2015DIBGT
Benjamin
- Thread starter
- #1
Hi All!
I WILL BE ADDING PHOTOS THROUGH THIS WRITEUP, IT WILL TAKE A LITTLE TIME TO FIND THEM ALL AND UPLOAD/LINK THEM. I HAVE ADDED A FEW FOR NOW.
It’s been a long time coming for this write-up to happen. Decided it was time to throw everything together for how this car has come together. It also looks like the time that I am toying with the idea of selling or trading in and upgrading but am still very much undecided right now. So, let’s start with a little back story.
Back in the fall of 2014 I was pursing the idea of purchasing a Focus ST with ST3 package and moon-roof with all the other small features included. I had gone around and test drove a few of them; I was pleased with it as it would be my daily driver. I had concluded that the ST3 was the best fit for me. I don’t normally shop around for the best price but my standard dealer didn’t have ST3’s in stock so I went elsewhere to look at them. Eventually I stopped at my usual dealer and sat down to discuss the opportunity of ordering one. He informed me that 2015’s were going to be coming out with a huge facelift and few convenience features like backup camera and little things. I decided to wait and see if would like the facelift before ordering. So a few months go by and I figured I’d take a look to see what the salesperson had to offer at this time.
I walked into the dealership on February 12th 2015. There was a white Focus ST (the color I wanted but only ST1) on the showroom floor. There was also a 2015 Mustang outside the main front door that I barely paid any attention to initially. The salesperson was a little busy when we arrived so I started looking around. Started walking the lot and not too much caught my attention besides the S550. Mind you, this is a super small village style dealership; we’ve bought about 15 cars from the salesperson so this is our go-to anyways. Got the keys to the Mustang and was told to take it for a test drive; this being the first one that this dealership got, I was slight taken aback being allowed to take it for a drive at 20 years old.
This car was a Deep Impact Blue 2015 GT Premium, Manual, Non-Performance Package, Non-50th Anniversary package car. It was loaded otherwise; adaptive cruise control, Voice Activated Navigation, and Reverse sensing. I quickly realized this was NOT what I was looking for. The 3.31’s felt extremely sluggish and unresponsive. Although I loved the features and everything else the car offered, I realized it was not what I was interested in purchasing.
Now on-to the important things when we returned to the dealership that everyone has been waiting for. The salesperson sat with us and discussed options about the ST and how I could order. We started processing that purchase/sale. He asked how I liked the mustang and gave my opinion on the options and the gripes that I had. He then handed me a booklet to read about the possible options. I instantly canceled the ST ordering and decided on getting the S550 but not the one that was on the lot. I was torn between three colors: Ruby Red, White, and Deep Impact Blue. This is what I ordered...
2015 Mustang GT Premium with 401A
-Deep Impact Blue
-Performance Package
-Voice Activated Nav.
-Reverse Sensing System
-Ebony Recaros
Essentially the car I ordered is fully loaded besides 50th Ann package and Adaptive Cruise control. Sticker price came to $44,100 and discussion about purchasing price came up. I was told 6-8 weeks until it would arrive. I accepted and put a deposit down that day. End price came to $38,200 which I felt was an acceptable price given that it’s a brand new car and not many of them had been seen/sold in the area.
Now the waiting game started. I got the VIN on March 17th; that already ate up 4 weeks of the estimated timeline. In order processing started on March 31st. Production started April 4th. The order jumped back to In Order Processing on April 8th. I was told the Recaros that I ordered had the wrong stitching on them so the car had to sit until the correct seats came in. It was then placed into Awaiting Shipment on April 15th. This is where it gets a little frustrating; that was all 8 weeks of the estimated time. They then told me they had no idea when the car would get here. Eventually the car was shipped. I have no idea when it shipped but it made it way here and the car arrived on May 19th. I looked at it that night and was appalled at the condition of it. It was covered in bird droppings and dust and waterspots; it looked neglected to the n-th degree. I was able to take delivery on May 21st and the mods started.
