Looking to get something fun for the weekends without breaking the bank. Both of these can easily be found under $10k, with the Mustang usually a few grand cheaper for similar condition/miles.

I know its not exactly apples to apples. I really cannot stand the SN95 body in either form unless we're talking Terminator, but that would be double my budget. And I've never been a fan of 3rd gen F-bodies.

My goal is to have a stock bottom end motor, likely H/C/I for the 5.0, potentially less for the LS1, as I'm really looking for around 350hp. The real point of all of this is something fun to drive. I realize both have live axle setups in the rear, but I'm looking to make this toy more of a back roads machine. I know I can go grab a 330i or something for around the same price, but the draw of a RWD V8 has got me (as does the cost of parts for one).

I haven't driven either of these in over a decade so I can't remember how they held up in the corners. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to get something to pull 1.0G+ in the skidpad, just something that feels competent in a corner on a twisty road.

So all in all, what can be made to handle decently without breaking the bank? I.e. not coilovers, tubular everything, etc.

If there is some wonderful car that I am overlooking please speak up! It has to be 4 seat since I have a kid and would like to be able to take all 3 of us to dinner or into town, etc.

The best is actually a combination of the two!

I.e. An LS swapped Foxbody.

The fox is a lighter much easier to wrench on platform with a stronger axle option and a much more ergonomic interior. Handling is what you expect from what amounts to a 70's American economy car chassis.  Squeaky and flexy but light on its feet

The 3rd gen F body with an LS has all the power in the world but it has a borderline piece of shit axle, a retarded interior layout design that seems best suited to something other than human beings. But perhaps worst of all the engine, hood, windshield layout is pure "go fuck yourself" from a wrenching standpoint. The motor has to come out through the bottom!!! The camaro is better off in terms of handling but is still pretty archaic by any modern standard

LS swapped foxbody (not necessarily a mustang) would be what I'd be searching for. Or buy a 4cyl fox and swap it yourself which is what I did.

ETA unless your kid is a double amputee he's not going to appreciate the camaro back seat

If you're putting your family in it, I'd look at a 5-lug swap for the Fox and some SN95 brakes for good 4-wheel disc.  The stock brakes suck ass.  I still need to 5-lug swap mine

C5 Vette out of the picture? If so, LS1 F-Body for sure.

Tag for interest

I'd be all over a C5 Z06. Yes its double my budget but it would be my forever toy. Performance bargain of the century right there. But unfortunately I need a back seat for my kid to ride around in.

I am a fan of the F body platform but if you have any intention of using the back seat, you might want to consider something else.

I'll suggest finding a clean G body if you want a family friendly toy with a usable back seat. They have full frames and will easily accept a large variety of engines and drivetrain components.

A very good suggestion and with the right handling package parts will corner surprisingly spritely are a much more solid feeling car and are almost as light in spite of being BOF

The problem is finding one some hood rat hasn't destroyed

4th gen. LS engine, less body flex issues

Let me toss this out there, have you thought about a late model crown vic?

I bought a 2009 Crown Vic Police Interceptor last month from an auction last month. 171,900 miles for $450. Filled it up with gas and drove it 200 miles home. Been working on getting it cleaned up. It's a daily driver now to get me back and forth to work

Supercharger kit is around $6000. Gets you  near 400 HP. Already comes with a true dual exhaust with crossover pipe

Got a limited slip rear, 3.27 gears. Cop transmission, cop suspension and 55 series tires on it from factory.

I need to replace inner and outer tie rods ($100 ish from Rock auto for Moog parts), but otherwise it handles well in the curves.

Interior is in pretty good shape. Lots of rear seat space.

Only exterior issues are a small split in the rear bumper cover and a crappy decal removal job by the agency I bought it from.

It's cheap enough to work on it and the 4.6 has a decent performance aftermarket for it.

I'd love to find a wrecked super snake and swap the engine into it. Would make for an awesome sleeper !

Or he can have an LS1, which will be sporting 340 HP from factory, and touching 400 is a set of $239 Pacesetter long tubes and a $699 camshaft package away.

When it comes to bang for buck, Ford has nothing on GM.

Well yeah, there is that, but do people get out of the left lane  quickly when you come up behind them??  

99-02 mullet mobile. WS6_RAM Air or SS with headers, a 50-75 shot. 3:42 gears to 3;73.

