Budget Fox Body Ford Mustang - Keep On Carbin' Me, Baby

With the help of some tricks he learned online, Tony took a set of BBK shorty headers and flipped them around to face forward in the chassis. His buddy, Brooks Lopez, fabricated some pipes and flanges, welded them up, and transformed a set of off-the-shelf parts into a budget turbo kit. Majestic Turbos (Dallas, Texas) provided the 88mm head unit along with a Spearco air-to-water intercooler. After the combo was finished, the Mustang laid down 883 hp on 14 pounds of boost. Turning up the wick to 20 psi upped that number to 999, but Tony hasn't had a chance to completely dial in the high-boost tune. Overall, torque increased 175 lb-ft across the board over the blower setup, and he figures there's another 75-80 hp still to be had. "A lot of people think that a blow-through setup can't be tuned, but it's really pretty simple," he explains. "I just make a pass, log my air/fuel ratio with the wideband O2 sensor, and jet the carb accordingly. I can fine-tune it with the electronic boost controller and adjust the timing with the MSD Digital 7 ignition box."

Since 10.5 racing is big in Texas and Tony likes to play at NMRA and Fun Ford events, all that power must be harnessed by itty-bitty 28x10.5-inch Mickey Thompson ET Drags. Helping shift the weight rearward are a set of four-cylinder springs, Lakewood shocks, Southside lower rear control arms, and Lake-wood upper rear arms. Homemade subframe connectors make sure power isn't wasted twisting the chassis, and a QA1 K-member and Modular Mustangs front A-arms take some weight off the front end. While there's probably some room for improvement in the Mustang's 1.36-second 60-foot times, the feat is quite impressive considering the simplicity of the suspension combination. To quickly shed speed at the far end of the track, Tony put Aerospace brakes up front and Wilwoods out back.

Rumor has it that extreme setups like this-if carbureted-should surge, spit, and drive like garbage. In reality, this Mustang is actually well mannered, firing right up without argument, and cruising along smoothly at part throttle. Ironically, many of the cars that are doing the surging and spitting and driving like garbage are the ones running EFI systems. Well, if they can't figure out how to tune technology that's superior on paper, at least they can feel good about having wasted more money.