2003 Ford Mustang Mach 1 and 1992 Ford Mustang LX - Twice The Performance

Horse Sense: Joe Charles made the transition from pushrod to modular between the '99 and '00 racing seasons. The car was completed a week before the Bradenton race, which he ended up winning. He tested the car at Silver Dollar Raceway in Reynolds, Georgia, the Saturday before Bradenton. It also happened to be the same day he found out he would be a father. What a week!

When you shop for a product, you hope the salesperson knows something about what they're selling. Regardless of the place or product, a salesperson is there to help you make an educated purchase-not just for the sheer enjoyment of purchasing something, but also for the reason you need the item in the first place. In the Mustang realm, we have to go fast, but sometimes we need help along the way to reach our speedy goals. Not everyone is a mechanical genius, so sometimes we need to be told that 4.88 gears are probably not the best idea for a daily-driven 5.0 Mustang, and we should take a step back and try 3.73s or 4.10s. We need someone who knows what he's talking about and can educate us on a product or combination.

A place that does that is Parkway Ford, its performance center [(888) FORD-SVT; www.parkwayperformance.com], and the owners of the Mustangs you see here. Joe Charles owns the '03 Mach 1 and Paul Dishroon pimps the '92 LX coupe.

Joe's Mach follows in the footsteps of a highly competitive LX coupe and an aborted attempt at building a race car. In 1999, he competed with the coupe in the old NMCA's EFI 11 class, an index class in which you couldn't run quicker than 11.0, so reaction times were of the utmost importance. Joe won six races in a row, and in many of those final rounds he competed against current modular Mustang racer Rick Doern when Rick ran a Fox GT with pushrod power. Joe used nitrous to tune the car into the 11.0 range with pushrod power and a C4 transmission. He then made the jump to modular power with a Two-Valve under the hood of the coupe with a Vortech T-Trim supercharger.

It was in this form Joe raced Mike Murillo at the Fun Ford Weekend 2000 opener in Mod Motor. Wanting a more entertaining race, Joe and Mike agreed to race heads-up in the final. Both guys ran in the 10s, which was astonishing because there weren't too many 10-second Two-Valve modulars at that time-much less full-weight street cars such as Mike's. Joe won the race because Mike was DQ'd for the lack of safety equipment, but the two agreed to split the purse, which was $7,500.

After racing the coupe for a while, Joe decided to sell the car and start from scratch with a car to be built at MV Performance. Life got in the way, however, and Joe abandoned that project, but the car did make it on the track in a big way. The car was purchased by MV's Tim Matherly and was turned into his current and successful NMRA Real Street car. After taking a step back for a couple of years, Joe re-entered the Mustang foray with the '03 Mach 1 you see here.

With MV Performance only an hour away and Joe already having a good relationship with them, it's no surprise the Mach underwent instant modifications. With MV's Tim Matherly tuning the car with DiabloSport software, it picked up impressive horsepower, and Joe had the car running 12s on street tires. Steeda Autosports is one of Parkway Performance's main suppliers, so it didn't take long for the Mach to have the Steeda catalog bolted on the car. Since Parkway Performance is a division of Parkway Ford, Ford Racing Performance Parts goodies practically fell from the sky, and Joe has capitalized on getting first dibs on performance parts. Furthermore, the tech information Joe is able to gather has been instrumental, not only for Parkway customers, but also for his own performance goals.

On the Fox side of the coin, Paul has owned a couple of fast cars with Bennett Racing powerplants underhood. As with his Parkway Performance counterpart, he has taken the race-car route but decided to build one for the street when he rescued his '92 LX coupe from a salvage yard. Paul describes the car as a "very used" four-cylinder automatic. With help from his dad, Gene, Paul rebuilt the car and converted it to V-8 specs-but he didn't stop there. The duo performed the paint and bodywork and the mechanical changes except for any machine work, which was handled by MG Race Engines and Bennett Racing.

Although the coupe sees regular upgrades, it took Paul and his father two months to get it on the road. But Paul faced an automotive conundrum when the car was finished. His idea for the coupe was to bridge the transportation gap between his shoes and his 9-second GT. "I originally intended to use the car as daily transportation," Paul says, "but I changed my mind when it turned much nicer than expected." Paul says the coupe is a car he can jump into and drive anywhere, and it's still somewhat fast and comfortable.

Speaking of fast, both Joe and Paul are known to take their cars to the dragstrip, where Joe has run in the 12.30s and Paul in 11.80s. Paul's coupe has made a best of 335 hp and 331 lb-ft of torque to the wheels, and Joe's has made 363 hp and 311 lb-ft of torque.

Judging by Joe's and Paul's performance past and future, it seems that your Mustang's performance future is in good hands at Parkway Performance.

Of course, Joe's Mach would look silly with factory springs, so he added Steeda Autosports' progressive-rate springs up front and specific-rate springs out back. Taking a few parts from other Mustang models, Joe added '00 Cobra R Brembo brakes up front, '03 Cobra rocker panels, and '01 Bullitt sidescoops.

As part of the Mach 1 package, the interior is Mach-specific, which means it's special and unique in its own right. As such, Joe left well enough alone with only a Raptor shift light sticking up from the gauge cluster and a Steeda Autosports shifter coming up through the tunnel.

As performance parts specialist at Parkway Ford in Adairsville, Georgia, Joe is always on the cutting edge of modular performance. The engine currently wears Boss 330 Racing-prepped heads from Al Papitto, but FR500 heads and cams await installation. An FR500 intake already sits atop the Four-Valve, and a ported throttle body with a K&N AirCharger kit handles air intake duties. Bassani mid-length headers and X-shape exhaust crossover and a MagnaFlow MagnaPack after-cat with Mustang Racing Technology-rolled tips provide the exhaustive route. While fully operational, Joe's Mach put down 363 hp and 311 lb-ft of torque at MV Performance under the DiabloSport Revolution tuning prowess of Tim Matherly.

Steeda Autosport springs reside at each corner to bring the coupe closer to earth, helping the chrome '99 Cobra wheels fill the gaps. Nitto 555 Extreme ZR 245/45 radials ride shotgun, while Mickey Thompson E/T Street radials bite for traction out back. The Cobra wheels hide Cobra brakes with Mach 1 calipers up front and Cobra brakes out back.

The interior of Paul's coupe boasts '94-and-up GT cloth seats, Steeda Autosports white-face gauges, an FRPP shift knob, and a leather parking-brake boot. Like Joe's Mach, Paul's coupe also has a Steeda Autosports Tri-Ax shifter protruding through the tunnel.

MG Race Engines built a sweet 306 with D.S.S. Trick Flow-specific pistons to mate the short-block to Twisted Wedge heads, which Paul's dad, Gene, treated to a port job prior to being flowed and assembled by Bennett Racing. The heads feature 2.02/1.60 valves and Comp valvesprings, and Comp Pro Magnum 1.6 roller rockers. Paul paired the Trick Flow heads with a Holley SysteMAX II intake with a BBK/Edelbrock 70mm throttle body and a C&L Performance 76mm mass air meter with a Trueflow intake pipe.