Just goes to show that if you’re gonna mod your ride, you better do it right. You can’t change one thing for performance purposes without making sure that other components are compatible with the change.
Blow the ricers away when no cops are around.
“Ford 4.3 is not a lawn Mower Engine, hence it doesnt need to be turning at 7200 RPM. How many RPMs you need is a function of the displacement and torque curve of the engine.”
I would’t want to call my sons engine a “lawn Mower Engine”. As you stated RPMs is a function of the displacement and torque curve of the engine but it also has a cause and effect on the drive tires. It’s called rotation. So depending on gearing of the transmission or trans axle it should also go faster and have better acceleration.
“And who cares if you can beat a V8 with the ricer, just have enough confidence in yourself and your ride to drive like a human on your commute. If you take a piece of junk and trick it up, it will be driven like a piece of junk with very low residual value.”
I will have to say that my son does drive like human and also his cheaper “tricked piece of junk” will be worth more than your Mustang in 16 years. Most people know that Hondas hold there resale value better than alot of cars including the Ford Mustang. So please stay confident that as your driving your car that your car will be devaluing faster than my sons. 
As for as your car being stock, this engine and model configuration where stock in my sons car but in Japan.
My point in this is and I quote “And in every case it is a little car with a huge spoiler and mullfer.” that not all imports with larger spoilers going to blow up if you look at them. There are some out there that has a little something under the hood. LOL
I do agree with you that all this should be decided at the track and not on the streets.
I may have missed it in your other postings but what year is your Mustang?
How do you tell these poor souls that their car is a regular commute car no matter how large the spoiler is
Why bother? When you drive a classy car, it’s beneath your dignity to take notice of the riffraff.
Personally I think Mustang is also a “pretend” sports car too, just has a big engine.
Nothing against the mustang, but it’s hardly a sports car (maybe it’s a muscle car) and you are comparing it with a bunch of FWD stuff which is about as far from a sports car as you can get without buying a mini-van (BTW, what’s the point of a rear wing on a FWD ricer, they don’t have enough under-steer already?). And you are talking about stop-light drag racing, which has nothing to do with sports cars either. If you want to talk about sports cars, there has to be a corner involved someplace.
Some of the worst drivers I see on the road drive “classy” cars. Do you know how many times a day I see BMW, Mercedes, and Lexus drivers speeding and cutting off other drivers? When I hear a coke can exhaust I know to watch out for an idiot, but you don’t hear the “classy” car coming with an idiot behind the wheel. Nope, they sneak up on you and, therefore, are more dangerous.
Idiots behind the wheel come in all shapes and sizes, and drive all kinds of vehicles.
Ha ha, Seen that one quite some time ago.
If you’d ever seen and/heard the shinanegans that go on haulin’ kids to hockey you’d understand why that van goes so fast. Heh heh heh
Years ago my wife’s car was a Ford Granada with the 351 Windsor V8 engine (different from the Cleveland 351). This was really a truck engine, with gobs of torque at low speed. At the green light the pretend sports cars tried to outrun her without success. Since it is hard to get up to 80 mph in city traffic, these guys are still wondering what was under the hood of this little 2 door compact car.
One things for sure…there’re burning less gas in these pretend sports cars…maybe the challenge is to see how many stations you can pass with that 300 hp.
Not as good as I used to get with my MR2 ( about 28 combined) but I still get very decent mileage. The best I got was around 25 and I average close to 20. Ofcourse if you get on the car more and drive it like a nut job, you will get horrible gas mileage. The quality of the ride and the comfort more than make up for the lost 8 mpg.
Jack Rabbit starts, spinning the tyres and letting RPMs shoot to 6000 before shifting will empty your gas tank in any car.
Any engine has more frictional losses at high RPM. So when you hear the lawnmower sound, the engine is actually screaming in pain and the efficiency is going down the tubes. You can check this out with any car that offers an instant mileage readout, that can make you alter your driving style very dramtically.
You could always do this.
(This one always makes me laugh)
I think a case can be made for the Mustang as a sports car. It raced well in the Trans Am Series, put on by the SCCA. Annual winners included Alfa Romeo, Porsche 911, Corvette, Jaguar XJS, and the usual list of Trans Am suspects. I think you will agree that most of the list are sports cars. Why not the Mustang, Javelin, and Camaro, too? In racing trim, of course, like the Boss 302 and Z-28. I don’t think that we should include the 6-cylinder base model with the cushy suspension on the list. The Mustang was a very popular car, outfitted for a wide variety of the public.