I am partial to my 86 IROC.  With the TPI 5.0 it has a good amount of power (torque not hp) from idle to about 4200 rpm.  GM screwed up setting the shift point at 5500 rpm.

But, I always said if I was to ever buy a 4th Gen F body it would be the Trans Am.  Those Camaros are just so plain looking it's a crime.  The Trans Am runs good and looks good.

What's with the 3rd Gen F body "engine out the bottom" thing?  When we put the built up 327 in my son's 91 Camaro RS we removed the hood and took the old 5.0 out the top and put the new 327 in from the top.  Now that's a bad ass little small block.

I'll will say one more thing.  If you've been driving a "modern" car, with a complicated computer and traction control, etc. you need to be prepared for an older V8 to break the back wheels loose when you hit the pedal.  I've been driving my Coupe so much and my IROC so little that I'll almost always spin the tires on the IROC once or twice before I get used to it again when I take it out for a drive on a pretty day.  Around here, spinning the tires can be construed (by a dick head LEO) as "loss of control" and earn you a ticket.

That'd be because you were working on a third gen and not a fourth gen (catfish)

I have a 95 Cobra with 85% or so of the Maximum Motorsports catalog for the car...

It will corner well enough to make me nearly car sick with G-forces in the corners.

It wears coil overs front and rear with new front control arms and bump steer kit with caster/camber plates.   Rear lower control arms with poly front and heim rear.   New stock upper control arms for compliance and the panhard bar.     To do the torque arm I would need to modify my factory Xpipe for the way it ties into the subframe connectors.   In CA messing with anything that has cats attached to it is a headache as you might fail visual and never get to the sniffer.

Still on the list to add is the Kmember and full length sub frame connectors.   Something a Fox body could benefit from greatly.    I hope to rebuild my engine with a HCI upgrade at some point and that will be when I do the kmember.

I have 275/40-17 fronts and 315/35-17 rears.

With nothing but a cam swap, shorty headers, and a 3.73 trutrac rear it does 14.1 @98.5 in the 1/4 mile.    Probably roughly 220-240 rwhp given the ET.

On the street in first gear the cam kicks in hard about 3k rpm on up to 5500rpm.   Letting the clutch out on a gentle roll from stop and then full on the gas will have it take off and break both of the tires loose entirely at 3k rpm.   No traction control at all so it makes for a fun car.    I forget my spring rates but they are stiff so very little weight transfer.

A fox body with HCI should do 300rwhp pretty easy and with the right suspension should throw down with some good handling as well.   5 lug swap to Mach1/Cobra/Bullet spindles/brakes along with a rear disc brake conversion and you are largely done.


For what it is worth my 95 may not be as sophisticated or as fast as my 2015 GT Prrf Pack but it is in many ways more fun to drive.    World feels like it is coming undone if you get over 90mph in my 95.     Meanwhile the 2015 could do 140 and you would hardly know it.

I say try to find a nice LX notch back.    Be ready to replace a lot on it.   My 95 had it's suspension just rotting off of it when I got it.




At home in it's element.     I just lost a bolt to the headers and developed an exhaust leak that wont reseal.   So now I get to drop the header and install a new gasket.    Got stage 8 locking fasteners for this next go around.   Tired of chasing the issue.

Just picked up this '99 FRC C5 with 52k miles for $12.5k...literally exactly in the same boat as you and found a gem. I don't have a kid though.

All the 98-02 F-Body cars around here are stupidly priced by hillbillies that think they're "rare" now.

Damn.

You did good.    If that car were to pop up local to me I could be motivated to come up with some quick cash for a bastard child in my garage.

Doesn't matter when you don't even have to get out of 6th gear to outrun the Ford 4.6 2V POS behind you

Those "modern cars" with V8's (or boosted 6-cyl) will burn the tires off through 4th gear without the damned computers.  In it's day that TPI wasn't a total slouch with 345ft-lbs at it's peak, but times have changed.

Embrace the present. Everything, literally everything, is better about cars now than they were in the 80s. More power, more reliability, better materials, better construction, more power per modification, and with a custom tuner at your disposal, it's not particularly hard to work on domestic V8's today as it was 30 years ago.

Want to buy some SN spindles?   Got a set in the garage off my sons wrecked '95.

OP,

I have a PHD in 4th gen f-body so here's your answer.

