Editing complete.
How often are the spark plugs really going to need to be replaced?
If memory serves, about every 30K and most people neglect them so chances are good that whatever car he gets will need the plugs replaced.
And I have changed them in far less than 2 hours.
:lol: You obviously have not owned an f-body, or maybe you did and it was a lemon. You can change the first 7 plugs in 30 minutes, and if you have half a brain you can figure out how to get #8 in 30 minutes or less. My change took me 30-45 minutes, not hard.
Nope, I've not owned a 4th gen. Do have friends with them or who have had them in the past; pretty much all of them, even those that bought new, have had major problems with their F-bodies. I have unfortunately had more experience than I'd like in and around the damn things from helping the owners out.
I had one, and 7 of my friends do....it's not hard. #8 is a bit of a bitch but if it takes you more than an hour, you are obviously not doing it right.
Or, more typically, one or more of the spark plugs has frozen up in the holes due to bimetallic corrosion and doesn't want to come out. #8 is usually especially bad because since it's such a bitch to change it often gets skipped (assuming the owner changes the plugs at all.) That's where the two hours comes in.
I've done several LS1 F-body plug changes and none of them have gone off in less than two hours because of this problem. Most of the dealer and indy techs I have talked to have similar experiences.
Don't forget the stock plugs have those platinum discs
that like to fall or burn off. Often inside your engine. Brilliant design there.
The ignition controller? You must be speaking of LT1s...I have 3 friends with LT1s...only 1 of them has had an opti issue and his is 200k+ miles. Opti change wasn't hard.
You are correct on this one, I briefly had the two awful versions of the car confused. Still shows the boneheadedness of GM design - what IDIOT puts the ignition controller at the bottom of the engine right below the water pump... where road debris can get to it and it gets ruined if your water pump springs a leak?
Speak plug changes are easy if you stop and take the time to use your head for 5 seconds.
And buy something else that wasn't designed by morons.
:lol: Wrong. V6s are volume sellers, and people loved the looks of the Mustang more. Do you realize just how easy it is to do most anything on an F-body? No, you probably don't. Shit, if you blow the engine/trans/rearend, you can swap in any engine from a truck, corvette, camaro/transam, SUV, GTO, etc. for $1,000 or less.
V6s were the volume seller for
all the pony cars. It also wasn't just the looks, it was the crap visibility from within the cabin and the fact that the majority of people couldn't figure out where the corners of the car were on the 4th gen and therefore were very uneasy with parking it (especially women). The visibly inferior interior quality (the infamous GM gray plastic #3) and the more difficult ingress/egress didn't help F-body sales much either. The high insurance costs at the end (more Camaro V8s got wrecked than even Mustang GTs) also discouraged buyers. Even the '98 redesign didn't help any of the matters that were important and sales plummeted.
Trucks don't have an LS1, though their heavier engines are of course bolt-up compatible.
However, you forget that the Mustang has comparable access to engines, trans, rear differential, etc. Mustangs can pull parts from the best selling vehicle in the US for, oh, 20+ years running, the F150. They can pull from the Crown Victoria/Grand Marquis/Town Car, the Explorer, the Expedition, the F250, the Lincoln Continental (engine only), and many, many more. The Ford 4.6 engines are really cheap and so are the Ford corporate 8.8 rear ends.
If you have a manual, T56s can be had for $1,500 or less, 4L60s (the autos) can be had for 500 or less, 10 bolt rear ends can be had for $200 or less! All of that stuff is CHEAPPPPPP.
And due to volume, all the same can be said for the Mustang (save for the T-56 and except for that it would be a 4R70 and the 8.8), only it's even cheaper. Likewise, the T-45 that Ford used in the GTs is a lot cheaper than the T56 used in the Cobras or the F-bodies. I would have put the Ford T45 or 3650 in my last Jaguar build but it wouldn't fit and I would have needed to change my block adapter plate quite radically. Ended up having to use a late F-body T-5WC instead, and even that barely fit with 'sledgehammer clearancing' of the body. The accessories and enhancement kits are cheaper for the Ford stuff because it sold in greater volume.
Why would you pay someone to do easy things? Most things on an f-body are very easy to get to, alternator, starter, water pump etc. Even taking the trans out isn't hard at all.
It's not hard... if you have a lift. Or you like messing around with almost two feet of extensions and swivels/wobblies with the entire drivetrain tilted down to get to the top bellhousing bolts
that GM so thoughtfully made inaccessible. As for the rest... you must have a different definition of easy than I do, see below.
As for not doing it yourself - that's per Viper, the original poster. He says he would have someone else working on it. I prefer doing it myself, less chances of having the job done wrong.
{juvenile crap deleted}
intake lid- $100
ls6 intake- $300 (used)
headers- ~$300 (got mine for 270 on sale)
Y-pipe- $100
Catback- $400 (or you can go true duals like I did and get parts + the exhaust put on for $400 total, no y pipe needed)
cam kit- $700
clutch kit-$500
tune-$400
=$2,800 installed yourself and an easy 400rwhp. (~460 crank hp)
[What you don't see here is that you will get MUCH more torque with the bigger cubes than any Mustang.]
