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Double0fox's Mild Build Thread 2012 Mustang GT Build Thread Profile - S197 Mustangs

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I am a sucker for build threads, so thought I would finally start my own. My car hasn't even hit the track yet. I was going to have it's maiden trackday in 3 weeks, but I happened to fracture a rib at my last karting race, so that is out. So in the mean time I thought I would put a build thread together since Kart racing, and track driving is out of the question as of right now. Now I feel my "build" is pretty mild compared to some of you guys, but also it is a good spot to get some feedback/Ideas from some of you who have been there done that.....and broke alot of stuff along the way @captdistraction I am looking at you. Anyways I bought this 2012 GT last year in June, and it was supposed to be a fun daily at the time. 2012 GT Premium with 4500 miles on it, and 100% stock. I will admit, I was looking for Grabber Blue, but I could not find a manual, with low miles that fit the bill.
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Even while I was waiting to take the car home at the dealership, I was ordering parts.
SVE Drifts 19x9.5 (came with 18x8's with 235's)
285 19 Nitto 555 G2's
Steeda Sport Springs
Koni STR Shock & Struts
Cervinis Boss/California front lip/splitter
BMR Control Arms/Panhard Bar
RTR competition Axle Backs

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(I know a lot wrong with this picture. We all start somewhere)
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One thing I did do though was weight the car before I started modding.
This was completely stock with everything (floor mats/spare what not) in the car still with fuel exactly half way between 1/4, and 1/2 tank with me in the car. I weighed my self when I got home and was at 180 lbs. So about 3600 lbs even.

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One of the next things I had to change was the shifter. I really really do not like the stock shift linkage in this car. There are probably better things in life to biznitch about, but it needed to come out. So in went a MGW X-Spec Shifter. Around this time I bought:
BMR K-Member using the stock A-arms
BMR Relocation Brackets
BMR Strut Tower Brace
GT500 Strut Mounts
JLT Catch Can
Also grabbed some Blue coil cover (did I mention I like blue), and a Boss steering wheel.

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Out with the old:
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Once you have the MGW set it is soooooo much better, and what a piece it is. I am in the machining industry, and I say, it is well made! Plus it is so much more satisfying to shift this car now. Moving on to the K-member........What can I say, I kinda wish I had not even done this. I used to have a 2000 Mustang GT, and adding a aftermarket K-member was great on those cars. I will start off with the fact that I got sent the wrong K-member, and I did not notice till after it was already on the car for some time. I ordered the standard motor mount one, and I actually got the lowered mount version. I was getting ALOT of NVH in the car, but thought well it's probably from the poly mounts, so I didn't read into it to much. But after a month, or so I found out the oil pan was contacting the steering rack. I was able to shim/washer up the mounts so now it doesn't hit, but it was just frustrating. I would have went back to stock, but like a giant idiot, I tossed out the factory K-member before I realized what I was dealing with.

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While I had the K-member out I had to go ahead, and do headers while I was in there right? Well that's what I told my wife anyways. So the BBK long tubes, and catless X-pipe went in. And then I started it up, and holy hell it was LOUD. Like I wouldn't even dare go half throttle loud. I enjoy a louder car, but with the RTR Axlebacks it was super loud. I even ordered the catted x-pipe in hopes it would reign in the loudness, but no dice. At the time I was leaving my house for work at 3:30am, and I was sure I was going to be stabbed by my neighbors. I drove the car to work for 2 day, and threw the stock axle backs on just for life preservation. Although the stock axlebacks now made it too quiet, plus I had a rattle I was hearing coming somewhere from the exhaust (that I would later realize was caused by the pan to K-member clearance). So off came the long tubes for the time being. Yay.

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I am not going to lie, at this point I was like "leaving it like it is, and just going to drive it. No more mods.
 
So, at this point it I just have been dailying the car, it looks pretty good:
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But then it all goes down hill from there....
It is now winter time, and my kart racing is over for the year, and so I hit up the Ol' internet for my automotive fix while the weather sucks, and I stumble upon this forum called Trackmustangsonline. Oh ya, now I am reading all these build threads from ArizonaBoss, Captdistraction, ans spartan just to name a few, and the spark re-ignites. So I start kicking the idea around of just doing some HPDE days come spring time, so back to the garage. Almost right off the bat I find a set of Boss brake calipers from a forum member, and nab them up.