First photos of the car before taking Delivery:
List of mods:
JLT Cold Air intake
GT350 Intake manifold (Since removed in anticipation for the TVS2650)
Kooks 1-7/8x3 High Flow catted long tube headers
Corsa Extreme Catback with Black Tips
Lund Racing Flex Fuel tune and NGauge
Steeda Stop-The-Hop kit
Steeda Billet Rear Shock Mounts
Varrstoen ES2’s (20x9+20’s front, 20x10.5+40’s rear) (Nitto NT05’s 255/35 front, 275/35 rear) Removed
Vorsteiner Vff-107’s (20x10+40’s front, 20x11+50’s rear)(Nitto Invo’s, 255/35 front, 275/35 rear)(These require a 3mm-5mm front spacer to fit otherwise the inner lip of the wheel hits the struts. They have since stopped making the +40’s and instead make +35’s; this solves the issues)
Stock wheels have 305/35 Nitto NT05R’s on the rear
H&R Super Sport lowering springs. Removed for Airlift suspension
Airlift 3P with ¼ lines, 444c Compressor, 4gal Raw Tank
MGW Racespec
Grille delete
Steeda Q-Series Spoiler (GT350 track pack style)
Rear window Visor (I don’t remember where I sourced this, or the brand name on it)
20% tint
RTR Side splitters and rear spats
Diode Dynamics Blacked out LED side markers
Diode Dynamics 4th Brake Light
Planned mods to still come: (If it doesn't get replaced)
Paxton or TVS2650 from VMP
TR6060 swap
2018 Digital Cluster Swap
Sync 3
Re-install factory grille
Grey Badges redone/replaced
I drove the car the entire first summer (Summer 2015) with the car completely stock until September. In September I added H&R Super Sport lowering springs. These dropped the car about 1-3/4 inches all the way around. I loved the way the car looked on these. With the NT05R’s on the rear, the car definitely looked super good here. I decided on these springs because everyone was running the Eibach’s and I wanted to be a little different. I had H&R’s on another car and was very pleased with the performance of them. They also showed more of a drop than any of the Eibach options. This is also when I did the Stop-The-Hop setup from Steeda. This combination with the H&R’s was awesome. The car handled like it was on rails. I also opted to do the Corsa Extreme catback on the car. I was not planning on doing headers at the time because of the lengthy install process and the price for “piping” seemed a little high for me. I had a friend with Quad Tip Corsa Extremes on his 2013 CS/GT and I fell in love with that system so I had to get it for myself.
Dyno video with just springs and a catback:
I drove the car to storage at the end of October 2015. A friend of mine who is a photographer wanted to go with and grab a few photos while I was storing it about 5 hours away from my permanent residence. And this is where the winter stock pile begins. In the off-season I ordered the JLT intake, Lund NGauge, and Kooks headers. Things were fairly quiet (until the header install) for a while. I installed the GT350 intake manifold a few months later; I was slightly disappointed with the loss of low end torque and I was displeased with the drivability. I had a local company tune the car with the IM and other mods. I realize now that I should have just had Lund tune with the GT350 IM and I would still have it on the car. I removed this after about a month of driving with it on. Other priorities took precedent until the fall; all that was added in the fall of 2016 was tint. That is until the MT-82 decided to fail on me. My 2nd gear decided it was time to go on an indefinite vacation. I dropped the car off for “Warranty Work” with full bolt ons and e85 in the tank. The fixed the gear and replaced 1st, 2nd, & 3rd even though the other two did not need to be replaced. They also installed the MGW RaceSpec for me while the transmission was out of the car. While the car was in the shop, I bought replacement factory grilles and cut the hatch pattern out; a custom grille delete I suppose.
Sound video with bolt on's:
This is with full bolt on's before removing the front grille (Summer 2016):
There was a small section of time where I was running a borrowed set of GT500 wheels. I didn't get to take too many photos with them on but these are what convinced me to get the Vorsteiners after the Varrstoen's(lower photos below).
Side note featuring one of my good friend's 2003 Cobra. Most recently he made about 700whp; he's switching from his 2.3l Whipple to a 2.9l whipple, going triple pumps and e85.
