Possible modification

[oldraven]

Hey there. I'm a thunderbird fanatic. No matter how much my T-birds have let me down in regards to reliability, there's simply something about the birds that have me hooked for life. I could never aford one new, but the idea of owning a retro-bird in ten years has me grinning.

Now, I realise not many of the retro bird owners, if any, modify the cars, as far as performance goes. But by the time I get a chance to own one, I'm sure I wouldn't be able to leave it stock for very long.

Ok, on with it. You all probably know by now that the new '05 Mustangs are sharing the DEW (I think that's right) platform with the T-bird, Lincoln LS, and Jag S-type. One thing that seems a shame to me is that the bird has no manual transmission, and an extremely small V8 for such a big car. Has anyone here looked into the similarities of the upcoming Mustang front ends and those of the retro-bird? Has anything been discovered with relation to motor mounting points of the 3.9L and the 4.6L? How about transmission mounts?

Yeah, I'm thinking WAY ahead, but the idea struck me when I was wondering why Ford doesn't offer the LS 5-spd manual on the so closely related Thunderbird. Well, speaking of which, how different are the mounting points on the 5-spd auto from the bird and the 5-spd manual in the LS?

And finally, how many times have you been asked these exact same questions? 😉

Thanks guys, whether you have answers for me or not. 🙂

 

[Quickdraw]

Don't know of anyone who’s even THOUGHT about swapping engines in a new bird. My understanding is that the computers in todays cars are a VERY big obstacle to overcome. Someone at LLSOC.com simply had his 3.9 LS chip re-flashed to get a few extra HP and discovered that the dealer diagnostic equipment could no longer read error codes from the computer as it didn’t return expected values. I also understand that if you swap engines, none of the stock cluster gages will work; tach, speedo, engine warning indicators, etc

 

[Bimota Guy]

Ok, on with it. You all probably know by now that the new '05 Mustangs are sharing the DEW (I think that's right) platform with the T-bird, Lincoln LS, and Jag S-type.

The new Mustang's platform is "similar" to the DEW-98 platform but is not a direct sharing of the platform.