You keep forgetting that Viper says he WON'T be DIYing it. Shop time on an F-body kills the deal - even when the part is occasionally cheaper, the additional labor required and resulting shop charges more than offset the deal. Most of those items on the list the Mustang can meet or beat on price, too - where they apply, of course.
Throw on some $1,500 heads, with injectors and a fuel pump and you'll be running next to/away from stock vipers.
Once again, see labor charges. Also, he wants to buy a Viper, not something else so 'being faster than a Viper' is kind of a moot point. If you want to be faster than a Viper, buy a motorcycle. It's cheaper still.
To get a Mustang to 400rwhp, you MUST use forced induction to keep the cost down. Friend of mine had a cammed/full bolt-on/geared Mach1 (4 valve) and we were door to door and I didn't even have a cam. Even with boost, getting an old 5.0 to 400rwhp was tough, and shortly thereafter the block would crack. Modular motors like the 2v need a good amount of boost to see 400rwhp, and then the price gets up there and you still won't have the torque that the bigger cubes of an LS1 bring.
More or less this is true, but I don't think the 5.0 Windsor figures into this discussion as it's rather old and it wasn't very good. Getting a mod motor to 400 takes less boost than you seem to be thinking of, it's cheaper than you'd think and I'll grant that the LS1 makes more torque to begin with. But that's not necessarily a good thing either.
Fair enough, but I'm betting he would want something that is a bit more on the edge to teach him since the Viper will be wayyyy more car than the Mustang. An LS1 can get very sideways, very easy. Torque is something you need to lean how to manage, and a Mustang cannot give you that. You can make an LS1 seriously fast, for not a lot of money, plus even if you don't it is fast out of the box.
A bit more on the edge to start is NOT good. The F-body is there, but it had the same problem as the Viper just on a smaller scale. Just ask the insurance companies - F-bodies got crashed and totalled out at a much higher rate than the Mustangs ever did.
Again, the advantage of the Mustang is that it's friendlier to start (as the insurance stats bear out) and can be built up as his skills improve. And it isn't designed by morons.
Everything is right about the same price if not lower FOR F-BODIES! The LS1/LSX family has seen an explosion in recent years because everyone is swapping them into everything, thus dropping and keeping prices into everything. Try putting cams in a Mustang...it'll run you over a grand just for the cams alone. Even then, you'll make less power than a full bolt-on LS1 would.
What you forgot to mention is that if you have someone replace the LS1's cam, it will end up costing more in the long run...
because you basically have to disassemble most of the engine to replace it, thus taking all day. Not cheap at shop rates. Not a lot of fun if you do it yourself. Been there, done that, got the scratches on my arm from trying to snake the #$_&#@&$)#$& cam out past the condenser.
You can swap cams in the Mustang in just an hour or so. Been there, done that, behold the advantage of overhead cams. Also, there are two or four cams in the mod motor, so of course it's going to cost more for the cams themselves - there's more of them! Duh! The overall cost, including time? Sorry, advantage Mustang.
I guess I am left to conclude that you are a Mustang nut-hugger or are friends with one and have only heard his yapping about what is easy and what is hard on f-bodies.
And you would be wrong. Until recently, I've been more or less platform agnostic; and if you check my history,
I was even interested in a GTO until I discovered GM's wretched dealer experience and customer service. I don't own a Mustang, either.
I have had plenty of experience with LS1/LT1 f-bombs, as well as some friends with SN95/New Edge Mustangs. How in the hell is a car with a tiny pushrod motor that leaves lots of space in the engine bay harder to work on than a huuuge DOHC motor that you have to drop the motor out of the car to do headers?
It's harder because GM decided to make boneheaded design decisions, didn't take serviceability into account when designing the car and then stuck the owners with the resulting shop bills.
Let's look at a common problem for both (indeed, all cars) - alternator replacement.
On a Mustang (in fact, all the mod-motor cars until this year), the alternator is right on top in plain view and attached with a simple bracket. Disconnect the battery cable, remove the belt, unplug and unbolt the alternator, lift out alternator. Takes less than 15 minutes with a standard socket set.
LS1? Not so fast.
I'll let the GM fanatics explain that one.
the main bracket uses 2 floating "crush sleeve" bushings that will align and self-center the alternator once the new one is installed
you may have to pry the old alternator out, but once it is has been removed, you can simply take a pair of pliers or channel-locks and "press" the bushing back into an "open" position by putting 1 jaw on the back side of the bushing ( inside of bracket ) and the other jaw on the outside of the BRACKET ONLY, this will return the bushing to an "open position" allowing the new alternator to slide into place with NO EFFORT AT ALL.
once the bolts and re-installed and tightened, it will align itself and tighten down as-designed
As I said, these are the things that helped me. It took me 3.5 hours to do this change, but if I had read this document first, it would have taken me 2.5 to 3 hours. I would also suggest using a ratchet wrench for the bolt on the back side. I didn't have one, and I will be making the investment for future repairs/installs.
What idiot designed this????
Yes, headers are harder on a Mustang. But you're more likely to need to replace an alternator than headers, now, aren't you? (And I say that as someone with a built GM alternator on his project Jag.)
So, how feasible would it be to put it on a Mustang chassis? It wouldn't be the most modern choice I guess, but if you get a Mustang, you'd have a donor frame when the switch to the Viper happens.
Mustangs have been unibody since at least 1979. No frame.