Just figured I would expand on my initial post as this has gone in the wrong direction. Dan had a way of doing cars, his way. It was always a joke amongst friends that if a car had a tach, flowmasters, welds, and a 4.30 gear, it was an Idle Wild hotrod. He was opposed to power adders, yet didn't really know what one was. I'll never forget a shootout at Desoto (BMP for the newbies), they had a power adder EFI class, and a non power adder EFI class. Logic would tell you that if you had nitrous, supercharger, or a turbo (weren't many of them back then ), you would be in the power adder class, and if not, well, the non-power adder class Dan actually protested a car from south of here (lethal injection, I still remember) because it had two throttle bodies on it. He claimed that the second throttle body was a power adder, even went so far as to say anything with more than exhaust and a gear shouldn't be legal in the class. After almost getting his ass beat by half the people in the crowd, he withdrew his protest. How do you own a performance shop, not even understand what a power adder is, whine like a bitch when the car you brought ends up not being the fastest and expect people not to notice? Dan made money off of rich kids with no knowledge and mommy's credit card. People that knew what the hell they were doing went to other shops for the most part, so when the rich wannabes started getting into imports, Dan was in trouble. All the other big names in this area are still in business, hell, some shops actually opened after the mustang entered it's "pitiful" days and they are still around. No, it wasn't the mustang that did Dan in, it was Dan.

 

Dude lets give this a rest. If you want to go to the track sometime just let me know or come to a track event and meet some people.

 

Launch, I may take you up on that offer sometime.

BigBadBuick, I've heard that from more than a few people. What's funny is I remembering reading his ad in 5.0 Mustang and Super Ford and he was a Vortech dealer.

I've never heard that story though. Funny stuff lol.

 

The 94-95 weren't great due to the 5.0 motor being thrown into a much heavier chasis and the removal of the A9L ECU. BUT, there is/was still a huge aftermarket for the 5.0 so moding these cars and making them fast(er) wasn't too hard if you wanted to do it. Up until 99, the aftermarket for the 4.6 was VERY limited and in turn, that limited the amount of "bolt on" modifications that were done to these cars. As the aftermarket caught up in 99 and going forward you started to see more cars being moded with the 4.6. Only major difference that has kept it from gaining to the same level as the 5.0 aftermarket was cost, which is just now getting to a point where it's comparable (in some respects, not all).

The Cars from 96 on up were anemic by nature in stock form, but responded pretty well to mods when applied, just most didn't want to spend the coin to mod the cars.

It all comes down to this, 90% of cars in their stock form will get you to and fro, it's up to the owner to bring out the full potential of the car.

 

240s are slow and so are mustangs.

 

I worked for Dan for a little over 4 years before I quit to work at FordSpeed when it opened. I left for several reasons, but not enough time to list them here.

I remember at one of Bradenton's street car shoot-outs, Dan was there with Shane Wood, one of his customers. Dan protested Mike Freedman from Lethal Injection. Mike was actually racing in the non-power adder class that weekend, but he still had a bottle in his trunk. As it turned out, Mike and Shane wound up getting paired up in the second round. In the staging lanes, Dan asked Mike to remove the bottle. Mike told him that it was empty and there was no reason to remove it. He even went so far as to show Dan that the bottle gauge was on zero. Dan then asked him to disconnect the line. After a bunch of arguing, a track official asked that the line be removed to end all speculation. When the line was cracked, some gas was released. I'm not sure exactly what it was, since I wasn't standing close enough, but something was in the bottle. Mike ended up winning that round against Shane. If my memory serves me, it wasn't even a close race. I also believe Mike went on to win the event.

Not sure if this is the same race you are referring to.

Again, I'm not defending Dan. I would be hard pressed to do that.

 

Wow I'm finding out alot of stuff about Idle Wild I didn't know.

 

BBB, you forgot about the Wolverine cam...

He did have one or two combinations that he used and not much else. I had a couple of things done by him (actually by Bill Mitchell and then Joe when they worked there) I think they included subframes, and a 3.73 gear (installed in his backyard before he had a shop...)

Funny thing is, Craig (of Fordspeed.com fame) went there to have the work done on his car for a while, then he just ended up opening his own shop...)
Go figure, the two guys that Dan used to have work for him now own their own shops....interesting factoid..

 

That did it!!!! This was one of the best kept secrets. Guess it's time to take the welds off and come back down to earth. Was fun while it lasted.

 

damnit I was hoping no one would realize my mustang was slow and that I was just having someone trip the lights electronically..