Nate, Sure, it was fun, but gloating is bad form, no matter what. My point is that you have to be pretty insecure to worry about, get agitated about, or give a snippy reply to someone who has just done this to you. Especially if you wern't racing. Regards, Art S.
I don't mean for it to sound like I'm being mean. My point is that if you don't go to a registration booth and enter, it isn't a race. On the street, I'm pretty sure they call it reckless endangerment in PA. Racing on the street is very very dangerous and you wont find many ferrari owners willing to have any part of it. And if there was only one person in the race, the only person they could beat is themselves. They certainly didnt beat the other driver who wasnt taking part in a very foolish activity. For the record, I lost many races to less expensive cars and had a great time doing it both at the autocross and the drag strip. But I have never lost a race to anyone on the street quite simply because I dont race anyone on the street.
I have more wannabe racers challenging me when I'm in my 911 than in the 348. What really freaks me out is when someone sees the horse on the back of the Ferrari and thinks it's a Mustang.
Unfortunately, I now have a "ricer" experience. I was zipping around on the freeway coming home from a 500-mile trip (which was awesome, btw). On an uphill portion, I saw there was a non-driver in the fast lane, so I took evasive measures and cut to the slow lane past the slow driver and started to cut back over to the fast lane. Out of nowhere, a riced-out SRT4 Neon cuts me off and I have to slam on the brakes to keep out of the back of the slower car in front of me. I know people in such cars have something to prove, and Ferrari's, Lambo's, Porsche's, etc become their targets. Just one statement would settle the matter though; I would never trade my car for theirs regardless of speed.
Heck no! Circa 1985, I was tooling along in my four banger Alfa getting really annoyed that the old geezer in the Ferrari was holding up traffic. Now I am an old geezer in a Ferrari. When a ricer recently tried to race me from a light, I looked around and commented (carefully not looking at the ricer): "This looks like a road, not a race track. I know. I've been on race tracks." No more troubles from him. Stay away from these dweebs, unless you have a volume discount at the body shop. Most of them aren't very good drivers ... that's why they have something to prove.
I often get sportbikes who want to race me, and only rarely get street cars who want to race (and almost without exception its a Mustang).... My reaction is always the same, I accelerate as if I were in a pedal car. This way I don't encourage stupidity, and they get absolutely no satisfaction.
When I used to own my 93 MR2 Turbo, I would get all the Mustang guys wanting to race all the time. After them begging I would rev her up to 6500rpm pop the clutch and bye bye ! mid engine, light car, 200hp-200tq I used to smoke them of the line 1st and 2nd 2-3 cars away, because they would get so excited they would spin, I would launch. It was somewhat childish but after 15 mins of being followed, I usually got tired, so I either smoked them at a line or take side roads and smoke them in the curves until they turn away I lose them because they cant take curves. I was at a car show one day in a shopping mall just looking around (my car was not in the show) this Mustang guy followed me begging to race, I kept saying no, im just looking at the cars so he then asked if I could pop the front hood so he could take a look at the engine I almost pissed myself laughing. He got upset and said well my car can kick you cars ass I just replied, when you know what your up against you come back and see me, he never came back ~ I dont sell cars, I sell engines. The cars I throw in for free since something has to hold the engine - Enzo Ferrari
My brother had a 92 MR2 Turbo... I loved that car! Fun to drive, easy to work on, great handling, nice "baby Ferrari" looks. The only thing I really didn't like was the engine sound. Way too harsh and thrashy, especially with the stock muffler. Toyota should have definately worked more on that aspect of the car.
They did, actually. Toyota had a really unique supercharger design for the "Mister Two" -- Too unique, as it turned out. A really clever design, but they just hadn't gotten the bugs out of it. So in the end, they took the lesson of doing R&D in racing instead of production, and dropped in the 3sGTE turbo mill from their rallye car (the Celica "GT-four"). Tuning the exhaust note wouldn't have added to the performance. I originally went looking for an MR2T to share the garage with my homologation Celica turbo "AllTrac". But by '99 anyone with a good MR2T was hanging onto it. So I had to "settle" for a real Ferrari.
Very interesting....is the supercharger you speak of like the one on the first-generation MR2's? What were the bugs it had? I love those AllTrac Celicas, too. A real wolf in sheep's clothing. They were a neat design that were a good bit ahead of their time. I know what you mean about MR2 Turbo's getting hard to find. Seems the only ones you can find are either all riced out (and usually a poor job at that), or just beat to hell. Although the 3sGTE doesn't make the most fabulous noises, they are easy to get a good amount of power out of, and pretty bullet-proof in my experience. There is a guy here in Jackson that used to build some crazy MR2 motors (don't know if he still does). Last time I talked to him, he was claiming something like 500 hp to the rear wheels. He admittedly went through several blocks, cranks, pistons, etc. in doing this. But I thihnk one can get 300 -325 very streetable horsepower out of those engines, and still retain a good deal of reliability. If you ever happen to find TWO nice, original turbos for sale, be sure and let me know!