I was not planning on doing anything major over the winter of 2016 into 2017 until BlackFriday came around. Varrstoen was running a buy 3 get 1 free on their wheels. I’ve always loved the look of TE37’s but at the price of $5,400 for the Supers to get the 20’s, I had to look elsewhere. So I bought the Varrstoen’s for about $1,000. I got the Nitto NT05’s mounted on the wheels. I absolutely hated the look when I put them on the car. The car was nowhere near low enough to make them look good in my eyes. I started thinking about doing coilovers. After researched what I wanted to do, I settled on getting BC Racing BR’s with the Swift spring upgrade. The day after I ordered the coilovers, Airlift ran their 25% off Tax Time offer. I canceled the coilover order and bought the airlift setup from Hypermotive; awesome guys by the way, very knowledgeable and super friendly.
I finished the Airlift Install in March of 2017. I ordered the spoiler and roof visor as well. I had to have the spoiler painted. I opted to go with Gloss Black. I did this because I was planning on getting the roof and hood vents wrapped Gloss Black as well; this has not happened yet.
Summer 2017 was fairly quiet for mods again. My ride height is fairly low and eventually I blew out a stock rear shock mount. The stock mounts are absolutely garbage. The stocks were replaced with the Steeda Billet mounts. These have amazing build quality. They fit NEARLY perfect. The only gripe that I have with them, they do not sit in the EXACT same position as the stock mounts. They force the top of the shock down about 1/4” lower than the factory mounts. This means not being “as low” and that’s something important for me being on Airlift suspension and all.
First Photo with the wheels before installing the bags:
First photo with the car aired out on in the garage after checking for all the leaks and on the alignment rack. This is also the first look at the ride height:
Some may be interested in the air setup. This is all that can really be down. The manifold is mounted on the rear of the cross bar. The tank is mounted on the bottom of the cross bar portion of the unibody. All the airlines are run under the carpet in the car or directly out of the car under the side liners. The compressor is mounted to a board that I made that has carpet and velcro to keep it in place.
Before installing the bags, I reached out to one of my friends which does photography and graphic design at MIAD; Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. He made a render of what my car would look like after the bags and wheels were installed.
After seeing the render, I immediately knew it would need a spoiler. I tracked the Steeda Q-Series which is pretty much a "Drill-less" version of teh GT350 track pack spoiler. Since I have a performance pack car, I did not have a factory spoiler. I wanted to avoid drilling into my trunk if at all possible. The only draw back to the Steeda spoiler, it does not come painted.
This is also when I added the rear window visor on the car.
I mentioned some shock mount issues up above. It looks like I hit a bump in the road that was just aggressive enough. At the time I was still running bump stops. This and my ride height could have been the cause of the hat blowing out on the mount. I did NOT want to risk it happening again so I got the Steeda Billet Mounts.
Some carnage:
The first “road trip” out of state happened towards the end of summer. A friend and I cruised down to Nashville from Milwaukee for a car show. We attended Import Alliance’s Summer Meet. To summarize the show in one word, HOT. It was 104*s with 100% humidity. I’m born and raised in Wisconsin; I don’t like the humid weather. Would I make the trip again though, yes; I would go a few more times actually.
Photo's over 2017 summer:
About 5 minutes after the photo above, I had one of the worst things happen to my car. The biggest fear most people have with bagged cars is ruining their fenders. Well, it happened to me. I had the car bagged for about 6 months at this point. I had been doing some photos while I was on vacation in Minocqua; a small-ish vacation town in Northern Wisconsin. I have a family vacation home that I go to on holidays as a place to relax and get away.
I must have aired up with the wheel slightly turned and the tire caught the inner fender. This pulled the fender down and cracked it. Instead of trying to have the fender fixed (difficult because it is aluminum) I decided to purchase a new one and prep it by rolling the inner lip completely flat. I had this one painted off of the car and installed it myself instead of paying the shop to do that. This ended up not looking the greatest color match wise so I would get this resprayed in spring of 2018. I noticed there are two versions of the Deep Impact Blue. There is J4 and J4L. The "L" has a lighter basecoat which isn't super noticeable by itself but when it is near the non "L" version, it really stands out. Here are the photos with it cracked and painted the second go round in spring. I had it painted on the car this time but did NOT have them blend into the door. I have plans to get CF fenders but could not stand the fender being extremely different in color.
