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This is the story of my 1992 LX fox body and my plan to rebuild it. Fair warning it long so grab your favorite beverage and I hope you enjoy.
The Story
1995-1996
I bought my mustang back in 1995 it was used with just over 8k miles on it. It wasn’t very sought after on the dealer lot since it had an automatic installed in it. I didn’t really mind at the time since I had planned on drag racing it. I did some of the normal mods to it at first cat back exhaust, 3.55 gears, JBA headers and subframe connectors. I then lowered the car on suspension technics springs, front and rear sway bars and tokico illumina shocks. I really only added the suspension to it because I liked the looks of the lowered car wasn’t thinking about handling at the time. That changed when I went to a local car show and met a guy with a 1965 GT350 he was autocross racing. He told me all about it sounded like fun so I thought I would check it out. it looked like fun but I realized the automatic was really not going to be good for autocross racing.
1997-1998
After checking out the autocross I decided that is what I wanted to do with the car. The company I worked for got internet access and I found the corral I used to go under a screen name 92lx. I searched all over the net to find the parts I would need to swap the car over to manual. So I bought all the parts I needed to convert the car from automatic to manual. I picked up everything I needed from a salvage yard the only parts I bought that were new was the tranny, clutch quadrant, clutch and flywheel. Then I added JBA racing springs, global west camber plates and hotchkis upper and lower control arms and got the car aligned for autocross. I also added Baer Racing brakes so it would stop. I started autocross racing and loved it. I met a few other guys that raced fox body mustangs and they helped me out getting the car setup. I found out quick that the rear control arms mixed with the bigger rear sway bar can make the rear of the car bind up really bad. The car had really bad wheel hop all over the place. I left the lower arms in but pulled the uppers out and put the factory arms back in and took off the rear sway bar which helped. I added clutches to the diff to tighten it up and the car started to work pretty well but I wanted more.
1999-2000
I started to look around for what I wanted to do next suspension when one of the guys I raced with got a new front suspension that turned it into a SLA front suspension. The kit added a upper control arm to the front of the car and I hadn’t seen anything like it for a mustang. The company that made it also had a complete kmember kit for the front. The kit was made by a guy named Corey Shaw at IPS suspension. Now if you have been on this site long enough you probably recognize the name. The problem at the time was the cost it was way out of my league. But while searching the for sale forums some one was selling a almost complete front an rear IPS setup. I say almost complete since it was missing the front sway bar and the brackets that held it on the car. I didn’t care and bought it. I got the rest of the parts from IPS and installed the front suspension on the car. I didn’t get the rear installed for another 6 months after the front suspension. I had my issues with it but it really worked good on the car.
2001-2003
After I installed the suspension I ran into a problem the car wasn’t legal for most SCCA classes other the CP which the car had no chance in with full interior. This when I made the worst choice I could I turned the car into a track only car. I pulled out my 4 point autopiler roll bar and added a full cage to the car and took it off the street. I thought at the time it would be super cool to own a race car. I bought a full size truck and trailer then started building my race car. it never made it to CP I started to run a local class called SU aka Street Unlimited you could do anything you wanted to the car you just had to run on a DOT approved tire. The class worked great for me so I ran it for the next few years. During the next few years I ended up breaking the rear suspension at the upper mounts and the front spindle adapters. I added a maximum motorsports panhard bar to the car to fix the rear. The front parts were going to take some real fab work with the creator and the company gone I decided to look else where for the front suspension.
2004-2006
I decided to look at all the parts MM had to offer. They were getting ready to release there own kmember and control arm setup so as soon as they released it and started taking orders I bought it. I ended up getting everything they made for the front and rear suspension except the torque arm. I still had the parallel 4 link in the car and decided to stick with it. I raced the car in this configuration until the end of 2006 and the car was great.
2007-now
Then in 2007 I started to realize having a track only car was expensive with the cost of the full size truck and renting a place to store my trailer. I wanted to buy a house get out of CC debit so I decided to sell the truck and trailer and put the car on jack stands. I bought a 2007 Subaru STI so I could still autocross in stock class without doing anything to the car. The mustang remained on jack stands only leaving them when I had to move it to a new place. The years that followed I got out of debit met my wife bought a house and became a dad. I planned on selling the car a few times because I thought my wife was tired of me toting the car around. She told me not to sell it she said if you think I’m mad about you owning that car and it just sitting around your wrong I will be mad if you sell it and try to buy another one later on. I’m lucky to have a wife that likes to autocross race with me its how we met but more on that another time. Now I have the ability to do what I wanted for the past 10 years rebuild the car.
Here's some pictures of how the car sits now. I'm trying to find some old pictures of the car I have some from my second autocross event that I will post once I find them. I also have one from a few months after I bought the car.