1. Buy the cleanest STOCK one you can find.  I cannot stress this enough to buy one that is not modified and hasn't had a million owners.  
2. try to get a 01-02 with 00-99 being the 2nd choice
3. For your price range you're going to be looking at Z28s, Formulas and base Trans Ams.  The SS and WS6's worth owning are still in the 12-14,000 range unless you want one with over 80k miles.
4. If you want to back up to LT1s then go for 95-97 SLP cars like SS, WS6 and Firehawk but even with 50k miles do NOT pay more than $8000

On the Mustang side you will not find a Fox 79-93 Mustang worth a damn for less than $9000.  they are all gone.  If you are talking 99-04 well that's a different story and if you look hard enough you can find 01-04 GTs with 20k miles on them for $9000 totally stock but........260hp was a joke back then and is an even worse joke now.

Listen to this guy.

I pulled the motor out of my 4th gen from the top more than once with no issue. Both with and without transmission attached. The only problem I ever had with working on that car was changing spark plugs with long tubes was almost impossible. The rest of the car was a POS though, if I had to do it again I would strip the shitty interior, throw in a 4l80 and 9inch.

Wow, you stole that car.

Are those real brake ducts or the fake ones? Had a set of real ones for my '00 FRC but I couldn't bring myself to cut the body and sold them.

Hot Rod Magazine did a AFR head swap and an intake swap with long tube headers and made 400HP at the crank with a 302 sporting the  factory cam.   It is pretty hard to beat a Fox Mustang in the Bang for the Buck category.    If you do a 5 lug conversion with bigger brakes including rear disc brakes you can go with a 17" or 18" wheel for better stopping and handling.

I really did.

They are cut-in OEM Z06 ducts and are functional. The previous owner had it professionally done.

My cousin just sold his C5Z for about 12k. Clean car, salvage title but ran really well and was stock. Deals are out there.

I'm partial to foxes, but a car from the early 90s that had 225 hp stock isn't gonna run like an LS engine or any modern day engines.

A clean Buick T Type could be a ton of fun.


There are a lot of fun cars for around 10. If I were personally in your shoes I'd look hard at an 03-04 Mach 1. You can Eaton swap them fairly easily, and the manual ones had a forged 8 bolt crank.


You could also probably find a newer 3 valve GT in that price range.

LS swapped Fox body or G-body gets my vote.  

I've had three 4th gen F-bodies and while they were all a blast at the time I don't want another one.  I've had something like 8 G-bodies.  Couple of Turbo Buick's.  Stay away from those.   The C5 Z06 is a great car if you can get past the interior.  I had one of those for awhile too.  

My next race car will be a Fox or a G body Malibu with a turbo LS.

How about an LS swapped Crown Vic ? this would be the best of all and has sleeper all over it

Honestly the sleeper of all sleepers is any 3rd gen camaro with a LS swap.  By swapping the engine over you basically have now turned a 3rd gen into a 4th gen as the cars share the same chassis from behind the firewall and 80% of their interior.  I love the 3rd gens and have owned a few but nobody and I mean nobody gives them the time of day unless they looked like they just rolled off the showroom.  They are one of those cars now that if you drive it around dirty, it's viewed as white trash transportation, if it's clean and waxed its a grey area classic car.  Same thing the 78-81 camaros run into.  

Spaceboy I'm sure can give you plenty of examples of how he's "surprised" a few people with his LS1 powered RS.

This one is a prime example:  the 5th gen owner was so PISSED that he got beat by a lowly IROC that he demanded that they race again and...... he lost again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNP5d8jdM54

Good looking car! My plan is to replace suspension parts anyway, think Matt Farah's coupe but not quite as extreme. GT40 heads/intake, B/E cam, shorty headers and an OR pipe with a catback is really the extent of the engine mods I plan. I'd rather have something that handles like its on rails.

Yeah thats seriously irritating. They're only 20 years old at this point, not classics by any stretch. But I find dudes out there with the "35 anniversary pkg" cars that are in decent shape wanting the high teens for their cars. Lol pass

Why embrace the present? I enjoy the driving experience and the hobby of working on cars. Its not going to be an every day type car. I can do without any of the crazy options packages that are out there. I don't want adaptive cruise, 25 way power seats with massage, cooling, heating, etc, infotainment that can do 3d projection or whatever the hell is out now. I want a nice V8 in a FR layout with a third pedal. Nothing more. Plus I can get in on something that goes for as little as 1/10 the price of something new if I look 15 years back. There is no way I will come close to spending that much to keep it on the road.

Yeah I want an 01-02 if I can find it. There is an SS locally with factory installed CME which is apparently hard to find now. Looks to be in good shape too.