Dyno video with bolt on's and E85 in the tank:
[ame]
Again, I don’t every plan on doing anything over the winter; whatever falls into place generally happens. I was scrolling through Amazon like most people do and I bought a few things from Diode Dynamics. I got their rear side marker LED’s and the 4th brake light conversion. The 4th brake light is my favorite; it replaces the reverse light with a red and while LED and still shows up white while backing up but shows up red while driving and bright red while braking. I also added the RTR Side Splitters which come with Rear Spats as well. The powder coating on the Varrstoen’s is not very good at all. I was planning on having them recoated this winter as they needed new tires anyways. I figured I would coat them while the tires were off. I got a crazy killer deal on the Vorsteiner’s and decided to sell the Varrstoen’s. Doing the math, the Vorsteiner’s would not fit with bags. I ordered the smallest spacer I could get; this was coincidentally the one that made them fit perfect the 20x10+40’s are “technically” 20x10+36.875’s. They now clear the Airlift Struts how they are supposed to. I chose to go with the Nitto Invo’s this go around instead of the Nitto NT05’s. I was pleased with the NT05’s but figured it would be worth it to try one other set of tires.
Current Photos:
With all of this said, we are at current day. Currently torn between a GT350R (White and Electronics pack, no stripes) and an 18 GT with the 10r. My issues with the GT350R: there are no creature features. They do not come with the option for the Digital dash. They do not offer MyColor for them. For this being the “Flagship” Mustang currently I don’t think they did an amazing job. And I know there are purists that say “It’s not about all of that stuff” and I understand but I also buy cars to enjoy and drive. I am not one to buy to let it sit and collect dust. Never the less, it’s going to take a while to decide where to go from here. After nearly 40,000 miles this car has gone through a lot of time and effort to get where it is at. Thank you all for reading! Let me know what you think!
I WILL BE ADDING PHOTOS THROUGH THIS WRITEUP, IT WILL TAKE A LITTLE TIME TO FIND THEM ALL AND UPLOAD/LINK THEM. I HAVE ADDED A FEW FOR NOW.
It’s been a long time coming for this write-up to happen. Decided it was time to throw everything together for how this car has come together. It also looks like the time that I am toying with the idea of selling or trading in and upgrading but am still very much undecided right now. So, let’s start with a little back story.
Back in the fall of 2014 I was pursing the idea of purchasing a Focus ST with ST3 package and moon-roof with all the other small features included. I had gone around and test drove a few of them; I was pleased with it as it would be my daily driver. I had concluded that the ST3 was the best fit for me. I don’t normally shop around for the best price but my standard dealer didn’t have ST3’s in stock so I went elsewhere to look at them. Eventually I stopped at my usual dealer and sat down to discuss the opportunity of ordering one. He informed me that 2015’s were going to be coming out with a huge facelift and few convenience features like backup camera and little things. I decided to wait and see if would like the facelift before ordering. So a few months go by and I figured I’d take a look to see what the salesperson had to offer at this time.
I walked into the dealership on February 12th 2015. There was a white Focus ST (the color I wanted but only ST1) on the showroom floor. There was also a 2015 Mustang outside the main front door that I barely paid any attention to initially. The salesperson was a little busy when we arrived so I started looking around. Started walking the lot and not too much caught my attention besides the S550. Mind you, this is a super small village style dealership; we’ve bought about 15 cars from the salesperson so this is our go-to anyways. Got the keys to the Mustang and was told to take it for a test drive; this being the first one that this dealership got, I was slight taken aback being allowed to take it for a drive at 20 years old.
This car was a Deep Impact Blue 2015 GT Premium, Manual, Non-Performance Package, Non-50th Anniversary package car. It was loaded otherwise; adaptive cruise control, Voice Activated Navigation, and Reverse sensing. I quickly realized this was NOT what I was looking for. The 3.31’s felt extremely sluggish and unresponsive. Although I loved the features and everything else the car offered, I realized it was not what I was interested in purchasing.
