Learn me S197s.

So I found a 2006 Mustang GT with a manual trans that's caught my attention. Planning on going to look at it today and was wondering if there's anything I should watch out for other than the obvious. 

DILYSI Dave bought one with 175k and proceeded to daily plus autocross plus track it for another 100k.  IIRC it’s still his daily.  The only failure I’m aware of on his car was a noisy diff around 200k that he replaced with a junkyard dropout.

they are very robust cars.

side note:  I was the application engineer for the ABS and TCS on that car, so I may be biased, but as long as the seats aren’t smashed to death I’d rock one in a heartbeat.  

Car in question is at 91k miles and the interior looked way cleaner than I'm used to. 

Early S197 values have dropped with the later ones getting the 5.0 coyote.  06 gets a three valve 4.6 I think, they sound nice but not real quick.  My buddy Chuck spent a lot to get his up to 320hp at the wheels NA.   The three valve is the red headed step child of the mustang world, but its a mustang so all the parts are available ten different ways.

The 05 to 09 are my favorite body.  I keep telling Chuck how worthless his car is and how the Fox that I bought from him is going up in value.  I placed a bug in his ear yesterday about selling the Fox and buying his S197.  

akylekoz said:

Early S197 values have dropped with the later ones getting the 5.0 coyote.  06 gets a three valve 4.6 I think, they sound nice but not real quick.  My buddy Chuck spent a lot to get his up to 320hp at the wheels NA.   The three valve is the red headed step child of the mustang world, but its a mustang so all the parts are available ten different ways.

The 05 to 09 are my favorite body.  I keep telling Chuck how worthless his car is and how the Fox that I bought from him is going up in value.  I placed a bug in his ear yesterday about selling the Fox and buying his S197.  

 

that is the issue i see locally. the 11+ v6 cars which are faster than the 10 and older gt's are getting to be the same price. and 11+ all stangs have 8.8's even the v6's

I bought any 05 GT new. 4.6l, 5spd. It's a great car but I'd have to supercharge it to get to the power levels of the later 5.0 cars. It's a little lighter than the later cars, mostly due to feature bloat, and has factory 3 55 rear gears. Later cars were 3.31 standard with 3.55 optional. I've autocrossed it, done a track day, and daily driven it. With basic shocks, springs, and sways it's done great at all of it.

It's not slow, it will hit 60 in 5 sec flat and almost 13 flat in the 1/4 but that's still nothing compared to the later cars. The sweet spot would be an 09 with the same body and a five liter, but you can't go wrong with a 4.6 if it's in your price range. Biggest issue on the used cars is the notorious spark plug breakage issue. Just make sure it's been upgraded to better plugs and maybe do a compression check to make sure it wasnt damaged by a plug disintegration in the past. Everything else is just standard old car issues. 

If you've got other questions I'm happy to answer. Love miy s197.

Searching 09 Mustang GT, just learned about the sweet spot.

Ninja edit; Looks like 11 was the first year of the 5.0.

Great cars.  I bought mine at 175k and it's now 240k and still chugging.  And I'm not kind to it.  Like Angry said, I replaced the rear axle around 200k because the original was getting noisy and that was cheaper than setting up gears.  Otherwise, drivetrain is all original.  I've done a good bit of work to make it dance, and it does so surprisingly well for what it is.  Pretty good DNA for a stick axle car.  One of the only gotchas of the early cars is that the door cards are all dying by now.  Not a deal breaker, but annoying.  If you can stretch and get a 5.0, do so, as the 4.6 will never be as fast on a reasonable budget.  But the 4.6 isn't slow.  Personally, once it's no longer a DD mine is likely to get an LS3....

akylekoz said:

Searching 09 Mustang GT, just learned about the sweet spot.

Ninja edit; Looks like 11 was the first year of the 5.0.

Yeah, the old body never got the Coyote.  The update was in 10 and the Coyote came in 11.  So the 2010's are really redheaded stepchildren.

Picked up a 2005 GT last summer from the GRM classifieds and I have been very happy with it. The previous owner had the spark plugs changed at 48k miles so I don't have to worry about it for another 50k miles. It certainly won't hold a candle to the power of the later 5.0 powered GT's, but I expect it will be fast enough for my level of confidence on the track. It has been a mid pack finisher at local autocross events in CAM-C with tires that are far from the pointy end of things in both size and tread-wear rating. The axle back exhaust makes a lovely note in my opinion (and others have commented favorably).  Overall if the price is right and you enjoy the test drive, I think they can be a decent bang for the buck.

ultraclyde said:

Later cars were 3.31 standard with 3.55 optional.

With the track pack cars getting 3.73s.........which is a bit short for car with that much power, IMHO. With '13 GT Track Pack car I think I was in 4th before 100mph.

There is a VERY quick ESP/CAM-C '05 or '06 GT that runs locally and is consistently at the pointy end of the field in both PAX and raw times. So they certainly can be made to dance very well for a stick axle car and they also sound amazing with some exhaust work. I haven't been in a GT of that generation, but if they're roughly as quick as the newer V6 cars - but with an infinitely better sound track - I think I could get down with that. I have driven a newer 5.0 Moostang on a couple of occasions and while they are amazing, they're also like 3-4x the price last I looked. 

Yep, this thread is exactly the sort of enabling I thought it would be.

Mine was an '11, so it had the 5.0, but I drove a few of the 4.6 cars, and they weren't slow, either. Plus, they still make good V8 noises. They are pretty cheap for what you get, easy to find, and have tons of aftermarket. Seems pretty hard to go wrong to me.

As for the spark plug thing, I had that issue with my 07 F-150 5.4, bought the special tool, and was able to change all 8 without too much trouble, I only broke one. It has to be easier in a Mustang than the truck, which is higher and has part of the engine under the cowl.

Wasn't there something about the manual transmissions in these cars? I know the 5.0s with the 6-speeds were famously fragile, but the 4.6 cars had a 5-speed that, as far as I know, is an evolution of the venerable Borg-Warner (later Tremec) T5.

In reply to Tom_Spangler :

They were the last version of the TR3650, which was an updated t45, which was an updated t5. I think the s197 tr3650 uses a remote mounted shifter while the new edge version was a top loader.

Chassis rigidity is night and day better when compared with earlier mustangs, and the factory 3 link keeps the rear better planted.

I have an 06 that I bought in december of 05.  I drove a friends cobra r that made mine look like a station wagon.  A kenne bell supercharger fixed that!  I have a suspension set up recommended by vorshlag.  I have 65 k miles on it.  The only thing I have had to replace was the alternator.  I LOVE this car more today than the day I bought it.  My kids were in car seats in the back, and now my son drives it with supervision.  He drives the miata unsupervised, but that's another story.

I auto cross the car as much as I can.  It is off the road as soon as the salt hits the road in winter.  I did replace the spark plugs early, didn't  break one.  I now wish I had waited and bought another one for rally cross.   I think with prices so low, I don't see how you could go wrong.  Oh, I also have some schroth seatbelts for auto cross that are the bomb.

Go buy one!

Well I just test drove the car in question. Clutch feels like crap and I see lots of evidence that it's probably a flood car. I walked.

I probably will start hunting for a nicer one though.

Great... another car I did not know  I needed until now.