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So it was either Jan, or Feb, and I was on my way home from work when I was taking a off ramp and mid corner of the offramp something on the car broke, and made the car lurch over a few feet in the lane. Luckily I did not hit the divider wall, or anything else for that matter. Babied it home to find one of the strut ears had broken at one of the welds. Giving it a closer look, it looks like it wasn't fully welded like the other strut was. The car had never been in a accident, or really any hard driving. I had contacted Koni, and they asked if I wanted to send it in to have it looked at, but knowing that probably nothing would come of it I decided not too.

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I have used quite a bit of Koni products, and never had a problem, so it didn't make me think twice about ordering some "replacements" in the form of Koni Yellows.

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Apex3V

Heel-n-Toe Enthusiast
looks like a nice build so far, the strut issue looked kinda scary to me and definitely could have ended up worse. At this point in the build process I'd get on track and feel it out before taking it further. If you're itching to do something in your down time I would look into adding brake ducting for obvious reasons. Good luck on your recovery and I hope certain members don't spend all your money...
 
looks like a nice build so far, the strut issue looked kinda scary to me and definitely could have ended up worse. At this point in the build process I'd get on track and feel it out before taking it further. If you're itching to do something in your down time I would look into adding brake ducting for obvious reasons. Good luck on your recovery and I hope certain members don't spend all your money...

I should have wrote I have to catch the thread up to where I am currently at. It already has brake ducts on her(and more). I have been on track alot, just not in this car. And it's almost already too late on everyone on here spending my money.
 
Over the course of the winter I also started to notice a little bit of noise from the throw out bearing. Not bad, but enough for me to not want it to fail on me when I didn't want it to. So knowing that this car was probably going to see some abuse, and knowing the high RPM shifting problems the stock clutchs have, I decided to "do it all" while I was in there. So on the parts list this time was:
Spec Stage 2+ Clutch
Spec Billet Flywheel
All new bolts/hardware
New Ford Throwout bearing
SVE stainless clutch line (why not)
I also added a SVE clutch fluid reservoir
And while I had the car in the air I decided it was time to do the upper control arm, and mount.

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Should have dropped the exhaust, and drive shaft when I installed the MGW, so much more room to work. Dropping the trans on you own, on jack stands sucks.
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New HD pilot bearing.
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Also added a bump steer kit.

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It was around this time I was offered a new job. With this job I get a company car that I can use personally as well(awesome). So the Mustang started to sit. This is where I decided to make it pretty much a track car. Keeping it "streetable", but more track orientated. So thinking that way, I know i wanted to do a few things. Seats (the Mustangs I have owned all had the "park bench" seats), roll bar, harnesses. Smashing up the car would be one thing, but smashing me with it would be another. I also wanted to do a spring change. The Steeda sports did not feel good to me. Hard to explain, but just felt a little "bouncy", not confidence aspiring at all. Even with changing to the Koni Yellows, and trying different settings it felt the same. So out came the pocket book. And ordered:
Watson Racing Roll Bar
OMP HTR Driver seat
OMP TRS-E XL Passenger Seat
OMP Side Mounts
Planted Seat Mounts
Racequip Cam Lock Harnesses

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Before:
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After:
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Putting the roll bar in was "fun". Luckily I had both front seats out. I have no idea how anyone leaves the seats in while they do this. Took a few iterations of seat placement till I got it where I wanted it at. Then it was onto putting in some Maximum Motorsports road & track springs. I also installed some MM Caster Camber plates that I had bought a few months earlier as well.

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The bounce that I was feeling with the Steeda's was gone. The MM springs although rougher (obviously with the increased spring rate) felt more predictable, much better.
 
