2001 GT Mods

I just purchased myself a 2001 mustang GT and was talking to some people about modifications for it. I have been hearing that getting a cobra rear-end put in it would be a very good idea, but am unsure of both where to get one and it voiding my warantee(only have 5k miles on it right now). What other good mods are out there that hopefully wont void warantee? Thanks for your help.

You should be able to have Ford swap your rear end, and it will be covored. You need to talk to Ford about your warranty, they can tell you, but probably almost anything you do will void some part of it.

I had a friend that only had cold air intake, and exhaust, when his car over heated while his wife was driving, due to a leak in the water pump gasket, they said they wouldn't fix anything, becasue he had modified the car, Not trying to scare you out of doing anything to your car, just be sure thats what you want, and you are aware of the risk.

Nice car that you have by the way, I am jealous.:p

that was not at a ford dealership, it was a used car dealership, my friend got screwed.

You might be able to find the Cobra rear end and components fairly cheap. Many cobra owners who spend alot of time at the dragstrip switch out their IRS for a solid live axle from a GT. Its better for the dragstrip, less issues with wheel hop. But, probably anything you do other then an air filter will void the warrenty. ( recent laws prohibit voiding the warrenty on the basis of an aftermarket air filter.)

Hrmm...after reading that last reply I am wondering if switching out my rear axle is a good thing if cobra owners are switching theirs for GT ones, any suggestions?

Well if you wanna drag race you should stay with the solid rear you have now. If you decide you wanna road race or just have a nice smooth ride go for the IRS. If you were to swap out to an IRS and then drag racing it then you would be taking chances on breaking the halfshafts or you can beef it up which would be more expensive then just beefing up the rear you have now.

The reason most Cobra owners ('99-'01) are switching to a solid axle is because like 94SVT5.0 said, it is better for drag racing. The IRS is mainly for road racing.

My dad was going to beef up the IRS ('99 Cobra) but then decided it would have been too much money to do so. So we looked around and found a guy that wanted to swap his solid rear ('01 GT) for our IRS. No cost at all. To us we see no ride difference at all, no big difference, thats our opinion. Now we have 31 splines, Eaton Posi and 4.56s in that solid rear and we love it. We don't miss the IRS at all.

Also if your worried about voiding the warranty then you shouldn't do anything that wouldn't be hard to take off, like an air filter, pulleys, power pipe, shifter. So that way if you have a problem you can just take those off and put the stock ones back on then go to the dealer and they won't know.

Good Luck with your decision

The Ford dealer I bought my car from said that I can do whatever I want as long as I didn't spray and the part(s) didn't cause or were a part of the failure.

Like if I got a blower and I got detonation, then yeah, it wouldn't be warranted. But if I had a blower and the starter broke, then it would be covered.

That's what he told me, at least.

What your dealer says is 100% correct, it's part of the Magnusson-Moss act, which states that a manufacturer cannot void warranty claim unless the replacement part DIRECTLY caused or contributed to the failure. The "contributed to" clause is where some people get caught -- for example if you upgrade your engine to make it more powerful, and your transmission blows up - they can say it blew because you exceed the design limit of the tranny.

You can supercharge, nitrous inject, and generally hop up your engine all you want, if your power driver's seat gets broken because the thrust of the car caused too many G's of accelleration, hell they could probably void the warranty on your seat!

Greg

My opinion - you modify your car, you become your own warranty claim department. Set money aside for the "mishaps" that may occur.