But I can find 89-93 Fox (wanting a MAF car) for <10k all day long. There are some bone stock ones in my area that are in that price range. I'd just rather have something that isn't a time capsule so I don't feel terrible modding it. I'd rather get something lightly modded and go from there

F-Body

 

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I was pretty clear why present-day cars (and I'm talking pretty wide here, last 20 years or so) are better:

A reasonably modern, LS-powered car from the 90's and early-2000's is going to be <$15k (GTO, CTS-V1, Corvette, Camaro/Firebird, etc) and will make more power for less money, be more reliable, easy to work on, and the only newfangled computer work you'll need to do should be outsourced to a competent tuner, who are a dime a dozen all over the country.

Purposely stepping backward into an anemic drivetrain in a squishy platform from the 80's is beyond me. Why would you do that? Slamming a cam into a carb'd 350 as a kid with my dad was nearly identical to doing one on my LS, yet one provides way better bang for buck, and the price was nearly the same.

Because a Fox has stupid cheap parts. Going WAY back to the first post you'd see that my goal is not to be running 10's in the 1/4. I want a decently quick car that I can have fun on twisty back roads. If I can take a Fox body, for several grand less, and make it on par for HANDLING with an F-Body, its a win in my book. Anemic drivetrain is relative when talking about moving a ~3100lb car along. The Ford 302 is a couple grand at most from my HP goal. Yes the factory Fox can be described as "squishy", but the F-body is no monster in the corners either. Again referencing the first post, looking to see what can be more fun as a daily in the corners within my budget.

The cars you listed, only the F-body is in the running. Finding an LS2 GTO is not cheap, and the LS1 is an underpowered yacht (~350lbs more than the F-body with the same motor). The CTS-V gen 1 has a time bomb for a rear end, and the Corvette only has 2 seats.

Hell, like has been posted you can find Mach 1's all day long for around $5k.

where are you located?  I'll poke around and see what I can find.

Near Raleigh, NC

I'm on the ls bandwagon, but keep in mind the fox body wasn't only mustangs and capris.  You can mod a Fairmont or LTD II with the same parts.

HUH?  You think the LS1 is an underpowered yacht?   345hp/350tq is not anything to scoff at, especially when you're talking about anemic 302s' and 4.6 Mods in the same breath of that common era.  Considering it has MORE power than either the 2v 4.6 and 302 even with bolt-ons, I fail to see how it comes up "underpowered."  Hell, even the 03-04 Terminators were sporting blowers and didn't even edge out the LS6 in horsepower, nevermind that the LS6 is naturally aspirated.

If you want a corner carver, the SN95 is a *horrible* place to start. Sure, the 4th gen isn't a razor in the curves, but at least it doesn't suffer from the incredibly flexible underbody (especially on 'verts) that the SN-95 has ... shit, companies like Griggs paid for their daily bread with intrusive kits to fix this very problem.  I helped install one on my cousin's '01 GT several years ago.  At least the doors don't rattle open during good launches now.   Of those LS cars that aren't Corvettes, the GTO or the V1 would be the best ... and 1st generation CTS-V rear problems are overstated. The aftermarket figured out how to preserve them; near-solid urethane mounts fixes that problem. Believe me, I just barely sold my cam/heads/exhaust '04 V1 last week that I owned for 5 years, I broke one original diff but it was still on the worn out rubber mounts. New diff + the urethane subframe fixed that issue 100%.


Price-wise you're not that far off from $5k, but you said under $10k so here's a bunch of examples in your area:


Craigslist - '99 Z28, $7995
Craigslist - '98 Z28, $7500
Craigslist - '00 SS, $7000
Craigslist - '02 Trans Am, $8950
Craigslist - '00 Trans Am, $7900
Craigslist - '04 GTO, $9500


All of these have more power potential and better underpinnings than any fox body.


But it doesn't seem to me you want anything GM, despite putting it in your title, since you keep going back to the wholly inferior Ford products of that era.

Unless you are trying to go cheap or will port the hell out of the heads/intake...

Go with a full head/cam/intake swap.   The B/E cams are not that special in my opinion unless you worry about smog.

Edlebrock and Trickflow had some nice matched combos.

Get some aluminum heads on it and turn it up.     Sadly the full DART 331 long block in my garage wint be going in my 95 anymore.  Plans changed.   Spent more building the engine than I have on the entire car.   The 331 is gonna go in a 65-69 when I happen on the right one.