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I really wasn't trying to go overboard on parts before it hit the track, but I am way past being totally guilty of that already. I did order a few more things that I had already had on the list before I was going to dedicate it to track car status, and some that were a must for track work.
BMR radiator support
Whiteline front sway bar, with end links
Blowfish Racing brake ducts
Blowfish Racing front tow bracket
SVE Saleen front grill (honestly ordered it for looks originally, but it will probably flow more air to the radiator at the track, so win win!)

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I had to do a little modifying for the brake duct hoses. Removed some of the plastic fins that protrude up from the lower cover, moved the horn up a bit, but otherwise not too bad.

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So almost getting caught up to where I am currently at. I had a local Mustang show close to me. And while I don't do "shows" cause I am not really a park it, and clean it guy, I went to look at other Mustangs. Hoping I would run into other track driven Mustangs(good luck with that right). I did get to drool over a 26 mile 2000 Cobra R(on my list to have one of these days). So all was not lost for that day. And I got a couple "current" shots of my car.

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2000 R
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Then the next weekend out while doing below, I had a fellow racer come in hot into what is pretty much a hairpin, and go front tire to my rear tire, and his front kart bumper ended up in the rib section of my seat. Luckily (if you call it that) I only fractured one rib(wearing a rib protector also), but that killed my maiden date for getting the Mustang to the track, and will have me missing at least 2 kart races.

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While all that was going on though I ordered everything to run a Peterson catch can/Breather to take place of the V3 JLT can. I was worried about the JLT filling up after seeing a lot of stories of that happening.

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ChrisM

Mostly harmless.
1,180
1,419
Exp. Type
HPDE
Exp. Level
3-5 Years
South Carolina
Car looks sick.

It's funny because if I hadn't gone to a random car show, I'm not so sure I'd have gotten as involved in the hobby as I did, first in California and then in New England. They're dull as hell until the random track guy shows up and starts fishing for newbies to hook them into going to track days.
 
Car looks sick.

It's funny because if I hadn't gone to a random car show, I'm not so sure I'd have gotten as involved in the hobby as I did, first in California and then in New England. They're dull as hell until the random track guy shows up and starts fishing for newbies to hook them into going to track days.

It's funny for me. I grew up in a very small town, with absolutly no car "scene". No one in my family cares about cars in more than a get me from point A to B mentality. I don't know where it came from. I don't want to hate on some of the people at the show, cause everyone involved in the automotive hobby is different, but the guy next to me with a 2017 GT was adamant his car was up 50hp from the "cold" air kit he(a local shop) put on. Like I said, not to hate, but it's hard to strike up a conversation with someone like that when they think if you have some negative camber on your car, that your suspension is "messed up" .
 
TMO members love good build threads too and this is a good one!
 

Grant 302

basic and well known psychic
I hate that reputation. Makes it very difficult to find a way back into the sport.

It's the highest honor. Somebody had to take over for Gary. ;)

Might not be helping yourself with this under your avatar:
"I am the breaker of things"
:p:D

I was thinking of suggesting your car be on the next TMO shirt...now is as good time as any. I like the shot that was used for the BMR banner ad.
 
Awesome build thread.

I hate that reputation. Makes it very difficult to find a way back into the sport.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sorry, I don't mean it derogatory. Quite the opposite in fact. I just always think about your build/racing thread. I think it was the first ones I read through on here when I first signed up. And by no means do I think things broke because of you. I was just saying that it's good to talk to people with experience. Who have done, or seen.
 

captdistraction

GrumpyRacer
1,954
1,698
Phoenix, Az
Sorry, I don't mean it derogatory. Quite the opposite in fact. I just always think about your build/racing thread. I think it was the first ones I read through on here when I first signed up. And by no means do I think things broke because of you. I was just saying that it's good to talk to people with experience. Who have done, or seen.

No worries, I totally understood and no offense taken. I'm just griping (my current favorite pastime) because I really do hate that reputation as it follows me wherever I go for better or worse. I have been on a long break and the longer I am away from it the harder it is to get back in the mix. I wish I could reinvent the effort and shed the dead weight.

That said, sage advice from me: don't cheap out where you suspect you may have to do things twice (or thrice, or 7 times in my case).
 

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