I never studied it closely, but I saw an article on it: some kind of centrifugal link mechanism so the impeller links would move out of the airflow at low RPM. Apparently they had trouble with the links not moving evenly causing balance issues. The "rule of thumb" on the gtfour list was that you could get up to about 350 ponies before you had to up-size the fuel rails and pump.
The 05-06 mustang engines Ive been building have 39lb injectors, vortec aftercooled supercharger, MAF, exhaust and a custom calibration. On these applications we are making 445HP at the wheels. The problem is the reliability. The pistions are a poor design and dont last under those circumstance unless you are a careful driver and dont over rev it. The internals Ive been upgrading to are custom DSS pistons, manley H-beam rods, file fit rings, forged cobra cranks and balanced assembly. We are now making 600rwhp reliably on 15psi boost. Fantastic engines really. I did however find that the earlier 01 cobra blocks dont like boost and NOS at the same time, the aluminum main bulk heads go soft and once the crank is removed the block does the pretzel thing and it then becomes a paper weight. P.
it happens to me almost 99.999% of the times when i take my diablo out.....it doesn't bother me as i ignore them 100% of the time. most of the times i "actually slooooow down", let him get far ahead so he realizes that he is the only one on the street acting like a moron.
But which one is the "pony" car, and which is the whole herd? Anyone else notice that cars are getting bigger? I parked my '03 EVO next to a '70s Cadillac Sedan deVille, and found, to my horror, that the Mitsu is taller.
They are definately getting bigger. I had no idea a modern Mustang was so much larger than a 308. The roof of the 308 is even with the top of the mustang's doors! It reminds me of my garage. I often laugh when I look at my MG Midget parked next to my wife's Acura RSX....it almost looks like you could put the MG in the Acura's trunk. But then again it IS called a Midget, so it is supposed to be small. Anybody got a picture of a 308 parked next to a more modern 8-cylinder Ferrari? Or how about next to a SUV??
You need to use a 93-97 Lincoln Mark 8 block/96-some 99's Teksid block. The block has been known to hold 1200hp with no problem. Funny that Teksid also makes or made the Ferrari blocks..... after reading all 5 pages Ill put in my input. Ricers that do flybys or constantly badger you for a race are gay. You are going to go home in a Ferrari, a flipping Ferrari and he is going home in a car that somewhere a mom is dropping off her kids to school in. I have a 96 Cobra as well as a 95 Cobra and love both of them. The 96 will be sold when it is time to make room for the 308 I will end up buying. I am a certified Ferrari nut, if and when i see them out, Ill give them a friendly rev just to get thier attention, smile, give them a thumbs up and go on my way. If i can have a word with them, tell them its a beauty and I hope to see it around. Car guys are car guys. All the guys who want to be car guys and try so hard to be are probably working at the local McDonalds. Next time your in the drive through, rev at them and ask how it felt to serve you your dinner
Interesting comment on the blocks, my daily driver is a mark 8. ford switched to the iron block as im sure you know in 03 with the blown cobras for a reason. The 05's are much stouter blocks and for the 55lb weight penalty Ill go with the iron blocks when we build engines over 500rwhp in the 4 cam cars. A little off topic I guess but still about mustangs in a ferrari forum.
FOrd actaully switched to the iron block for money reasons. do a search for a Teksid Aluminum block on any mustang site and they are the ones to have.
Typically I will smile, thumbs up or whatever. If I have to actually speak to them I say "my problem is not beating you in a race, it's running out of road" They usually looked puzzled and move on. John
Ford still uses the aluminum block in the GT's where no blower is used, iron in the trucks, iron with blowers. I forgot to mention I work for ford, the cooling systems also have a design flaw in the aluminum cobra blocks including both of yours, thats right from engineering, not to mention the head issues on the earlier cobras (like yours) that were updated in the newer cars. Im happy making 600+ rwhp with reliability and plenty of room to grow, iron is stronger and you wont convince me otherwise. I have first hand expereince with twisted aluminum blocks that will never accept a crank again and that was all I needed to see but thanks for your input and at $2300 aluminum vs $450 for iron, Ill stick with what I know works.
I assume those are your cars. The title refers to other Mustang owners (stupid ones). Nice cars! The Ferrari seems like it is almost a different scale than the Mustang. Just don't try to race every Ferrari you see while in the Mustang! BT
The Mustang is the wife's car. I agree when we first parked the two side by side I was also amazed. Her last car was a minivan and the Ferrari didn't seem so small 'cause you expected it to be smaller than a minivan. When I drive the mustang it actually feels low but look at that difference.
When I was in high school, we all had Mustangs (and part time jobs to keep them running) When a Mustangs want to race, yell over to him- "Great Car, my son just turned 15 and I bought him one... just like yours"
