a dramatic improvement. When I spoke to the guy at Fox Lake, he said the 2003-2004 heads had the deeper threads, and that he charged $100 more for those heads because of it. They're seasoned stock heads which they decked and ported. He said mine were off of a 2003 Mustang GT, specifically.