And here's my old pride and joy. A 97 GT that I've absolutely beaten the daylights out of and the only thing that's ever broken is the transmission and that was because of the stupid Transgo shift kit.
NEVER EVER BUY A SHIFT KIT. PERIOD!! It's cost me over $2000 in rebuilds, repairs and $800 for a totally new transmission to be installed. If I had known this from the beginning, I would have just put a T56 from an 03 cobra in there and called it a day but it took 3 years to realize what was causing the problems.
Here are the mods.
- 00 PI intake
- Steeda timing adjuster and underdrive pulleys
- Homemade densecharger with 80mm C&L MAF
- Bassani O/R X pipe
- Flowmaster American Thunder exhaust
- Intrax 2" lowering springs
- Tokico Illumina 5 way adjustable shocks and struts
- Griggs racing subframe connectors
- Evolution Motorsports radiator V brace
- Kenny Brown rear shock tower brace
- Rear seat delete
- Stillen metal matrix brake pads
- Moser Eng. Auburn Pro differential
- FRPP 4.10 gears
- 00 Cobra R 18X9.5 wheels with Kumho Ecsta Supra rubber
- 98 OEM Cobra headlamps
- Clear fog lamps
- Mach 1 chin spoiler (surprise! It fits!)
- Panasonic CQ-DFX983U MP3 player
- Infinity Kappa 5X7's in the doors
- Kenwood 5X7's in the rear
- Infinity Kappa 12" sub in the back
- California profile 500W amp
- Optima red top battery
This took all day long because of a few unexpected problems. First we re-used the factory water pump nipple and thus were thrown into the dilemma of the new coolant hose not fitting. We had to either try and knock the nipple out by removing the water pump or just trim it down. I grabbed my dremel and trimmed it and the tube down so they lined up perfectly, used high temp silicone sealant on the connector tube and tightened the band clamps extra tight. No leaks.
The power gains from 4000 rpm's up to redline were immense. There is no other bang for the buck mod that I've ever done or heard of short of nitrous that has this profound of an effect. Bone stock GT's are dyno-ing over 30 rwhp gain at peak rpm from this alone. Power below 4000 rpm's was the same as before though. combined with cams and a new intake plenum and throttle body, 60+ hp gains are easily attainable.