Now on-to the important things when we returned to the dealership that everyone has been waiting for. The salesperson sat with us and discussed options about the ST and how I could order. We started processing that purchase/sale. He asked how I liked the mustang and gave my opinion on the options and the gripes that I had. He then handed me a booklet to read about the possible options. I instantly canceled the ST ordering and decided on getting the S550 but not the one that was on the lot. I was torn between three colors: Ruby Red, White, and Deep Impact Blue. This is what I ordered...
2015 Mustang GT Premium with 401A
-Deep Impact Blue
-Performance Package
-Voice Activated Nav.
-Reverse Sensing System
-Ebony Recaros
Essentially the car I ordered is fully loaded besides 50th Ann package and Adaptive Cruise control. Sticker price came to $44,100 and discussion about purchasing price came up. I was told 6-8 weeks until it would arrive. I accepted and put a deposit down that day. End price came to $38,200 which I felt was an acceptable price given that it’s a brand new car and not many of them had been seen/sold in the area.
Now the waiting game started. I got the VIN on March 17th; that already ate up 4 weeks of the estimated timeline. In order processing started on March 31st. Production started April 4th. The order jumped back to In Order Processing on April 8th. I was told the Recaros that I ordered had the wrong stitching on them so the car had to sit until the correct seats came in. It was then placed into Awaiting Shipment on April 15th. This is where it gets a little frustrating; that was all 8 weeks of the estimated time. They then told me they had no idea when the car would get here. Eventually the car was shipped. I have no idea when it shipped but it made it way here and the car arrived on May 19th. I looked at it that night and was appalled at the condition of it. It was covered in bird droppings and dust and waterspots; it looked neglected to the n-th degree. I was able to take delivery on May 21st and the mods started.
First photos of the car before taking Delivery:
List of mods:
JLT Cold Air intake
GT350 Intake manifold (Since removed in anticipation for the TVS2650)
Kooks 1-7/8x3 High Flow catted long tube headers
Corsa Extreme Catback with Black Tips
Lund Racing Flex Fuel tune and NGauge
Steeda Stop-The-Hop kit
Steeda Billet Rear Shock Mounts
Varrstoen ES2’s (20x9+20’s front, 20x10.5+40’s rear) (Nitto NT05’s 255/35 front, 275/35 rear) Removed
Vorsteiner Vff-107’s (20x10+40’s front, 20x11+50’s rear)(Nitto Invo’s, 255/35 front, 275/35 rear)(These require a 3mm-5mm front spacer to fit otherwise the inner lip of the wheel hits the struts. They have since stopped making the +40’s and instead make +35’s; this solves the issues)
Stock wheels have 305/35 Nitto NT05R’s on the rear
H&R Super Sport lowering springs. Removed for Airlift suspension
Airlift 3P with ¼ lines, 444c Compressor, 4gal Raw Tank
MGW Racespec
Grille delete
Steeda Q-Series Spoiler (GT350 track pack style)
Rear window Visor (I don’t remember where I sourced this, or the brand name on it)
20% tint
RTR Side splitters and rear spats
Diode Dynamics Blacked out LED side markers
Diode Dynamics 4th Brake Light
Planned mods to still come: (If it doesn't get replaced)
Paxton or TVS2650 from VMP
TR6060 swap
2018 Digital Cluster Swap
Sync 3
Re-install factory grille
Grey Badges redone/replaced
I drove the car the entire first summer (Summer 2015) with the car completely stock until September. In September I added H&R Super Sport lowering springs. These dropped the car about 1-3/4 inches all the way around. I loved the way the car looked on these. With the NT05R’s on the rear, the car definitely looked super good here. I decided on these springs because everyone was running the Eibach’s and I wanted to be a little different. I had H&R’s on another car and was very pleased with the performance of them. They also showed more of a drop than any of the Eibach options. This is also when I did the Stop-The-Hop setup from Steeda. This combination with the H&R’s was awesome. The car handled like it was on rails. I also opted to do the Corsa Extreme catback on the car. I was not planning on doing headers at the time because of the lengthy install process and the price for “piping” seemed a little high for me. I had a friend with Quad Tip Corsa Extremes on his 2013 CS/GT and I fell in love with that system so I had to get it for myself.
