$800 Mustang + $6K in Parts = An HPDE Weapon You Can Daily

NASA was one of the first groups to organize an HPDE program way back in 1991. Today people all over the country get to enjoy driving their cars at speed on the best tracks in the country, thanks to NASA. For most of us, we are always looking for ways to go as fast as possible for as little as possible. This fine balance between speed and money is always the fight within most drivers. In reality, even if you can afford a $100,000 car, you probably wish that you could afford a $200,000 car!

I think one of the best platforms available today is the S197 Ford Mustang, produced between 2005 and 2014, which is the basis for Spec Iron, but the early 2005 to 2010 models are the real affordable cars we are focusing on.

And if you choose to race one, Ford Performance has a nifty contingency program for NASA drivers.

These cars came with a much improved chassis and suspension, although a live axle still remains. Many say that the live axle is ancient and they would rather drive a BMW. Yes, of course an independent suspension is better, but the live axle works surprisingly well and is rock solid and durable. The GT version comes with a 300 hp 4.6-liter V8 that sounds great, provides more than enough power to get your juices flowing and most importantly is reliable. These engines go for over 300k miles easily with just routine maintenance.

If you are used to working on European cars, working on the Mustang is such a breath of fresh air. Everything is easy to get to and there is plenty of room. There is no Valvetronic exhaust or DISA valve or any of that nonsense that causes you to pull your hair out. And because the cars are simple, most examples you see for sale do not have check engine lights on. Amazing!

The downside to working on these cars is that unlike a Honda, where everything is a 10, 12, 14, 17 or 19, Ford likes to use a random bolt head sizes for everything. You will need everything from 7 mm all the way up. I didn’t even know that there was a 5.5 mm size, fortunately I had a socket in that size.

You can find these Mustangs for under $5,000 easily. Base cars had a 210-horsepower V6, which is not bad, but the GT with 300 horsepower is much nicer and sounds like a proper track car with the right exhaust.

Late one night, we wondered aloud, as if to challenge ourselves: Can we build a reasonably fast street legal track car that can lap around Spec Miata times for under $10,000? We went hunting for a Mustang and our Craigslist search landed us on a slightly crashed 2007 Mustang GT for $1,500 with 150k miles.

The seller said the car was parked on the street by his house and a car that was running away from police ran into it. The damage was cosmetic and had not bent the suspension or the frame, so we struck a deal to purchase the car for $800.

To register the car in California, it cannot have any codes, and our car was good and easily passed inspection. The engine ran great and felt strong, but the suspension was a different story. There was so much play in the suspension that it was scary at 40 mph. But we knew that a 150k mile used car will need new bits anyway so that was not a big concern.

We took to the car a friend who had body shop experience and he quickly fixed the existing sheet metal. A new tail light and bumper cover from Amazon and the car looked great as long as you didn’t get too close. We love Orafol wraps, and since the car was white, it was easy to cover the repaired area with some Orafol 970RA wra. Suddenly the car looked respectable.

The suspension needed a major overhaul. There was a ton of play everywhere, with bad ball joints, bushings, dampers, etc. The great thing about cars like this Mustang is that there are lots of specialists out there than can help you. We did some research and the name Steeda kept popping up. The company specializes in fast Fords and they race some wicked Mustangs in NASA, so it was a natural fit.

They recommended their entry level dampers. They are affordable at $500 for the entire set, and are firmer than the original dampers that came from the factory. They recommended pairing them with their lowering springs, which cost about $400, are a bit stiffer, and lower the car by about an inch. The ability to get more negative camber is crucial so it was natural to go with their camber/caster plates.

Since all of the bushings and ball joints were bad, we went with a pair of Steeda front lower control arms. The new arms have extended ball joints that raise the front roll center, eliminating issues associated with lowering springs of 3/4″ drop or greater. This makes for a great improvement in handling by reducing body roll and improving the front tire contact patch without increasing spring rate or sway bar rate. The rubber bushings are slightly firmer than stock, but will not cause steering shudder common with polyurethane bushings that measure too high a durometer reading.

