To dump or not to dump....

Wud up guys? I am starting to want to change some things on my car. I have been thinking id really like to lose the gt rear bumper. Im really digging the 93 cobra bumper but I dont want my car to be a compete clone on the outside. Apparently the car had the bumper rims and emblems before I had bought it. wish it still had the wheels.... I definetaly dont want to put holes in the bumper so thats out. Mny have suggested I do that.. Anyone have any thoughts on an LX bumper on the rear of my car??

anyways a main reason for wanting a new rear bumper is so I can run pipes out of the rear of the car. These cars have always looked great with rear exhaust. Now from a performance aspect, in theort would it take away some of the torque and give a little more HP because of the increased back pressure? Im thinking it may only be noticable on the dyno. LOL...but id still know I had a loss instead of a gain.

BTW i have my eyes on a blower....wooo hooo

I'd say cobra bumper with a nice set of polished tail pipes like on the LX 5.0 I never cared for the dumps myself

The back pressure difference from dumps to full pipes out the back would be so minute I don't think you'd see a difference..maybe a little bit on very bottom.

Pipes out the back would be much better and cooler haha. Or you could do like I plan to do and have electric exhaust cutout in the x-pipe so I can switch it to wide open pipes when I want.

Yeah. I've seen that done. Honestly I loved my Fox's with O/R H-pipes and 2 1/2" flowmaster cat back system with American thunder mufflers. Also 1 5/8" equal length shorty headers.

it has an h pipe now with equal length shorties( cant find a brand anywhere) and flow 40's i think. car souds good but want that top end rasp.
I really want poished tips... would an lx bumper look weird??

and for lowering springs... some guy i have talked to jsut cut there stockers. they say the ride is still pretty good...but im just not sure if the ride will be what I want.
any suggestions on spring brand?

Are you looking for the top end rasp like a 4.6 has? And as far as springs please don't cut the stocker and go for the 'fake it till you make it' approach, I've heard a lot of good things about BBK's and you can get a good set of those for like 210 bucks from AM.com.

yah for sure not cutting them. and yes top end rasp.

I don't know of too many push rod 5.0s that have that top end rasp

If you switch to an X pipe you'll get more rasp. I'd do the FRPP or steeda springs for better ride quality. Also get a set of upper and lower control arms if u don't already have them.

As to the bumper if you like the LX it will look a little strange with the GT ground effects thus the cobra bumper. It's a combination of the two.

Yea i wouldnt cut the springs. Find a used set for cheap or buy new for peace of mind.

Like said before, get an xpipe if you want the rasp... And do pipes, ditch the dumps...

Ah good call on the control arms...down side to lowering your car is you change the geometry of the suspension and have to change a lot of other things with the car to get it to handle right.

A good start is with the rear end and getting control arms, preferably ones with spherical joints on the ends like these...



If you don't get the control arms the rear of the car will become unpredictable and loose traction very quickly. They do this because stock control arms get bound up because of the joints and will buckle and cause the rear end to shift and move.

You will also encounter a lot of under-steer with a lowered car. Correctly with Steeda X2 ball joints and bump steer kits.

True, true. I lowered mine almost 2" last winter, and am still trying to correct all the geometry. Balljoints and Bumpsteer are done, just need to get the control arms and she should be back to (better than) normal.

I personally wouldn't get the spherical ends unless your going all out race car. Otherwise you'll feel like your teeth are being jarred out. You can still get adjustable ones with a urethane bushing that won't be as harsh. Also if you do decide you do want the spherical ends you'll want to reinforce the torque boxes. The fox cars are notorious for breaking apart there if you run slicks. You could also do something like the "weight jacker" control arms. Honestly the rear isn't where most of the changes are needed. The front will need more adjustment for camber. You'll need at the very least some camber bolts to correct for the lowering, or a good set of caster camber plates. You may also need a bumpsteer kit to fix the location of the outer tie rod end. Steed sells a good kit for this.

David is correct on the spherical rod end. NVH will be really bad. It will be like driving a floor jack around...

As far as suspension... I've always liked Maximum Motorsport for fox body suspension. Well engineered and built stuff. It's more on the competition side but they have tons.

Spend much time on the floor jack Paul? LOL, I would compare it to driving a fork lift with solid tires, but to each his own...

Thanks for the info guys, When all this comes around I will be using control arms with bushings. I learned my lesson with my last car going through all of the suspension changes that were made.
Im only thinking of lowereing the car around 1.5 inches. not to much so but with the suspension setup on this car I can see it will get some camber gain that will need to be corrected.

Does anyone have any links they could throw up for some suspenion parrts?

How much camber is usually gained when jsut lowering one of these cars on stock suspension?

amentowasso wrote:Spend much time on the floor jack Paul? LOL, I would compare it to driving a fork lift with solid tires, but to each his own...

Yes I do. And that floor jack is still faster than your car! Zing!!!!!

Enough camber that it will wear the inside of the tires if not corrected. Not sure the exact amount.

That can tend to be quite alot most times. Thanks for the info guys. I got a great chance to see how bad the exhaust work had been done today when the car was on a lift having to repair a broken flange.....BOOOOOOO the pipe isnt even the same all he way back..lol I will be taking it in and having another H-pipe made and exhaust reworked sometime soon, now I just dont know if it will be worth it seeing as I am thinking of changing the way it is run anyways.

BTW if any of you guys have ANY fox body stuff laying around please let me know.

Here we have a 99 cobra tb and 99-04 converitible cover(the black peice that covers)

Or you could go crazy and get a Torque arm and pan hard bar like I have and get rid of your upper control arms and just have lowers :)

I've got some Maximum Motorsports caster camber plates off my old car I am trying to sell...I got a guy at work interested but I think he may fall through with the deal.

I've got an extra set of E7TE heads for $50 you could turn into a GT40 type head for cheap. Just do a mild port and gasket match and throw in a set if 1.9/1.6 valves. You can pick up around 30 horse give or take at the tires.

07Shelby500 wrote:I've got an extra set of E7TE heads for $50 you could turn into a GT40 type head for cheap. Just do a mild port and gasket match and throw in a set if 1.9/1.6 valves. You can pick up around 30 horse give or take at the tires.

I like this idea

Ive been looking into this setup and I m still trying to identify the heads on my car now. The only stamping that I see s far are the number 15&16...

have to pull the valve cover I believe.

Look for E7TE-AA markings on the head. Should between the valve springs.

At least then you will know if they are stock heads

So the e7's are the stock heads then?

07Shelby500 wrote:Yeah. I've seen that done. Honestly I loved my Fox's with O/R H-pipes and 2 1/2" flowmaster cat back system with American thunder mufflers. Also 1 5/8" equal length shorty headers.

That's what I had exactly on my old 91 coupe. here is a vid of me taking off.



In this second video I had a few mods and o/r X pipe.

He's alive!