It takes time before some people realize the need for a Mustang. We've done countless features on those who didn't know a thing about Mustangs until they either rode in one or got beaten by one at the dragstrip. Up to that point, they had no desire to own a Mustang. But once they realized the potential and the off-the-showroom-floor performance, they had no choice but to join the team. Such was the case for Aberdeen, Maryland's Shawn Cooper.
"Ever since I started driving at the age of 16, I've always had a performance car," Shawn says. Obviously, his view of a performance car was a little warped as his first ride was a '91 Camaro RS. In his defense, however, the F-body did have a fuel-injected 305 with a five-speed behind it. "My love for Mustangs started shortly after I was beaten by a Dodge Neon at the dragstrip," Shawn explains. Obviously, he knew the right course of action, because a week after the Neon incident, the Camaro was gone and in its place was a '91 LX 5.0 convertible.
We're not sure why Shawn just didn't start out in a 5.0 Mustang since he says all his friends had them and enjoyed working on them and making them faster. What we do know is that the story of Shawn's ownership of the Emerald Green '92 coupe featured here didn't begin in a pleasant way.
It was May 1997. Shawn's best friend, 18-year-old Chris Thomas, had owned the coupe for only two weeks when the unthinkable happened. He was killed by a man who had mistaken him for someone else. Chris was the first of Shawn's group of friends to have a Mustang. "I sold the convertible and one year later I bought Chris' old coupe for $2,600," Shawn says. It seems Shawn's buddy Brandon Noye had purchased the car from Chris' parents, but he fell asleep at the wheel one night, hit a street sign, and snaggled up the front end.
Once under Shawn's ownership, the car was desnaggled, and Joe Woodward repainted it in trade for repair work Shawn did on a car Joe had wrecked. "After the car was painted, it was tagged, and I was driving it every day," Shawn says.
Of course, he couldn't leave the car stock, so the first performance parts to be added were the usual 3.73 gears and a Flowmaster after-cat exhaust. The next wave included BBK long-tube headers, an electric fan, a 65mm throttle body, a windage tray, a March race crank pulley, a TTC-Tremec transmission, and a D&D Motorsports tubular K-member with tubular A-arms, coilover struts, and a Flaming River manual rack-and-pinion. According to Shawn, the car ran con-sistent high 12s with a best of 12.77 at 107 mph.
"Anyone who's ever owned a Mustang knows it's never fast enough," Shawn says. To remedy that, he added Trick Flow Twisted Wedge heads, a Holley SysteMAX II intake, a BBK 75mm throttle body, a Pro-M 80mm mass air meter, and Ford Racing Performance Parts 1.6 roller rockers, timing chain, lifters, E303 camshaft, and 24-lb/hr injectors. Shawn added suspension bite as well with Southside Machine lift bars, Steeda adjustable upper control arms, and Lakewood 50/50 shocks. And he stepped up in gear ratio to a 4.10:1, along with Strange 31-spline axles and a spool. "The car went into the garage a 12-second stocker and came out a beast," he says.
The parts were installed with a lot of help from Adam Browne and Dominic Cimino, and the result of all their work paid big when the car spun EIP Tuning's Dynojet to the tune of 323 hp and 322 lb-ft of torque. At Cecil County Dragway, the car laid down an 11.71 at 116.9 mph. "We were all excited the car ran in the 11s," Shawn says. Remember, that's with a stock short-block save for the cam and valvetrain improvements. On the street, the car gained a healthy reputation, along with the name "Spankzilla."