Asthetic Modding?

Hello again. I won't ask a newbie question this time, since I'm no longer a noobie. :grinno: I'm going to post this in the Taurus forum just because the sable forum is pretty dead, and taurus's = sable's pretty much in relation to this topic.

Lol, anyway, I was just curious as to how many of you have modded your taurus/sable other than the performance aspect of the vehicle? I know a lot of people don't think that you could do this to a sable, and they always ask "why", but I think the question is more of rather "why not"? Why not make a sable/taurus look pretty, and do fun things with it? It's just like any other car. Here's a list of the stuff I've done to mine.

DONE:
Custom false floor in the trunk to house my amplifier.
Custom sub box in the trunk to fit with the false floor, carpeted the same as the floor.
2 x 10" 300W subwoofers.
1 x 600W amplifier.
JVC aftermarket HU.
Purple/Blue Cathodes lighting up the amplifier under the floor.
Blue/Green Cathodes under the dash and the seats.
Purple Cathodes lighting up the grill.
Blue neon underbody kit.
Custom shields to hide the exposed tubes.
Wireless remote to control the interior lighting, exterior lighting, piezo siren, and one unused channel.
Custom LED switchbox for everything.
LEDs lighting up the subwoofers.
Painted dash vents to match the outside color of the car.
Painted door handle housings to match the outside color of the car.

TO DO:
Re-carpet doors to match outside color of car.
Paint rest of air vents (need to figure how to get them off)
Paint Guage trimming.
Switch UB with a multi-colored LED one?
Custom interior fabric on the seats.

So, yeah. I've done a little bit to my car. Why not? It's a pretty car, a 1996 Sable "Toreado Red", and it's in good shape. It's got lots of miles, but if/when it dies, I'll get another car and start all over modding it. It's my hobby, and I enjoy it.

So how many of you have done similar things to your cars? I'm just curious to find out if I'm the only one or not!

Thanks for reading!
-Steven

Not many people really mod a Taurus, except an SHO. I had a Taurus that had some cheap Blau 12" speakers and a cheap Legacy Saphire 1,400 watt amp. I believe the speakers were around 300 peak a piece. The amp was also peak wattage. Sounded like crap, but better than the stock stereo equipment :). The tranny started to die @ 202,000 miles, now I am trying to get rid it of it. We have a friend that's not exactly rich, so I am just giving the car to him. He needs some of the end parts. I might dee-bow the MAF and other various parts.

I spent a lot more on my 88 Ranger. I swapped the ECC to a 90 California ECC w/ MAF. The camshaft I had planned to install was way to outragous for the stock speed denisty computer. The truck has also been re-painted. I have a set of bucket seats I am installing from a 1960's Mustang and this time I have a 1,200 RMS 1 ohm stable H-brige digital amp with a 10" 1500 RMS 4 voice coil AudioBahn speaker. I went to install the speaker and couldn't get it to fit anywhere, so I bought the bucket seaks and I am going to use the bass tube I have as an arm rest.

My friend does a lot of air bag installations. Another friend of mine was talking about selling me his Chevy Sprint for $100, so I'll prolly tear it down to the frame and body drop it and bag it. I need to get some rims too. Over the coarse of a few years, I am planning to twin turbo the 2.9L with about 10-15 PSI of boost. To accomplish this, I found a speed density ECC that completely programmable, but it requires me having to make my own main harness for the engine. I would like to put most of the sensors and stuff behind the dash board anyway. I am going to start programming some chips here within the next month. I've been programming for a long time, so this will be a fun challenge. I am going to fuel inject a 5.0h.p. OHV Briggs and Stratton on my minibike before attempting to program a car ECC. Hopefully that will turn out good, I may be able to sell briggs EFI kits to gocart racers to help fund the turbo conversion.

I don't have any facy lights though or any stickers. I was going to get custom made emblems for $130, but I never got them. My truck is just called the sleeper. It's stock as crap, except for the $3000+ I put into the engine. It's loaded with performance engine parts and sounds pretty mean. I rebuilt the engine from bottom to top about 6,000 miles ago. I moved and now I don't have a whole lot of money to dump into it anymore. Hopefully, I will rebuild my heads with 1.55:1 roller tip rocker arms, 4.0L valves and dual valve springs. :)

Pete

don't get underbody lights, they look tacky, break easily, and are illegal (especially blue ones).

Also, the biggest bang for the buck upgrade you can do to a taurus/sable is an intake

To each his own. I personally really love the aftermarket lighting that people do to their cars. I think mine looks REALLY good, and I have gotten a ton of compliments on it.

Blue around here is not illegal, so long as you cannot see the bulbs. So hence why I built the shields to hide the bulbs. It looks really good in my opinion.

It's all based on personal tastes. That's about 100% of what modding cars is - personal tastes. Some people love performance. Personally I don't want any performance on my 96 Sable with 163K miles on it. I want it to last, and to look clean and eye-catching. Others might prefer other things. It's all based on opinion.

I have mine, you have yours.

As far as the 2nd poster, man, I read all that, and I have NO IDEA as to what you just said, because I know nothing about performance! However, I can tell that you're extremely interested in performance modding, and that's awesome. It sounds like you're really good with it. Keep up the good work!

I think that Taurus would be a great car to mod, and I'm not sure why there's almost no aftermarket components for it.

http://www.andysautosport.com has some parts for the 96 Taurus, so you might want to check that out.

I personally really like the old Taurus design (88-91). I used to have a 89 Taurus a long time ago until I crashed it, but I'm considering getting a similar model just to mod it. Those old models in my a opinion had great modding potential because the body style was fairly plain, but with a nice bulky distinct look. What I especially liked was the fact that they had a wide grill instead of the sharp pointed front-end of some of the Japanese competitors. I never really liked the look of the newer generation Tauruses even though they pack on average more horsepower (especially those V8 versions).

Anyway, I think the problem of aftermarket accessories has to do with American cars in general. There are many American cars that would look great with some mods on them, but the culture of car modding has only started to grow here in recent years. I'm sure you can get body kits for the Taurus but you would probably have to custom order them from a manufacturer which means they would cost quite a bit. However there are parts out there which fit many car models, with some minor tweaks. If you're talking about a bumper or hood, or grill, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to find something that closely matches the dimensions for your car, and then do some tweaks yourself to make it fit properly.

I have been looking for aftermarket engine components for a 99 Taurus with the 3.4L DOHC V8, and I cannot come up with anything. I am most likely needing an entire engine kit with pistons, rods, etc. Could someone point me in the right direction? Thanks

www.v8sho.com is the best place to ask

try tauruscarclub.com