Latest Project! 1988 Mustang Coupe 5.0l Build Thread

[thundercunt]

Here is the day I got her. A 1988 LX coupe with a 5.0 and a 5 speed. Gt body kit covered in spray paint and bondo. Had a Dry nitrous kit on it. Any one who has ever run nitrous knows the dry kit is a recipe for disaster. I was still happy to get the car though having owned numerous foxbodys but never a coupe/notchback, So at this point I drove it around a bit and enjoyed it while looking for parts but i was not happy with it to say the least.

 

 

Someone made a back seat delete out of roofing tin... That was the first thing to come out.

 

 

Put a 3" cowl induction hood off my old car on it.

 

So after a few months the massive amounts of bondo/filler started cracking under the shitty spraypaint job and I realized that my dream car was more of a project than i first anticipated. The rear pasenger 1/4 pannel was demolished and peiced back together with poorly welded metal and fiberglass. So the search for a parts car was on. Not an easy feat since I waited my whole adult life to find this one and aftermarket panels were way out of my price range.

 

I did manage to find a parts car 400 miles away for $300 so I hooked a trailer to my pickup and headed out to get it on payday (wife was beyond pissed). A rusty 1989 LX 4cyl auto car was now in my possession. Even though I didn't have any were to put it, or work on both cars I was on a mission.

 

 

First thing on the agenda was to get rid of the GT body kit as the coupe/notchback never came factory with a GT kit and I'm a purist at heart. I did the front and rear bumpers first along with some new fenders I had for parts from yet another foxbody. It was summer time so I did all this work outside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The top photo is the GT rear bumper that looks kinda bad ass but again not factory. Below is the LX bumper installed off of the $300 parts car. I also swapped tail lights from some 1984 models that were on it to the original LX models. The GT tail pipes were hanging low but I fixed that later.

 

 

At this point I was still working on getting all the parts I needed off the the $300 car so I could scap it for some extra cash (got $25 for the leftovers lol). I did manage to pick up some more parts while doing this like a HURST short throw shifter and some 99-04 Mustang GT rims.

 

 

 

 

Sure was happy to get rid of them Ford Ranger rims.

 

 

Ok so now I was at the point that I was ready to tackle the rear quarter panel. As mentioned before I didn't have a garage at the time as I was living in an apartment but I did have welder and all the tools needed to do the job and it was warm out. So I tackled the project in the apartment parking lot lol.

 

[thundercunt]

Here is the before picture and what I was working with. Not pretty and it bothered me driving my dream car around with it in this condition so it sat for some time (i parked it with the good side showing) till i could give here a face lift.The brown paint was were I chipped out the bondo that was 1" thick in places to see how bad it was. Mind you when I acquired the car this area was perfect and I had no idea how bad it was until the cracks started showing up in the filler.

 

Removed the old crap.

 

 

And here is the test fit of the new 1/4 off of the $300 car. Took lots of work to get to this point. The Bush light helped. The the parts car was rusty and I couldn't use the lower portion of it but ill get to that later. It was still better than a replacement panel the cost $800 plus shipping.

 

 

Because it was sitting outside I would have to place the windows back in temporarily every night so if it rained it wouldn't get wet inside.

 

 

I got it all welded in and Fall was soon approaching here in North Dakota and the snow was about to fly. Here is a Photo of the installation of the back window I also did myself. I never did one before but I figured if I can change out the quarter panel in the apartment parking lot then installing a back window should be no problem. Also in the picture is a template I tried to make out of the donor cars door to patch the rusted out lower 1/4s but that didn't work out.

 

 

I just wanted to get it back on the road for a bit before Winter so I could enjoy it some and I did but then it broke down on me lol. Simple fix. I lost power to the distributor and after looking in to it I found out that the previous owner hooked the switched power to the distributor to the accessory wire from the cd player lol.

 

 

Picked up some more parts including a chrome strut tower brace i traded for the old GT bumper.

 

 

At this point winter hit and nothing much happened for a few months and I managed to find a new house with a garage so I started working on painting her. Key Lime green.

 

 

Removed the front end for paint in my new garage!! Woo! Also got a new set of clear headlights installed. (wife again pissed).

 

 

More paint getting sprayed.

