Good Project Car?

Hey Everyone. I love this forum and mustangs in general! I'm 17 and about to purchase my first 'stang. I already have a little mazda truck for driving to school and everything else, but I'm looking for a project to work on and play with on the weekends. Its gotta be a V-8 and of course a Mustang. I'm going to be getting a brand new car soon (parents $$$), but I'm probably leaning towards a truck or 4 door for that (because of insurance). So I'm going to buy me an older model and "soup it up" (someone my age in an earlier post... lol). I'm good with tools and I've basically done everything with cars, besides completly rebuild an engine (thats my next project;-)). Anyways what year 'stangs would you suggest and also what mods would be good? I'm going to strip the interior and put it on a major diet, clean it up, paint it (prolly just primer to keep it from rusting), and rebuild the engine. Once I do all that I'm hopefully going to do some head work (port and polish), headers, custom exhaust (welder time) with prolly just some really cheap mufflers and certaintly no cats'. Prolly some crazy cam and hopefully some slicks... dreaming.... This is basically a learning project for me as I want to have something to play with and race a little at the strip but not have to depend on it to go to work and school. Any advice or input would be great!

-Jared
PS - I'm hoping to keep the purchse price under 2 grand (I have that now)

For under $2K, I think you're looking at an '80ish fox body 5.0. Since you want to do weight reduction, maybe an LX (they are a little lighter than a GT). Of course, a GT can always be de-GT'ed to save weight. You can't be too fussy for $2K. An '89 or later might be a good choice; they are supposed to respond better to mod's due to the MAF (I have no experience to confirm this). I guess alot depends on how much you wil be able to spend on mod's...

Weight isn't a big deal to begin with as I'm going to take out as much as I can because accessories such as AC, radio, sound deadening wont be needed bc this isnt going to be a daily driver. I was thinking a carb'd engine too because it seems as though it would be easier and cheaper to work on than an EFI car. There is money for mods such as cam, heads, gears, ... so thats not a problem. And it also doesn't have to be street legal. I just want something to begin learning about performance and also have a nice toy to play with. I am going to do all the work myself to get the experience, because I really cant mess it up. I'm really just looking for your suggestions on what years would be good and what mods will respond the best starting out.

-Jared

Don't be scared of the EFI, EEC-IV is very easy to work with. If you go EFI though you want an 89 or newer (88 in cali) so you have mass air, not speed-density. You can probably find one for the right price, it will have a lot of miles but that shouldn't matter if you plan on mostly race.

Also, I'd look for an LX notchback because they're already light and have the stiffest chassis because they have a trunk instead of a hatchback.

Also, most of the mass-air Foxbodies had forged pistons stock, so the shortblock will take a lot of abuse before going south.

Start with better heads&Intake manifold, 65mm Throttle body, 24 lb injectors, a Pro-M mass air meter, and of course headers/h-pipe/your choice of mufflers. Cam can come later, the stock grind is pretty good, it just doesn't lope.