Well...I can say alot of things about having a 5.0 as your first car..As that is how it is with me. It was actually my friend who got me into mustangs. He owned an '89 4-banger, red, with a saleen spoiler, and 80k miles on it. Now, it wasn't that bad of a car, little rust here and there, Bando on both doors, and some other places and a crappy hatch. He actually got a deal for $250 for the saleen spoiler and the hatch with glass. Which actually is quite a deal considering the spoiler had the smallest chip in it, oh yeah..it was red and matched his car too..What luck eh? Well that was his first mustang, his dad was the same way about letting him get a 5.0. (He's driving a Conquest TSi now...but wants to get a 5.0 after I let him drive mine...I've brought him back to the dark side
). Well anyways, a year after he got his car....at 16..I ended up buying my pride and joy. It was April 5th 2000. I was 17 and was in love with mustangs, with pictures pasted all over my walls. My dad was pretty cool about me getting one. At the time we actually owned a '81 Vette that he let me drive every so often with him in the car. He let me tear it up sometimes, but I never went hard on it or did donuts or anything. I think that's why he was a little more confident about me purchasing a 5.0. (5100$ i paid for mine, with only 95k on it, and perfect condition, not much I can say about perfect anymore). Anyways, I even learned to drive Standard on my car..I had the worst time learning to get moving from a standstill....Stupid left foot. Anyways it was about 2 weeks after I got my car and I was handling it really good, clutch work and all. Now, I had never really screwed around with the car before and decided to when my friend bought his '88 Monte Carlo (stupid 305, always kicked the crap outa him...but now it's got a 400sb...$10k alone into engine work...JEESH!) To make this story shorter, we were in a parking lot eating lunch and decided to race each other. I had my other best friend in the car and Ryan had a friend in his Monte. Now..this is where I learned first hand, why I shouldn't of had a 5.0. Pulling out of the parking lanes, he gave it some gas and kicked the back end out a little on some dirt (he didn't have posi back then..and he had an auto and was shifting it manually) I didn't really think anything of it...and I was in 2nd gear pushing about 1300 rpms. Yeah..I was till sorta learning how to drive..so gimme a break
Anywho, i gave it about 1/2 throttle when I was turning, and It caught me by suprised. Nothing more then this I was moving sideways with my back end leading towards a light pole. Well I got my back end around, and then I was going sideways the other way with us going about 20 mph straight at this lightpole. I tried my hardest to counter steer which wasn't much use at that time on the dirt. Now that I think about it, i never really took my foot off the gas, I was more scared $hitless about going towards this pole. Anyways..about 6 feet from the pole my rear tires caught on some nice pavement...and it honest to god, with the angle I was going at and the way the wheel was cranked, it broke the front tires loose as well putting us into a 180* spin. We missed the light pole, were facing the other direction, and I stalled it. I was jsut happy that I was still alive. That's how I learned to be careful with what I do, unless I've already done something or driven something so light in the back. Oh yeah...my friend got hit in the forehead with a big rock the car kicked up when we were in the 180* spin. Honest to say, I'm suprised that I wasn't rapped around that light pole. I learned my lesson the scared $hitless way, let's hope you don't have the same experience.
Stick with a low powered engine if it's a mustang and ur first car.