In the back, the rear trailing arms were replaced with Steeda chromoly ones that replace the cheap stamped steel original units. These super strong 4130 chromoly alloy arms reduce un-sprung weight, eliminate wheel hop, and are twice as strong yet are 6 pounds lighter.

We also went with the upper rear control arms that allow you to adjust your pinion angle and eliminate torque deflection associated with the factory piece. They claim that it will control axle windup, eliminate wheel hop under acceleration and allow for proper articulation without deflection for improved handling and corner stability. The final piece in the rear suspension was the adjustable panhard rod. It is 40 percent lighter than the factory piece and allows easy adjustments.

We also wanted to replace the anti-roll bars and Steeda has many to choose from. For the front, we chose the 1 3/8-inch adjustable bar and paired it with the 7/8-inch rear bar. We also used their billet end links to tie everything down.

Now that the suspension was apart, seemed like a good time to replace the wheel bearings with Timken units. We have been using their products for many years. They are OEM quality or better, and priced well. The fronts just bolt on but the rears involve taking the axle out.

Once the suspension was done, we found a set of used Konig Backbone wheels from one of our previous builds that turned out to fit just right. We needed new tires, and this is where things got interesting because there are so many choices. We wanted something that was suitable for track use but it also had to be affordable and long lasting even in street use.

Hankook’s Ventus RS4 seemed to be the right choice. It is an extreme summer performance 200 treadwear tire used in many endurance series but is perfectly fine to use on the street. We went with a 245/40ZR18 size which fit our 18 x 8 wheels perfectly.

The brakes also needed attention but fortunately the previous owner had done a lot of the work for us. We just replaced the pads with ceramic compound street pads and replaced the brake fluid. We did remove the backing plates to allow the rotors to get more air.

Amazingly enough, the engine was in great shape, so we didn’t need a lot of work here. The stock throttle body was sticky so we replaced it with a used junkyard unit. We were worried about keeping the water temperature under control so we bought a CSF aluminum radiator that bolts in and really improves things. We then changed the engine oil with RedLine 5W-20 synthetic. We love RedLine products so we also used their 75W-140 GL-5 differential oil, and D4 synthetic ATF for the transmission. Just to be safe, we added a serving of WaterWetter to the cooling system.

To the interior, the only addition was a ScanGauge 3, which is mandatory for almost any car. It can provide you with tons of gauges on a beautiful color display and you can program what you want to see. We chose to display six gauges and even set up alarms to warn us in case temperatures go above what we are comfortable with. Best of all, there is no wiring since it just plugs into the OBDII port.

After it was all over, we did an alignment and took the car to the track for a shakedown. The difference was unbelievable. The suspension felt like a track car. It was comfortable enough to drive on the street, but it felt solid and responsive at the track. We played around with the anti-roll bar settings and found that with the rear bar disconnected, the car was very comfortable to drive for beginners.

With 300 hp under foot, the Mustang is a quick car that deserves attention but with that configuration, it was a perfect beginner car that felt comfortable and not scary at all. We started playing around with a BMWW M2 on the track and the cheap Mustang with its improved suspension and tires was better in the slower corners. The BMW was better in braking and had more power in the straights but the Mustang’s superior grip coming out of the corners meant that there just wasn’t enough straightaway to make a solid pass. That felt like a victory. Of course, the M2 is much better, but considering its price tag of over $60,000, we were giggling with excitement.

So how much did we spend? The bodywork was the only thing that was outsourced. We had to spend a bit more to fix some broken items on the car but our total came out to around $6,200. If you include the $800 purchase price, we are still way under our budget of $10k, having spent less than $7,000. That is a crazy deal for a super fun car that you can drive to the grocery store and go play around on the track with. It is reliable, fun and even burns 87 octane fuel.

What would we do in the future? The brakes worked well and put up with our abuse. The engine was rock solid, but the only issue we found was that the water temperature was marginal even on a cool day. Had it been a 100-degree day, it would have been trouble. So, we need more upgrades to the cooling system.

The Hankook tires were fantastic and provided lots of grip and showed no wear after a day of driving, and the Steeda suspension was magic. If you want to build your own Mustang, you can easily copy our formula. Steeda has much better options depending on your budget and the same applies to the Hankook tires and many other parts.

Not a bad start for a donor car that cost just $800.