Dyno video with just springs and a catback:
I drove the car to storage at the end of October 2015. A friend of mine who is a photographer wanted to go with and grab a few photos while I was storing it about 5 hours away from my permanent residence. And this is where the winter stock pile begins. In the off-season I ordered the JLT intake, Lund NGauge, and Kooks headers. Things were fairly quiet (until the header install) for a while. I installed the GT350 intake manifold a few months later; I was slightly disappointed with the loss of low end torque and I was displeased with the drivability. I had a local company tune the car with the IM and other mods. I realize now that I should have just had Lund tune with the GT350 IM and I would still have it on the car. I removed this after about a month of driving with it on. Other priorities took precedent until the fall; all that was added in the fall of 2016 was tint. That is until the MT-82 decided to fail on me. My 2nd gear decided it was time to go on an indefinite vacation. I dropped the car off for “Warranty Work” with full bolt ons and e85 in the tank. The fixed the gear and replaced 1st, 2nd, & 3rd even though the other two did not need to be replaced. They also installed the MGW RaceSpec for me while the transmission was out of the car. While the car was in the shop, I bought replacement factory grilles and cut the hatch pattern out; a custom grille delete I suppose.
Sound video with bolt on's:
This is with full bolt on's before removing the front grille (Summer 2016):
There was a small section of time where I was running a borrowed set of GT500 wheels. I didn't get to take too many photos with them on but these are what convinced me to get the Vorsteiners after the Varrstoen's(lower photos below).
Side note featuring one of my good friend's 2003 Cobra. Most recently he made about 700whp; he's switching from his 2.3l Whipple to a 2.9l whipple, going triple pumps and e85.
I was not planning on doing anything major over the winter of 2016 into 2017 until BlackFriday came around. Varrstoen was running a buy 3 get 1 free on their wheels. I’ve always loved the look of TE37’s but at the price of $5,400 for the Supers to get the 20’s, I had to look elsewhere. So I bought the Varrstoen’s for about $1,000. I got the Nitto NT05’s mounted on the wheels. I absolutely hated the look when I put them on the car. The car was nowhere near low enough to make them look good in my eyes. I started thinking about doing coilovers. After researched what I wanted to do, I settled on getting BC Racing BR’s with the Swift spring upgrade. The day after I ordered the coilovers, Airlift ran their 25% off Tax Time offer. I canceled the coilover order and bought the airlift setup from Hypermotive; awesome guys by the way, very knowledgeable and super friendly.
I finished the Airlift Install in March of 2017. I ordered the spoiler and roof visor as well. I had to have the spoiler painted. I opted to go with Gloss Black. I did this because I was planning on getting the roof and hood vents wrapped Gloss Black as well; this has not happened yet.
Summer 2017 was fairly quiet for mods again. My ride height is fairly low and eventually I blew out a stock rear shock mount. The stock mounts are absolutely garbage. The stocks were replaced with the Steeda Billet mounts. These have amazing build quality. They fit NEARLY perfect. The only gripe that I have with them, they do not sit in the EXACT same position as the stock mounts. They force the top of the shock down about 1/4” lower than the factory mounts. This means not being “as low” and that’s something important for me being on Airlift suspension and all.
First Photo with the wheels before installing the bags:
First photo with the car aired out on in the garage after checking for all the leaks and on the alignment rack. This is also the first look at the ride height:
Some may be interested in the air setup. This is all that can really be down. The manifold is mounted on the rear of the cross bar. The tank is mounted on the bottom of the cross bar portion of the unibody. All the airlines are run under the carpet in the car or directly out of the car under the side liners. The compressor is mounted to a board that I made that has carpet and velcro to keep it in place.
Before installing the bags, I reached out to one of my friends which does photography and graphic design at MIAD; Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. He made a render of what my car would look like after the bags and wheels were installed.
