Steeda Pentar wheels sit in...
Steeda Pentar wheels sit in all four corners. Nitto NT01 tires wrap the fronts while Mickey Thompson ET Street Radials keep the rear wheels stuck to the pavement.
Once the combination was in place, it was time to put a tune in the car. This would be the key to its performance as a daily driver. Dan strapped his Stang to the Mustang Dyno at Realspeed and set his baseline. To keep the fuel under control, a 255-gph high-pressure, in-tank, fuel pump, along with a T-rex in-line pump feeds fuel through the stock lines to a set of 60 pound injectors. A Crane Hi-6R ignition box supplies spark to the NGK plugs via a stock distributor and Moroso wires. The final result of Dan's street tune is 525 hp at the rear hides. With racing on the brain, he headed to the dragstrip to see just how well his new combination would perform. After a few warm up passes, Dan launched his R&D rocket to a best elapsed time of 10.46-seconds at 132 mph. This is pretty impressive considering the car was driven to and from the track and gets 17 mpg. "I could easily make it a 9-second car," Dan tells us. "It's a street car, I drive it everywhere. I don't see the point in cutting it up or making it a trailer queen. I have too much fun driving it."
After 10 years in the Florida sun, the paint on Dan's Stang needed a little attention, though. So in the spring of 2008, the car was sent to Concise Automotive where it was treated to fresh top coat. The '93 Cobra body kit form Cervini's was reused along with the Steeda Aero Spoiler. When all was straight, a slathering of Ultra-Blue metallic was applied renewing the stock hue, and after the buffing was finished, the looks matched the performance.
"This car changed my life," adds Dan. "I swore I would never buy another front-wheel drive four-cylinder, so I bought the Mustang instead. If I didn't, I definitely wouldn't be where I am today."