buying a 98 v6

[87 heartbreaker]

o.k. my buddies buying a 98 v6. He loves the mustang world, but lil too short on gas money to fully dig it
he and I would like to know what are some good ways to increase some ponies outta that 3.8, i know cold air, and exhaust but i'd like to know some good brands. Also some do it yourself tips would be nice.....thanks for you time =) p.s. whats the scoop on turbonator, i see it everywhere but here nothin but bad news, i'd like to hear it from other mustang guys though.

[84LX89GT]

The turbonator is a gimmick, it's more of an intake restriction than anything else. Every vehicle has built into the design sufficient intake swirl/turbulance and tumble and then to top it off with closed chamber heads (like 3.8L) there's the squish/quench area of the cylinder head - in other words it's excess. In the mid 80's early 90's ford designed the Ford Tempo with a 2.3L HSC engine (High Swirl Combustion) what they found was through having a cylinder head designed for high swirl it would actually swirl the air/fuel too much causing fuel to seperate from the air and sticking to the cylinder walls and causing a lack of power/gas mileage especially at higher rpm. the HSC engine didn't get any better mileage or power than any other 2.3L engine.

As for performance, how in depth are you talking? You can buy flow balanced/ported heads that make a huge power increase, ported intakes, Split port conversion kits ('99+ style 3.8L engines had something like 50 more horsepower). light duty (F-150) trucks had 4.2L engines (stroked 3.8L).

To start off, if i was your buddy i would buy a '99 mustang since they have 50 more horsepower to start with and aren't that much more expensive. But, for my money (best bang for the buck) these are the things that i would do in order:
1. Install a rear sway bar. I'm not sure if the '94 up V6's have sway bars or not (i forget) but if it doesn't it is one of the single best improvements you can make to handling/braking and acceleration because it helps plant both rear tires.
2. 3.73:1 or 4.10:1 gears with a limited slip differential/locker. 3.8L mustangs came with a 7.5" rear axle instead of the GT's 8.8" rear axle. If he doesn't have money for limited slip/locker even just the gears would make a HUGE difference in acceleration although traction becomes a problem with the increased torque multiplication.
3. cold air intake kit that has the filter located in the fenderwell, or at the very least take the intake silencer off the air cleaner housing (unbolt and remove filter housing and take off the rubber piece that necks down inside the fenderwell)
4. convert to dual exhaust. There are kits that include hangers and allow you to either use stock GT exhaust or you can buy a full dual exhaust kit for a V6. For loud/raspy you can get flowmaster 2 chamber or for deeper tone MAC, but there's a ton of choices out there. If you get a V6 h-pipe i believe it will allow you to mount any GT cat-back exhaust system you want to it.
5. Nitrous Oxide - cheap, easy to use and for a very small investment 50-150 horsepower at the touch of a button. Unfortunately the bottle eventually goes empty and 3.8's aren't known for their ability to seal high cylinder pressure.

--To be completely honest, '94-'98 V6 mustangs are 17 second cars and are notorious for blowing head gaskets. The '99+ V6's seemed to have had fixed the head gasket problem and make 50 more horsepower. If he does buy the car his money would be better spent on suspension/wheels tires and making it look nice because there aren't many real sports cars a V6 mustang is going to keep up with without some serious $$$ invested.

Good luck with your friend's stang, i hope some of this helped.

[87 heartbreaker]

wow, thank you, i never thoght i'd get such a thorough reply, yes he is gettin this stang for 3 Gs from his uncle, so hes stuck on it, i totally would agree to go with a 99+ or even a gt in other cases, but sounds liuke hes stuck on low spendig amounts, so i will let him know about intake and exhaust, and even gears, ..... i didnt know 3.8s had 7.5, my 93' 2.3l ranger has 7.5, i was gonna drop my extra 5.0 ho in it but too much work for me right now, so i just bought a 87' GT....im partial to foxbody anyway, thank you though

[84LX89GT]

That's cool, my first GT was an '89, hence the name - i love fox bodies way too much
Dropping a 302 in a ranger is a cool idea. I had a friend who moved to denver who put a 302 into his early 90's extended cab 2wd ranger and apparently it could spin the tires at 60mph (he put alot of money into the engine/trans). I'm glad you found my post useful.

[GodStang]

My first car was a 94 V6 and I had many mods on it. Another thing to look at is underdrive pullies. Also the sway bar might not be that important because the V6 did not have Posi-traction. Only the rear back tire spins. Dual exhaust was my fav upgrade. I did a MAC h-pipe and 2.5" 2 chamber flowmasters. It sounded decent. Also if he has a manual look into a short throwshifter. He could also add a Vortech later on down the road.

[84LX89GT]

Originally Posted by GodStang

Also the sway bar might not be that important because the V6 did not have Posi-traction. Only the rear back tire spins.

Going around corners the opposite rear corner lifts and the car leans ALOT more without a rear sway bar. Just adding a rear sway bar to an '83 zephyr alone made the car handle outstanding and people i let drive it told me how sporty it handled. Try removing the rear sway bar on your cobra and drive enthusiastically around corners.....it's almost scary in comparison