Hey all, my name Ray, I was born in raised here in Richmond, VA and still reside in that area. Being from the RVA you get a little taste of everything from Nascar Cup Series at RIR to your nice back road cruise on tail of the dragon.
My love for automotive started at a young age. Almost anything with an exhaust and four wheels was “on in Poppin”. Growing up, I'll never forget my dad purchasing a BMW Z3 roadster. His facial expression said it all and every time he went to go drive it. I remember riding to school with my pops and siblings and pointing at cars out the window. At that point in life, I knew that I liked cars and I had to get me something when I grew up. When growing up I didn’t see myself in a mustang until the 2005 S197 arrived on the scene. Going back to some of ford’s roots with the retro styling of the classic mustang not only caught my eye but the eyes of many. At that moment I knew I wanted a mustang in the future.
After Falling in love with the 2005-09 retro styling of the mustang. When the 2011-14 mustangs were released for the s197 chassis refresh I was in a lost of words. One of my close friends had the opportunity to buy a spanking new one while we were high school. After my first ride along I was hooked, and my search begin for my own mustang. The 5-
liter coyote was one of the best sounding vehicles I had ever heard at the time and the speed stock for stock was unmatched for most on the roadway. I knew I wanted a 13/14 Mustang because it reminded me most of the old school mustangs, I use to point to on my ride to school with my pops.
The mustang being one of the most customizable cars in the world I was faced with the question what mods I plan on doing to this. The first day I had the car I found a buddy that had an exhaust that he was willing to let go of. As many would do, I couldn’t say no and just like that my first official mod was installed on the car on Day 1. It wasn’t the cream of the crop exhaust, but it did the job for 20-year-old me until I could afford what I wanted.
When I first had the car, everything was still new, so I didn’t have vision in mind. Once I went to my first mustang week in myrtle beach the vision started to form. I was getting ideas left and right and over the course of the next few years I would add a little here in a little there as I was in college. Once I graduated and had more time for my hobbies I got more into the heavy mods like suspension and power adders. I will say from my experience with many builds most of the time its not smartest to wing it, so I wanted to go a more organized way.
When choosing a blower there are a lot of options out there and all of them are great in my opinion which made it very difficult. I choose a Paxton supercharger as I believed that it provided the most reliability out of the options. Also knowing vortech from the fox body days showed that they could take some abuse and still get you A to B. The install was
also one of the most simplistic and the price point is almost unbeatable which in my eyes makes it a bang for the buck product as I like to say. My 2nd option would have been a gen 5 Whipple or a 2650 VMP blower. All of these blowers can get you 900 plus WHP without even trying which is why they are great choices for folks like me that like growing room.
Its hard to say what my favorite mods are on my car. If I had to choose, I would say my favorite is the wheels and that’s one reason why they have never changed. Something about the RTR tech 7’s looks perfect to me they are not stance but also not aggressive which puts it right in the middle of the mix. Another pro to the RTR tech 7’s is they fit all break kits available for the mustang so changing stuff up won’t cause duplication of parts by having to get new wheels.
So originally, I had ford performance springs on the car for the roughly 3 years and they were great. Once I graduated and moved back from the city the nice roads incentivized me
to try out bags as it was nice for the shows and adjustability for day-to-day activities.
Like everything they have their pros and cons I would say majority of my experience has been positive and great. Any issue that I ever ran across which was only one Air lift was quick and very customer friendly and had me back on the road in no time.
Honestly, doing more sounds good, but I believe I’ve come to the part of my life where I’m just happy with what I have. I know the car in and out and I like everything I’ve done to it this far and I believe I’m content the way the car sits. It looks good in my opinion, and it will beat 80% of the stuff on the road, which I can live with.
Are you thirsty for more?
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