After seeing the render, I immediately knew it would need a spoiler. I tracked the Steeda Q-Series which is pretty much a "Drill-less" version of teh GT350 track pack spoiler. Since I have a performance pack car, I did not have a factory spoiler. I wanted to avoid drilling into my trunk if at all possible. The only draw back to the Steeda spoiler, it does not come painted.
This is also when I added the rear window visor on the car.
I mentioned some shock mount issues up above. It looks like I hit a bump in the road that was just aggressive enough. At the time I was still running bump stops. This and my ride height could have been the cause of the hat blowing out on the mount. I did NOT want to risk it happening again so I got the Steeda Billet Mounts.
Some carnage:
The first “road trip” out of state happened towards the end of summer. A friend and I cruised down to Nashville from Milwaukee for a car show. We attended Import Alliance’s Summer Meet. To summarize the show in one word, HOT. It was 104*s with 100% humidity. I’m born and raised in Wisconsin; I don’t like the humid weather. Would I make the trip again though, yes; I would go a few more times actually.
Photo's over 2017 summer:
About 5 minutes after the photo above, I had one of the worst things happen to my car. The biggest fear most people have with bagged cars is ruining their fenders. Well, it happened to me. I had the car bagged for about 6 months at this point. I had been doing some photos while I was on vacation in Minocqua; a small-ish vacation town in Northern Wisconsin. I have a family vacation home that I go to on holidays as a place to relax and get away.
I must have aired up with the wheel slightly turned and the tire caught the inner fender. This pulled the fender down and cracked it. Instead of trying to have the fender fixed (difficult because it is aluminum) I decided to purchase a new one and prep it by rolling the inner lip completely flat. I had this one painted off of the car and installed it myself instead of paying the shop to do that. This ended up not looking the greatest color match wise so I would get this resprayed in spring of 2018. I noticed there are two versions of the Deep Impact Blue. There is J4 and J4L. The "L" has a lighter basecoat which isn't super noticeable by itself but when it is near the non "L" version, it really stands out. Here are the photos with it cracked and painted the second go round in spring. I had it painted on the car this time but did NOT have them blend into the door. I have plans to get CF fenders but could not stand the fender being extremely different in color.
Dyno video with bolt on's and E85 in the tank:
[ame]
Again, I don’t every plan on doing anything over the winter; whatever falls into place generally happens. I was scrolling through Amazon like most people do and I bought a few things from Diode Dynamics. I got their rear side marker LED’s and the 4th brake light conversion. The 4th brake light is my favorite; it replaces the reverse light with a red and while LED and still shows up white while backing up but shows up red while driving and bright red while braking. I also added the RTR Side Splitters which come with Rear Spats as well. The powder coating on the Varrstoen’s is not very good at all. I was planning on having them recoated this winter as they needed new tires anyways. I figured I would coat them while the tires were off. I got a crazy killer deal on the Vorsteiner’s and decided to sell the Varrstoen’s. Doing the math, the Vorsteiner’s would not fit with bags. I ordered the smallest spacer I could get; this was coincidentally the one that made them fit perfect the 20x10+40’s are “technically” 20x10+36.875’s. They now clear the Airlift Struts how they are supposed to. I chose to go with the Nitto Invo’s this go around instead of the Nitto NT05’s. I was pleased with the NT05’s but figured it would be worth it to try one other set of tires.
Current Photos:
With all of this said, we are at current day. Currently torn between a GT350R (White and Electronics pack, no stripes) and an 18 GT with the 10r. My issues with the GT350R: there are no creature features. They do not come with the option for the Digital dash. They do not offer MyColor for them. For this being the “Flagship” Mustang currently I don’t think they did an amazing job. And I know there are purists that say “It’s not about all of that stuff” and I understand but I also buy cars to enjoy and drive. I am not one to buy to let it sit and collect dust. Never the less, it’s going to take a while to decide where to go from here. After nearly 40,000 miles this car has gone through a lot of time and effort to get where it is at. Thank you all for reading! Let me know what you think!
Sponsored
Last edited: