For the past few days I've been immersing myself in other members build threads. Page after page of incredibly hard work and great ideas coming to life. While this has been extremely helpful to motivate and inspire my own build, it's also got me completely frustrated. How in the world am I even going to come close to the absolutely amazing foxes on here. I don't need to name names, but we can all think of a few cars on here that are leaps and bounds ahead of other cars. So how do I make my car nice enough so that I won't be embarrassed parking next to them!? Seeing all the money that is spent on here makes my head spin. To say I'm jealous is an understatement. I know this isn't a contest, but who doesn't want their car to be the nicest.
I thought I had a vision for my car and then I see someone else's car and it clouds mine and makes me want to start over again. This has been a long and drawn out process already, and I don't want to drag it out another 10 years, but I want to do everything right while the car is this far apart. I have a problem with things snowballing out of control. I was looking at rotisseries last night and feel like if I've gone this far, I should just flip the car on it side and take it to the next level. I should have had this thing together years ago, but my desire to make it perfect is holding me back. I'm having a hard time prioritizing what will make me truly happy with my car too. I drool over smooth engine bays and show quality paint jobs and then I'm convinced I need to blow the budget on paint. And then I see a 9 second streetable fox and I'm convinced I need to buy a Dart block and just run the car in primer or plastidip. I've changed my mind so many times that it's getting ridiculous. How do you guys come up with a plan and stick to it? How do you prioritize what will make you happy?
This project has been going on for so long that I've already bought and sold enough parts to build another whole mustang. The project started in FL, so I had plans for a carb, off road exhaust, and weld rodlites. More of a drag car since you can get away without emissions checks in FL. Then I moved to NC and realized that I couldn't get away with running that setup on the street. Well, I probably could but it would stress me out every year at inspection time. So then I realized I had to go EFI and started selling my carb parts. Realizing it would take $$$ to upgrade my stock EFI system, I started looking at the Holley Terminator EFI. I can keep the 4150 manifold and just swap fuel pumps. This seemed like a better plan than trying to upgrade the EEC-IV system piece by piece and would allow me more room to grow and better tuning capabilities.
For the rest of the engine, I started with plans for a quick hone on my 90k mile block(excellent condition) and dropping in standard bore Probe dome pistons (+8cc). I picked them up for under $200 when they were liquidating stock after closing last year. I also prematurely bought a set of 11R 205cc 56cc comp ported heads when I found a local deal I couldn't pass up. I'm not going to get into the big head/small cube conversation again, I'm keeping the heads to grow into eventually. I don't know my piston to deck clearance, but the rest of the compression calculations say I'll be around 11.4 to 1. Is that too much for pump gas on the street? Putting together an engine using the stock crank again makes me a little sad though when a stroker can give you so much more power. Living in Nascar country, I'm a high RPM N/A kind of guy and I don't think the 50 oz crank will be happy at all over 6k rpm, but I can't really speak from experience. So then these thoughts lead me to wanting a forged 347 rotating assembly that I can rev to the moon and take to my next build after I split the block, hopefully a Dart. Doing the high compression 302 is obviously cheaper than buying a stroker kit and having the block machined, but will I be happy with it? It could save me enough to afford the paint job I really want, but idk. Should I just slap the 302 together and see what happens? I don't have to make any hard decisions on the engine yet, but I have to keep moving on it so it will be ready to drop in when I need it.
So here's my major struggle right now, do I get a quality paint job now or just start to slap it back together and start driving the damn thing? My heart tells me I want to paint it now, but I'm not sure my wallet agrees. What does the average paint job cost? $3-5k? I've convinced myself I need to keep it the factory color, Reef Blue, so I know that will probably be a little more pricey. Can I get away with spraying the door jambs and windshield channels the factory color while it's apart now and then paint the rest later? Do those areas usually get clear coated? I really want a shaved bay too. The work is definitely worth the reward when you pop the hood your jaw drops. Can you paint different parts of the car at different times? Or is that just asking for trouble? I know you can get away with doing solid colors that way, but I think the Reef Blue has some flake in it too. Or just smooth the bay now and primer it and paint the whole car at once later? I like how Scott painted his car piece by piece but I don't know if that would work with a color. I'm sorry, all over the place....
If you made it this far, thanks for listening. Sometimes it just helps to talk it through out loud. I'm really terrible at planning and I keep changing my damn mind. I need to just come up with a plan and stick to it. I keep making my list longer and longer when it should be getting shorter at this point. I feel a little better knowing that I have to be going downhill soon, because there isn't much else I can possibly take off the car. So the next steps have to be putting it back together, right? This is getting overwhelming to say the least. I know everyone just wants to see pics and shiny stuff, but I'd love to hear how you struggle with you projects too. Let's support each other in this maddening and expensive hobby. Is it 5pm yet, I need a beer...
