mark VIII? a fat fancy cobra?
 

my brother has a v8 t-bird thats a pretty nice car. i'd like to 'one -up ' him. [Don't all little brothers try?] . I cant afford a cobra but looking thru autotrader.com, I could afford a 32v 4.6l mark VIII.

1. Why? i mean they are selling whole cars for $4000 and $5000. you would think the lsc bucket seats, the motor, the tranny and the independent rear end would be worth all that by themselves. Arent hot rod guys and mustang guys picking these up for radical retrofits on older stangs?

2. What breaks on them? what are the high dollar repairs?

3. what years are better than others?

i'd like the 97 and up with the wicked neon tail light. but a cool tail light is a pretty goofy reason to buy a car.

93 Had a one piece driveshaft, all others have 2 piece and is known to vibrate. Door handles break a lot. I think in 94 or 95 they started the wood trim interior, made it look a little cleaner. I've thought about getting this car as well, the one I'm looking at now has a Bassani X-pipe, Cobra R's, TB, 3.73's and built trans for $8,500, doesn't seem like a bad deal at all. Just remember, these things are 5,000 lb sleds. A Cobra is lighter and has a slightly more agressive tune with better heads and intake. ~Brian

These cars were pretty hot when they first came out, I remember seeing one race a vette(vette won.. vette was sandbagging though). I believe they had a dohc 4.6 and had about 285hp. I don't know about 'hot rodders' buying them for retro projects, wouldn't surprise me. The price figures you quoted seem a deal to me. I'm willing to bet there is a web site out there exclusively for mark viii owners though. The mark vii was nice but the mark viii was a huge improvement in performance. I like a v8 t-bird but I'd have to say a mark viii is 'one upping' the bro just fine. Those cars were very expensive and everyone wanted one.

I just found this site, hope it helps.. http://lsc.netherealm.net/MK8diff.html

I've seen these things going cheap too. I had a buddy pay close to $40,000 for a new one.

As far as things breaking, I can tell you I've seen a few sitting around lop sided from leaking air bay suspension. I don't think it's really expesive to fix though.

they were only qupted with 225 or 250 bhp.

Keep in mind they DO NOT have forged internals. That's the big reason people aren't going crazy pulling these motors for Mustangs. You'd have to rebuild it, reflash the CPU, etc for good power. That's more expensive than its worth, when you figure you can get a crate 320 32v for $3k.

You must be thinking of a different car

I don't know about the internals but 280hp is more than what came in the mustang GTs. In a light car, 280hp would be awesome.. though I don't know how hard it would be to do.

I haven't priced the cobra engines in a while but last I checked they cost $6k+. Where did you see them for $3k?

I'll give you that one, I must have read my friends info wrong, here's the specs per C&D
http://caranddriver.radicalmedia.com...III_specs.html


I have a friend who bought one from Bishop Ford, located in FL (I think) and got it shipped to LA for a total cost of $3k. I'll ask him again if anyone is interested in that motor.

He ran high 12 w/stock gear, slicks and sups work. Blew up the t-45 though.