From Stock to Sema in 4 Days
The inside story on our Armor All Giveaway Mustang.

Text and Photos By: Dominic Conti

   Last year's Armor All Giveaway sweepstakes gave the winner their choice of quite a few vehicles, and winner Clint Montgomery from Richmond, Calif., chose the new Mustang, but instead of a GT he chose a V6 convertible. To bring the performance up to snuff, and change the appearance to an acceptable street cruiser status, we called on some of the best in the biz for some help.

We started with the exhaust, so the first stop was a MagnaFlow, where they were putting the final touches on their new stainless steel dual outlet kit for the V6 Mustang. We rolled in without a whisper of exhaust note and feeling all plugged up, and a few hours later rolled out with a mellow roar, which proved to be very tolerable on the road to Vegas-it made the car feel like it was breathing. Since we were on a time constraint (and trying to get more than one car ready for the SEMA show) we didn't get to prove its horsepower improvements on the Dynojet in the Primedia tech center. MagnaFlow claims up to a 12 hp increase, a worthwhile investment.

With a few hours of daylight left, we installed the K&N replacement air filter oil filter, and headed over to Eibach to pick up some lowering springs. We felt the stance of this sunshine yellow vert needed to be closer to mother earth to give her some attitude.

Eibach offers a great kit that includes four springs, a replacement bump stop for the rear axle, and very

detailed instructions. We decided to go home and start the lowering procedure in the morning.

After a cup of coffee, we put the Stang on our Autolifters lift, and removed our old springs and bump stops, and installed our Eibach coils. When we dropped the car back onto the ground, we were pleased to see that the Stang wasn't scraping the pavement but looked low and clean though also a bit plain, so some graphics were on the agenda.

We called the services of Vinyl Mayhem (Hesperia, Calif.) to give the ragtop a little flash. For a retro look, the crew put a "60s GT-style stripe along the bottom and modernized it with brush script lettering. For the hood, they tried something a bit different. Instead of the typical center hood blackout, the crew went outside of the hood bulge, and added some black stripes as seen in the photos.

For a little color, a flame pattern was conceived and cut out of red vinyl and later outlined in black. Out back, the rear panel between the taillights was simply blacked out.

Then came the task of finding the right looking wheels. Raceline (Brea, Calif.) "Jaded" forged aluminum wheels wrapped in Nitto 555 tires gave us the look we wanted. The guys over a Wheel Warehouse deserve a pat on the back for getting the tires and wheels mounted for us in record time, just enough time to leave that evening for the trek to Vegas.

1. Here she is-bright yellow, 50 miles on the ticker, and at MagnaFlow so we can get a better exhaust note and a few extra ponies. We were going to let the 6-banger breathe with the new dual exhaust kit for the 3.8.

2. Up on the rack, the stock exhaust isn't much to look at, nor can it help us in the breathing department. Let's trash it.

3. The new MagnaFlow exhaust kit for the 3.8 is simply beautiful, all stainless steel, and a complete bolt-on. Now we also have a dual-exit exhaust, which provided us with a deep, smooth exhaust.

4. (Pictures 4-5) We started by removing the old exhaust and discarding it. It was easier for us to cut the old pipes off with a reciprocating saw.

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6. MagnaFlow provides the original brackets for mounting the second exhaust tip, and it bolts into the factory provided holes.

7. Seems the hardest part of the exhaust install is aligning the pipes perfectly, and the crew at MagnaFlow is extremely picky; therefore we spent the better part of an hour getting both pipes consistent with each other.

8. Before calling it a day, we ran back to the tech center and installed the K&N air filter and oil filter. This was a simple install, which we actually did in the parking lot prior to making the run to Eibach to pick up our lowering springs.

9. It may be difficult to see in this photo, but the exhaust tips are perfectly aligned. With the exhaust tightened up we had no leaks, so it was back to the tech center so we could install our new air cleaner and bring the stance down.

10. The Eibach lowering spring kit comes with all four coils, a new rear axle bump stop, and detailed instructions.

11. (Pictures 11-12) We started in the front by removing the sway bar ends links and then supporting the front suspension with a trans jack since we were on our Autolifters lift. Our Craftsman tools proved their worth again-having a vast selection of tools helped to get the job completed much faster.

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13. Once we removed the old springs and installed our new front Eibachs, we moved onto the rear, which proved to be much less complex than the front. We simply removed the shocks from the rear axle one at a time, slipped the old coil out, and installed the new Eibach.

14. The original rear end's bump stop needs to be replaced with the supplied bump stop, which isn't nearly as tall as the OEM unit.

15. In the end we were almost 2-inches lower than stock, which proved to be the perfect height for ride quality, and appearance, but now we need some graphics.

16. (Pictures 16-19) Our friends at Vinyl Mayhem drove over to our Tech Center and set up their machines in our warehouse to save us the drive time (since the SEMA setup was only a day away) and came up with some interesting graphic designs to make the car "pop".

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20. With just a few hours to spare we installed the Raceline "Jaded" 18x8-inch wheels wrapped in Nitto 555 tires. We ran down to Wheel Warehouse (Anaheim) and had them mounted, balanced, and took them back to the Tech Center to install them on the vert.