rodan Posted April 15, 2018 Share Posted April 15, 2018 Well, it's been a long time since we got rid of our LGT (2009), but I like this community, and I've stayed active here in the 'Other Cars' section, mostly in the "Bought a Miata" thread. Recently, we traded our 2013 Miata Club on a 2017 Mustang GT. I thought you guys might be interested in hearing about it. This is my 3rd Mustang, the first being an '89 LX 5.0 hatchback, the first car I ever bought new. I had a LOT of fun with that car; drag racing, car shows, even some magazine features... it eventually ran 11s, which was pretty respectable for a street car in the early 90s. Down the road aways, I moved, got married, and we eventually bought a 1998 GT. The SN95 was a far better car than the Fox, but the 4.6 just sucked... I was never really happy with it. I did some suspension mods, and eventually we traded it on our LGT in late 2004. When the Coyote motor arrived, I got interested in Mustangs again, but never really got serious, as we had gotten into Miatas, and even tried a C6 'Vette for a while, which was a total POS. About a month ago, I stopped by our local Dodge dealer to make an oil change appointment for my truck, and sitting on the lot was this '17 GT... The color sucked me in, like a moth to a flame! It had a 6sp manual, Performance Pack (stiffer suspension, big Brembos, and 3.73 gears)... and only 4500 miles. I brought my wife down to look at it and it was a done deal. It's her DD after all... AFter getting it home and looking it over, I found the PO had kindly installed a Magnaflow cat-back, which sounds great, and isn't overly loud. So far, I've just done a few minor cosmetic mods. I didn't really like the chrome emblems, so it got blacked out '5.0's, and a Grabber Blue 'GT' emblem on the rear. The body color valance on the base GTs looks goofy, so some plasti-dip fixed that, and I added a Roush spoiler to finish out the rear. Off to dinner, but I'll post some driving impressions later. Spoiler alert: it's not just a C&C crowd mauler... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris GTO TT Posted April 15, 2018 Share Posted April 15, 2018 Oh God it's coming right for me Also lazy subscribe 2003 Baja 5MT 2016 Outback 2.5i Premium w/Eyesight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodan Posted April 15, 2018 Author Share Posted April 15, 2018 My wife's previous DD, as I mentioned, was a '13 Miata Club with the power hardtop. Powertrain was stock, but I'd done some suspension work, and the thing was a go-kart. My wife had done her first trackday in it, and we had a lot of fun with it. We had test driven a '16 Mustang GT 'vert about a year ago, and weren't at all impressed. It felt heavy, soft and slow. I honestly didn't have the highest hopes when we got in the '17 for a test drive. I won't say it completely blew me away, but it was a very different car than the '16 'vert. Part of that is being lighter, but a lot of it is the Performance Pack. It felt really good, and after driving it, we were definitely sold. It took a couple of weeks for me to finally get it out to our local mountain road and wring it out a bit, and when I did, I was really impressed. After four years in Miatas, it still feels like a big car, but it's really very composed in the twisty stuff. It works really well, even up to speeds that are really too fast for the street. Right at the edge of adhesion, the suspension gets a little out of sorts, but it doesn't do anything stupid. The brakes are more than capable of dealing with street speeds. The gearing is a little on the short side with the 3.73 gears, but once out of first gear and moving it works. It's no slouch with 435hp, but it doesn't have the bottom end torque of a pushrod engine, so you need to keep it spinning to get a hard drive out of the corners. The traction/stability control has a "sport" setting which allows a little more fun before the nannies kick in. In addition to traction/stability control, it has a launch control function, and a line lock for the brakes. It's a great GT car on the highway, comfortable, quiet and fast. So far, we're seeing 25-26mpg running 75-80mph. The infotainment system seems a little clunky to me. The Ford Synch is not quite as nice as the Uconnect system in our Ram dually. I'm thinking about swapping in an upgraded unit out of a GT Premium if it turns out that is possible. All in all, we're pretty happy with the thing so far. We've got several events we're running our NA Miata track car at this summer, and once those are out of the way we'll take it to the track and see how it does. One thing's for sure... track tires will be a lot pricier than for the Miata! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodan Posted April 15, 2018 Author Share Posted April 15, 2018 Oh God it's coming right for me My plan is to avoid Cars & Coffees out of an abundance of caution... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris GTO TT Posted April 15, 2018 Share Posted April 15, 2018 My plan is to avoid Cars & Coffees out of an abundance of caution... Good plan 2003 Baja 5MT 2016 Outback 2.5i Premium w/Eyesight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodan Posted May 6, 2018 Author Share Posted May 6, 2018 I thought I was done with the cosmetic stuff, but decided on a couple more changes. I like the look of the stock Performance Pack wheels on the GT, but cleaning them is a PITA. I found a brush that made that a lot easier, so they can stay, for now... The stock wheel offset, however, looks like crap. I don't know why American car companies (Ford!) can't figure out how to get wheel offset right. Stock... After some hubcentric, bolt-on spacers.... Much betters... I'm no big fan of wheel spacers, but with several vendors recommending them with 19x11 wheels for square track fitment for these cars, I'm not overly concerned with how they will work on the street. I also ditched the blue 'GT' emblem... didn't like it as much as I thought I would. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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