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The Story
1995-1996
I bought my mustang back in 1995 it was used with just over 8k miles on it. It wasn’t very sought after on the dealer lot since it had an automatic installed in it. I didn’t really mind at the time since I had planned on drag racing it. I did some of the normal mods to it at first cat back exhaust, 3.55 gears, JBA headers and subframe connectors. I then lowered the car on suspension technics springs, front and rear sway bars and tokico illumina shocks. I really only added the suspension to it because I liked the looks of the lowered car wasn’t thinking about handling at the time. That changed when I went to a local car show and met a guy with a 1965 GT350 he was autocross racing. He told me all about it sounded like fun so I thought I would check it out. it looked like fun but I realized the automatic was really not going to be good for autocross racing.
1997-1998
After checking out the autocross I decided that is what I wanted to do with the car. The company I worked for got internet access and I found the corral I used to go under a screen name 92lx. I searched all over the net to find the parts I would need to swap the car over to manual. So I bought all the parts I needed to convert the car from automatic to manual. I picked up everything I needed from a salvage yard the only parts I bought that were new was the tranny, clutch quadrant, clutch and flywheel. Then I added JBA racing springs, global west camber plates and hotchkis upper and lower control arms and got the car aligned for autocross. I also added Baer Racing brakes so it would stop. I started autocross racing and loved it. I met a few other guys that raced fox body mustangs and they helped me out getting the car setup. I found out quick that the rear control arms mixed with the bigger rear sway bar can make the rear of the car bind up really bad. The car had really bad wheel hop all over the place. I left the lower arms in but pulled the uppers out and put the factory arms back in and took off the rear sway bar which helped. I added clutches to the diff to tighten it up and the car started to work pretty well but I wanted more.
1999-2000
I started to look around for what I wanted to do next suspension when one of the guys I raced with got a new front suspension that turned it into a SLA front suspension. The kit added a upper control arm to the front of the car and I hadn’t seen anything like it for a mustang. The company that made it also had a complete kmember kit for the front. The kit was made by a guy named Corey Shaw at IPS suspension. Now if you have been on this site long enough you probably recognize the name. The problem at the time was the cost it was way out of my league. But while searching the for sale forums some one was selling a almost complete front an rear IPS setup. I say almost complete since it was missing the front sway bar and the brackets that held it on the car. I didn’t care and bought it. I got the rest of the parts from IPS and installed the front suspension on the car. I didn’t get the rear installed for another 6 months after the front suspension. I had my issues with it but it really worked good on the car.
2001-2003
After I installed the suspension I ran into a problem the car wasn’t legal for most SCCA classes other the CP which the car had no chance in with full interior. This when I made the worst choice I could I turned the car into a track only car. I pulled out my 4 point autopiler roll bar and added a full cage to the car and took it off the street. I thought at the time it would be super cool to own a race car. I bought a full size truck and trailer then started building my race car. it never made it to CP I started to run a local class called SU aka Street Unlimited you could do anything you wanted to the car you just had to run on a DOT approved tire. The class worked great for me so I ran it for the next few years. During the next few years I ended up breaking the rear suspension at the upper mounts and the front spindle adapters. I added a maximum motorsports panhard bar to the car to fix the rear. The front parts were going to take some real fab work with the creator and the company gone I decided to look else where for the front suspension.
2004-2006
I decided to look at all the parts MM had to offer. They were getting ready to release there own kmember and control arm setup so as soon as they released it and started taking orders I bought it. I ended up getting everything they made for the front and rear suspension except the torque arm. I still had the parallel 4 link in the car and decided to stick with it. I raced the car in this configuration until the end of 2006 and the car was great.
2007-now
Then in 2007 I started to realize having a track only car was expensive with the cost of the full size truck and renting a place to store my trailer. I wanted to buy a house get out of CC debit so I decided to sell the truck and trailer and put the car on jack stands. I bought a 2007 Subaru STI so I could still autocross in stock class without doing anything to the car. The mustang remained on jack stands only leaving them when I had to move it to a new place. The years that followed I got out of debit met my wife bought a house and became a dad. I planned on selling the car a few times because I thought my wife was tired of me toting the car around. She told me not to sell it she said if you think I’m mad about you owning that car and it just sitting around your wrong I will be mad if you sell it and try to buy another one later on. I’m lucky to have a wife that likes to autocross race with me its how we met but more on that another time. Now I have the ability to do what I wanted for the past 10 years rebuild the car.
Here's some pictures of how the car sits now. I'm trying to find some old pictures of the car I have some from my second autocross event that I will post once I find them. I also have one from a few months after I bought the car.