 

So as I get to painting the front urethane LX bumper cover off of the parts car I realize its all cracked and broken up. A new one is $400 so at this point I bet you can guess what I did... I fixed it. With countersunk rivets and steel backing plates.

 

 

Here is a base coat after fixing the breaks in the urethane. It was broken more than the one spot but for some reason I only had the one picture. I also shaved the embossed "MUSTANG" lettering in the front.

 

 

Here she is all painted up in Key Lime green. Ready to be reinstalled.

 

 

Summer is almost over so I got it back together again to drive it around and do burnouts before Winter hit again.

 

 

 

Little photo op.

 

[thundercunt]

As it got cold I started working on wire tucking the engine bay. Top is before, bottom is after. I also got to work on the lower quarter panels that were rusted out I talked about earlier. I picked up the patch panels fro $80 (wife again pissed).

 

Back together.

 

 

 

 

 

I got lucky and the weather warmed up so I got some more painting done. Got the new 1/4 painted and the roof.

 

 

And we are up to date. its now winter and too cold to paint again and this last picture is how she sits. Got a few more things to paint like the doors but I'm not sure if I'm using them because someone filled in the molding channel with bondo. If I can find a cheap set then I might replace them. But more than likely I will fix the BS from the last owner. If you made it this far in my post and are reading this then congratulations you either like me, are bored as hell , or you are a true gear head. Ill keep this build thread updated as I make more progress.

 

-Your friendly neighborhood Thundercunt

[CheepHeep]

Good stuff man! Dedication and a hearty spirit brings about the best results in whatever you're doing. So I'm glad FAs cvnt is being out to good use. <3

[redy.]

That is awesome Thunder. Makes me want to go out there and finally start my wrangler TJ build

[Shoes]

Nice, I'm working on an 89 Mustang GT. Love those Fox bodies!

[L3ftY.]

 

 

i am surprised the original rims have stood the test of time. after a couple of years my rims were pitted and looked like shit.

 

a bit of spit and polish and these look almost brand new

[Shoes]

Here is mine. Engine and rear end rebuilt. Transmission coming out this spring. Then suspension, and finally bodywork and paint.

 

[thundercunt]

 

 

i am surprised the original rims have stood the test of time. after a couple of years my rims were pitted and looked like shit.

 

a bit of spit and polish and these look almost brand new

They are not the original rims to the car they came from a 99-04 Gt but yeah they are in good shape for the age. They do have a few bad spots on them from the balance weights from the past but no too bad. I picked the rims up for $90 off of Craigslist and got the tires for $60. Not a bad deal. The car was 4 lug but was swapped to 5 lug so I was able to run the newer style rims.

[thundercunt]

Here is mine. Engine and rear end rebuilt. Transmission coming out this spring. Then suspension, and finally bodywork and paint.

 

Awesome! Gota love a GT with those cheese grater tail lights.

[Shoes]

Tell us about your driveline. I see a carburetor on there???

[thundercunt]

Tell us about your driveline. I see a carburetor on there???

Yeah the car was original a 4 banger car with an auto. The 5.0/5 speed swap was done before I got it. I figure it was easier to just slap a carb on it rather than change out the wiring harness and computer. I kind of like it because the last one I did With efi was a pain in the ass. but I did learn a lot about it. Most of my troubles came with The head, cam, and intake swap along with tuning the computer. Ill see if I can dig up some pictures of it.

[thundercunt]

Here is the motor from my last foxbody. A 1991 vert. The first two picture is when I got it then the rest are after me tinkering with it.

 

 

 

 

And here are a few of the work i did to it.

 

 

 

GT40p heads and TFS1 cam with crane 1.7 roller rockers

 

 

 

At this point i was don with the motor

 

 

And this is the day I sold her to buy the coupe

[thundercunt]

Here is a couple videos of her I made

 

That TFS1 cam loping... Chop chop chop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2h2MFMcDmk

 

Here is a befor and after video of the HCI swap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzmgQNnu0B0

[Raskin]

Nice jobs guys..i always liked Mustangs..alas was not to be..i like chevys too..my last hotrod was a '79 camaro fairly rust free Florida car..had to give it up in '95 when moved..i bought a boat..i miss those 130 mph runs in the boonies..i can still smell the burnouts..cheers