About seven years ago now, I picked up a 95 Mustang GTS. 
Had a few issues, interior was good. At the time, I was building a 89 Mustang for the drag strip. It was my grandfather's before me, and I was dumping money into it left and right. It took several years to ever get that Mustang running the way I wanted it to, but when it was finally running, I was very happy with the street manners it had and I decided to leave it be. Well, I can't leave things alone. Going through college, I became involved with the Formula SAE group and ended up dedicating a lot of time to it before graduation. During that time, my love and passion went from drag racing to road racing. 
Formula 1 and sportscar racing became my new obsession. At the time, I wasn't quite sure what to do since the 95 was my daily driver. Time went by and after a deployment, I bought myself a 7.3 F-250. That's when it all took a sharp turn...The body of the car was a solid 3 out of 10. Paint was falling off and there were several hard dings, but I spent tons of money trying to perfect the interior. 
Little modifications here and there. I saved up quite a bit of money from the deployment, so I went a little balls-to-the-wall. I found an IRS and bought everything for it... I mean, literally everything that Maximum Motorsports had to offer. 
Rebuilt the diff, new bushings throughout, SFCs, new cobra rear brakes... 
Then it was time to build the motor. I grew up building motors and even worked for an engine shop for a couple of years, so I wasn't out of my comfort zone. Threw together a beautiful looking engine. 
Stuck her in.... lasted a solid 12 seconds. The camshaft bolt was apparently not tight. Remnants of Loctite were still on the threads, but either my torque wrench failed me, or I failed myself. Going with the latter. However, I had to deploy again. I dropped the motor off with a shop and said I'd be back in six months to pick it up. I started to save up some more money, and very quickly, more parts were purchased. When I came home, I quickly went to work installing the new motor and slew of parts. 
Unfortunately, the beautiful interior started to fade. 
While I was deployed, I started heavily looking at SLA front suspensions. I found several that I liked, but nothing was in my price range and I was a little appalled at what was out there for the price. I started searching on eBay and found Bill Mitchell's old stuff, prototypes and all, being sold. I mean, it included everything from the drawings to the listings, to parts and manufacturing specifications. It sparked an idea of mine for a business with my buddy, and we set to work on that. Won't say much about that yet as details are still in work and we have some ideas we don't want out, but you can get a fairly good idea by visiting www.peakalphamotorsports.com. Anyway, we bought it. It'll play in a little later. Wanting and dying to get to the track, I installed the second motor and start to break it in. It was a solid motor that put down 310 to the tire. Not bad for an iron-headed GT-40 car. It lasted about 100 miles before I found beautiful gold flakes in the oil. Destroyed my main thrust bearing; ate it until almost nothing was left. Out comes the motor. Unfortunately, it also meant having to cancel the events I already pre-signed up for. All I wanted to do was test the car and continue to improve on it. But since that motor was out, I figured that I mine as well dive into more stuff. Lightweight procedures began, everything ripped out, safety features installed, (still needing a cage), cobra brakes were installed (you can get them a lot cheaper by piecing them together from rockauto.com and oreilly's/autozone). Wiring was a nightmare...but everything that wasn't necessary to run or have lights was stripped from the car. Doors were cut out and lightened. 
Everything gets installed just in time for my third motor to be returned to me. Completely redone, new bearings, the works. Fire it up, it sounds beautiful for about 75 miles. I had a hunch I was eating a bearing due to the oil pressure slowly fading. The gold/copper flakes were even prettier than the last two times! Again, I had to cancel events I had planned. A little devastated, I start seeking answers. I started measuring everything. Hours turned into days, which turned into weeks. I went over every single component and piece of equipment on the car, measuring everything in the drivetrain to the alignment of the motor, to bearing tolerances in the motor (which I had the before measurements), harmonic balancers, etc. Nothing was wrong. I sent the bearings to suppliers, made multiple phone calls and everyone is stumped. My only guess is the align hone is off or just doesn't like my crank. Very technical explanation. So the motor is out again and I'm saving up for a new short block all together. In the meantime, I'm staying busy. New seat for the time being and I decided to dive into another project. I've picked up the prototype that was laying around and started figuring out what's going to be needed in order for me to run it in the car. So far, I'm going to have to fabricate supports for the motor mounts, send the shocks in to be rebuilt, develop new sway bar end links (or create an all new sway bar), and buy new hardware to install the k member in place. Its been fun so far, but waiting on money to continue. I'm hoping this sparks a few more ideas with the business and also aligns me with the products ours will one day be based on. I've been wanting to do an actual build post for awhile, and this group seemed like a good group to do it in. Hope to keep posting as time goes on and keep you up to date with everything. Thanks for reading!
Few other items not related to the build, but wanted to share. Here is my 1989 LX. 