Will redo this car with a trickflow HCI at some point when engin comes out for a rebuild.   There is a CARB smog cert 347 small block from coast machine, i might use that for a basis.

That doesn't mean you should.

My wife has always wanted a fox body, ever since Vanilla Ice's white one in his music video . Last year I bought her a 1990 GT convertible,and she loves it.


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The convertibles are extremely cheap to buy into. Unfortunately they're rather portly and at 3600 lbs with an automatic and 2.73 gears you could literally outrun mine with my wife's 5 speed 2wd Jeep Cherokee 4.0L

But still mine made glorious noises.

The LX verts were awesome especially the special edition ones with the pony wheels like the "seven up" version and the yellow one.

Again back to the original goal, not looking for a HP beast, just something with decent power and fun in the corners.

Yes I think that 345hp is underpowered for a car that weighs over 3700lbs. Or maybe its just the right amount of power? Call it what you will, but I am certain you'll feel that 3700lbs going around a corner.

You keep attacking the 302 for its output. Its a 50 year old motor, of course its not the epitome of efficiency. But simplicity and cost play a huge role here. A 302 is heads, cam, intake, and exhaust away from making 300hp, and on a 3100lb car that number is right around what the GTO is making hp/lb.

I have no problem with anything GM, but you keep taking this talk back to horsepower. Dude, read the first post. And comparing Fox verts? Really? Of course that thing is as stiff as a wet noodle. A coupe is a panhard bar and some subframe connectors away from being super rigid. Find someone with a Termi that wants a solid axle to launch on so you can trade and you have a very capable IRS. What IRS solution is there for the F-Body?

Im trying to say dollar for dollar what has the better handling potential on a budget. Horsepower be damned. Figure 300-350 for both.

The Fox nor the SN95 accomplish either of these things, which is why I keep coming back to  questioning why you're looking at them?

It looks like the SS was somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,450lbs but with fuel, driver, etc. 3700 isn't a stretch. My V clocked in just under 4k and it didnt' ever feel heavy in the road course.  Besides, the Mustang GT in 1996 weighed the same (approx 3400lbs) yet was somewhere in the neighborhood of 215-245hp for a stock 4.6L 2V (with PI heads it went up a bit), putting the F-body cars ahead in power/weight ratio anyway.  You're splitting hairs on weight ratio between the two.

Even if the Mustang was 500lbs lighter, the SN95 and Fox handled like complete ass and were springy throughout the chassis. They'll "feel" heavier in the corners since they have no rigidity.

The LS is basically a SBC, too. It's not particularly different by any stretch of the imagination. Even if you do get a 302 to that power level, you still have to deal with the crappy underpinnings, and you have to do engine work, and you'll still be 45hp down (and who knows how much torque) off of a stock F-body.

If you care about IRS, you need to be looking at a different platform.  This is moving the goalposts--but even so, the GTO and the CTS-V1 fill this role for under $10k.   I just sold my '04 for $9600. That was with cam, head work, new valvetrain, all new gaskets throughout, professional dyno tune, long tubes, updated rear, bushings ass to nose, etc. The car was a monster.  Stock and modded cars are all over the CTS-V classifieds for that price range and again, will run circles around a Fox/SN95 and not require you turn any wrenches on them to get the performance and handling you want.

Yes, I have gone back to power -- horsepower is part of the equation. But I have also repeatedly gone back to the underpinnings for the F-body and other era LS cars being superior as well; you'll spend less money and have more power without dumping a dozen weekends into fixing something in a Fox or SN95 that GM never had a problem with.



It sounds like you want a Ford though so just go for it. Have fun playing from behind.

I just sold my '02 Z28 and if I were to get another car of that type, I'd get a LS1 swapped Fox.  I think the Fox body is a much nicer looking car overall.

As a die hard Ford guy, if you want handling get a Vette.

We had a road course track day in my Mustang club. 50 something Mustangs, everything from "built" foxes to Terminators to GT500s and Coyotes and everything in between. Many cars there were built with handling in mind.


The 1 and only C5 Vetted was like 2 seconds quicker around the course than the quickest Mustang.


If you absolutely MUST have a back seat, look for a first gen CTSV and put a couple bucks into it to fix the weak links.

Or a GTO


Edit: OR you can shove my jealousy meter off the charts if you spend a little more and get a Pontiac G8 with a V8.