While I was putting in the rear suspension and brake parts I noticed that my stock mufflers were starting to get holes in them. Fine, time for something turbo, or better! I also already put in the K&N air filter, which quite honestly is probably all one needs, but hell, if I'm gonna have to put on new axle back exhaust, might as well jazz up the intake too!

I originally wanted to buy the Flowmaster "American Thunder" units, but every review said they "droned at 1.5 to 2.2K rpm. NAH! Not what I need, even though they're nice and small, 409 stainless, and tuck-up that you don't see them at all. Great! Except for the drone part.

For about the same price I saw the BBK Varitune Axle-Back Exhaust - Stainless Steel units. It looks like they'll tuck up just as nicely, plus I can adjust the output. Nice, let me give that a shot! Reviews say they're a bit a bigger bitch to install, and get centered, but OK, I'll deal with that.

OK, so while I'm at it, why not pretty up the engine compartment, and add some free breathing? I truly believe the stock set-up with a K&N Filter is just as good as any of these "cold air systems", but hell, let's jazz it up!

So, I also bought a BBK Cold Air Intake #:56114. We'll see what happens when I add these 2 items to the Pony's set-up! I'm also going to get a new "tune" from my friends at 5Star to account for the new intake and exhaust, and woohoo, who knows!?!?!

BBK Varitune Exhaust

BBK Cold Air Intake

OK It's Saturday 9/17/2016 the BBK cold air intake, and vari-tune exhaust arrived yesterday. 1 day shipmet from American Muscle. Very Nice! I started the morning off with the cold-air install. Very Easy, Good Instructions! About an hours worth of work, and that was going slowly... Here are the pictures:

Pony in "Stock" config....

Pony in Stock with new iItem

Work in Progress #1

Work in Progress #2

Work in Progress #3

Job Complete - New Cold Air System!

Job Complete - New Cold Air System - Second Look!

OK, Now I'm bitten by the "Speed Bug"! Since I'm putting on the cold air pkg, and the new axle-back exhaust, I may as well do all the othe "bolt-on" quickies I can as well!

I got in touch with my friends at 5-Star tuning, and they want $45 for the new "tune" to add the air & exhaust upgrade. So, I may as well do the rest and get it all in one tune!

Anyway, I'm getting close to 40K miles, and that means time for new plugs. I've always put top end NGK plugs in my BMWs, so why not in Pony too? I bought an 8 pack of their Iridium 6509 plugs. But Hey!!! Why stop there! If I'm going to have to pull off the coil packs I may as well beef those up too! So, I bought an 8 pack of Granatelli Pro Series Coil Packs PN 28-1815CP. They will up me from about 40K to 60K volts at my plug gap. Very Nice!

NGK Plugs

Coil Pack

What else can I bolt on for some quick HP/Torque gains??? Well, why not add an 85mm BBK throttle body, to go with the new air system? Sure, let's do that too!

Throttle Body

All these items arrived during the last week, so I did the install this weekend. (10/1 & 2) As I said, the Cold air and Exhaust went well, so now time for the plugs, coils, and throttle body.

I pulled the top of the engine apart again, and yanked out the old TB. Bolted on the new 85mm BBK, and it took a whole 15 minutes! WOW, Very Simple!

Then I pulled off the side covers and yanked the coils and plugs. I took my time, so that was probably an hour. The old plugs looked really good after 40K miles, so they probably didn't need a change, but WTF, I'll go with the NGK Iridium units!

About another hour to put all the plugs in, and new Granatelli Coils on, Pack the top end up, reconnect everything, and close up. All in all, very easy! Let's call it 2 and a half hours, but could have been much faster if I didn't dawdle!

As a side note, I repackaged the old plugs and coils back into the new boxes as I replaced them. That burned some time too. No reason to chuck the old ones. They're in fine shape, so I'll keep them as spares.

OK, update 10/7/16 -- The new fuse block arrived on Tuesday 10/4, and took 5min. to install. Yes, it fixed all the power steering and "AdvanceTrac" problems. Took Pony out for a drive and everything is now running well, sounds good, feels good. Need to take it for a nice long ride to see how all the mods work together.

I downloaded my upgraded tune from 5Star, that includes all the new mods. Also had them tighten up the tranny shift points a bit more. Working very well all around! I probably put a couple hundred miles on the whole set-up now, and I'm quite happy! BUT........ on 10/31/16.....

I got a sale notice from "Bothers Performance", one of the vendors I use. (I bought the coil packs & throttle body from them. www.bothersperformance.com ). They had a BOSS 302 full intake set-up on sale for $679.00, and that included all the install accessories. That's about 3 or 400 dollars less than I see most vendors sell this for. Yeah, you guessed it... I bought it!

Boss 302 Intake

Saturday - 11/5/2016 - Started the BOSS 302 Intake Project!

I pulled out the stock 5.0 GT Coyote Intake. Took about 45 minutes, and that was with me taking my sweet time. Truth be told, my back, left shoulder, and knees are failing me. I can only spend about 15min. at a time bent over the hood these days until my body starts screaming at me! So, I work slow, take a 15 min. break, then come back! Not like the old days when I could tear out a whole engine & tranny in a weekend and replace it!

But, I digress.... Here's what Pony's engine compartment looks like with the stock manafold OUT!

Here are the 2 intakes side-by-side, before I swapped the injectors, fuel-rail, and throttle body....

11/10/2016 - Job Complete!

Was waiting for the BOSS 302 tune from 5 Star, and it came in this afternoon. So, I finished up installing the front end, cold air pkg., and loaded the new BOSS 302 tune they sent me.

There was one other item I needed to deal with and that was the re-plumbing of the Fuel tank vapor purge valve. As part of the BOSS 302 kit they gave me a re-plumbing kit, but it required me to yank the front, driver, tire, and do a whole bunch of sweaty work! That included extending wires, and a whole lot of BS I don't think was really needed!

I decided, why not just pull the purge valve off the old manafold, and plumb it into the system as it was before and just add a 3/8 inch hose to the new coupling spot on the 302 manafold! That's waht I did, and it seems to work just fine!

The BOSS 302 intake puts the cold air plumbing I had with the stock GT intake at some odd angles, but with some ingenuity I managed to get everything to mate up!

I finished the job off by reprogramming the ECU with the latest update from 5-Star that includes the BOSS 302 upgrade, and we're off to the races!

Here's what everything looks like now that the job is done!

12/4/2016 - Finally all my speed work under the hood is complete!

MK’s Pony is now Complete with all the under hood mods! I might add a supercharger “some day”, but for now, this is it! I have a set of catalytic converter removal pipes to put in underneath, and then I’m fully done with ALL performance mods. I have a graphics package I’m adding to the exterior to sexy the look up a little, and then that’ll be finished too. I'll detail that project on a seperate page.

The last items I added were the chrome caps to all the fill-up spots, the BOSS-302 sound dampers on either side of the manafold, and finally a JLT Performance oil separator in place of the old PVC tube. When I removed the old intake there was a lot of oil in it for 40K miles, and around the intake gaskets. I decided a separator was definitely needed to keep the gunk out of the intake and the valves/combustion chamber!

Here's the end result!

Thanks for stopping by and visiting with Pony and I.

MK

EMAIL: mkpony@mkpony.com