February 2008 Featured Ride:

Congratulations: Steve Lichtman "STEVE"

So here we are, February 2008 Ride of the Month. Thanks to SVTsnake and its members & staff for nominating me. I’d also like to thank my wife Kim for putting up with my crap and antics. I usually show more pictures of puppets than the stang but today will just be the ride!So how did it all start? Was it those years of watching Knight Rider, Dukes of Hazzard, Starsky & Hutch, Smokey & the Bandit? I always liked the v8 RWD cars. Something about an American Muscle car cannot be duplicated by anything else I remember around 1999 when the newer body styled 4.6 came out me and the lady were cruising down Sunrise Highway to some destination in my ’92 s10 Blazer. At the light by Wantagh Avenue this sexy v8 pulls up to the light, exhaust rumbling. I hadn’t seen one of the new body style yet, and was delighted by the style changes. I honk and give a thumbs up and the guy takes off like a bat out of hell. Exhaust screaming. I knew that day, when the time was right I would pick up one of those. Fast forward to July ’03. The Blazer is starting to break down more and more, and I’m starting to want a different ride. I go to Smithtown Ford and find a nice stock looking 2000 GT with 23k on the ticker. White with parchment interior, and an aftermarket Alpine stereo that they said was broken but would pay to fix it up the block at the local stereo shop. It gets fixed just a fool putting in a bad CD that got stuck / couldn’t be read. Whew gotta have some tunes man! The car is bought and enjoyed just in time for the July 4th weekend of 2003.

I enjoy the car for a year or so and found the various Mustang sites. Upon further digging I’ve learned the car has a tune, 3.73 gears, pulleys, sequential tails lights, upgraded speakers (which was nice with the fixed radio) and a Bassani Catted X pipe. The tune was lousy so I bought a Predator and just use their canned performance tune and adjusted the gears. Also added in an iPod aux-in jack into the dash for easy plug and go. It’s wired up to a standard FM modulator and gives a direct feed in.
More reading and more tinkering, learning the basics on the car. I ordered new wheels/tires. Put in white face gauges, an amp and sub in the trunk so I can rock that mother to the ground. Installed 2 gauges; including Tranny Temp. Being an auto I knew I wanted a cooler but didn’t know where to go. So looking through the big sites regional forums I kept noticing a place called Mustang Magic being mentioned. Hey it’s only 15 minutes away maybe I should go check it out.
So I show up one Wednesday morning around 10am and run in to a guy by the name of Jimmy V. Talk about a crash course in cars! Jimmy put 1000 ideas in my head, or more importantly made me realize I can do whatever I want with this thing and there are places that make the parts I need! He also pointed me to SVTsnake.com and I signed up later than night in the wee hours.
Tranny temp and cooler get the lines run and installed. MAC exhaust gets put on. Subframes get welded in. Tokiko kit and cobra front brakes installed. JLT intake / Accufab 75mm TB / self p&p’d plenum with custom paint. Steeda front sway bar. And a bunch of maintenance and little things here and there. I can’t and won’t keep track I just go with the flow and replace as needed.

I keep a running tab when I remember to update it here:
http://www.junkmyride.com/mustang.html
If I had any goals I probably blew by them long ago. I just enjoy the stang for what it is. And I have no plans on selling. Eventually I’d like to get an IRS swap, custom paintjob, cams, smoke screen / oil slick, a bunch of things I can probably go on and on. There’s always more to do. Hopefully we’ll find a house we like soon and I can get this thing into a garage to give it the time and detail it deserves. That’s when I’ll be able to tear things down good to mess with!
So there you have it.
My 2000 GT .
The end. Steve